Iron Gray Sea d-7

by Taylor Anderson

  “Three thousands!” Niaal reported. Three huge clouds of smoke blossomed at the forward casemate of the oncoming ship.

  “Kind of ambitious,” Jim muttered. A few hundred yards short, widely spaced geysers erupted into the sky. They looked like the splashes of the eight-inch cruiser guns that had dogged Walker so long ago.

  “Jeez!” Niaal whispered. “Kind of daamn big! Those must be hundred-pounders, maybe bigger!”

  “They’ll never hit us from this range. Grik gunnery has always been crap,” Jim reassured him. Reassured himself. “Keep track of the time between shots.”

  “Maybe they don’t hit us from here, but we gotta get closer,” Niaal reminded. “Quartermaster! You timing the shots?”

  “Ay, sir.”

  “All ships will concentrate fire on that devil up front,” Jim ordered, even as the enemy line began to assume an echelon formation, the dreadnaughts behind starting to ease to the side and increase speed. Soon all the enemy ships would be approaching parallel to one another. Jim suspected they would make a coordinated turn to starboard, exposing their port broadsides when Des-Div 4 entered what the enemy considered his own best range. Niaal saw it too.

  “You sure you want to concentrate on just that one?”

  “Yeah. If we can’t hurt one of them with everything we’ve got, there’s no hope against them all, and we might as well break off. Send it.”

  “Ay, sur.”

  Time passed as the fleets drew nearer one another, and the tension rose proportionately.

  “Two t’ousands!” came the shout through the voice tube.

  “Stand by! We’ll commence firing at fifteen hundred. The gunnery officer will give the command.”

  Three more massive puffs of smoke obscured the target before the wind swept them away.

  “Eight minutes, twenty seconds!” cried the quartermaster.

  “Very well.”

  Two great splashes erupted fairly close astern, and one mighty shot moaned by overhead, snapping a single backstay before it plunged into the sea a hundred yards to port.

  “Starboard baat-tery, match elevations for fifteen hundreds!” the gunnery officer commanded.

  “Elevations matched!” came the replies of the midshipmen, each in charge of a pair of guns.

  “Stand clear!”

  “All clear!”

  Moments later, with only the brief clanging of a bell in the maintop as warning, all twelve of Dowden ’s twenty-four-pounders in the starboard broadside vomited smoke and fire with a precision only Walker ’s guns had ever shown in combat. The smoke drifted downrange, toward the target, but quickly dissipated as Jim watched the impressively tight cluster of roundshot rise and rise, then plummet toward the target.

  ArataAmagi

  ArataAmagi rattled and shuddered like a tin roof under an impossibly dense onslaught of giant hailstones. Her forward armor was not as sloped as elsewhere on the ship and was therefore the thickest, but shards of shattered iron, from armor and shot, sleeted in through the viewports, killing the helmsman and two others in the pilothouse. Even Kurokawa felt a sting as a sliver of iron clipped his ear.

  “Take the helm, fool!” he screamed at Captain Akera, who seemed stunned by the sound and density of the pummeling ArataAmagi just received. Jerking his head as if clearing his senses, he lunged for the spoked, wooden wheel. “Secure all battle shutters but the three directly in front of the helm!” Akera shouted. “Report all damage!” he added into the ship-wide speaking tube.

  “One of the forward guns has shattered,” came an immediate, coughing reply. They already knew that the gun deck filled with smoke whenever they fired any of the main battery, and the ventilation was poor. “Its crew is dead. Other gun’s crews were wounded by fragments that ranged the length of the gun deck!”

  “Any other damage?” Akera asked.

  “None I can see, Captain,” came the voice. “Perhaps a little buckling in the timbers backing the armor.”

  “Very well,” Akera said. “Pull in the guns and secure the gunport shutters!”

  “Belay that!” Kurokawa screamed. “We must continue firing!”

  “General of the Sea,” Akera pleaded. “We must wait until the enemy is closer and we can unmask our entire broadside! Clearly they have devised a fire-control system of some sort. I doubt a quarter of their shots could have missed us. Leaving the forward ports open only invites more damage we have little hope of answering!”

  Kurokawa opened his mouth, but before he could speak, ArataAmagi shuddered again under another cacophonous hammering that seemed even heavier than the first. Even through the thick deck beneath their feet they heard the bloodcurdling shrieks of Grik that time.

  “A shot came through the starboard bow port that time!” came the excited, coughing cry of the Japanese gunnery officer. “It killed several, and pierced the forward smoke-box uptake! We have exhaust gas on the gun deck!”

  Akera looked at Kurokawa.

  “Very well!” Kurokawa seethed. “We will close the shutters and endure this insulting barrage as long as we must to come to grips with the enemy!”

  Akera repeated his earlier order, then looked through the slits just in time to see the third ship in the distant line stream white smoke. He ducked down as more hammer blows pounded his ship and more shattered iron sprayed into the pilothouse, tearing jagged holes in the bulkhead aft. Kurokawa was the only one who hadn’t ducked, and he was miraculously spared. The first ship fired again, and after that, the beating became continuous.

  USS Dowden

  “She’s taking a beating, all right,” Niaal said, staring through his telescope. “Her frontal armor looks all dented up-and I think it’s bolted on in layers. We may have knocked a few plates loose, or maybe shattered them!”

  “Hmm,” was all Jim said. He was pleased with his division’s gunnery; fewer than half the shots fired had missed their mark and they still only had smoothbores, but it wasn’t good enough. At this rate, they’d eventually batter in the forward casemate of that one ship. They might even destroy her. But she no longer led her sisters; the other five had joined her in a parallel advance. When they turned-soon, most likely-they’d present their undamaged sides and all the guns behind them.

  “Get on the TBS to Admiral Keje,” he ordered, the thunder of Haakar-Faask ’s guns just astern nearly drowning his words. “Tell him we’re doing damage, but the enemy is about to turn on us and it won’t be one-sided anymore. We could get smeared pretty fast. We have to decide right now whether to break off or go all in. Either way, we’re gonna get hurt. If we break off, we lose Madras. All in, we could lose the fleet and Madras.” He shook his head. “Keje has to call this one.”

  USNRS Salissa (CV-1)

  Keje nodded, blinking, when he heard Jim’s message. From his elevated post high on Salissa ’s bridge, he could see it all. The first Grik dreadnaught was taking a beating, but none of the enemy had been firing back for a while. The deadly accurate fire of Des-Div 4 must have gotten through forward and spooked them. They were still coming, though, and must think they had the advantage. They probably did-against Des-Div 4. Keje felt sure he could overwhelm the enemy with all his ships. His had the advantage of speed and maneuverability. But once they got in close, the fire control that had been working so well would be of little use-or would it? If his ships could coordinate their windage adjustments as well as their elevation, concentrate on small areas of the enemy armor, much like they’d been doing, they might punch through… Salissa had 50 thirty-two-pounder smoothbores, and Arracca carried an equal number of fifty-pounders; probably more guns each than the enemy, but their likely hundred-pounders would outrange them and pack a heavier punch. Of course, Salissa, at least, wasn’t constrained to going toe to toe. She had some modern weapons as well…

  On a pivot mount forward, under the leading edge of the flight deck, she had a breeched section of one of Amagi ’s ten-inch guns that could fire Amagi ’s own shells. The two hundred-pound projectiles had been
modified for muzzle-loading use, with a reduced-diameter bearing band and a heavy copper skirt to expand into the rifling. But even at the lower velocity the new gun could achieve, he knew the heavy shells would be devastating, and the gun’s crew could put the big bullets on a target the size of a felucca at fifteen hundred tails. Salissa also carried two of Amagi ’s 5.5-inch guns, with Japanese ammunition, on her superstructure. These were long-range weapons, more powerful than Walker ’s four-inch-fifties, with high-explosive, armor-piercing shells. He knew something about steel now, and there was no way those Grik monstrosities could match Amagi ’s armor, no matter how thick their plates were laid on. He made his decision.

  “Send to my dear Cap-i-taan Tassana-Ay-Arracca that she and Arracca must remain with the transports and oilers. I will yield to no arguments.” He paused. “Do ask her to keep a pursuit CAP above us all to guard against Grik zeppelins, though. Salissa and the remainder of Des-Div 4 will join the action against the enemy! The ship will be cleared for surface action, and all planes of the First Air Wing but that of COFO Cap-i-taan Jis-Tikkar will proceed to Maa-draas!”

  USS Dowden

  “They’re turning!” Niaal excitedly echoed the cry from the lookout. The gunnery officer in the maintop was continuously updating range, course, and speed estimates. Jim could already see the aspect change of the enemy battle line through his binoculars. He had no idea how accurate the enemy fire would be at nine hundred yards, but he suspected his division would take some hits-and they’d be bad. The question became, Should he have his ships continue to concentrate on a single enemy, and maybe punch through somewhere? Their own fire would be accurate enough at this range that it would be hard to miss. On the other hand, if they spread their fire among all the ships, they were less likely to do serious damage to any-but they might disrupt the enemy’s gunnery and cause them to rush their imperfect aim. The second alternative might be safer, but the first was more likely to achieve something. He sighed. This one was his call. He decided on a compromise.

  “ Dowden, Haakar-Faask, Naga, Bowles, and Felts will continue firing on the first target-the Grik flagship, most likely,” Jim ordered. “All others will target their opposite numbers in the line of battle. Maybe we can wreck the one while keeping the others shook up.” Niaal repeated the order to fire control and the comm shack.

  “Range eight, fi’, oh! Bearing, tree tree seero! Speed… they still turning, but I make it eight knots!” came the report from aloft.

  “Match elevations at eight hundred, and fire when ready!” Jim replied.

  “Stand by… Stand clear!”

  “Clear!” chorused the midshipmen, and the salvo bell rattled for a long moment as the ship steadied. Then, with a thunderous jarring that shook the ship, all twelve starboard guns spat fire and heavy shot. An instant later, Haakar-Faask was enveloped in smoke as her guns thundered. Then Bowles, Naga, and Felts all seemed to fire at once. Even while the mighty spheres were still in flight, the rest of the division opened up on their respective targets.

  ArataAmagi

  Kurokawa was thrown to the deck of his pilothouse when perhaps fifty heavy shot struck his massive ship with an unprecedented, ear-splitting fury. Somewhere aft, deep, it seemed, he heard a terrible crashing and a chorus of shrieks.

  “Fire back, you fools!” he roared. “Destroy those ships at once!”

  Akera staggered back to the wheel, catching it as it spun, and leaned over the ship-wide tube. “Commence firing!” he cried. “Commence firing!”

  “Not all the guns yet bear!” came the tinny reply, “and we took two roundshot through the open shutters-not to mention some serious dents that time! The timber backing has splintered in many places I can see from here!”

  “All the more reason to return fire at once!” Akera almost screamed, glancing quickly at the compass binnacle in front of the wheel. He spun the wheel again. “Fire as they bear!”

  Kurokawa had regained his feet, and his eyes smoldered. “Have the special comm division contact General Muriname at his aerodrome! I had hoped we wouldn’t have to use him-it will be costly-but we are taking damage, and the enemy capital ships do not seem inclined to engage. Tell Muriname it is time for his ships to come up! He knows what to do.”

  USS Dowden

  “That had to leave some bumps,” Ellis muttered, staring through his glasses. The target had almost disappeared behind the blizzard of battering, shattering shot that churned the sea around it with splinters of iron. All his division used iron shot now that enough sources had been found to provide it. With so much copper needed for mixing the bronzelike metal for the big guns, and alloying brass cartridges for the new breechloaders and the “old” modern weapons they had, iron had actually become more disposable. Shot-grade iron was crude, high-phosphor, brittle stuff that could be cast quickly-but the process also made nearly perfect spheres that could be pushed at high relative velocities. Velocity was key to smoothbore accuracy. Without the spin provided by rifling, the shot would eventually hook, but the faster it was going, the farther it went before the hook became apparent. Shot-grade iron also hit nearly as hard as copper, but instead of deforming, it sometimes exploded like a ball of glass. That could be handy against wooden ships and enemy flesh. Maybe it wasn’t so good against armored targets, though…

  Jim gazed back down the enemy line. All the Grik dreadnaughts had been hit, and the sunlight revealed suddenly mottled, dented armor that had shone smooth just moments before. Dented, but apparently not broken. He frowned. There’d been a few return shots, but none of his ships had reported any damage. How long can that last? he asked himself anxiously. He heard the gunnery officer shout, “No change, no change! Same elevation!” Cries of “Ready!” reached his ears. “All guns report ready,” Niaal yelled in the tube.

  “Stand clear!”

  “All clear!”

  Jim looked back at the target. A mere instant before Dowden ’s salvo bell began to ring, he saw the side of the dreadnaught vanish behind its own massive, stuttering pall of smoke. The entire Grik battle line and the ships of Des-Div 4 fired almost simultaneously, but the projectiles that passed one another on opposite trajectories didn’t care. The Allied shot flew faster, but the Grik shot was heavier and retained its lower velocity better-and still had more than twice the energy when it hit naked wood.

  It was Jim’s turn to tumble to the quarterdeck when two one-hundred-pound balls crashed through his beloved Dowden amid massive near-miss plumes of white seawater that stood high in giant columns around her. The splashes rocked the ship and left her deluged when they collapsed.

  “Damage report!” Niaal bellowed, even as Jim quickly jumped to his feet and studied the results of their own fire. The spray around the target was clearing, revealing a sloping iron side that had begun to resemble the surface of the moon.

  “She still looks as invincible as ever!” commented Niaal’s lieutenant.

  “Maybe,” Jim replied. “But all those dents are going to start raising hell inside her.”

  “Commodore!” Niaal cried. “We’re taking water forward. The balls punched straight through both sides of the ship, and one came out at the port waterline! Damage control is trying to plug the hole, but it is very large.”

  “Worst case?”

  “It won’t sink us. If it comes to that, we can seal the compartment and the pumps will handle the seepage. But it will slow us down.”

  “What of the other ships?”

  “ Naga and Bowles report damage. Naga ’s is much like ours, but Bowles lost her mizzenmast and her engine. I recommend you order her to retire under sail.”

  “No,” Jim said firmly. “She stays in the fight until she falls too far behind. Then she can retire!”

  “Stand clear!”

  “All clear!”

  Dowden spat iron once more, and Jim followed the shoosh! of the shot. Haakar-Faask fired, and her smoke passed in front of him, so he couldn’t see their own broadside strike, but did see Haakar-Faask ’s hit.
Was it his imagination, or did he see plates spin away from the enemy and fall into the sea? Something flashed bright at the periphery of his view, and he redirected his glasses toward the rear of the enemy line. The rearmost Grik dreadnaught had just… blown up! There was no way to know what caused it; only Clark had been targeting it. Maybe it was a super lucky shot-or even an accident on the Grik’s gun deck? Whatever the cause, he would take it, and the crew of Dowden cheered and pranced exuberantly as tons of debris splashed into the sea.

  “Commodore!” Niaal pointed aft. Haakar-Faask was heeling hard over on her port beam, making a radical starboard turn. Debris was still flying from a massive wound at her stern. Perhaps worse, USS Davis, just aft of Haakar-Faask, looked like she’d just been the target of a gigantic shotgun blast. Her masts and cordage practically sprayed away from her amid a cloud of bright splinters, and steam gushed from her innards. By the extent of the damage and volume of splashes, two Grik dreadnaughts must have targeted her at once, some of the shot pattern catching Haakar-Faask too.

  “Jesus!” Jim muttered. “She’s done for! What’s Haakar-Faask ’s status?”

  “She just report!” Niaal said. Like many ’Cats, his normally good English slipped under stress. “She lose helm control, but still have auxiliary conn. She back in line soon!”

  “Stand clear!”

  “All clear!”

  BaBOOM! SHHHHHH!

  Dowden heaved, and Jim felt like somebody hit him in the face with a baseball bat. It didn’t hurt, not really, but his thoughts were scattered. They always say you see stars, he thought, but purple stars? ’Cats scurried around him and he heard shouts and screams, but for a while-maybe a long while-he didn’t feel like he was really there. “Hey!” he finally said, realizing Niaal was holding him up- For how long? The deck around was scattered with shredded corpses and great, jagged splinters. Jim looked down to see a huge gap that had opened not far away, as if an enemy shot had torn his ship from beam to beam. “What the hell?” he murmured, noticing his mouth wasn’t moving exactly right. Hot blood started getting in his suddenly watery eyes.