Battle of Comro Gulf - Afternoon action

 ....

As the sun passed its zenith, aircraft took off from RNS Achlys - their targets, the Saabian capital ships barring the way at Spot Island. The flak having taken its toll, the surviving bombers failed to hit SNS Hakamai, but the already crippled Calaeno, its anti-air reduced (halved) from earlier damage, was a sitting duck. Damage accrued well past the 24 Flotation Points - twenty-eight, withal - Calaeno went down. 

Two of the Southern Covering Force destroyers also having been sunk to Ra'easharn gunnery during the late morning, all that remained to block the incoming Ra'esharn Strike Force South, was Hakamai - hardly damaged so far (just 3FP of damage to enemy gunfire), Chimaera (so far unscathed), and two destroyers, S2 and S3. The loss of carrier, battleship, cruiser and three destroyers had reduced the covering force to little more than a remnant.

Not that their Ra'esharn adversaries had come off unscathed. Badly damaged, its 'Y' turret knocked out along with half its secondaries and air defence (17/24FP damage), RNS Banshee was already staggering out of the battle. Destroyer R64 had been sunk, R73 critically damaged. Belphegor and Achlys had also taken some incoming, but so far the damage incurred had not been concerning. The Ra'esharn here had given back far more than they had received.

In the meantime, the Northern Strike force was bearing down from the northeast. Ordering most of his destoyers to flank the oncoming column from the east, Admiral Setiyawan brought his main force, led by a destroyer, onto a northwest bearing. The Kiivar strike force returning, more than somewhat discomfited from its encounter with Adniral Yamazuki's fleet, effectively flanked Admiral Suzumaha from the northwest. 


In effect, Suzumaha was bringing his whole Strike Force into a sac, a gunfight in which he had allowed the enemy to 'cross the T'. However, this arrangement took some time to develop so that by the time the 'trap' could be sprung, the day was drawing to a close. Unwilling to bring on a night action in such murky circumstances, both sides withdrew, the Saabian and Kiivar allies closer to Yelta City, the Northern Strike forces well beyond gunnery range. The latter's withdrawal allowed the Kiivar Group, somewhat trapped itself by the manoeuvre Setiyawan's manoeuvre, to slip by down the Comro Island coast to join the main Saabian force.

I'm going to be honest, here: I can not for the life of me recall what happened - or didn't happen - on the afternoon of the 23rd Octember. I do recall the rather nasty situation Northern Strike Force and the Kiivar Group found themselves in. There was a brief exchange of fire, and torpedoes criss-crossed the ocean doing no damage, but the thing appears to have been uneventful. Apart from SNS Bake-Kajura taking a couple of hits from a SFN cruiser, and RNS Chemosh taking a hit from Harrier's secondary weapons, the log is silent. I rather think I mistimed everything, and suddenly realised that night was falling before the gunfire could take place. The gunnery melee was not to happen this day...

The log is not so mute concerning the fight in the south. Bravely standing in the way of Strike Force South (SFS), Vice-Admiral Sirega put up a stout fight. Already having taken some damage in the morning, RNS Belphegor ran into a couple of torpedoes from S2 late in the afternoon, although the destroyer itself took heavy damage coming in, and was sunk shortly afterwards. 

In little short of a sinking condition, the battered Belphegor - just 2FP remaining - slunk out of the battle. Like its consort, Belphegor was minus its 'Y' turret. The cruiser RNS Crocell also received a pounding that forced it to abandon the action, its 'A' turret wrecked. For their part, gunfire and torpedoes accounted for SNS Chimaera, sunk in little more than the half-hour of action. 

Heavily outmatched on paper, Covering Force South could claim perhaps to have got somewhat the better of the late afternoon gunnery battle. All the same, the sole surviving destroyer, S4, had been critically damaged, which, had there remained more hours of daylight, would have left SNS Hakamai alone, with no destroyer screen. On the morrow, it would have a single battered one.

Nightfall brought the day's action to an end, both sides having lost heavily. The Allied losses were severe enough already: 

• Saabia: 1 fleet carrier, 1 battleship, 2 cruisers and 4 destroyers sunk;
• Kiivar: Fleet carrier and 1 destroyer sunk; battlecruiser critically damaged.

• Ra'esharn had lost fewer units sunk, but many critically damaged: 1 fleet carrier and 2 destroyers sunk, 2 battleships and 1 cruiser critically damaged.

At least as critical from the Allied perspective was the loss of aircraft and their crews. Mostly due to the loss of their carriers, the Allies were minus 132 aircraft overall (33 Flight Points), only 24 (6FlyP) having been lost in air sorties. Just 84 aircraft remained (21FlyP), 24 fighters and 60 bombers, to take up the battle on the morrow.

On the whole, Admiral Kaito Vanuzuki, commanding overall the Ra'esharn operation, felt tolerably pleased with the outcome of the day's battle. He knew his Strike Forces had handed out some hard knocks, however disturbed he was at Admiral Suzumaha's performance, and the loss of a fleet carrier. 
That carrier had in effect taken 48 (12FlyP) aircraft with it. The other three carriers had lost 28 aircraft (7FlyP) among them - a total loss of 76 (19FlyP). Out of 192 (48FlyP) with which the fleet began, that was a consideration.

Now - how might such an action be continued? Overnight both sides had withdrawn, leaving a considerable space between themselves and their enemy. The Allies were mostly crowded around the beach landing area of the Comro east coast.  The Ra'esharn Strike Forces took station several nautical miles west and north towards whence they had approached in the pre-dawn. The 24th Octember would see the action renewed.

At this point I decided that some running repairs might be done to the damaged units in an effort to bring them into action the following morning. These repairs were effected as follows:

1. All damage to Flotation Points halved, halves rounded up.
2. All critical damage to weaponry remained as too difficult to repair with the means available.
3. Speed reduced by critical damage was restored.
4. The original Critical Point of damage remained unchanged.
   
   

Example: RNS Belphegor was very badly knocked about in the afternoon's gunnery battle, taking two torpedo hits from destroyer S2. Altogether, 22 FP of damage, leaving just 2FP keeping it afloat.
Overnight repairs brought it back to 2 + 11 = 13FP. 
But Belphegor remained without its 'Y' turret, and only half its secondary and AA weaponry remained serviceable...
... And its critical point remained 8FP of damage. 

It wouldn't take all that much to drive it out of the battle once more.

Note, by the way, the slight change to the original rule set, wherein secondaries were reduced by one-third upon a critically damaged vessel. That was careless of me. Half is a much more tractable number, and so I have adopted it.

Meanwhile, all aircraft lost have been permanently lost. Whether or not the aircraft from RNS Azir-Dahak that survived the air attacks on Covering Force East found refuge on Comro Island, they too were out of the action for good. Maybe they could have been recovered later. Maybe.

To be concluded - The Second Day...