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[King Zultan]

Poor little seaplanes are sad now, they can't help it that they aren't that good, at least they tried.

[Fishbreath]

It's been a little while since the last one, but wars take a lot of time to write up.

Still aglow with national pride over the last victory, the fleet swings south out of Brest for the Mediterranean coast.

Or would, except I can't move ships out of Europe because of the blockade.

July 1937

... starts by generating three battles in the Baltic Sea, within range of German land-based air and without anywhere to run. No thank you.

1850 surrendered victory points later, I come across a battle I'm willing to take a chance on: a cruiser action in the Bay of Biscay.

On the plus side, our 'cruiser force' is a pair of 12", 27-knot battleships, Rouen and Nancy. Their armor is much better than that of the German cruiser force, so we may be able to sink some ships.

Also joining us are the carriers Joffre and Bearn, but the weather is cloudy, and the day begins at 5:30 p.m. It being summer, there's enough time for one strike, once we've spotted the enemy.

Or there would be, if the fleets found each other. The Germans, steaming in for the west, were outside scouting range.

August 1937



With the budget they so rudely stole from us (granted, with our consent), the army does its part in the land war.



We now have radar! We'll get a certain number of sets each month, which will be installed on ships in approximate order of size.

That good news is somewhat tempered (by which I mean obliterated) by the greatest disaster of the war so far.



With the money the army returned after their successful offensive, I lay down Fratnernité, the second in the Liberté class of fleet carriers, as a replacement. (I suppose Egalité ought to have come next. Oops.)

September 1937

... starts with a carrier battle against the Germans, a fight we should probably win.

The weather is overcast, however, and we only have five and a half hours until dusk. We'll see what comes of it.

4:18 p.m.

Scouts from Brest report a pair of German light cruisers 250 miles to the west. It's much too far to get planes there before dusk, however, so the play here is to hover around Brest overnight, then see if we can't tag them in the morning. (This is a carrier battle, so we get 1800 minutes—more than a full day—to get our strikes in the air.)

Note the blue dot well out to sea to the west.

3:37 a.m.

It was a good thought, but gale-force winds and drizzle will prevent us from getting planes airborne this morning. There's still time for the weather to change, though.

September 1937, continued

The carrier battle was a draw, but news reaches French ears of strikes and anti-war demonstrations in Germany, which can only be good news for us.

The Americans contribute some, sinking the German cruiser Cöln in a battle we aren't a party to.

Our battleships Lyon, Suffren, and Marengo now have radar, along with the carrier Bearn and a random destroyer.

October 1937

The light cruiser Linois embarks on a raid of Austrian coastal shipping, with a screen of four destroyers.

It's a hectic day. Thanks to air reconnaissance, we know where the Austrian patrols are, and are able to dart in and knock out a pair of merchants before the patrols can react. They do, however, catch up to us on the way back, sinking the 1920-vintage destroyer Oriflamme.

November 1937

A relatively quiet month. Land-based aircraft from Brest have a chance at getting stuck in against a German cruiser squadron, but fail to find a target in the shortened day.

December 1937

We might have a chance at taking down a German cruiser. In the Mediterranean, we have rough parity in forces with the Germans—us, because we can't move ships out of Europe, them because their ships don't have the range. We're twenty miles from fifty strike planes at our airbases in Durazzo and Valona, and our lone heavy cruiser Latoche-Treville is approximately a match for the German cruisers.

Unfortunately, the German cruiser escapes despite a number of successful air attacks by our land-based forces (for once). We do bag the accompanying German light cruiser, which is enough to make it a victory.

January 1938

The Austrians invade Tunisia, of all the indignities, and there's nothing we can do about it because the whole fleet is bottled up in Europe.

The battle of the month is a large enemy coastal raid. Opposiing it are two older French battleships, Rouen and Nancy, our 30-knot ship Magenta, and one of our 26-knot 14" battleships Ocean. The carriers are also on the field, but the battle kicks off just as twilight is approaching, so they won't be much use to begin with. For the moment, they anchor behind the minefields at La Rochelle.

7:53 p.m.

Nancy, equipped with a radar set, announces an unknown contact at a range of five miles. Cautiously, the fleet turns that way.

7:58 p.m.

It turns out to be a French merchant plying the coastal trade.

8:52 p.m.

Continuing what has thus far been a tense night, the destroyer Arc reports sinking a submarine.

10:40 p.m.

Guns echo off the coast near La Rochelle, and Bearn's radar set reports a ghostly contact.

12:27 a.m.

Requin reports the radar contact this time, 30 miles southwest from La Rochelle.

12:46 a.m.

It's an enemy destroyer. It gets off a spread of torpedoes, one of which sinks the old light cruiser Cosmao. Another hits Ocean, but her torpedo protection system absorbs the blow.

1:09 a.m.

The fleet reports radar contacts to the northeast, at least three or four.

1:15 a.m.



Make that five. I don't think the Germans have radar yet, so I'm going to poke my nose in a bit and see what they have at sea.

1:36 a.m.

The answer is, as far as I can tell, a lot.

3:00 a.m.

I was inclined to leave the Germans alone, until they started driving hard for one of my precious carriers. A knife fight ensues.



It ends with the fleets turning away from each other, avoiding torpedoes. Each of the fleets takes a torpedo hit or two. The French battle line drops to about 20 knots.

5:08 a.m.

That brief knife fight leads into another one, nearer the end of the night.



7:03 a.m.

Eager to perhaps pounce on any German stragglers, I keep the French battleships close at hand.

As dawn sweeps across the sea, it appears the Germans had the same idea: six dreadnought-type ships to our four, at close ranges where French gunnery and the French preference for heavy deck armor are rendered irrelevant by the sheer weight of broadside from the German ships.

It goes poorly.



10:16 a.m.

A brief moment of hope in late morning, as sixty strike planes launch from various airbases along the Channel coast, gives way to final despair. Clouds roll in low over the sea, and though the boom of German guns still echoes along the coast near La Rochelle, the pilots can't spot their targets to make attacks.

I probably ought to have run for it earlier, but got a bit too greedy in trying to press what I perceived as an advantage. Turned out that it was not an advantage at all.



Sadly, this more or less erases our victory against Germany earlier in the war—we're back to a deficit in dreadnought ships, and the war score is just about even. (We're a few thousand points in the lead.)

February 1938

Austria attacks a convoy trying to resupply Tunisia. Despite a huge inferiority in forces, I think I want to play this one out—we have a large superiority in land-based air in this part of the theater, which might work out this time, and I want to do everything I can to support the ground forces in Tunisia.

And, thanks to a change made in a recent patch whereby the AI considers local air superiority in deciding whether to accept battle, Austria declines battle.

The next option: a fleet battle against Germany near Jutland, which I think I am going to decline. I'm a bit gun-shy, for one. For another, it's much too close to Germany's land-based air and a bit further from mine than I'd like.

The next one is a German coastal raid, similar to the one I just lost. I think I will play this one out, although I'm going to be extremely careful with the fleet. If the weather's not fit for air attacks, I'll just steam away from the coast.



This one starts at twilight in the same region as the last one, and suggests I need an airbase at either St. Nazaire or La Rochelle. The plan is to steam south overnight, and find the Germans in the morning.

There's a stiff breeze, but the weather is otherwise clear, which bodes well for getting some carrier-striking action in. The wind is out of the north, however, which will make it difficult for my carriers to make headway to the south when there are air operations going. They have to turn into the wind to launch and recover planes.

7:28 a.m.

Oops. It's the dawn twilight, not the dusk twilight. Well, I'll get the strike planes loaded up, and hopefully we'll have some bombs on some German battleships to take revenge for our losses in the previous raid.

7:51 a.m.

Enemy floatplanes buzz overhead. At about the same time, spotting reports come in, putting the enemy about 90 miles to the northwest. This spotting report is only for a few battlecruisers and cruisers, likely a scouting force ahead of the main body. Not that I'm going to complain about sinking battlecruisers instead of battleships, if it comes to that.

I launch strikes from all three light carriers, a total of 42 planes. I'm reserving Bearn's Sunday punch, the largest of the bunch, for a few minutes, in case a better spotting report comes in.

7:59 a.m.



It does. This one says there are some light carriers at sea. That's where Bearn's planes will go.

8:28 a.m.

The strikers are airborne and en route. Here's hoping they shoot straight today.

8:51 a.m.

A little concerningly, the enemy is closer than I expected, only about 40 miles away.

8:56 a.m.

The bombs start to fall: a German cruiser takes two hits from our dive bombers' 1000lb numbers, and a ship of unknown type takes three torpedo hits.

9:02 a.m.

Bearn's strike arrives, hitting a destroyer with two 1000lb bombs and a battleship with three, and getting some torpedoes off to boot.

9:04 a.m.

Five torpedoes find their mark, along with another bomb.

9:24 a.m.

The first strike is on its way back. In the meantime, seven German torpedo bombers make it through the French CAP, but withering fire from the French battleships drives them off. Only Rouen comes close to taking hits.

9:46 a.m.

The first wave starts to land. It may only be February, but there's more than enough daylight to get a second wave up, and I think we have enough of a southward sprint to make it relatively safe even with the German fleet bearing down on us.

9:59 a.m.

The last of the strike planes unspools the arrestor cables as it sets down on deck, while land-based strikes from Brest and Cherbourg approach the enemy ships.



They've come from a long way off.

10:22 a.m.

While the carrier crews, having rearmed their planes with admirable alacrity, get the second wave of strikes spotted to the deck, land-based torpedo bombers take a crack at an enemy light carrier, hitting it once.

10:33 a.m.



Level bombing rarely works against ships, but some flying boats out of Brest make it happen.

10:48 a.m.

The second wave of strikes is on its way up.

Our new Bloch dive bombers have very long range for the era, which is why I got this popup for planes out of Cherbourg.



When our Liberté-class carriers enter service, hopefully we'll see more of this sort of thing.

10:52 a.m.

The bombers report six hits on cruisers and six on carriers. Out of 14 bombers, that's either spectacular accuracy or awful bomb damage assessment.

11:23 a.m.

The second strike from the carriers arrives, a bit less well-coordinated than the first wave. The torpedo bombers nevertheless acquit themselves well, scoring four hits on dreadnought-size ships and one on a cruiser.

11:55 a.m.

The dive bombers, a bit tardy, now arrive on the scene, planting four bombs onto cruisers and one on a carrier.

11:59 a.m.



Spotting reports are now placing the enemy within the minefields at La Rochelle. As soon as we have strike planes to launch at them, I'm going to launch a third wave, which should just fit in before dusk.

12:25 p.m.

Dixmude and Arromanches, our elder light carriers, are a bit ahead of the game, and launch a strike a few minutes before Bruix and Bearn see their planes land.

12:34 p.m.

Bombers from Brest attack a German carrier heading northwest, away from the action, and score a hit or two. Perhaps they managed to sink her.

At the same time, German dive bombers approach Bearn, which is currently busily striking planes below to rearm them. Or, perhaps not—her air wing has taken heavy losses, and is down to only six effective bombers, thanks to an afternoon recon launch. Perhaps it's time to let her pilots take a breather.

1:14 p.m.

After 45 minutes, I realize that the 'Carrier Name has X aircraft torpedoes remaining!' popup dialogs I saw when prepping the strikes were not advisories but exceptions. Correcting it by loading the torpedo bombers with standard bombs, I finally get the strikes moving. Because the enemy is so close, the strikes will still arrive in time to return before dusk.

1:54 p.m.

40 minutes later, the last wave of planes is airborne.

The battleships head northward, in hopes of perhaps catching a German straggler or two before nightfall.

2:23 p.m.



It might even pay off. The last wave spots enemies a mere 27 miles from our battle line, and goes in for the attack.

2:32 p.m.

A trio of Arromanches' dive bombers pull off a picture-perfect attack, rolling over one after the other, pulling into steep approaches, and planting three bombs in a row on an enemy battlecruiser.

2:36 p.m.

As the strike aircraft head back to their carriers, the light cruiser Voltaire, playing scout for the battleship line, spots an unidentified enemy ship.



2:46 p.m.



The greatest of prizes: a carrier, soon to be in range of battleship guns.

3:09 p.m.

Dive bombers from Brest attack a German light carrier, scoring a number of hits.

The carrier upon which our battleships are closing in begins to open the range. It makes sense that carrier would be faster.

3:20 p.m

Still, there are targets worth shooting at.



The gun action begins. Suffren lands a blow on one of two German battlecruisers at a range of more than 28,000 yards.

3:26 p.m.

The destroyer Pique identifies both of the German ships: a Derfflinger type, from 1917, and one of the modern Lützows, which would be a great feather in our cap.

3:38 p.m.

This is the first battle in which we truly see the benefit of the all-forward main armament. Our new-style battleships Marengo, Courbet, and Suffren are each bringing their full battery of eight guns to bear.

4:04 p.m.

Marengo is going to get the lion's share of the credit for the Lützow. A long-range hit from her 16" guns hits the German battlecruiser's engine room. Steam boils up from her hull in a vast cloud.

4:26 p.m.

A flash fire in the Lützow's turret breaks her in two. Damage to the Derfflinger is beginning to tell, as well, as the hits from the French battle line, hungry for vengeance, begin to come faster.

5:01 p.m.

As twilight sweeps over the field of battle, the Derfflinger is a burning pyre, rocking in the waves, engines dead. The French fleet turns away from an incoming destroyer attack, but a moment too late—Marengo and Lyon take torpedo hits. Neither appear to be fatal, and with a victory assured, I can take the luxury of slowing down to limit flooding and turning for home.

5:48 p.m.

Nightfall. French destroyers circle the stricken Derfflinger, pouring torpedoes into her battered hull until she rolls over and sinks.

10:22 p.m.

I had intended that to be the end of this battle report, but radar yields an unexpected coda.



With the battle line a bit battered, I signal for the destroyers to have a go with torpedoes.

The Germans have the same idea, and in a wild nighttime battle, they get the better of us. Miraculously, even though Lyon and Rouen, older ships with poor torpedo protection already lightly damaged, take several hits each, both appear content to stay afloat.

There was a carrier with the Germans, but with our line slowed by damage, we don't have much chance of catching it. We settle for beating the tar out of a destroyer.

12:39 a.m.

I had intended that to be the end of this battle report, but once again, radar intervenes.

A contact just south of the fleet turns out to be the German light carrier from earlier, damaged by bomb attacks earlier in the day. With the most heavily damaged battleships already on the way back to port, I'm left with four ships fit for action and capable of 23 knots. The carrier is faster, until the battleship shells find their marks.



It is a deeply unfair fight.

Results

And a deeply unfair result, but in our favor, so I'm not going to complain. Three German dreadnoughts are on the bottom of the Bay of Biscay now: the battleship Hannover, and the battlecruisers Hindenburg and Graf Spee. Alongside them are the heavy cruser Prinz Heinrich and the light carriers Weser and Jade, plus a pair of destroyers. French losses amount to one patrol boat and four merchants, along with varying degrees of damage to the battleship fleet.



The map is a bit confused, but you can see the battlecruiser battle at the little spur in my main force's line, where the blue line ends.

Further rumors of mutinies and strikes in Germany and Austria reach our ears.

Plans and Intentions

Germany is still blockading us, so there's not much war planning to do beyond 'hope for good carrier weather and sink more battleships'. Intelligence suggests we're winning the battle of the home front. Unrest in France is low. Unrest in Germany and Austria is believed to be high. We're ahead 63,603 to 41,969 in war score. An airbase is currently building at La Rochelle, to improve our land-based coverage of the central Bay of Biscay.

We do, however, have some construction choices to make soon. Currently in the shipyards are Solferino (finished in one month), a 30-knot, 14"-gun battleship; Liberté (five months) and Fraternité, 90-plane fleet carriers; and four modern 2000-ton destroyers (5-6 months).

That is to say, we'll have two budget slots for capital ships in the near future. I plan on using one to build Egalité, completing the set. With the other slot, should we build another battleship, build another carrier, build heavy cruisers, build light forces, or build submarines?

[Haspen]

Fishbreath: This went well, time to wrap this up!
Radar: No.

We need more carriers and more big ships!

[EuchreJack]

Radar seems to have given big guns ships a new lease on life, so I'd suggest a battleship, probably using an existing design to save design costs.

[King Zultan]

Carriers seem to be doing quite well for us so I say we make another one, and maybe another big ship as well.

[Fishbreath]

The field agrees on more carriers, but is split on what to do with the rest of the budget. So, here's my plan:

• When the battleship Solferino completes, start a new carrier.
• When the carrier Fraternité completes, start 2-3 light cruiser escorts.
• When next the budget allows, build another battleship.

March 1938

There is no battle this month—France declines to fight Germany near Jutland, France declines to fight Austria-Hungary in the Adriatic, Austria-Hungary declines to fight France everywhere else.

An enemy submarine torpedoes and sinks our light cruiser Friant, one of the three remaining Chateaurenaults puttering around on foreign service.

Otherwise, an uneventful turn.

April 1938

The Germans decline battle twice, when it would take them within striking distance of French land-based air.

They accept a convoy attack (that is, we're fighting a convoy defense) far enough from the French coast that the dive bombers are out of reach. On the French side we have two light cruisers and a destroyer screen, so I don't expect much of a glorious victory unless the Germans are not out in force.

I commit to the fight, gambling on the chance to sink an old German battlecruiser, but German torpedo gunnery seems to be more accurate than my own. We lose a light cruiser (Forbin, one of our newest ships) and four destroyers for my trouble.

May 1938

I decline a bunch of unfavorable battles. Our old battleship Lyon hits a mine and sinks; maybe it's time to build a little minesweeper or two. There are also reports of food shortages in France thanks to merchant shipping losses. I crank up the number of destroyers under construction, and consider maybe combining a corvette-minesweeper into a slow destroyer.

In more positive news, I have a new AA picket light cruiser design:



June 1938

A surprise battle occurs in the eastern Mediterranean: a German squadron of unknown composition encounters a combined French-American cruiser squadron.

Steaming south of Heraklion, the French squadron heads east. It includes three heavy cruisers: our modern Latoche-Treville, and the obsolete American Frederick and Pueblo. Together, we have 17 9" guns and 8 10" guns, along with ten destroyers and air support from French bases in Kalamata and Benghazi.

Additionally, we have our old seaplane tender, Commandant Teste, in attedance. She launches some search planes.

Altough the weather is cloudy, one of Teste's floatplanes nevertheless spots a German cruiser, steaming east at the far end of Crete. My mismatched squadron, with a top speed of 27 knots, nevertheless sets off in that direction.



The two American ships date to 1923 (Frederick) and 1916 (Pueblo). Pueblo, at 15,000 tons, has armor nearly as thick as Latouche-Treville, and the only 10" guns in the squadron. She's the slowest of the three ships at 27 knots.

Frederick has the same 31-knot speed as Latouche-Treville, but is very lightly armored, and ships one fewer 9" gun. Being American ships, however, they've been upgraded to the gills. Both sport advanced gun directors and search radar.

By late morning, Kalamata has launched an air strike. Dive bombers approach the enemy cruiser, still 60 miles from our force, at about 11:00 a.m. They hit it two or three times. A group of medium bombers, following up, score no hits. (Oh, how I long for the days when we can put torpedoes on medium bombers...)

At 12:14 p.m., our light cruiser Linois spots the enemy ship. We turn to engage.



The target, a Roon-class heavy cruiser, has taken some damage from bomb hits already, and is slower than our ships are now. Latouche-Treville scores the first main battery hits at 12:40, with three in one salvo from her six forward guns.

She has very much found the range, with at least one hit per minute for the next twelve minutes.

By 1:06, the enemy cruiser is on fire and slowing to five knots. I believe it ships torpedo tubes, so I'm going to keep my distance, and perhaps send the destroyers in on a flotilla attack to deliver the death blow.

Before they can arrive, the German ship comes to a complete halt, and her bow settles beneath the waves.

Latouche-Treville hit with nearly 10% of her main battery fire. The German ship took 55 hits and delivered 2.

July 1938

Strikes and anti-war demonstrations roil Austria-Hungary, and our spies indicate that France isn't the only country experiencing food shortages. Perhaps we can knock one foe out of the war soon.

Another Mediterranean cruiser battle against Germany lies before us, this one off Rhodes rather than Crete. It's cloudy and before dawn, and we're too far from our airbases to expect much help. (Maybe we need a small airbase at Rhodes with a group of dive bombers?)

Still, we have three heavy cruisers in the area to zero enemy heavy cruisers, so maybe we'll get lucky and happen across the German ships.

Before even that can happen, at 4:07 a.m., we pick up a radar contact at a distance of about ten and a half miles.



We survive the predawn encounter to discover a German light cruiser/destroyer squadron as dawn breaks. If we can avoid getting ships torpedoed, this is a good matchup.

We do avoid getting ships torpedoed, at least to the point where the torpedoing means they're combat-ineffective, and in a chase up the Rhodian cost, sink two Austrian and one German light cruiser, along with a few destroyers.

August 1938

We have some extra money, and I said originally I was going to build a battleship with it, but things have changed. I think instead I am going to make a class of 32-knot corvette-destroyers, only 1500 tons and much cheaper than our top-line ships. I can get a good ten of them building immediately, which may help with anti-submarine work should this war continue for that long.

The month's battle is a destroyer action in the Adriatic. Surprisingly, we emerge the victors—the Austrians had a seaplane tender deployed, and we happened upon it while running from the main force of Austrian destroyers.

September 1938

France's unrest score is now 5, which is a worrying upward trend. Solferino, our newest battleship, is in the dockyards for five months after eating a torpedo.

The UI now has 'Fuel Shortage' across the status pane in big bold letters. Consulting the manual, I see that can happen when a nation doesn't have native access to oil, and is blockaded for a long time. What it means is that large ships may not be able to participate in battles, and strategic moves may be canceled. (Well, that part isn't too bad.)

October 1938

After another month of declining unfavorable battles, High Command recommends that we not do that anymore or suffer losses in prestige. I'd much rather lose prestige than lose ships, at this point, especially given that we're well ahead in victory points.

November 1938

The battle is an unexpected fleet battle. Weather limits air operations, which is good, because we're in the Heligoland Bight and that's a bit close to Germany's heartland.

It's a fleet battle, which is bad, because there are a lot more German ships than French ones. The goal here is going to be straight preservation of forces. If we can launch an airstrike or two, that's great, but otherwise, fleeing to the northwest is the order of the day.

A Battle at Jutland

Radar contacts at 7:19 a.m. open things up. Hopefully it's just scouts.



Regardless, the fleet turns north and opens the throttles.

Five hours later, and I've forgotten to take screenshots, but in my defense, not much has happened. The light cruisers Surcouf and Coetlogon, serving as scouts, were trapped between the German main force and scouting force. By turning east while the main body fled northwest, they distracted the German fleet while our own ran for the open waters north of Britain.

Surcouf and Coetlogon are lost, but at least two of their escorting destroyers look likely to escape, and all three might. Before Surcouf and Coetlogon sank, they and their destroyers launched two effective salvoes of torpedoes. Perhaps we'll see some German losses in the after-battle tally.

In the end, it actually goes into the books as a French victory—a submarine sank a German light cruiser as it was returning to port, and the torpedo barrage orchestrated by Surcouf and Coetlogon heavily damaged several German dreadnoughts.

November 1938 continued

And, in the aftermath of that loss...



(The game even has a Communist German flag, and it isn't even the real Communist German flag!)

In the peace agreement, we take Pommern, a 30-knot, 16"-gun battleship, as well as all of Germany's possessions in Africa, and we still have a bit of headroom left for reparations.

Annoyingly, the collapse of Germany means the collapse of Austria as well, and we don't get a chance to take territory from Austria-Hungary. Morocco remains in the hands of our enemies.

Now that the war is done, however, it's time for us to take off our dashing admiral's peaked hats and put on our boring bean-counter's green visors.

Slashing the Budget

We have a monthly deficit of (drumroll) 9,312 funds, and a current balance of 26,500 funds.

There are a few things we can either mothball or scrap right off the bat:

• 1300 funds: 13 Carabinier-class corvettes. We have 10 new Arc-class minesweeping destroyers in the dockyards, 11 months away, and they're more capable than the Carabiniers in every way. At 32 knots, they could actually serve in a fleet battle in a pinch.
• 105 funds: 5 Diamant-class corvettes. They're basically useless, and if we want another class of corvettes, it's not hard to build them down the road.

Those are the obvious candidates, and get us up to 1,405 of savings. Unless there are any objections, I'm going to do those two things.

For the rest, read on.

State of the Fleet

We have six battleships left after the war: Rouen (395 funds per month, an ex-battlecruiser with 9 12" guns), Suffren and Courbet (two of our late-20s 8x14"-gun battleships, well armored; Suffren is the slowest one left at 26 knots; 500 funds each), Marengo (611 funds, a 27-knot, 16"-gun battleship), Solferino (~650 funds, a 30-knot, 14"-gun battleship), and Terrible (656 funds). Terrible is the ex-Pommern, a 30-knot, 8x16"-gun battleship. Her armor isn't quite up to the standard of our mainline ships, but she mounts a heavier secondary battery and carries two floatplanes. Solferino is still being repaired from a torpedo hit. Once she's back in fighting trim, we'll save another 600 funds per month.

We still have the heavy cruiser Latoche-Treville; she proved her worth in combat in the Mediterranean toward the end of the war. She is, however, all alone, and all of our possible enemies have cruiser squadrons of moderate size. She costs 365 funds per month, and might be one to mothball or reserve.

Our light cruiser force comprises 13 ships, but 10 of them are on overseas service or most likely earmarked for it. We need more light cruisers.

We have five aircraft carriers of various types: the stout and dependable Bearn, the new 90-plane Liberté, and the light carriers Bruix (a converted cruiser), Arromanches, and Dixmude.

The latter three have speeds below 30 knots and only carry 24 planes each. Together, they account for 597 funds per month in maintenance (plus a bit more for their air wings, I suspect). Compared to a Liberté-type carrier, they cost 130% as much to maintain while carrying 80% as many aircraft, and it's harder for them to coordinate air operations to boot. Potential candidates for mothballing.

For destroyers, we no longer have any really, truly obsolete ships. Our eldest ships, four each of the early-20s 1500-ton Flamberge and Glaive classes, are still in the 34-35-knot range, and each carry plenty of torpedoes. We also have eight 1500-ton Epees from 1933, four 2000-ton Arquebuses from 1935, and four wartime 2000-ton Espignoles from 1938. The Espignoles carry torpedo reloads. The 1500-ton ships each cost 32 funds per month to maintain, while the 2000-tonners cost about 44 funds per month each.

We have thirteen submarines as well, about a third of which date to 1915, a third to 1926, and a third to 1932.

In the Yards

Under construction, we have two 'light' cruisers, Friant and Jean Bart, each of 9,400 tons. They're primarily anti-air pickets, fitting 12 5" dual-purpose guns in their main battery, 20 3" dual-purpose guns as a secondary battery, and eight anti-air machine guns of various calibers. They cost 1,675 funds per month each, and are 19 months from completion. We need light cruisers.

Next up are Fraternité and Egalité. They're weighing us down to the tune of 3,560 funds per month a piece. One will be ready in 13 months, the other in 22. Big carriers are nice to have, and if we're ditching the light carriers, we should probably keep both. We can pause Fraternité while other ships build, if it makes sense to do so.

We also have two Espignole-class destroyers 11 months away, at 532 funds each. They're our most modern, most powerful destroyer design, with dual-purpose main guns, torpedo reloads, extra depth charges, K-guns... all the bells and whistles.

Also under construction are ten 1,200 Arc-class destroyers, built for second-line/auxiliary service. They'll be our first minesweeping ships, which might be handy in future wars. We've lost a number of ships to mines. Each costs 360 funds per month; they'll all be done in 11 months.

Back to Budget-Slashing

So, to recap, here's where we are:

• 1,405 funds: scrapping old, useless destroyers.
• 700 funds: ships currently under repair (another 4 months or so).

That puts us at a deficit of 7,260 funds. Ships in reserve cost 50% of their ordinary maintenance, which means that reserving the entire fleet still would leave us about 3,000 funds short of break-even.

Ships in mothballs cost 20% of their usual maintenance, but obviously we wouldn't want to mothball all that many ships. Mothballing Rouen, Latoche-Treville, and the three light carriers would only save us about 1,000 funds per month.

Pausing one carrier and one light cruiser saves us 5,250 funds per month, and in combination with some relatively broad reserve-fleeting or some targeted mothballing would get us there. It also delays entry into service of critically-needed fleet units.

Finally, pausing both carriers would get us over the hump without any other measures. That would delay their entry into service by about a year.

Re-Deploying the Fleet

We also have a deficit of ships overseas. We need another 2,250 tons in West Africa, another 4,250 tons in the Indian Ocean, and another 2,500 tons in the South Pacific. We can deploy our aging Troude-class cruisers and one or two old destroyers for the moment. Should we build another class of foreign service cruisers, or just continue our habit of shuttling obsolete ships overseas?

[Haspen]

We gotta get Morocco!

Also, I'm sure that having Communists right outside our borders will not bite our asses in the future.

[EuchreJack]

Scrap the light carriers Bruix, Arromanches, and Dixmude.  Plan to replace with new light carriers in 2-3 years.

Mothball Suffren and Courbet.  We need the battleships, but their use is in existing, not in fighting, thus the loss of crew training won't matter so much.

Do the proposed corvette scrapping.

Save funds by slowing down our shipbuilding.  That should do it.

Maybe plan on replacing some of those 1915 submarines with modern ones?

[King Zultan]

So Hitler's a communist in this timeline, what a weird world that is.

Also I'm all for shipping the old crap off to defend the colonies, and scraping the crappy ones.

[Haspen]

Yeah. We should keep the good ones in Europe, old ones in colonies, and crap to scrapyard. We just won(?) a major war, time for upgrades and refurbishment, and maybe some house cleaning too.

[Fishbreath]

It has been several weeks, but the end of summer has proven to be busy. Unfortunately, it's likely to be several more weeks before the next one, as I'll be away from the computer with Rule the Waves on it, and the ludicrous copy protection scheme will prevent me from taking the game with me.

Also, this update turned out to be all text, so we'll see how closely you're paying attention. There'll be a quiz next week.

November 1938

Scrapping the three light carriers, the bevy of obsolete corvettes, and our five oldest submarines, mothballing three battleships and Latouche-Treville, and pausing one of our carriers under construction saves us enough money to move forward. We're still shedding about 2,700 funds per month, but before we run out of money, we'll finish building enough things to get back in the black.

Objectives remain as they've always been: crush Austria-Hungary, take Morocco, complete our domination of Africa (at least the parts not occupied by the Royal Navy).

It occurs to me that a fun 'boss fight' might be v. the UK, provided we can keep the US (or perhaps a resurgent Communist Germany?) on our side.

December 1938

A rebellion breaks out in New Calendonia, halfway around the globe. Evidently a lack of naval force there made it possible. Well, this month, our redeployments should bring our forces around the globe back into accordance with the requirements.

We also unlocked 6" dual-purpose guns (not a sure bet; the chance to get that tech is relatively low), a perfect thing with which to equip our next light cruiser.

Finally, naval intelligence provides us with a brief on how we shot down enemy aircraft in the most recent war. We shot down 27 in total; here's the breakdown.

• Fighters: 15
• Heavy AA: 8
• Light AA: 3
• Other aircraft (i.e., defensive armament): 1

So, the clear lesson here is that fighters are the answer, and heavy AA failing that. We didn't quite face enough air attacks to draw further conclusions, which I suspect accounts for light AA being more effective than medium AA.

January 1939

The government wants to further cut the naval budget, in response to which we put our foot down, throw a tantrum, and manage to head off such wooly-headed talk with only minor concessions.

February 1939

Thanks to the press fearmongering about Italy, we get a nice bump in budget, nearly clearing out our deficit. Since tensions with Italy are already in the high yellow, I'm also going to start moving the fleet into the Mediterranean.

May 1939

French engineers develop an improved surface search radar, which we'll start mounting to ships as soon as possible.

Only 11 ships in the entirety of the French Navy are not radar-equipped at present—an advantage we may be able to press in a hypothetical war with Italy.

July 1939

Tweaking Austria-Hungary again leads to increased budget. We're already in the black.

August 1939

Between that increased budget and some global economic expansion, we have enough money for me to bring our three mothballed battleships up to reserve fleet status—wise, considering the rising tensions with Italy and Austria—and to re-activate Latouche-Treville.

September 1939

New Caledonia has thrown off the yoke of its French colonialist oppressors! Which is not great for us, except in that it doesn't seem to affect our score and also reduces our overseas force requirements enough to bring a Troude home. So actually, it's pretty great for us.

We also bring a new torpedo bomber into service. It can sling a torpedo as a medium bomb load, which means it has a combat radius of some 380 miles.

October 1939

We go from a slight budget deficit to a surplus of 5,200 funds per month, on the back of a few events and the completion of 12 destroyers. I put the money into a new carrier design (Egalité, except with a deck park and deck-edge lifts for improved aircraft capacity and ease of handling) and another of the Friant-type light cruisers. (I may see about a smaller 6"-gun option to help build out our numbers again.)

November 1939

Several more money-boosting events free up enough moeny for a few more of our corvette-destroyers.

I try a few things to build a better cruiser than the Friant, but the Friant seems to have a pretty good balance of just about everything. Another one goes into the yards.

February 1940

Three submarines and the new Egalité begin construction. I also decide to spend a bit of money rebuilding Bearn, our original carrier. She gains a much heavier AA fit and capacity for six more planes.

April 1940

Morane-Saulnier gets the nod for our next model of dive bomber, with a 1000lb-bomb range of 225 miles and a 250lb-bomb range similar to that of our torpedo bombers.

May 1940

Quite a short break between wars, it looks like. We accuse Austria of torpedoing our old battleship Rouen, driving tensions nearly to the limit.

June 1940

Italy's rattling sabers, too. Might we get the chance to take on both of our Mediterranean rivals at once?

July 1940

Austria-Hungary declares war.

The first battle is a convoy defense, our destroyers against theirs in the fading moments of dusk. Radar suggests it's nine of ours against eight of theirs.

It turns out to be exactly so. The French destroyer forces, with the massive advantage of radar—we were able to torpedo the Austrian line from beyond visual range—sink four of the attacking ships in exchange for one loss.

Capabilities, Plans, and Intentions

The Fleets

We are, of course, well-suited to war against Austria-Hungary. They're a weak power, with a small budget of around 60% of France's. our six battleships are, on average, newer than theirs, although most of their battleships outgun ours—only the two Austrian 8x13" ships are inferior. Where French ships beat them handily is speed. Suffren is, at 26 knots, the slowest ship we have in service. The fastest Austrian battleship makes 25 knots. We have five battleships in the Mediterranean. Rouen, recently in mothballs, is operating on trade protection duty in the North Atlantic while her crew comes up to speed. (As I'm sure they will. Rouen holds the current record for battle stars in the French fleet, with seven.)

In aircraft, we're again superior, with more than twice as many as the Austrians, and the ability to bring nearly as many as the Austrians have to their own home waters. One of our carriers, Bearn, is currently under refit, and will be back in service in seven months. Until then, we just have Liberté and Fraternité, representing a combined aircraft strength of 180 planes.

Trade warfare is where we're inferior, somewhat. The Austrians have thirty submarines to our eight, and six cruisers to our one. We're also a bit light on light cruisers right now: we have fourteen of them, but most are tied up overseas on foreign service. There are five in home waters, and two of those are our new Friant class, which are still working up in Europe. (I'll let them get up to speed before sending them into battle.) The other three are obsolescent Voltaire-class ships, built in the late 1920s.

We've flipped things around somewhat on destroyers. Our most recent ships are faster, heavier, and better-equipped than their Austrian equivalents.

Things get a little spicier if Italy decides to join in. They're quite close to us in overall strength, and adding them to Austria would put us on the back foot. Happily, we're more or less immune to blockades from Austria and Italy—they have no bases in our build zone, so they can't sustain a large fleet there. Since we have more bases in the Mediterranean than we do even in Northern Europe, we're perfectly capable of blockading Austria forever. (Not Italy, though. They're too strong.)

Shipbuilding

Besides the aforementioned Bearn, still in refit, we have seven ships in the yards. We'll start with three new Arc-class destroyers, which are approximately equal to the most recent Austrian ships but inferior to both sides' top-line options.

Next are two 90-plane Liberté-class carriers, Egalité (to round out the revolutionary trio) and Terreur (I ran out of positive-sounding French Revolutionary names). At 35,000 tons, they're the envy of the world, nearly twice as large as most other powers' largest ships. (Of couse, that does mean it's a disaster if one of them gets sunk by, say, an Austrian submarine. Knock on wood.)

Finally, we have two more Friant-class light cruisers, 9,400-ton ships with large batteries of dual-purpose guns: 12 5" and 20 3". They also carry mines and torpedoes, but no aircraft. (Nowhere to put them, with all the guns.) Given that our carriers are large, losing the scout planes is no great drawback, especially since most of our battleships carry them now.

War Plans

Pretty straightforward here. Our goals are as before: take Morocco as soon as possible, so that the plot of Casablanca can take place on schedule. An invasion is already being planned.

As far as battles go, we can outmuscle the Austrians in most fights. Battleship actions are a bit iffy, however, given the ship-for-ship Austrian superiority, as are cruiser actions, where we're badly outnumbered.

On the other hand, I'm absolutely going to take a chance on any battle where there are carriers involved, provided it doesn't take place in the depths of the Adriatic. Anywhere else in the Mediterranean, we have a massive advantage in our land-based aircraft.

If there's anything I ought to do differently, now's the time to mention it.

[King Zultan]

The plan sounds good to me.

[Haspen]

Likewise. It's a solid plan.

Hopefully we will sink many enemy ships during it!

[Fishbreath]

A very busy August and a moderately busy first half of September are now behind us, so. Let's see, where were we...

Ah, yes, it's August 1940, and we're crossing swords with the Austrians again. It sounds like the plan was, more or less, 'crush Austria', so that's what we'll do.

August 1940

Bit of a bummer to have one of our three carriers under repair, I have to say. Happily, she'll be back at the beginning of 1941, and shortly after, we'll have some fresher light cruisers too.

The first battle of this new update is a destroyer action in the Adriatic: nine French ships against a yet-unknown number of Austrians. We're very near our air support, but it's also twilight-soon-to-be-night, so we may not get the advantage of being within forty miles of around 120 friendly aircraft.

Just after night falls, we pick up some radar contacts 16,000 yards toward land. I guess we'll try some blind torpedo launching.

...

Several in-game hours of frenetic micromanagement later, it turns into one of the most lopsided French victories in history: in exchange for the loss of one destroyer, the unlucky recipient of a brace of Austrian torpedoes early in the battle, we sink thirteen Austrian ships.

Not all of it is do to with my adroit tactics. Part of it comes to shipbuilding. Our recent Espignole-class destroyers are superb ships, fast and heavily armed, and for once we outmatch the Austrian hardware.

September 1940

I decline two battles to start the month, but the third catches my eye: a cruiser action off Brest. I don't have any cruisers in the North Atlantic, but I do have the 27-knot battleship Rouen and an awful lot of aircraft. We'll see how it plays out.

It plays out by them saying 'no thanks', and we get another destroyer action in the Adriatic. This time, it's 11:00 a.m., so our tremendous quantities of air power should factor in.

Six French ships on seven Austrians, and we sank their modern destroyer fleet last time out. (They only have nine in service at present, so a big win here would basically eliminate the Austrian destroyer force.) Hopefully, this is a straightforward victory.



Since I don't want to get any more of my ships torpedoed, I'm playing this one a little more cautiously than has historically been my style, staying at near-maximum gun range.



A long history of gunnery practice has made the French fleet a fearsome force in long-range gun duels, and by 12:51 p.m., the balance of hits is already substantially in our favor.

The afternoon sees some trading of blows by air strikes, though the French bombers come out looking better. It seems like a relatively dreary destroyer battle, wherein the vastly superior French ships sink a bunch of obsolete Austrian ones, when at 4:19 p.m., I see this report...



Surely there's not a carrier out to play in a destroyer action? Then again, it's awfully hard for even the greenest of land-based dive bomber pilots to mistake a destroyer for a carrier.

The next bombers in line ID it as a light cruiser, which means that whoever was in charge of the radio report from the first attack should probably be sacked.

A bit later in the afternoon, another few waves of aircraft find the target previously identified as a carrier and a light cruiser, and proceed to identify it as a battleship and a destroyer, which more or less runs the gamut of possibility.

In the end, it turns out to have been a destroyer.

October 1940

Maddeningly, the Austrians sue for peace before we've crushed them sufficiently to gain Morocco, either by treaty or by invasion. I guess we'll just have to cheese them off again and try to win more slowly next time.

The peace dividend is a little easier to deal with this time; I mothball a few battleships and most of our old destroyers, and we're sufficiently set so that the money will be there in a few months, as shipyard jobs finish.

Speaking of which, it's still four months until Bearn finishes her refit.

November 1940

Evidently, I had a medium bomber prototype request in progress. This time, I pick the shortest-range option, because it can carry an aerial torpedo 565 nautical miles. This is a massive force multiplier for our land-based air. No longer will they have to ineffectually attempt to hit moving ships from moving planes!

December 1940

A bit of saber-rattling toward Japan brings our budget back into the black, even though we're spending almost 13,000 funds per month on ship construction.

March 1941



A new light cruiser design appears, similar to our existing Friants but with one fewer turret and a pair of floatplane scouts.

June 1941

A fascist coup takes place in Germany, and their flag changes once more to something a bit more historically familiar.

August 1941

Given that we lost a destroyer or two in the preceding war, I update the Espignole class into the Carqouis class, and plan to start one or two building in the next month. Once our cruiser Sfax finishes in two months, I'll start another light cruiser.

September 1941

New aircraft types enter operational service; most of our combat planes are of 1941 vintage. The only thing left to upgrade is the floatplane scout, so I do that.

November 1941

Eh, cancel the starting another light cruiser. Maintenance and new aircraft construction are eating into our funds a bit, so we only have a 933-funds surplus of the 1,663 it'll cost.

We're able to build 80-plane airbases now, so I start to expand some of our most strategic ones—in particular, those suited to strike at Austria-Hungary and Italy, the one at Brest, and those closest to Germany.

January 1942

It's a little confusing to be deep in the war years, and yet not have any wars on.

We do figure out the forward-firing ASW mortar, which is a delightfully useful tool. I prepare an upgrade of our escort-style Arc-class destroyer with one mounted.

February 1942

We have now developed airborne radar sets! I guess that'll make our future search planes even better? Or maybe just better at hunting submarines.

May 1942

I'm going to pause here, not because I'm out of stamina for the game, but because the carrier Egalité just entered service, and her final sibling Terreur will be arriving in a few months. That means we're going to have money hors du wazoo, which means interesting decisions.

Plans and Intentions

The first issue is one of strategy. It would be nice to snipe Morocco off of Austria-Hungary, but Austria keeps on wimping out of wars. Is there someone else we should go after? If so, who?

The next is one of shipbuilding. How do we stack up against the world?



We're extremely light on dreadnoughts compared to the world leaders, and on par with to slightly light on them compared to other countries in the Mediterranean. We're middle of the pack on carriers, but our French Revolution-themed class, at 35,000 tons, are the largest carriers in service in the world, and carry 90 aircraft to the next best carrier's 60. (The Americans are catching up here.) We have one carrier under construction, due to be finished in six months.

As ever, we have almost no heavy cruisers. We do, on the other hand, have a ton of light cruisers, but only seven of them are on hand in Europe or the Mediterranean, with the rest scattered around the globe to fulfill our colonial service obligations. Only four of our European ships are truly modern. We have one light cruiser under construction, due to be finished in 10 months.

We're in decent shape on destroyers, especially compared to our fellow Mediterranean countries, although it should be noted that twelve of them, soon to be 15, are multi-purpose corvette-ish ships, and many of them are obsolescent. The other four destroyers we have under construction are modern, fleet service ships, of the kind that so adroitly slaughtered the Austrian destroyer force.

We're behind on submarines, but between our airbases and our carriers, we have the most naval aircraft in the world, a lead we'll only expand on as our airbases in strategic areas grow and our carrier force gets larger.

So, with those facts in mind, what do we build? We have a surplus of 3,410 funds right now (a pretty good carrier, a bad battleship, a cruiser and a half, two light cruisers, six to ten destroyers). In the next 11 months, we'll have an additional 8,000 or so funds to allocate. We could afford a battleship or two, but that era is more or less behind us. We could spend it on more carriers, a newer destroyer force, the start of a modern cruiser force... really, the world is our oyster.

What's it going to be?

[Haspen]

Should we worry about that coup in Germany?

Considering their naval budget, I am a bit worried.