Battleship Destroyer (7 page)

Jack studied the enemy fleet for a second. 
Wanting to impress Tom with what his little ships could do against such a large enemy fleet in the hope that he would sell his monster and buy a couple squadrons of his Battleship Destroyers, (a hopeless thought). He knew he needed to be able to make more than the four attack run passes on the enemy fleet, the tanks he was able to bring with him allowed. He needed more reaction mass drop tanks but the little ships could only carry so many without adding a lot of heavy racks.

He started thinking
of the failed hulks that he had built that were such bad designs, that no one wanted them even at scrap prices. Trying to figure out a way to turn them into drop tank transports without having to spend a lot doing it.

He was already using the
ships from one failed design attempt as tugs for recovering the tanks that survived the battles before they drifted too far away. Which is why he tried to drop his tanks in mass as they headed for the fleet to act as decoys. Most could be simply refilled (remassed being the universal term for filling the reaction mass tanks of Space ships) and reused or rebuilt cheaply even if they were holed or took a little damage. The little ships of the failed design were little bigger than boats, had a great rang for their size even with the destroyer sized engines (the first ships he had used drop tanks on) and were originally armed with only torpedoes and a few small point defense weapons. But it turned out that torpedoes simply ware not enough by themselves to take out most big ships even in mass attacks. Not to mention the fact that their small size against the point defenses of modern fleet Destroyers and Cruisers made them easy to kill once a destroyer got close enough as they made their attack runs. Usually long before they could effectively launch against a wildly maneuvering fleet. Then the cost of the massive numbers of torpedoes needed to get past the point defenses to take out even a cruiser had quickly made Jack realize that torpedo ships were not the answer. Though he learned to use them effectively against attacking destroyers once he upgraded their engines. The inexperienced destroyer Captain’s thinking his torpedo frigates were easy targets. Racking him up enough bounty all his own to afford upgrading the yard and producing his first Battleship Destroyers.

Jack did not like calling them Gunships even though that was what they were. Preferring to keep his secret weapon secret as long as possible even if they were out in the open for all to see
in battle. That is if you were close enough during battle or paying attention when his Destroyers were outside coming or going from the huge air dock hanger he had them in while in port (mostly to keep his ships grouped together making it easier to get at and maintain them all).

Jack
had appropriated the biggest Airdock that was used only for the biggest Battle Carriers (or Tom’s monster Super Battlecruiser), for his own use when he had upgrade the yard’s facilities. The fact that he had never seen it used until Tom had built his Super Battlecruiser in the Battleship Airdock on his own ship’s Starport, made him feel less guilty for hogging the huge Airdock on the Queens Starport all the time for his own use. Though if he got very many more Battleship Destroyers, he was going to have to start thinking about expanding or building a new Airdock. But then if he built one from scratch, he could make a lot of improvements for docking and handling the large number of destroyers and their crews. A lot of improvements he had started thinking about when he was planning on building hundreds of small torpedo ships but were shelved when the tests ships failed so badly.

The fast little ships scoring hundreds of hits across the enemy fleets
multiple battleships time and again without destroying anything but destroyers was maddening. The bounties (when he was lucky), barely paying the cost of all the torpedoes, repairs and wages in the beginning. That was until he abandoned going after the big boys. Which brought its own guilt. Knowing that it really wasn’t fair but not having much choice about taking out the inexperienced Destroyer Captains simply to cover costs and give his little ships time to concentrate on the cruisers who had more experienced Captains as well as higher bounties.

No. Remembering the failed torpedo Frigates with a sigh.
Even if he was a deep pocket Government and did not have to worry about the cost of torpedoes, he realized the numbers needed to take out a battleship was staggering. The fact was that just blasting a hole in the side of a ship did not work in space like it did in the great ocean wars of Earth. Space ships had nowhere to sink to in space, it takes knocking out the crew and most of the weapons and equipment to destroy a space ship. Just knocking a couple of holes in the hull was a waste of time. Destroying a big ship takes a lot of hits even with the powerful Laser guns on modern ships punching holes clean through ships from one side to the other taking out everything in their path. Though torpedoes do have their place with other weapons in attacks.

Though the small torpedo
Frigates were failures, they were great drop tank recovery ships able to tow long strings of empty tanks. The shame was that the little ships were simply to small and underpowered to carry more than a couple of the fully massed tanks strapped to them at one time, so it was a waste of time trying to use them to remass his squadron. At least the few full tanks they were bringing out at the moment would replace the mass his section had wasted following the fleet before he took over.

His mind went back to his
most costly failure. He had built a cruiser as a test ship that he hoped would survive direct hits long enough in a head on attack to get close enough to take on a battleship at point blank range. If it worked he would then have built a much costlier battleship version. He had placed all the weapons and personnel decks in the ship's aft section with the Engineering and engine decks. Then built some 500 feet of enlarged diameter squat mass tanks with heavily armored decks between them forward with the idea of absorbing the big gun shots from other cruisers and even battleships long enough to get close enough for the ship's mass of 8 inch guns on retractable towers to take out cruiser's or even a battleship's armament and engines.

It had only taken a few attacks to find out two important facts with no uncertainties.
That unless you had a lot of the heavy front armored decked cruisers (or even battleships), attacking together in something like a wall, even a couple of fast light cruisers, or destroyers could easily get around behind the armored decks and play hell with the lightly armored stern section with their light guns and torpedo's. Long before his heavy slow cruiser could do much damage to the enemy cruisers or battleships and if a heavy cruiser got around the side it was all over. Then the fact that damaged and destroyed armored decks and hulls were damn expensive and time consuming to repair pretty much put paid to his grand idea of a front mass tank heavy armored decked cruiser squadron or even such a battleship. Worse yet, since even one battle could put the majority of his fleet out of commission for weeks as repairs were made to the armored decks, he could never earn enough bounty to maintain them.

But it had taken him building a second forward armored deck cruiser to
finally figure much of that out as they both attacked only to get his butt handed to him on a gold platter with the enemy fleet's cruisers and destroyers getting around behind them and plastering his second cruiser weapons and engineering decks turning it into a hulk, while the two battleships proceeded to destroy his shield decks as they closed. Finally with his other cruiser, (that was much closer to the enemy destroyers and cruisers attacking around from the side), a hulk  behind its mostly intact shield decks and his own ship's shield decks all but destroyed and no longer much to hide behind, he had little choice.

With the enemy cruisers closing in from his stern and
the two battleships slowly tearing his ship apart from the front, Jack had nowhere to go and even fewer choices.  Finally, he said the hell with it and ordered his crew to cut away the remaining heavy armored decks that were little more than Swiss Cheese anyway. The now much lightened cruiser, little bigger than a good sized fat destroyer by then but with big heavy cruiser engines, was able to rapidly maneuver and approach the battleships as Jack dodged the big Battleship's slow gunfire while out running the cruisers behind him.  At point blank range, Jack unleashed his mass of 8 inch guns and torpedoes into the first of the two Battleships of the squadron as he used the battleship he was attacking as a shield from the second, devastating the first battleship.

Finally a couple of big 15 inch gun hits in a row from the heavily damaged second battleship with dozens of smaller gun hits taking out half of his 8 inch guns along with one of his engines, Jack decided he best retire from the battle while he could. The reality that he had screwed up big time with that design firmly planted. But the seeds of his final design had been planted and were growing like weeds. Especially as he contemplated making the needed very costly repairs with a third shield decked ship half built in one of the Battleship construction Airdocks sucking up his bounties, if he did not terminate its contract.  Though he had to try the Torpedo Frigate first since the exploding torpedoes’ was what got most of his attention and not the tight beamed 8inch guns that were actually doing most of the damage.

Jack
used the bounty from the 3 cruisers and 4 destroyers they had taken out when his other heavy armored cruiser had been destroyed, the two Battleships he had destroyed or damaged along with the damage done to a dozen other ships, for a new approach.  He took some time to think and experiment. Coming up with the failed torpedo frigate design that at least did not cost that much and finely the Destroyer, only to have this new problem pop up. No. For a tanker he needed something cheaper to build and operate than the damn heavy cruiser hulls no one else wanted and he had abandoned as well. What was left of them that is. They were basically hulks now anyway. He had used the surviving engines and guns off of them for the first attempts at a Battleship Destroyer before coming up with what he now consider the perfect attack destroyer. Only he desperately needed more range.

The
Republic fleet's battleships finally opened fire on the enemy fleet just as Tom's long range guns bracketed an enemy battleship scoring several hits on it though it did not seem to slow it down any. Jack watched it closely to see if its gun fire was reduced or not. When only half of its guns fired for its next salvo Jack smiled. "C flight, re-task to target Fox." Jack did not want to share the bounty, especially with Tom. Not that he had anything against helping his best friend but in this case the Battleship was the only one Tom had scored any good damaging hits on yet and Jack was going to leave it to him to finish off if he could. There were plenty of targets in the enemy fleet and Jack could always come back to it if he ran out of them. Though he knew he would simply run out of reaction mass long before that.

"Ten
minutes to intercept Captain." Came the voice from tactical, (minutes actual).

"Very well.
Fleet tactical, all ships cut power, attack plan Delta 2." The plan called for them to drift up alongside the enemy fleet without raising any suspicion since they were not headed directly for the fleet. Jack just hoped it would work with the help of the decoy tanks.

The fleet cut power as another six torpedoes were fired by each of the Destroyers from their reloaded tubes
and the weapons bays of the ship's cooling fins started sprouting missiles at low stealth thrust. Within a few seconds hundreds of missiles followed the torpedoes with decoys mixed in. Jack had redone the missiles with two stage engines allowing them to stay with the torpedoes on their long slow run closing with the target and then sprint at high accelerations in the last few miles through the point defenses that were concentrating on the torpedoes and not the missiles.

Jack turned around to see the reaction mass drop tanks they had left behind
some 20 minutes before start making enough noise and light from flashbang decoys to look like a fleet of cruisers attacking the enemy fleet. "Squadron, silent running if you please."  Jack knew that attack plan Delta 2 contained that little tad bit but he had found that in the heat of battle, reminding the Captains and crews of the little but important facts, seemed to go a long way in making sure it happened throughout the squadron. You could never tell who had just joined taking the place of a cold crewman and had not had time to read the finer details of the attack plan or simply got busy and forgot.

Jack watched a dozen
enemy Cruisers and Destroyers head out around the Republic's main fleet toward Tom's Supper Battlecruiser. Now that Tom's ship had pulled a considerable distance away from the Republic battle fleet to maintain his distance from the rapidly closing enemy while keeping the main fleet far out of his line of fire . It presented a nice fat juicy target. The Killer Queen and the Republic Battleship fleet continued zig zagging around in front of the enemy fleet trying to confuse the enemy gunners while maintaining their broadsides crossing the enemy fleets T as the enemy Battleships continued to close. Jack was glad to see that the enemy fleet was getting hit hard by the Republic fleet. He just hopped they would stop firing for the few seconds he was at close quarters during his attack. Another smaller squadron of cruisers and destroyers took out after Jack’s approaching squadron of tank decoys on the other side of the enemy fleet’s triple attack line.

Keeping an eye on Toms Battlecr
uiser he watched the rapidly approaching enemy cruiser fleet preparing to demonstrate the weakness of any Battle cruiser. It would not stand up to a coordinated attack even by Cruisers and Destroyers let alone a Battleship which is why Tom was staying as far away from the enemy Battleships as he could. Evidentially the enemy fleet commander was not stupid and had figured that out when Tom had refused to close.