"Fleet, hard starboard!" Vice Admiral Sorville shouts, running to the starboard side of the Valiant's conning tower to try and see the incoming torpedoes.
Per his order, the helmsman of HMS Valiant spins the wheel, and he spins it fast, with the remainder of Force H mirroring the flagship's action.
"I need star shells, in the air, starboard side!" Sorville barks the additional order.
Yet, before it can be transmitted fully by his XO, another alarming report cos in.
"Torpedo... To Port!"
"Wasn't it starboard that you said!?" Sorville nearly curses the sonar operator, but his next words stun him.
"They're coming at us from both sides!"
"H-How many!?" The Erusean Admiral asks in reflex. However, his brain has already conjured up the worst possible answer that he has been fearing.
"Too many!"
When the torpedo alert is raised, the entire Force H scrambles to try and spot the approaching explosive fish in the water. While they haven't forgotten the risk posed by Mogador's Flotilla, they have been maneuvering to dodge the torpedoes deployed by the Ustian bombers, coming at them from the South. Yet, in the process of dodging, they have shown their broadside to yet another wave of deadly fish, launched by Mogador's Flotilla at around the sa ti as the Ustian Bombers'. Mogador's formation has been saving this very attack for the right mont, which is now. Although it's been a bit of guesswork, and even a gamble and a half that Force H will be executing a hard starboard turn, the torpedo firing solution that Mogador's Flotilla uses proves to be the correct one. When viewed from above, the nurous torpedoes launched by Mogador's Flotilla will form a beautiful cross with those deployed by the Ustian Bombers. Now caught between a rock and a hard place, there's only one thing that Force H can do.
"Formation disperse!" Sorville shouts the worst command he has ever made in his life in the heat of the mont. "Maneuver at will!"
This is the only order that is remotely applicable in this situation. By giving the ships their freedom of movent rather than adhering to a strict formation, they will have more room to evade the approaching torpedoes, or at least that's what Sorville is hoping to achieve. Force H has noticed the air-dropped torpedoes much too late, and there has been no screening force in its starboard flank. So, even with the hard starboard maneuver, the lumbering Erusean battleships fail to evade all of the torpedoes.
HMS Valiant hits one torpedo first in the part that isn't covered by an extensive anti-torpedo bulge. While the bomber-launched torpedo is smaller than its ship-based counterpart, the underwater explosion still tears a gaping hole for seawater to rush in the foreend. In monts, nearly 1/4 of the bow compartnts are taking in water. To prevent even worse flooding, Sorville slows the Valiant down, even further than the already slow cruising speed of the Revenge-class battleship, and seals off the bow bulkhead. HMS Valiant is not the only vessel to be hit by this spread of torpedoes, as even the Revenge herself takes two nasty hits. Only this ti, HMS Revenge is hit twice, in the worst possible location, her aft. The two repetitive hits in one spot cause significant flooding and knock out her rudder and two of her shafts, most certainly knocking out more than 70 percent of her speed.
HMS Ramilies, as well, takes two torpedo hits; however, she's lucky that her anti-torpedo bulges prevent the worst of the damage. Only HMS Royal Oak erges from the first torpedo spread unscathed. Nonetheless, it will be much too early for celebration, as rely a few seconds later, Force H is imdiately within the no-escape distance of the last torpedo spread. Although Royal Oak has been lucky previously, it's doubtful that luck will hold true now.
Because the targets have been the entirety of Force H, and not any particular vessel, Mogador's Flotilla launched its torpedoes at shallow depth, ensuring that they can even hit the draught of opposing Erusean destroyers. Of course, in such an indiscriminate barrage of fishes, the torpedoes are spread in a manner akin to a gigantic fan, which would have made them quite inaccurate if not for the number of torpedoes being used. All three ship types of Mogador's Flotilla: the Mogador-class, the Le Fantasque class, and even the La Galissonnière-class, they emptied all the torpedo tubes they had on the side that was trained on Force H. And the result can only be described as devastating.
Since it's every vessel for itself, Force H's screening force falls apart, scattering to try to thread themselves in between the spotted torpedoes. Unlike a certain ga, real-life destroyers don't feature the sa ability to turn on a pivot, especially not the Eruseans'. It's also not a guarantee that sailors can spot all of the torpedoes and provide course correction for the helmsman, not when the sea is rough, and inadequately lit by the fading star shells above. And in this chaotic circumstance where the sound of screws drives an entire ocean mad, sonar or hydrophone operators can barely offer anything substantial. As such, it's mostly up to luck that an Erusean destroyer can spot and then dodge the inbound torpedoes. Obviously, not all of them are able to do all of that, with half of the Erusean screening force being hit amidship. Needless to say, a destroyer being hit amidship by a Ustian torpedo no less is a death sentence. Being a size or two larger than those air-deployable torpedoes, a 550 mm torpedo can straight up cut these old Erusean destroyers in half, and that they do.
Many Erusean sailors can't even react when they're either blown apart by the devastating. So are unable to escape from the ho-away-from-ho that is now breaking down into pieces and are left drowning inside sealed compartnts. The Erusean destroyers that are lucky enough to escape the net, however, quickly find themselves isolated and imdiately falling prey to separate detachnts from Mogador's Flotilla. Outgunned and outnumbered, it won't be long until these vessels find themselves joining the fate of those less fortunate to stay alive for a bit longer. If anything, perhaps a less fiery demise would have been a better way to go. That way, they could at least spare themselves a death or the humiliation of receiving a thousand cuts.
In the monts that made Force's H screening force defunct, however, is the mont when the last of the torpedoes reach the struggling battleships' location. Adding salt to injury, HMS Revenge takes yet another hit, this ti on the port side, and she's struck amidship. Surprisingly, perhaps the Ustian's 21.7-inch torpedo is much too large, or the Revenge's anti-torpedo bulge is subpar in construction and maintenance, the damage is more catastrophic than expected, with the battleship's boiler rooms breaking down and taking in an unhealthy amount of salty water. As her power plant is taken offline, being dead in the water is the last of Revenge's concern. Right now, she is at a very great risk of being sunk by flooding. Her Damage Control Party is trying its best to seal off the flooded area, but the listing is getting more and more evident by the second.
HMS Ramilies runs headfirst into a torpedo, but other than it making a noticeable bump against her bow, with its warhead failing to detonate, the torpedo-stricken battleship got out more fortunate than her big sister. It's the Royal Oak, however, that is hit the hardest out of all the Revenge-class battleships. While her two sisters erged worse for wear, Royal Oak has less than stellar luck when her sailors and officers only see the torpedoes coming at the very last mont. Still having her speed bleeding out from her earlier maneuver, Royal Oak is unable to evade three torpedoes that hit along its port side. Two of those torpedoes hit successively in her fore end, right where the magazine for her A and B turrets is. And when the first torpedo explosion creates a gaping hole in the armor sche, the second torpedo utilizes that weakness to slip in right next to the shells and powder storage before going off. The resulting explosion is unquestionably eye-catching and heart-pounding as the Royal Oak is torn in half by an ammo detonation. HMS Royal Oak's detached front bow, or what's left of it, is even flung by a hundred ters along the surface of the dark ocean, before the rest of the ship goes down with its conning tower disappearing in but a couple of minutes. The Oak sinks so fast, and so ferociously is the whirlpool she generates in doing so, that it will be a miracle if anyone can escape her hull.
"My god..." Admiral Sorville mutters while gazing at the billowing husk that is now more than halfway under, which is the Royal Oak.
The losses of his destroyers and cruisers didn't sting as much as this, partly because they didn't co with such a heart-wrenching spectacle. Surely the Ustian side is celebrating right now, but for the Eruseans in Force H, or what's remaining of them, this is a crushing, despairing mont. For a mont, the crews aboard the remaining battleships of Force H even forget to fire back at their enemy. And while HMS Valiant has been able to dodge any further torpedo hits, mostly because she got lucky that a destroyer out in the yonder ate them for her, it's no news big enough to raise the bottod-out morale of the Erusean sailors. But when shells suddenly land around you, kicking up seawater and whatever fragnts that can knock a head clean off soone's shoulders, instinct takes over, at least to a certain extent. Tired, both physically and ntally, a shell that used to take 36 seconds to load now takes nearly three tis that length.
There is literally no hope left for Force H to turn this around, and Sorville's wistful thinking of getting as many lives as possible out of this ss is fed to the crabs at the bottom of the ocean. He knows this, his XO knows this, and even their enemy knows this. So what now, what can be done? The sound of the Valiant's main guns firing shocked Vice Admiral Sorville out of his stupor. In his montary introspection, he has realized how foolish he was back then to make such a rookie mistake. Instead of heading Eastward to imdiately engage an enemy who had both positional advantage and combat effectiveness, Force H should have headed Westward and imdiately fled. That singular mistake has thrust the last effective Erusean naval formation into a spiralling downfall with a very, very hard crash landing.
Sorville disdained the fossils that are now the Erusean Admiralty, but look at him now, making a grave blunder that would see his n dead and disgraced.
"Bumbling fool..." Sorville curses himself. "You should have stayed on that dical bed..."
Before Sorville can make up his mind fully on his last orders, a large shell, coming from a Southwestern angle, strikes the turret plating of the Valiant's B-turret. However, due to the acute angle of penetration, the shell ricochets from the turret armor and sohow flies and penetrates the foot of the Valiant's conning tower instead. While it luckily doesn't explode, risking a total collapse of the conning tower, the large-caliber warhead does crush a couple of sailors. It will be a miracle to figure out which one is which now that they're body parts and paste. But their untily demises are not the point. When the spotters see flashes of gunfire in the Southwest, they report to Sorville with pale faces and grim looks.
"A-Admiral! W-We have vessels spotted at bearing 247!"
In this report, the Erusean Vice Admiral says nothing but doing a ntal mapping with what he knows. Finally, after a whole minute of uncomfortable silence and exploding artillery, Sorville can only let out a wry, disappointed chuckle before sitting back in the Captain's Chair. The man looks like he has aged way more than he should. Knowing who the leader of his current enemy is, Sorville can only comnt.
"Well played, Admiral Gensoul... Well played, indeed."
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"I have him..." Admiral Gensoul comnts with a smirk while viewing the ruined, incohesive formation of Force H. "I have him right where I wanted."
As if to express her agreent in the matter, the eight main guns aboard the Richelieu sing a prayer for the poor, unfortunate Erusean souls. Although very clearly, this is a hymn for sending the living to the afterlife, not to cherish them. Task Force Richelieu, alongside Task Force Jean Bart, Surcouf's Flotilla, and the battle-damaged but still combat-capable Mogador's Flotilla, have ford a complete encirclent over the now dead in the water Force H. Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, and even their thods of fighting are being chipped away after every shot, every minute. When HMS Ramilies and HMS Valiant start registering so serious damage by either the Jean Bart, Gascogne, or the Richelieu, however, an unsurprising radio ssage can be heard on all channels.
"This is Vice Admiral Jas Sorville of the Royal Navy to opposing Ustian warships. Cease fire. I repeat, cease fire!" The aged, tired, yet still sowhat steady in the face of overwhelming odds says. "We surrender!"
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