Thiaria: Reboot

Hello - long time no see on this thread!!

Thiarian Cruisers - World War 2

1. Remaining WWI-era ships.

1.1. Teanntas
When the war losses of the first world war and the reparations - as stipulated in the treaty of Norfolk - were stricken from the Thiarian fleet list in 1920, the Thiarian cruiser fleet was thoroughly castrated. Of the remaining units, LT Chros Deisceart and LT Fadcheann were veterans of the war of 1894 against Brazil; LT Spleodar and LT Fulaingt dated back to the turn of the century. Chros Deisceart was hulked when the war ended due to first signs of rot in her hull and scrapped in 1925. Fadcheann was in very good shape despite her age and remained in service as the Navy's cadet training ship; she landed half her armament and added accomodation space, but was little altered otherwise. She became a stationary in Abernenui in 1928 and lingered till 1953 as accomodation ship without ever being reactivated. Spleodar and Fulaingt were conventional protected cruisers of 5.000 tons with triple expansion engines; they had received new guns and a state-of-the-art fire control system in 1916/7 and proved very sturdy ships. They remained in active service despite their age of 21 and 22 years; they were not considered worthy of any substantial investments, but gave sterling service till both were totally worn out in 1929 and 1930, when they were decommissioned and scrapped. More modern was the 3.600 ton scout LT Tainiu an Sceimh, which also had been rearmed with modern weaponry during the war; although powered by triple expansion engines, she was a fast ship and could again make her design speed of 25 knots after she was refurbished in 1922. Her hull was however nowhere near as sturdy as the hulls of the three larger cruisers and began leaking in 1928; she was relegated to training duties, but retired and scrapped in 1933. The last survivor of the war and the subsequent peace treaty was LT Teanntas, a 4.000 ton ship of 1909 vintage with six modern 140mm guns and the only remaining turbine-powered cruiser. She still had no vertical armour and was cursed with a set of unreliable engines which were prone to breakdowns. These actually saved her; when the reparation vessels were selected from readily available units, she was decommissioned and in yard hands for another attempt to refurbish her engines. She thus remained in Thiarian hands and received a much more thorough reconstruction from 1923 through 1925. Her useless Zoelly turbines were replaced by Curtis turbines of half again the power; her original boilers were retained, but refurbished and upgraded. Her stern was lenghtened to correct vibration problems with her rudder; together with the upgrade to her boilers, she again reached 27 knots despite the added weight. She received director fire control with the latest range finding gear, and their secondary armament was upgraded to four 75mm and six director-controlled semi-automatic 37mm guns. Her surface torpedo tubes were landed, her submerged tubes removed and the ports welded shut. When she returned to service, she looked like this:

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Although she was joined by six much larger and more modern light cruisers till 1934, when she reached the age of 25, the Thiarian Navy did not consider retiring her. The target figure of 20 cruisers, which had been established in 1930, was not attained before the war started, and Teanntas had to soldier on. Her armament was considered obsolete as early as 1930, and she was taken in hand for another, much more thorough reconstruction, which involved an amount of effort that could hardly be considered justified for such an old and worn hull. She was reboilered to make full use of the capacity of her new engines, giving her an output of 48.000 hp; her four paired funnels were replaced with two somewhat more massive ones. Range of the new completely oil-fueled machinery was a rather mediocre 6.000 miles at 15 knots. To reach the new design speed of 30 knots, her bow was lengthened by six meters and given a new clipper shape, making her the only cruiser worldwide which had both his bow and his stern lengthened during refits. Her six 140mm guns were removed from their mounts and installed in three twin turrets, which were arranged along the ship's axis, one forward, one amidships and one aft. The lateral 140mm tubs were fitted with single 100mm flaks, and new heavy HA directors were installed next to the funnels. 16 heavy 13mm machineguns augmented the 37mm flaks. As re-commissioned in 1933, Teanntas made 30,36 knots at 51.403 hp on trials and looked like this:

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She assumed a training role, replacing the even older LT Tainiu an Sceimh, and repeatedly ventured abroad to show Thiaria's flag. In 1935, she visited Dublin, under close scrutiny of the British heavy cruiser HMS Hampshire. She was the first Thiarian warship ever to visit the Green Island. Previous requests had all been denied under British pressure. She also made a trip all around South America in 1937. When the Admiral Graf Spee entered Thiarian waters in December 1939, triggering the events that would lead to Thiaria's entry into the second world war, Teanntas was on another tour, just passing Bandar Abbas after having paid visits to Japan, Thailand and French Indochina. As tensions rose and ultimatums expired, Teanntas sneaked through the Indian Ocean, frequently sighting and evading British shipping and twice refuelling at sea, once from a Siamese tanker whose skipper was bribed to give away part of his cargo, then by a civilian Thiarian tanker. Teanntas then encountered the old British cruiser HMS Durban 400 miles south of the Cape of Good Hope and was engaged by her. Durban forced Teanntas into wild maneuvers by firing six torpedoes in sequence, all the while firing her guns at her; Thiarian return fire was unprecise, and Teanntas was hit by 13 shells for only 4 in return. One of the hits holed her aft funnel, and she lost speed. Durban caught up and launched another torpedo to deliver the coup de grace... and it began to circle. As Durban evaded, Teanntas hit her eleven times, and she had to disengage after losing two of her six guns and suffering flooding forward. Teanntas was too slow to pursue and eventually made it home in late January. After this rather spectacular first cruise, Teanntas was under repair while the British offensive of February 1940 swept the Thiarian fleet off the ocean; she became available again in April. By that time, the Royal Navy had been called off, and she resumed training duties, which did not change for the next twelve months as the Thiarians rebuilt their fleet relatively unmolested. When the Thiarians prepared to invade New Portugal, she was assigned to the fire support squadron together with the small battleship Artacain; she was present when the Brazilian battleship Riachuelo was sunk and bombarded enemy mobile shore batteries. During the landings in Uruguay in November 1941, Teanntas made use of her relatively shallow draught and steamed up the River Plate to provide fire support for Thiarian minesweepwers and amphibious forces. The spring of 1942 saw Teanntas again fireing ground support for Thiarian ground forces advancing alongside the coast of Uruguay and southern Brazil. She fired her guns over three thousand times in total, rendering her in need of new barrels by May 1942. After her refit, which also included a thorough update of the radar suite and the replacement of the 13mm machineguns with a total of fourteen 20mm cannon, she was assigned to a ready reserve force at New Portugal and made several sorties against Brazilian light forces trying to interfere with Thiarian ground operations close to the shore. In August 1942, she evaded three torpedoes from the Brazilian destroyer Gustavo Sampaio and heavily damaged her with gunfire. From December 1942, Teanntas was used as a convoy escort, and fitted with asdic, hydrophones and depth charges. By January 1943, she looked like this:

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In this guise, she sailed as part of the close escort group of Thiaria's amphibious fleet which was intercepted by superior British forces on May 1st in the battle of Meanhchiorcal. Teanntas got lucky during the disastrous initial phase of the battle and managed to escort the crippled battleship Artacain and three transports to safety while the British annihilated most of Thiaria's amphibious capability. Convoy escort work remained her duty after the battle; during Patton's winter offensive of 1943, she accompanied six convoys full of supplies and reinforcements for the front in Brazil. She again provided fire support during the Thiarian counteroffensive in October 1943 after Patton had been recalled, but while she was en route to New Portugal to be re-supplied with ammunition and stores, she was sunk by HM submarine Otus on November 24th, 1943.

Stay tuned for more - the others will be bigger...

Greetings
GD

Shipbucket

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