Thiaria: Reboot

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2.2. Ghrianghaoth-class

The initial Thiarian plan to rely on interned or captured foreign merchants for escort carrier conversions bore little fruit; only a few German ships could be interned, and almost no enemy ones could be captured intact. Several domestically built passenger liners were also considered; they at least were both long and fast enough, but the planned conquest of New Portugal produced an urgent need of fast troop transports and hospital ships, so none could be spared during 1940 and 1941. On the other hand, Thiarian yards were just series-producing a class of fast fleet replenishment ships whose design dated back to 1936. Specifications for them not only included full at-sea replenishment capability with fuel, ammunition and all other necessary supplies, but also machinery powerful enough to maintain a cruising speed of 15 knots infinitely, with a top speed of at least 22 knots. For self-defence, they carried eight 100mm DP guns and eight 13mm AAMGs. Four were already available in 1939, named LT Solathrai (Gaelic: Provider), LT Taobhai (Supporter), LT Cosantoir (protector) and LT Tarrthalai (Rescuer).

LT Tarrthalai 1940
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They were highly valuable ships, enabling the Thiarian fleet to operate far away from their home ports for extended time periods without significantly slowing it down; without these vessels, operations like the Panama Raid would have been quite impossible. All were assigned to the Thiarian main battlefleet, accompanying it on most of its missions during the war. LT Taobhai was wrecked off Cape Hoorn on the return leg from the Panama raid, but the other three survived the war (ironically, they were hardly ever targeted by allied forces although they usually operated squarely in harm's way; there always were enough priority targets like battleships and fleet aircraft carriers in close vicinity that drew all of the enemy's attention). By 1943, they all had received a full radar suite, eight 37mm and eight 20mm flaks.

LT Cosantoir 1943
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By 1940 a second batch was under construction, with two ships each laid down in 1938 (LT Comhairleoir (Gaelic: Counsellor) and LT Riarthoir (Administrator)) and 1939 (LT Maor (Steward) and LT Caomhnoir (Guardian)). A fifth ship had been laid down in October 1939 under a contract for the Spanish navy. With their size and speed, they were ideal for conversion to escort carriers; apart from the first two, which was already too close to completion in mid-1940, they could be finished by early to mid-1942 as carriers. The decision to refit them was taken in August 1940; plans were finalized in December. All three were built by private yards, but the conversions were to be performed by Navy yards, because the private yards received mass orders for transports and escorts and were considered to lack proficiency for building carriers. This decision unfortunately delayed completion considerably, because the Navy yards also drew all repair jobs of capital ships and aircraft carriers, which naturally enjoyed top priority. The ships entered service one year behind schedule: in March 1943, June 1943 and November 1943 respectively. As Thiarian carriers were named for astronomical phenomena, LT Maor received the new name LT Ghrianghaoth (Gaelic: Solar Wind); Caomhnoir became LT Coimead (Comet) and the unnamed Spanish vessel became LT Chaor Deisceart (Aurora Australis). They were designed for an Air Group of 36 (50% more than the earlier Conocht-class), initially set at one squadron of T10C long-range fighters, one of F6C dive bombers and one of F3N torpedo bombers. Their armament was limited to light and intermediate-caliber flak, consisting of six 37mm L/70 quad mounts and eight 20mm twins. They retained most of their oil fuel capacity, giving them an operational range of 25.000 nm at 15 knots, and could double as replenishment oilers (although they were no longer able to transfer ammunition and other stores at sea); ammunition and avgas stores for their own air groups were unusually large. The same went for the island structure, which was the largest ever installed on an escort carrier by any nation. Unlike other Thiarian carriers, which counterbalanced the weight of the island by extending the amidships section of the flight deck, the Ghrianghaoths had the flight deck in its entirety shifted 1,20 meters to port of the ship's axis. While the Conocht-class carriers had received old radars removed from other ships in recent modernizations, the Ghrianghaoths were fitted with new, state of the art systems. By the time they were commissioned, four additional 20mm cannon had been added and the air groups had been changed to twelve T10C and twelve T6A fighters plus twelve F5N torpedo bombers, but that many planes proved impossible to handle properly; 28 machines proved the operational maximum, with four each of the T10C and F5N omitted from the planned air group. All three ships were identical, differing only in the patterns of their camouflage paintjobs.

LT Ghrianghaoth 1943
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Ghrianghaoth took part in the Battle of Faoigabhar in March 1943, but as her crew was still grass-green, she was barely able to defend herself from furious British air attacks and contributed nothing to the defense of the convoy she was tasked to escort. After that dismal initial performance, which she at least survived, Ghrianghaoth gave a better account of herself. She and Coimead were employed as convoy escorts and for ground support along the Brazilian coast during the second half of 1943; in 1944, they ran supply convoys to Montevideo. Their seakeeping abilities were somewhat disappointing due to the hull openings close to the waterline amidships that were retained from the original tanker design so the ships could still refuel other ships at sea. While Ghrianghaoth sported the standard four-colour camouflage scheme of the Thiarian Navy as seen above, Chaor Deisceart was painted to mimic a merchant ship from a distance, similar to Japanese camouflage practice.

LT Chaor Deisceart 1944
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Ghrianghaoth's planes accounted for four enemy submarines during the war (HMS Otus, HMS Pandora, HMS Totem and HMS Tiptoe) and Coimead's for one (HMS Tally-Ho). Both were attached to the main battlefleet for a short time in December 1944 to repulse the planned US tactical invasion in Brazil. During the preliminaries of the battle of Anfa Caolas in April 1944, they repulsed a diversionary Brazilian air strike against their convoy, downing 33 enemy planes for the loss of seven. Chaor Deisceart at first was used for training, but replaced Coimead when the latter had eight meters of bow blown off by a bomb from a Brazilian A29 during the first convoy into Montevideo after the battle of Anfa Caolas in early June 1944. Her planes failed to score against enemy submarines in the following weeks, but she and Ghrianghaoth had to repulse two more surface raids and several long range airstrikes in the vicinity of the Uruguayan coast. In both instances, the Thiarian main strike fleet, which had always been on a backup position in 1943, failed to appear, and the third British surface raid on June 22nd 1944 consisted of three battleships and three fleet aircraft carriers. Chaor Deisceart was blown up with all hands by a magazine explosion caused by three aerial torpedo hits in close vicinity to each other; the planes that accounted for her came from HMS Audacious, the British top scorer of that day. Ghrianghaoth also took two torpedo hits, in her case from Barracudas from HMS Irresistible, and sank after most of her crew could be taken off her. In a final act of defiance, Ghrianghaoth's F5N torpedo bombers scored a torpedo hit on HMS Audacious and one on the heavy cruiser HMS Surrey, the latter of which however could not prevent HMS Surrey, HMS Lancaster and the battleship HMS Africa from sinking the Thiarian heavy cruiser LT Noyalo and a dozen transports with gunfire and torpedoes. Coimead was repaired by that time, but not yet worked up; after this final disaster, the remaining Thiarian warships were kept back in the Bauaine for an expected last-ditch defense against an invasion of the Thiarian mainland. Apart from a re-organized air group (16 T6A fighters and 12 F7S dive bombers) and the addition of eight more 20mm twin mounts, no major modifications were undertaken.

LT Coimead 1944
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Like most Thiarian aircraft carriers, whose crews were hand-picked by the Uabhar Gael regime not only for their proficiency, but also for the level of their ideological indoctrination, LT Coimead refused to join the rebels when Thiaria descended into civil war. A boarding party of 200 of her crewmen belonged to the force that overwhelmed the mutineers on the moored battleship LT Tirghra in early October; 80 of them died when the desperate mutineers detonated 23 370mm shells in the forward magazine. When the vast majority of Thiaria's fleet left Noyalo anchorage the following day, Coimead remained behind, but not after 200 further crewmembers had launched all of the carrier's boats and followed the fleet. The remaining crew received orders to fire at them with 37mm and 20mm cannon, but a small group of sailors had become so disgusted with the Murchada government's actions against its own people that they opened the flood valves. The loyalists managed to beach the ship on an even keel and abandoned it. After the war, she was salvaged, ceded to the USA, and scrapped at Cathair Riordan.

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GD

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