Thiaria: Reboot

Hello again!

I apologize in advance for my over-enthusiasm, but the next design is my personal favourite, designed twenty years ago while not listening to administrative law lectures in University...

3. 35.000ts Battleships of the London Naval Treaty era

3.1. Political preliminaries
Thiaria's economy, which had experienced a recession during the mid-1920s (the 'roaring twenties' were something that happened to other people), continued to behave against the global trend; fueled (literally) by newly found oil deposits, it went into a boom phase just as much of the rest of the world plunged into the great depression. This meant they were able to spend big time just as everyone else needed to be austere. To prevent an unchecked building spree, they were invited to the London naval arms reduction conference in 1930. The result seemed like a big diplomatic victory - aircraft carriers were no longer outlawed, the 20.000ts size limit on battleships was lifted and the normal 35.000ts limit now applied, and total battleship tonnage was set to 131.250ts. The limit however fell way short of Thiaria's ambitious plan to construct a navy the same size as France's, which seemed quite feasible in the current economic situation, and was not as enthusiastically received by the military and the political right wing as might have been expected. By late 1931, the Thiarian naval bureaucracy was determined to cheat as much as possible concerning tonnage limits. The current government - a grand coalition between National Democrats (Daonlathas Naisiunta) and Labour (Lucht Oibhre) - on the other hand was equally determined not to disappoint international goodwill and imposed severe qualitative restrictions, particularly concerning gun calibre of future battleships. Early in 1932, the future composition of Thiaria's battlefleet was set at two 35.000 tonners to be built between 1933 and 1938, the two 20.000-ton Artacain-class ships and the 25.000-ton Crionna, which was to lose part of her armour and her central turret in order to bring her displacement down to the required 21.250 ts; LT Conaire was to be discarded as soon as the 35.000-tonners were completed. The Oireachtas (Parliament) insisted on strict adherence to the tonnage limits; in order to demonstrate peacefulness, main artillery caliber was not to exceed 356mm.

3.2. Conlan-Class
Preliminary studies showed that a balanced design with nine 356mm guns, adequate protection against this caliber and 30kts of speed was easily possible (although everyone knew that weights would increase as the nuts and bolts were worked out). Due to the voluntary restriction upon main caliber, construction of a heavily armed and protected slow battleship was not seriously studied; all plans were based upon a massive upscale of the Type B cruiser variant of the Artacain-class. Unfortunately, the specified 356mm guns would have to be developed from scratch, resulting in unfathomable delays. There however was a 50-caliber 340mm piece with a Krupp-style wedge breech and a firing cycle of 23 seconds already in the testing stage, having been developed for an improved Artacain-class design ordered by China in 1928 but cancelled in 1930. This piece offered a range of 36.000 meters at 35° elevation and the best heavy-caliber RoF worldwide, and the Gunnery directorate of the Thiarian Navy was just about to start development a super-heavy 720kg shell (20% heavier than the current standard shell) which would make this gun superior to all existant (and upcoming) 356mm pieces. The new 340mm piece was adopted without much of a discussion in late 1932, and the rest of the ship was designed around three triple turrets. It received a long, slim, flush-decked hull with a bow bulb and a transom stern, making this design the first battleship actually completed with such a stern. With a forward freeboard of ten meters, averaging 6,80 meters over most of the ship's length, and considerable flare at the bow, they were very good seaboats and stable gun platforms. Their superstructure arrangement with two widely spaced funnels, a pyramidal bridge structure and a heavy tripod mainmast resembled contemporary Italian cruisers, although they shared no internal design features. The machinery was a 135.000hp three-shaft upscale of the 90.000hp twin-shaft arrangement used on the Ogleidhras-class heavy cruisers currently under construction and would prove most successful, with similar engines to be fitted to all future Thiarian fleet carriers (Twin-shaft on the Realtbhuion-class, triple on the Chros Deisceart) and several cruiser designs. For the new battleships, it was arranged with maximum regard to survivability: The center shaft was served by one 45.000hp turbine set with four boilers forming a self-contained unit, while the wing shafts were coupled to two identical sets which were arranged en echelon (Starboard turbines forward, port boilers forward). Each shaft had its own rudder to minimize the effects of underwater hits in this location. On trials, the 30 knot design speed was only marginally exceeded, but the engines were not particularly forced, either; in service, the ships regularly attained 30 knots at up to 142.000 hp without significant attrition to the engines. Like all Thiarian capital ships designed after 1930, range was set at 10.000nm at 15 knots; actual fuel consumption was according to expectations. Electrical power was provided by six turbo-generators (two per main machinery unit) and four auxiliary diesel generators placed in separate compartments, one in front of the forward main machinery unit, the other between them). Leak pump capacity was 5.000 tons per hour. Protection mostly anticipated long-range gunnery duels, due to the innate suitability of these ships for raiding missions. The main belt of 310mm thickness was external and inclined 15° inward. A layer of 80mm protected the waterline forward and aft of the citatel, protecting it from anything below 152mm shells, another requirement of raiding missions where loss of speed by flooding forward could mean a mission kill. Horizontal protection was probably the strongest ever installed on a capital ship up to that time. The main armoured deck was uniformly 150mm above the citadel and topped by a 30mm upper deck that would serve to initiate bomb fuzes and de-cap shells striking at oblique angles. Forward and aft, the armoured deck was extended along the upper rim of the belt at a thickness of 45mm, with 180mm boxes over the rudder machinery. The 45mm torpedo bulkheads were 4m from the outer hull at the broadest part of the ship and built into the hull structure to save weight; the protective space was two void compartments (with the option to fill them with water for counterflooding), interchanging with two compartments filled with ebonite mousse for reserve buoyancy, mirroring French practice. The main armament consisted of three turrets mounting three individually sleeved 340mm L/50 guns each, with an elevation of 35°. The turrets were considered relatively cramped in service, and the designed RoF of 2,5 rounds per minute was not attained in practice (although 2 rounds per minute was no bad figure either). As completed, the guns fired the standard 600kg APC shell, but provisions were made to ship (and fire) the yet to be developed 720kg super-heavy shell as well; the latter were available from early 1940. Two main artillery directors were provided. In service, the gunnery of these ships was very satisfactory; long-range accuracy in particular was considered first class especially with the heavy shells due to the relatively limited muzzle velocity of 760 m/s, compared with 850 m/s for the old shell. For the secondary armament, the Thiarians followed the French lead towards DP guns, using the same caliber. Their 130mm L/45 pieces were in use on contemporary destroyers already (although only in LA mounts) and had a good reputation. They had better RoF and more carefully designed turrets than their French counterparts, with 85° elevation and higher training speeds; they were very good against ships and reasonably good against air targets. They were however still inferior to the US 127mm L/38, although they were as good as the best non-US DP guns in this category, if not better. The entire DP battery of six two-gun demi-turrets was concentrated aft in three superfiring pairs, one on the centerline and two as far outboard as possible, allowing the upper wing turrets to fire straight forward if no airplane was on the catapult. This gave the specified broadside of eight guns at very modest weight. The DP battery was served by four directors. As designed, these had blind spots about 5° to either side of the ship's axis fore and aft, which comprised the most serious design fault of these otherwise very satisfatory ships. The problem was addressed even before completion by placing two more directors of the same type right on top of the main artillery directors fore and aft, giving these ships the highest number of directors ever installed upon a warship of any nation. To keep down weight, the DP directors were entirely unprotected. The intermediate caliber flak was an all-new system mounting four fully automatic 37mm L/70 barrels in hemispherical self-contained, gas-tight quad turrets with 85° elevation, four forward in superfiring pairs and two aft. The guns were jointly developed with France and had a tremendous RoF of 180 rounds per minute, which was governed down to 150 as this was the maximum their barrels could stand. Barrel life still was only half the figure attained by US built 40mm Bofors (6.000 rounds rather than 12.000), but in exchange for that, these guns offered somewhat better range and accuracy than the Bofors. The mounts were equipped with internal hoists directly connecting them to their own magazines, ensuring a steady supply of shells and enabling them to keep up their RoF even in prolonged engagements. In service, the guns proved deadly, especially as each of it was coupled to its own director; Thiarian capital ships repeatedly repulsed intense air attacks and scored several dozen kills, over half of them with the 37mm L/70. The flak battery was completed by six quad 13mm MG mounts, two of them aft and four forward of the bridge. Their employment as raiders required torpedoes; two triple 559mm tubes were provided on the weather deck amidships. Due to the importance of scouting and long-range spotting, no less than six aircraft could be carried, four in two hangars alongside the forefunnel, and the other two on the catapults. The hangars had large shutters for ventilation and could be accessed by platforms extending to the catapult mounts; the platforms were equipped with rails upon which the airplanes could be moved to the catapults. Most of the boat complement was stowed amidships between the aviation handling platforms and served by a single heavy-lift crane attached to the mainmast. The boat complement was relatively limited; newer Thiarian ships relied on large numbers of rescue rafts in cases of distress.
Conlan, Thiaria battleship laid down 1934

Displacement:
34.308 t light; 36.222 t standard; 39.180 t normal; 41.546 t full load

Dimensions: Length (overall / waterline) x beam x draught (normal/deep)
(816,93 ft / 780,84 ft) x 101,71 ft x (31,17 / 32,62 ft)
(249,00 m / 238,00 m) x 31,00 m x (9,50 / 9,94 m)

Armament:
9 - 13,39" / 340 mm 50,0 cal guns - 1.587,33lbs / 720,00kg shells, 100 per gun
Breech loading guns in turret on barbette mounts, 1934 Model
3 x 3-gun mounts on centreline ends, majority forward
1 raised mount - superfiring
12 - 5,12" / 130 mm 45,0 cal guns - 67,62lbs / 30,67kg shells, 400 per gun
Dual purpose guns in deck and hoist mounts, 1934 Model
4 x 2-gun mounts on sides, aft evenly spread
2 raised mounts
2 x 2-gun mounts on centreline, aft evenly spread
1 raised mount
24 - 1,46" / 37,0 mm 70,0 cal guns - 1,72lbs / 0,78kg shells, 6.000 per gun
Anti-air guns in deck and hoist mounts, 1934 Model
6 x 2 row quad mounts on side ends, majority forward
2 raised mounts - superfiring
32 - 0,51" / 13,0 mm 80,0 cal guns - 0,09lbs / 0,04kg shells, 12.000 per gun
Breech loading guns in deck mounts, 1934 Model
4 x Quad mounts on sides, evenly spread
4 raised mounts
4 x Quad mounts on centreline, forward evenly spread
4 double raised mounts
Weight of broadside 15.141 lbs / 6.868 kg
Main Torpedoes
6 - 22,0" / 559 mm, 26,25 ft / 8,00 m torpedoes - 1,881 t each, 11,285 t total
In 2 sets of deck mounted side rotating tubes

Armour:
- Belts: Width (max) Length (avg) Height (avg)
Main: 12,2" / 310 mm 474,74 ft / 144,70 m 12,11 ft / 3,69 m
Ends: 3,15" / 80 mm 306,07 ft / 93,29 m 12,11 ft / 3,69 m
Main Belt covers 94% of normal length
Main Belt inclined 15,00 degrees (positive = in)

- Torpedo Bulkhead - Strengthened structural bulkheads:
1,77" / 45 mm 474,74 ft / 144,70 m 28,38 ft / 8,65 m
Beam between torpedo bulkheads 75,46 ft / 23,00 m

- Gun armour: Face (max) Other gunhouse (avg) Barbette/hoist (max)
Main: 14,6" / 370 mm 9,45" / 240 mm 13,4" / 340 mm
2nd: 1,97" / 50 mm 1,97" / 50 mm -
3rd: 1,97" / 50 mm 0,79" / 20 mm -

- Armoured deck - multiple decks:
For and Aft decks: 7,09" / 180 mm
Forecastle: 1,77" / 45 mm Quarter deck: 3,54" / 90 mm

- Conning towers: Forward 14,57" / 370 mm, Aft 0,00" / 0 mm

Machinery:
Oil fired boilers, steam turbines,
Geared drive, 3 shafts, 135.000 shp / 100.710 Kw = 30,09 kts
Range 10.000nm at 15,00 kts
Bunker at max displacement = 5.324 tons

Complement:
1.392 - 1.810

Cost:
£14,804 million / $59,215 million

Distribution of weights at normal displacement:
Armament: 2.964 tons, 7,6%
- Guns: 2.941 tons, 7,5%
- Weapons: 23 tons, 0,1%
Armour: 14.076 tons, 35,9%
- Belts: 3.454 tons, 8,8%
- Torpedo bulkhead: 883 tons, 2,3%
- Armament: 2.810 tons, 7,2%
- Armour Deck: 6.567 tons, 16,8%
- Conning Tower: 362 tons, 0,9%
Machinery: 3.884 tons, 9,9%
Hull, fittings & equipment: 13.384 tons, 34,2%
Fuel, ammunition & stores: 4.872 tons, 12,4%
Miscellaneous weights: 0 tons, 0,0%

Overall survivability and seakeeping ability:
Survivability (Non-critical penetrating hits needed to sink ship):
63.274 lbs / 28.700 Kg = 52,8 x 13,4 " / 340 mm shells or 6,9 torpedoes
Stability (Unstable if below 1.00): 1,09
Metacentric height 6,0 ft / 1,8 m
Roll period: 17,4 seconds
Steadiness - As gun platform (Average = 50 %): 70 %
- Recoil effect (Restricted arc if above 1.00): 0,73
Seaboat quality (Average = 1.00): 1,20

Hull form characteristics:
Hull has a flush deck,
a straight bulbous bow and small transom stern
Block coefficient (normal/deep): 0,554 / 0,561
Length to Beam Ratio: 7,68 : 1
'Natural speed' for length: 30,24 kts
Power going to wave formation at top speed: 52 %
Trim (Max stability = 0, Max steadiness = 100): 58
Bow angle (Positive = bow angles forward): 45,00 degrees
Stern overhang: 3,28 ft / 1,00 m
Freeboard (% = length of deck as a percentage of waterline length):
Fore end, Aft end
- Forecastle: 20,00%, 32,81 ft / 10,00 m, 25,59 ft / 7,80 m
- Forward deck: 30,00%, 25,59 ft / 7,80 m, 22,31 ft / 6,80 m
- Aft deck: 32,00%, 22,31 ft / 6,80 m, 22,31 ft / 6,80 m
- Quarter deck: 18,00%, 22,31 ft / 6,80 m, 22,97 ft / 7,00 m
- Average freeboard: 24,09 ft / 7,34 m

Ship space, strength and comments:
Space - Hull below water (magazines/engines, low = better): 85,1%
- Above water (accommodation/working, high = better): 178,1%
Waterplane Area: 57.007 Square feet or 5.296 Square metres
Displacement factor (Displacement / loading): 115%
Structure weight / hull surface area: 195 lbs/sq ft or 954 Kg/sq metre
Hull strength (Relative):
- Cross-sectional: 0,96
- Longitudinal: 1,35
- Overall: 1,00
Adequate machinery, storage, compartmentation space
Excellent accommodation and workspace room
Ship has slow, easy roll, a good, steady gun platform
Good seaboat, rides out heavy weather easily

The first ship was approved in the 1932 budget and laid down in September 1933 at the Abernenui Naval Yard. Deviating from the usual Thiarian practice of naming battleships for famous historic personalities, it received the abstract name LT Caithreim (Triumph). Construction took slightly longer than four years, and Caithreim was ready for service in February 1938.
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Her sister, funded by the same budget, was laid down in July 1934 at the Nuatearman Naval Yard and received the name LT Conlan (Endeavour). Building her took almost five years, and she was commissioned in August 1939. Caithreim was fully worked up when Thiaria entered the war in January 1940, Conlan was just completing her initial training circle. Externally, both ships were completely identical and could not be distinguished from each other even from close distances. Both battlecruisers teamed up with three modern light cruisers, and their first sortie led them to Capetown, where they forced a British convoy to scatter. They abandoned their mission when news of the defeat at Portiasc reached them; just as the task force had reached Noyalo, the British destroyed another Thiarian battleship near Tristan da Cunha. In an attempt to regain initiative, Conlan and Caithreim - together with the carrier Realtbhuion and five cruisers - engaged the British in the Battle of Daicheadach on February 18th, 1940. Outnumbered two to one on the surface and three to one in the air, nearly all Thiarian ships were hit by air strikes and fled the battlefield before superior British surface forces could crush them; miraculously, no major Thiarian ships were lost in that engagement. Conlan had to make the retreat at ten knots in order to cover the severely damaged LT Realtbhuion, which had to be towed by the heavy cruiser LT Rinnfiain. Conlan was attacked by three airstrikes, evaded two torpedoes, downed 5 Swordfish and 4 Skua airplanes, and her armoured deck stopped three 227kg bombs. Repairs took seven weeks; by the time she was back in service, the British started retreating from the South Atlantic to free assets for the upcoming Norwegian campaign. Trying to regain some of their lost morale, the remaining operational units of the Thiarian fleet sortied against the last remaining British battlegroup in early June and completely destroyed it in the battle of Poncportan on June 6th. Carrier planes from LT Stiodiaca torpedoed the battlecruiser HMS Howe twice amidships, causing a visible list and a reduction of speed to 20 knots, but the damage was not lethal. It however ensured that Howe could not evade when Conlan and Caithreim dashed in and pummeled her with their new 720kg APC shells. Conlan soon switched targets to the heavy cruiser HMS Essex and quickly sunk her; Caithreim hit HMS Howe twenty-six times, receiving seven hits in return before Howe finally had to cease firing due to excessive list after receiving three penetrating hits into her forward hull at waterline level. She rolled over and sank fifteen minutes after firing her last shot; of her crew of 1.400, the Thiarians salvaged 550. This battle restored Thiarian morale with a single stroke; no RN surface battlegroup remained in the South Atlantic. For the rest of 1940, the Thiarians rebuilt their force and tried to disrupt British shipping around the cape, but having just escaped total annihilation made the Thiarian high command act overly cautious at first, repeatedly abandoning raids upon a single periscope sighting and endangering the freshly gained confidence of the fleet. Twice, the Thiarians exchanged fire with fleet units from Recherche, but since the Rechercheans could use nearby British bases and the Thiarians were thousands of miles away from theirs, they never pressed for a decisive engagement. During this time, Conlan and Caithreim were fitted with air search radars and main artillery fire control radars. It took the high command till December to become as confident as the fleet's crews already were. The very first raid they pushed through promptly caught a convoy south of Madagaskar, sinking nine merchants (Conlan and Caithreim each being credited for two) and one light cruiser. Few people knew that this relative inactivity at a time when even slight losses might have crippled Britain's war effort was probably decisive for the whole war. When the Thiarians finally became more active, their grandiose pre-war plans for conquering South Africa were permanently shelved, and their focus shifted to the re-conquest of New Portugal. Conlan and Caithreim were at the head of the invasion force, which was met by the bulk of Brazil's fleet in the epic battle of Cairnmallacht on March 6th, 1941. Executing their operational doctrine to perfection, the Thiarian carriers performed a softening-up strike before the battlefleet engaged; Brazil's sole carrier was already sinking before the surface action began. Brazil's strongest battleship Riachuelo limped away, covered by the still undamaged small battleship Niteroi and her sister ship Sao Jorge da Mina, which had taken a single torpedo that had flooded her aft main artillery magazines. In a fit of suicidal courage, the skipper of Sao Jorge da Mina charged both Thiarian battlecruisers and had his ship shot up beyond all recognition (14 hits by Conlan, nine by Caithreim). Sao Jorge da Mina's sturdy, English built hull still refused to sink and had to be finished off by the destroyers LT Neartmhar and Neamhbashmhar with six additional torpedoes. She had bought her sister enough time to escape; although LT Caithreim chased her for six hours and scored eight hits on her, she had to break off eventually when she was hit by a land-based Brazilian air strike, which however failed to do significant damage. Conlan added another heavy cruiser to her tally, sinking the Almirante Barrozo with gunfire. After this resounding victory, Conlan and Caithreim continued to screen Thiaria's carriers during operations around New Portugal until the archiple was eventually secured in early May. In early June, the Thiarian fleet crossed the equator in force for the first time, hunting a British convoy; they retreated without engaging their prey when the Brazilian submarine Tamoyo torpedoed Conlan with a single fish. The damage was slight, but while Conlan was under repair, Thiaria plunged into internal turmoil after Germany's attack on the Soviet Union and the subsequent rupture of the nationalist-communist government. The fleet was racked by unrest and several mutinies and paralyzed for several months; both battlecruisers with their crews of over 1.700 were fertile ground for communist agitation and had their crews purged by several hundred suspects each, adversely affecting the previously very high performance level. The Brazilians took some time to realize what kind of trouble their enemies were in, but then they took heart again. Unfortunately, by then it was too late already. When they sortied in strength late in 1941, the Thiarians had restored discipline and met them with overwhelming force in the Battle of Punta del Diablo. Although no surface action took place, planes from the Thiarian carriers - screened by Conlan and Caithreim - sunk two Brazilian light cruisers and damaged the sole remaining Brazilian Battleship Niteroi so badly it needed nearly a year to be repaired. Soon after this battle, Thiaria's land offensive against Brazil commenced, and the fleet was busy covering the Army's sea flank and providing air and artillery support. Conlan and Caithreim were not assigned to shore bombardment, but kept well offshore to cover the carriers against unpleasant surprises. Raiding into the Indian Ocean was delegated to cruisers during this time. As the battlecruisers had been nearly continuously in service since the first day of the war, first Caithreim and then Conlan were recalled for two months each for refurbishment and modernization. They swapped their 13mm AAMGs for 20mm twins and doubled the number of light AA mounts. The AA directors now also received fire-control radars, and surface search radars, HF/DF and jamming gear was added. Both were back in service in late June. By that time, the land offensive had scored a crushing success, and Thiaria was on the verge of knocking Brazil out of the war. In July, another major raid against Capetown was staged. Thiaria's carrier planes struck Capetown in force on August 2nd and laid waste to the port area; both battlecruisers belonged to the screening force. For this raid, Conlan was experimentally painted blue all over.
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This disaster prompted Churchill to dispatch all available forces to the South Atlantic in order to prevent more strikes against Britain's vitally important shipping around the Cape. They were temporarily replaced by US forces in the North Atlantic. Meanwhile, the Thiarians pressed on; within a month, they were again out in force to chase a British convoy south of the cape. On Seprember 6th, they were intercepted by three British carriers plus screening forces - including several ships from Recherche - in the Battle of Meanchiorcal; the British sunk the Thiarian carrier Antartach and the heavy cruiser Rinnfiain and damaged the other carrier. After this victory, whose prime importance was showing the Brazilian they still had powerful friends, the British fleet retreated as quickly as it had come, because it was direly needed elsewhere. The Thiarians, having learned that the US had helped out in the North Atlantic, decided to mount a daring mission against US shipping at a place considered safe, so the US would have to deploy significant naval forces there and could not again aid the British in the same way. This strategic objective was to be attained by a task force level raid against the Gulf of Panama, utilizing Peruvian flagged merchants in possession of a Thiarian company for resupply in the eastern Pacific. This raid is covered in detail in the section about the carrier LT Realtbhuion above. While the task force was away, LT Caithreim and two light cruisers repeatedly probed into the Indian Ocean to distract the British and Rechercheans from the fact that the most valuable units of the Thiarian fleet were half a hemisphere away. During one of these forays on November 22nd, 1942, Caithreim and her escorts intercepted a British convoy of 21 merchants under heavy protection. Despite valiant resistance, the convoy was annihilated together with both its British-Recherchean escort force. Only seven merchants escaped. During this battle, Malta fell to the Axis and the central Mediterranean was closed to the Allies; it was arguably the utter nadir of Britain's war record. The Cape route now assumed even more crucial importance, and the Allies were forced to deploy more ships to the South Atlantic rather than fewer. Thus the effect of the Panama raid was for all practical purposes reversed. The Thiarians on the other hand received major reinforcements as well; in March 1943, their battleship fleet was in its best-ever shape, with both Caithreim-class battlecruisers and both of the new Athartha-class battleships fully operational. An attempt to bring this force to bear by launching a tactical invasion behind Brazilian lines resulted in the Battle of Faoigabhar, the biggest fleet action of the second world war in the Atlantic, which is also covered in detail in the section about the Realtbhuion-class carriers. Although the Thiarians could not prevent the destruction of their amphibious transports, they wreaked bloody vengeance upon the British. Conlan was credited with finishing off the crippled carrier HMS Renown, while Caithreim heavily damaged the battlecruiser HMS Anson, which escaped. Although the main fleet returned triumphant, having chased the Royal Navy off the battlefield without significant losses, the destruction of the amphibious fleet turned the battle into a strategic defeat for Thiaria of the first magnitude. The British replaced their losses and were soon back, reinforced by a large number of free French ships after the successful invasion of North Africa in May 1943, and they repeatedly struck New Portugal. The archiple was now also in range of Liberator bombers based in Brazil, escorted by Lightnings, which subjected Thiaria's air assets on the archiple to steady attrition. Resupplying the archiple, which was of crucial strategic value as it covered the route between Thiaria and Montevideo with land-based air, now became the focus of Thiarian fleet operations; the regular supply convoys usually were escorted by the entire fleet. If only one convoy failed to come through, the archiple was in danger of invasion, because every drop of aviation fuel had to be transported there from Thiaria. Several British sorties to intercept convoys to New Portugal were abandoned when the Thiarian main fleet turned up; they never caught the Thiarians in the narrow area where land-based fighters from Thiaria or New Portugal could not range. Attacking them against land-based air support would have been suicidal, as an action fought on September 17th, 1943, amply proved, when Thiarian land-based aircraft destroyed the free French carrier D'Estaing (just transferred from the USA) out of a powerful allied task force. During the turning back of the US invasion attempt behind Thiarian lines in Southern Brazil in December 1943, both ships escorted the Thiarian carriers, and Conlan was hit by two bombs from British carrier planes, which could however be repaired quickly. After a final respite during the southern hemispheric summer of 1944, a powerful invasion force for New Portugal had been assembled; all they needed was one fuel convoy to New Portugal killed or at least delayed. On April 20th, 1944, the Allies finally got this opportunity. They sent a convincingly powerful task force centered around three US and two Brazilian battleships and two US and one Brazilian carrier towards the River Plate in order to intercept a supply convoy to Montevideo. The Thiarians could not afford to ignore this threat and sent their entire fleet - four battleships and three fleet aircraft carriers. At this time, Conlan and Caithreim had been further modified with additional 20mm guns and electronics and communications gear; Caithreim alone had also landed her torpedo tubes and received two additional 37mm quads, bringing the total number to 32.
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The Battle of Anfa Caolas continued Thiaria's history of flawed victories: Their carrier planes sunk the Brazilian carrier Patria and set the huge US carrier Constellation ablaze, forcing it to retreat, covered by the Brazilian battleship Niteroi. As the other Brazilian battleship Aquidaban, which had covered the rescue of Patria's crew, tried to catch up, the Americans met the Thiarians all by themselves. While Thiaria's most powerful battleships Athartha and Tirghra concentrated on USS Iowa, Conlan and Caithreim engaged two US battlecruisers, with Caithreim taking on USS President and Conlan USS Congress. Caithreim quickly dispatched her enemy, hitting her 21 times in less than an hour and rendering her in a sinking condition with little in return, but USS Congress - hugely inferior on paper - gave Conlan a severe fight and traded hits on an equal footing. Both ships hit each other seven times, with Conlan's superior protection making the difference. But as both ships battered each other, Caithreim headed for USS Iowa to support the badly damaged Tirghra, leaving Conlan alone when Aquidaban eventually caught up. The Brazilians shot surprisingly well and inflicted ten hits on Conlan, as USS Congress fell back; Aquidaban's modernized protection proved capable of defeating most of Conlan's eight return hits. The tenth hit on Conlan was actually a near miss and disabled her port shaft; the battlecruiser was slowed down to 20 knots and started to list. USS Congress closed in again and joined Aquidaban in the final canonade, between them dealing another 14 hits to Conlan. The Thiarians eventually had to abandon her as she threatened to capsize; over 1.000 of her crew of 1.800 could be rescued by the enemy. Aquidaban and Congress then took heel; Caithreim and the two larger battleships had sunk Iowa by that time, but could not pursue due to Tirghra's critical condition. Although the Thiarians had given better than they received in the last and largest surface gunnery action in the western hemisphere during the war, their fleet - their carriers in particular - were severely battered and utterly depleted, and there was no way they could bring the next supply convoy to New Portugal in time. A few days later, avgas reserves on New Portugal became critically low, and the Allies struck, eventually conquering the archiple after several weeks of intense fighting. Afterwards, the focus of Thiarian fleet operations shifted to ensuring a steady flow of supplies to their forces in Brazil, which now - deprived of their ability to outflank the enemy at sea - were locked in a battle of attrition against a Brazilian Army which had been reinforced by substantial heavily mechanized US forces. The remaining units of the fast battlefleet - now down to two battleships (Tirghra would need a year's worth of repairs), two carriers and three heavy cruisers - were only used as distant cover for Montevideo convoys; there were no more offensive sorties, as the Thiarians now had to expect an invasion of their homeland sooner or later. Repeated sorties of the Thiarian battlefleet repulsed major allied surface raids for some time, but when the raid warning came a few hours too late, the close escort of the second convoy of June 1944 was hit by the British with overwhelming force and mostly destroyed, along with the convoy. The distant cover could only pick up the survivors. When the Thiarians mounted a last-ditch sortie to repulse a strong fleet consisting of an unlikely mix of Free French and Recherchean vessels trying to get into striking range of Thiaria's oil fields in Tir Nimniuil, Caithreim's crew was already in unrest and her CO refused to join the fleet. When Thiaria plunged into civil war, most of the fleet initially remained loyal to the government; the crew of Caithreim however was unwilling to fire at the battleship LT Conaire, which went over to the rebels on August 31st. Caithreim's commander, himself disillusioned about the Murchada government and fearing mutiny if he ordered his crew to fire at their own comrades, did not force the issue despite his orders. He was cashiered forthwith and court-martialled for insubordination; he was shot on September 12th and replaced with a political fanatic. As the old captain had been popular with his crew, his successor failed to restore discipline. When the caretaker crew of the unrepaired LT Tirghra mutined in early October, he ordered boarding parties to be formed, but fell victim to an accident on the second day of the mutiny (no one ever explained how he managed to get stuck in a watertight door just at the moment it closed because of a malfunction). On October 11th, his second-in-command gave the order to follow the flagship LT Athartha to Trionaid, joining the rebels. There the fleet surrendered to the British on November 30th. The new Thiarian Taoirseach (Prime Minister) Conaola remained in office after the armistice; to strenghten his position with the Allies and prove that he could be trusted, he offered as many warships as were still seaworthy to aid the Allies against Japan and Koko. The crews of the aircraft carriers, which for the most part had remained loyal to the nationalist government to the bitter end, were mostly interned, and new crews could not be trained on short notice; the crews of most major surface combatants could however be considered sufficiently reliable. After a purge of remaining fascist elements, a force of two battleships, two heavy cruisers, three light cruisers and twelve destroyers was assembled. In order to stiffen her air defence against the Japanese, her 20mm twins were replaced with additional 37mm guns in navalized army single mounts; 36 of these were mounted, bringing the 37mm gun total to 68. US supplied IFF was fitted, and the ship received an American style paintjob.
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The Thiarian squadron arrived at Hawaii in April 1945 and joined a huge US fleet heading towards the Marianas. They were attached to TG 38.2 (Adm Bogan), who was quite unhappy about having to rely on the ships which had messily sunk USS Iowa one year before as his primary escorts. They took part in the Battle of the Marianas, where the US for the first time had to face a new generation of japanese carrier airplanes (most notably the A7M and the B7A), which gave an excellent account of themselves and managed to fend off massive air and submarine attacks by the numerically hugely superior Americans. The Japanese-Kokoan fleet of eight carriers plus escorts - ironically using Thiarian designed centimeter-wave radars and Sonars to good effect - managed to escape after losing two carriers (Taiho and Katsuragi), having destroyed over 250 US planes for a loss of 180. The Thiarians remained with Bogan's force for the following operations against the Philippines. The Americans mustered fourteen large and six light fleet carriers and no less than 26 escort carriers versus seven fast and eight slow Japanese and Kokoan carriers, giving a numerical edge of 3:1 in carriers and nearly 5:1 in planes. Japanese land-based air in the Philippines evened the numerical balance, but most of these planes were outdated and not much use. As US submarines had significantly weakened the enemy carrier fleet, the Americans considered the invasion feasible. In mid-October, TF 38.2 consisted of the fleet carriers USS Intrepid, Antietam, Boxer and Cowpens, the battleship USS Alabama, the battlecruiser USS Guam, the heavy cruisers USS Bremerton and Saint Paul, the light cruisers USS Santa Fe, Providence and San Juan - and the Thiarian squadron. Many of the US ships were brand-new and their crews still green; the Thiarian crews were actually the most seasoned veterans in the whole US fleet. During the battle in the Leyte Gulf, four of five Task Groups of the TF 38 went chasing Ozawa's carrier fleet, with only TG 38.2 remaining in place to guard the San Bernadino Street. When Admiral Kurita's massive surface fleet of eight Japanese and Kokoan battleships and ten heavy cruisers steamed right through that street, preceded by a huge attack of land-based Japanese planes, only TG 38.2 and ten escort carriers were in range to protect the amphibious transports. The Japanese enjoyed local numerical air superiority of 2:1, and despite horrible losses, they pinned down the US carrier air groups just long enough for Kurita to bring his battleships into range; to make things worse, a flight of P1Ys penetrated US defenses and torpedoed USS Boxer four times, rendering her in a sinking condition. Kurita's ships swept through the US escort carriers and sank five of them. Three alone fell victim to the heavy cruiser Yoshino. Then the majority of Kurita's ships charged the transport fleet. Bogan's pilots finally brought a major air strike through and sunk Musashi and two heavy cruisers, but it was not enough, and he had to commit his heavies. LT Caithreim engaged Nagato and quickly scored six hits, receiving three in return; her skipper then realized that the japanese battlecruisers Owari and Kongo, which had skillfully maneuvered clear of any direct adversaries, were making for the transports at top speed. Still under Nagato's fire, he turned to pursue, whilst the Thiarian flagship LT Athartha single-handedly engaged Nagato and the Kokoan flagship Nakamori in order to cover Caithreim's back, which was hit three more times by Nagato. Four Thiarian destroyers charged Nakamori for a torpedo attack, losing three of their number, but putting three japanese-designed oxygene-powered torpedoes into her and forcing her to disengage, thus saving Athartha's butt after having received sixteen 406mm hits and looking quite bashed up. Nagato let her escape in order to aid the Kokoan Nagashiro against USS Alabama; between them, they destroyed USS Alabama in a lenghty canonade. LT Caithreim kept pursuing Owari and Kongo and scored three hits on Kongo at extreme distance while both Japanese ships were busy sinking the heavy cruiser St.Paul and finishing off USS Boxer. All the while, Bogan's carriers were frantically trying to hit the Japanese main fleet again. They US amphibious transports were just coming into Japanese gunnery range when Caithreim had bracketed Kongo and put her out of action with thirteen hits in quick succession; she sank two hours later. Owari then turned to engage Caithreim, letting go of the transports. During the lengthy long-range duel, Caithreim gave more than she received, although the fight remained indecisive. When Bogans fleet carriers finally struck, Owari was bombed thrice and eventually sunk. The damaged Caithreim escorted the even more heavily damaged Athartha back to Ulithi. TG 38.2 was out of commission, with Boxer, Guam, Alabama, Saint Paul, San Juan and the Thiarian light cruiser LT Fulaingt lost; but without Caithreim's charge of two enemy battlecruisers, Atharta's simultaneous engagement of Nagato and Nakamori and the sacrifice of three Thiarian destroyers, it would have failed in its primary mission to protect the amphibious transports, which were on a silver plate for Owari and Kongo. After this battle, the Thiarian task group was in urgent need of repairs and did not rejoin the allied fleet until the battle of Okinawa, where she teamed up with the Kokoan battlecruiser Konishi which had meanwhile switched sides. They were among the available capital ships to engage the japanese task force during Operation Ten-Go, but the Japanese were caught by US Air power and a brush with Yamato was avoided. LT Caithreim was then present in Tokyo Bay for the Japanese surrender as the only ex-Axis ship, on Admiral Halsey's insistence due to her role in the Battle in the Leyte Gulf. The Thiarian task force returned home in December 1946 and was immediately decommissioned, awaiting disposal. In the peace treaty of 1948, Caithreim was awarded to the Soviet Union as a prize. She reached Arkhangelsk early in 1949 and was commissioned into the Soviet Northern Fleet late in that year under the name Arkhangelsk. The Soviets needed some time to get acquainted to this ship, which was considerably more advanced than anything in their inventory, and she was first seen in the open ocean in 1951, still in the same state she had been when handed over. In 1953, she represented the Soviet Union at Queen Elizabeth's coronation fleet review off Spithead. By that time, aviation facilities and all 37mm singles had been removed.
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After several additional flag-showing cruises, Khrushchev, who believed that all non-nuclear weapon systems were a waste of resources, ordered her placed in reserve in 1957. Arkhangelsk spent four years inactive at Arkhangelsk, but was hastily reactivated during the Cuban crisis; she received a total machinery overhaul, a completely new radar and communications suite, Soviet fully automatic 57mm twins in lieu of her 37mm quads, new DP and AA fire control, and a helipad. When she was completed, the Cuban crisis was history for over a year, and she went straight back into mothballs in 1964 after a single cruise that involved a visit in West Germany.
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Although Khrushchev was unseated in 1964, his successors were no more interested in capital ships than he had been, and Arkhangelsk was finally stricken in 1969 without having been reactivated ever again. She was slated for scrapping, but Brezhnev had the idea of cementing the freshly forged alliance with Thiaria's communist leadership by giving them back the ship as a gesture of goodwill. Arkhangelsk made the voyage from Murmansk to Noyalo under her own power late in 1972. As the ship represented a period of Thiarian history the leftist government not really appreciated, they did not want to exhibit her as a memorial, and re-commissioning her was clearly not in the budget. Arkhangelsk (she was not even renamed) was moored to a remote pier in Cathair Riordan for two years, awaiting disposal. Then the leftist government fell in 1974, and a national-liberal government attained power. All of a sudden, the ship - she was, after all, the most successful capital ship of her era, having fought on both sides of the second world war and scored two kills (USS Congress and IJN Kongo) and two assists (HMS Howe and the Brazilian Sao Jorge da Mina) - was again considered a national icon and put on display in Thiaria's largest maritime museum at Nuatearman. She was even placed on the Navy's emergency reserve list, from which she was not struck before 1992. She remains preserved at Nuatearman, having been repainted in a WWII-style camouflage scheme. Over the years, she featured in about a dozen movies, some of which show her moving under her own power and firing her heavy guns, both of which she is reportedly still capable of.

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