Shipbucket

that makes sense. keep in mind though, while she might physically fit, if I read your post correctly, the cruiser was only 8000 tons. the dutch eendracht CLG carried only 2 RSR with a total of 40 missiles, with an displacement of 10000+ tons. 60 missiles thus might be somewhat optimistic, and it might be useful to keep the topweight low and place the launcher low in the ship. that said, this setup looks doable, although I am really uncertain if you can fit the lower RSR. on most vessels, the GMLS did not protrude very far below the waterline, so I keep this as an guideline for my designs as well.

anyways, even for you not being an expert on cold war systems, you did quite an good job, and feel free to ask if you need ideas, guidance or help getting more coldwar ships to life

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Thank you for the infp on the British cruisers I was unaware of it. None of the reading and picture viewing I have done has shown that with asdic and asw armament, I stand corrected, and apologise for that part of my post.

I am surprised that the Thiarian Navy is only given the two cruisers after half the Navy vessels move on to the Pacific war to fight the Jap-Koko forces. I have been waiting for the "Super" cruisers you referred to in a previous post, as those are the ships I would have expected to survive to post-war.

Hello again!

@ace: according to the accompanying text, they had nearly 9.000 tons; I figured that should be enough for Terrier. Maybe there was not enough belowdeck space for bigger magazines on the Dutch cruisers; the magazines they use are a deck lower to begin with. But that's just speculation.

@Krakatoa: After two wars on the wrong side, no way the Thiarians would be allowed to keep anything larger than a light cruiser in the 1948 peace. Four 13.500-tonners will come, but these will become allied prizes.

Now to something completely different:

3.4. Coire-Class
With Oirirceas and Ardcheim, Thiaria had used up all the cruiser tonnage allotted to her in the 1930 LNT. If any more cruisers were to be acquired, some trickery was required. One obvious solution was building ships which were in fact cruisers, but disguised as another category of warship. The Thiarian navy had always placed emphasis on offensive mine warfare, so they decided to create a fast minelayer which could double as a destroyer leader if needed. As the LNT designated every vessel with 140mm guns as cruisers, they needed a smaller calibre; fortunately, a very capable 130mm/45 piece was available, for which a fully enclosed twin DP mount was under development since 1932 for the Conlan-class battlecruisers. In 1934, a design was prepared which carried four 130mm twin DP mounts, superimposed fore and aft, and four of the new 37mm quad AA mounts then under development, two on either beam. Eight quad mounts for 13mm machineguns completed the armament. Rails for 300 mines were provided on quarterdeck level; mine rails extended over 60% of the hull length, and the mines were discharged aft. A long, sleek flush-decked hull of 5.800 tons standard displacement was built around a 96.000 hp engine plant, which would provide 35 knots of design speed, essential for an offensive minelayer which would regularly need to leave its area of operations in one big hurry. Unusually for Thiarian ships, the engines powered four shafts. Range was set at 7.000 miles at 15 knots. Aerial scouting capability was provided by a single catapult and one scoutplane. Armour protection was radically changed compared to earlier Thiarian cruisers; these vessels were the first without a vertical belt since 1912. Instead, they were fitted with a 40mm armoured deck above the vitals plus armoured boxes of 90mm vertical strength around the magazines and steering gear. The Machinery, consisting of two standard destroyer-type plants, had only 20mm splinter protection, but good internal subdivision (four autonomous units of one turbine and two boiler rooms per unit arranged en echelon, with the uptakes of two units trunked into a single funnel and all units divided by void spaces; auxiliary machinery had separate compartments). The superstructure, mast and funnel arrangement intentionally bore a certain resemblance to contemporary British and Recherchean light cruisers from a distance, the main difference being the superimposed turrets aft and the longer quarterdeck. Finding the right stern shape for minimum turbulence required some experimentation, and it took the Thiarians till mid-1935 to perfect the design. Construction of two ships was funded under the 1935 estimates, although this decision met severe criticism. For a fast minelayer, these ships seemed awfully large, complex and expensive; for a full-fledged cruiser, they seemed awfully poorly armed and protected (they were larger and visibly longer than Britain's Arethusa-class, but carried smaller main guns, no intermediate artillery, and much less armour). But construction was approved anyway; real cruisers were politically not feasible at that time, and these ships were all that could be done. Both contracts went to the same yard, CTS at Abernenui, which had guaranteed completion within 36 months. Both were laid down in 1936 and named LT Coire (Gaelic: Justice) and LT Comhcheangal (Gaelic: Alliance). Soon after they had been laid down, the second LNT eliminated numerical restrictions to the light cruiser fleets of the signatories, and the whole idea behind the design became invalid. Many in Thiaria believed it would be best to axe them in favour of additional Oirirceas-class units. The Thiarian govenment however decided to keep them with a kind of persistence unusual for such an unpopular project. That bribes by the CTS yard were involved was not revealed prior to 1939, placing procurement of these vessels into a string of rotten deals struck in the late 1930s by Thiaria's last pre-war conservative-liberal government (another notable one was the purchase of 200 AMC-35 tanks from Renault). The Navy decided against additional Oirirceas-class vessels in 1937; if any additional 'real' cruisers were to be built, they would have to be a new generation of heavy cruisers matching the performance of the best foreign designs, and these were yet in the design stage and could not be laid down before mid-1938. So Coire and Comhcheangal were built, although not as quickly as promised because other projects were prioritized, and in the end were above budget by nearly 100%. Coire was completed in June 1940 and Comhcheangal in October; both had the longest building periods of all Thiarian interwar cruisers. At the time of their completion - they were the first Thiarian cruisers to be painted blue all over for minimum visibility from the air - they looked like this:



Trials and workup were conducted with utmost haste; only Coire performed a maximum power run, where she made 37.7 knots at nearly 110.000 hp. Continuous sea speed was 32.5 knots, an excellent figure which made them well suited to co-operate with destroyers. With radar systems still in short supply, these ships did not receive any prior to late 1941. Neither took part in the disastrous battles against the British in early 1940. With Thiaria's cruiser fleet decimated, both were pressed into fleet service, where their good AA fit was of some value; during all of 1940, neither embarked as much as a single mine. Coire took part in three raids against the Cape route in 1940, Comhcheangal only in the last one, which was very successful; Coire sank a British sloop and a merchant with gunfire. Early in 1941, in preparation for the attack against Brazil, they finally embarked some mines and made several nightly trips into Brazilian territorial waters to deny some smaller southern Brazilian ports to the enemy. During the invasion proper, they reverted to fast carrier escorts; they did not make contact with enemy forces, but Coire shot down three land-based Brazilian airplanes just prior to the battle of Cairnmallacht. When New Portugal was secured, both were taken in hand for installation of a full radar suite; they also swapped their 32 13mm machineguns with 16 20mm cannon, and added eight more in single mounts. The refit, scheduled to last six weeks per ship, dragged out for most of the rest of the year due to the anti-communist purges in the third quarter of 1941. Both took till December 1941 to return to the fleet. Comhcheangal looked like this in her blue-black camouflage for night operations:



Comhcheangal was dispatched for another high-risk mining mission towards Capetown under cover of a severe summer storm in January 1942; she managed to escape undetected, but her drifting minefield was too dispersed and failed to catch any prey. Coire went on a similar mission a month later, but this time, the Recherchean cruiser Condringup was waiting for her and hit her fifteen times with 152mm shells while she ran for home at 37 knots after having jettisoned her mine load. Coire could shake off the Rechercheans, but her engines failed 180 miles out of port and rendered her adrift. Condringup, already en route back to Capetown, picked up a coded distress call and reversed course, but a Thiarian submarine patrolling the area attacked her with torpedoes. Condringup evaded them, but her skipper believed he was heading into a submarine trap and retreated. Coire was eventually towed to safety by the destroyer LT Ropanta. Her superstructure and engines were badly damaged, and repairs took nine months. The episode had clearly proven that offensive mining operations by surface ships were very much a thing of the pre-radar age, and would remain the last such sortie for the Thiarian minelayer fleet. Comhcheangal was assigned to the carrier strike force during the first half of 1942, alternately covering the carriers against land-based air attacks during their support of Army operations in Brazil or being kept in reserve in New Portugal. In August, she accompanied a major raid against Capetown; her boats landed a party of commandoes that blew up a British ground radar station and enabled other Thiarian cruisers to steam close enough to the coast to bombard a British airfield. In the battle of Meanhchiorcal, Comhcheangal was not damaged; she shot down six airplanes and evaded an aerial torpedo. As she was judged too short-legged for the Panama Raid, Comhcheangal was assigned convoy escort duty between Thiaria and Montevideo during that time. On November 22nd, 1942, she accompanied three larger Thiarian cruisers during an engagement with inferior Brazilian forces, and damaged a Brazilian destroyer with gunfire. Due to the decision not to risk large surface minelayers on offensive mining missions any more, Coire had her mine rails removed during her repairs. Part of her side plating was removed to install two quad torpedo launchers, and she received Asdic, Hydrophones, two DC racks and two DC throwers on the cut-down stern for use as a destroyer leader; with her four-shaft engine plant, she had the necessary maneuverability for that task. The 37mm directors were also finally fitted with radar. When she returned to service in November 1942, she looked like this:



Comhcheangal received a simliar refit in January and February 1943, but her stern was not cut down because Coire's tended to cut under at certain speeds, rendering the ASW weaponry useless. She also did not receive K-guns, and her depth charges were stowed on the former mine rails. Both re-joined the carrier strike force after the return of the Panama raid task force. During the Battle of Faoigabhar in May 1943, Coire and Comhcheangal each led a destroyer squadron and were involved in some vicious infights with allied light forces. Neither scored a kill (although their destroyer squadrons did), and Coire was damaged by the Free French destroyers Audacieux and Fantasque with nine 138mm hits in the initial phase of the battle. She was rescued by the new heavy cruiser Caitriona, which sank Audacieux with gunfire. Comhcheangal stayed close to the Thiarian carriers and did not engage enemy surface forces. Despite their heavy losses, the British now had enough forces available to keep up the pressure, and Coire and Comhcheangal were frequently employed as escort flagships for troop and supply convoys between Thiaria and the South American mainland. Coire came twice under air attack by British raiding forces in the second half of 1943, Comhcheangal thrice; both were twice attacked by enemy submarines as well. One submarine attack resulted in Coire's loss in December 1943 to three torpedo hits from HM Submarine Tradewind. Comhcheangal at that time was under refit, receiving modernized radars and eight more 20mm guns (swapping the single mounts with twins); she re-entered service in January 1944, looking like this:



Assigned to convoy escort duty, she was at sea during the battle of Anfa Caolas, but belonged to the close cover group of the convoy the Allies were attacking, and made it safely to Montevideo. Though victorious, the Thiarians were decisively weakened and not able to deploy a fleet against the allied invasion of New Portugal, which eventually was launched less than two weeks later. With land-based air cover from New Portugal no longer available, supply convoys to Monteviedo to keep the Thiarian army in Brazil in business became more and more hazardous, and on June 22nd, a strong British fleet nearly annihilated a particularly large Thiarian convoy. Three escort carriers and many transports were lost, and Comhcheangal was damaged by two 250kg bomb hits. Although the damage was initially judged to be not very severe, she ran into bad weather, suffered additional storm damage and reached Montevideo with her bow totally awash. She received emergency repairs there, but could not be declared seaworthy before the Thiarian army in Uruguay surrendered to the US on October 4th. As the Thiarian forces in Uruguay were interned, Comhcheangal was seized by US forces. She was not beyond economic repair - a well equipped dockyard could have brought her back on line within six weeks - but considered a constructive total loss anyway by the Americans and not handed over to the co-belligerent Thiarian forces. She remained moored some kilometers into the River Plate for three years until her fate was decided in the peace treaty of 1948. She was ceded to Brazil as a reparation, but by that time, she was a hopeless case. She was towed to Rio de Janeiro, surveyed, declared structurally unsound, and scrapped in 1950.

Greetings
GD

Another masterful drawing of a quite unique warship concept. It's always interesting to follow this thread.

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A couple of questions and points. The drawings are very good.

"Coire went on a similar mission a month later, but this time, the Recherchean cruiser Condringup was waiting for her and hit her fifteen times with 152mm shells while she ran for home at 37 knots."

If the ship was caught with its mines still aboard and hit fifteen times with 6" shells I would think Coire would most likely vaporise.

With the 130mm, are these full DP Turrets with shell handling rooms, ammunition shafts, below the turrets? I ask as the 'X & Y' mounting would impact into the mine deck and make mine handling almost impossible. Any mines forward of the turret would be very slow in handling.

When I tried a similar design in the Fisherless RN I was told that the twin 4" had been the guns of choice because they did not impact on the mine deck in the 'Abdiel' layout.

I know this is the UK 5.25", but it does show deck penetration that needs to be taken into account with minelayers.



I did not quite take in about the second aircraft "Another one could be stored in a cargo bay below the catapult in a disassembled state." which has to be forward of the catapult deck mounting. From what I can see your crane does not reach that area. It barely reaches the point the aircraft can be lifted onto the catapult. It would need to raise the crane arm to reach above the aircraft. Your crane may need an extra couple of metres of reach to service the aircraft that is there. Another think on the second aircraft might be an idea too. Plenty of ships had only one aircraft and catapult. You also need to think about mine handling equipment. A second set of small 'mine derricks' at main deck level below X turret would help speed up the loading of mines as you have a long mine deck. Which was my other question how far up the ships hull does the mine deck extend? Past the catapult where you want to store your second aircraft in CKD (where your portholes end)?

Again, these are wonderful looking ships.
The turret hoists might not be too much of an issue depending on how the minerails are laid out.

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A fantastic set of ships yet again!

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Hello again!

@ Krakatoa: What second airplane? Did I EVER mention a second airplane anywhere in the text?? What complete buffoon would place the hold for such an airplane at exactly the spot where the air intakes for the forward boilers are located? You think I am mad???

You'd be right. Sheer mindlessness on my part. There's no space whatsoever for such a cargo hold. As for the battle with Condringup: Mines were jettisoned first. I shouldn't write such stories while lying in bed with acute bronchitis.

As for the aft turrets, that one I thought through. I have a top-down of HMS Abdiel's mine deck in Friedman's book on British cruisers, which gives the aft mine-handling area a length of 32 meters. On Coire, its 28 meters from the aftermost barbette to the stern, not much less; besides, she's 3,6 meters beamier. The mine rails extend to the end of upper row of the scuttles, and another crane would really be a good idea. Will follow soon.

Greetings
GD

Excellent work with these!

4. Post treaty cruisers

4.1. Aigean
By 1921, Brazil had taken delivery of the super-dreadnoughts Riachuelo and Aquidaban. Their purpose was to keep at bay what was left of Thiaria's fleet, but collaterally, they also established a dominant position of the Brazilian navy towards Argentina, whose own dreadnoughts were now quite outclassed by their powerful Brazilian neighbours. For the next ten years, little could be done, because the WNT also contained a non-proliferation clause for capital ships; when the loopholes were opened with the LNT of 1930, the first nation to make use of them was again Brazil by accepting delivery of the small, but capable battleships Sao Jorge da Mina and Niteroi. These were essentially forced upon the Brazilians by British diplomatic pressure (spiced with a liberal dose of bribery) in a successful attempt to divert some of the last rates of Thiaria's war reparations to Brazil into Britain's depression-ridden economy. At that point, Argentina and Chile were for all practical purposes out of the South American naval arms race, because the Thiarians reacted with two powerful battlecruisers of their own. The Argentinian navy, painfully aware that they had no chance ever to catch up with Brazil's or Thiaria's battlefleet, tried to keep up by developing a new doctrine. The Germans had acquired the 20.000-ton raider Deutschland, and the Argentinians reasoned that by commissioning two or three similar, but faster ships, they could throttle Brazil's trade and sweep their cruiser force from the trade routes without Brazil's battlefleet being able to intervene effectively. To reliably outrun Brazil's four 26-knot battleships, a top speed of 32 knots was considered the absolute minimum. To reliably sink all existing or upcoming Brazilian cruisers, a main artillery caliber of 240mm or 254mm was required, with at least eight guns. To be reasonably safe from any cruiser artillery, 200mm vertical armour and at least 100m horizontal armour was required. In 1933, the Argentinian Navy issued a specification for a super-cruiser around these requirements; size was not to exceed 20.000 tons standard. With the capital ship building holiday still in force (the Brazilian ships had been an exception to counter Thiaria's return to the club of naval powers), only a few shipyards in minor countries could be asked to tender. Three had access to the necessary technology: SEC in Ferrol (Spain), a 100% Vickers subsidiary; Neorion on the Greek Island of Syros, majority-owned by the French Schneider group, and the Götavarvet in Göteborg, all-swedish owned but employing some experienced German shipbuilding engineers which were outsourced there after 1918. All three had already built capital ships, but only slow ones; construction of a fast large cruiser was a novel endeavour for all of them. All three put together plans to satisfy Argentinian requirements; the timeline was generous, and the deadline was moved twice, for the last time till February 1935. SEC put forward a very innovative design of 19.500 ts standard with nine 254mm guns in three triple turrets concentrated forward, as on HMS Nelson; two 152mm twin turrets, three twin 102mm mounts and two triple 533mm torpedo banks were provided on each beam. Eight boilers and four turbine sets, working on four shafts, provided 120.000 shp for the specified speed of 32 kts. The hull was flush-decked over 75% of the ship's length; only the quarterdeck was cut down. Two catapults were provided to serve an air group of up to ten airplanes, eight of which were stowed in a huge hangar aft which covered the full width of the hull. The design competed with an even more unusual Greek proposal - a weird-looking ship with a high tower mast very far forward and the entire heavy battery in two quad turrets amidships - and a much more conventional Swedish entry, which owed much to a turbine-propelled Deutschland, but with smaller Bofors guns. The selection process ate up most of 1935, and the order was placed in October 1935. In the end, the virtues of the designs were secondary considerations, because the Greek yard was considered too inexperienced to successfully master such a project, and the cost charged by the Swedes was prohibitive - leaving only the Spaniards. As usual, the Argentinians spiced the winning tender with some details from the others upon placing the order, particularly exchanging the mixed secondary battery with 16 127mm DP guns and the triple with quad torpedo banks (as proposed by the Greek yard). The hull was laid down in March 1936 at Ferrol with great ceremony. Then in July, the Spanish civil war erupted, and the entire deal was off. The Argentinians were frustrated; what little materiel had been assembled was broken up by year's end. Vickers offered to step in and build the ship first thing after the building holiday was over, which was only a few months in the future; at that point, the Thiarian government intervened and offered to subsidize the cruiser on a massive scale if a Thiarian yard was selected instead. This move was only one part of a diplomatic offensive aimed at getting Argentina into Thiaria's camp, which ultimately failed in 1940, but was still very much alive in 1936. As this offer would cut the price virtually in half, the Argentinians did not hesitate and placed the order at the CSCA yard, Thiaria's largest and most efficient private shipbuilder, in October 1936 - and handed over the SEC plans for the ship, which incorporated some rather recent British technology, to the horror of HM government. They should have known better; the Argentinians had always a reputation of treating other people's trade secrets with contempt and had done quite the same when they ordered their first two dreadnoughts in the USA prior to the first world war. As British protests were ignored, CSCA laid down the ship in May 1937 after adapting the plans to Thiarian standards (fortunately, they were already metric for construction in Spain), which resulted in some weight reduction due to more advanced construction methods. They retained the four-shaft arrangement (unusual for Thiarian ships), added a bow bulb and slightly re-shaped the transom stern. A relatively lightweight 128.000 hp plant was provided for 33 kts; range was the usual 10.000 miles at 15 knots. The main guns, which were originally to be procured from Bofors, were replaced by a Thiarian design which had been planned for an abortive large raider project of the late 1920s. The guns were unusual in having screw breeches (all other Thiarian WWII era heavy guns had wedge breeches); they fired 265kg shells over a range of 40.000 meters, but their ROF was not much better than that of a contemporary 340mm battleship gun (23 seconds firing cycle). The Thiarians substituted the planned US 127mm DP guns with their own 130mm DP guns, which were considered good enough against surface targets to sink destroyers and merchants. The Spanish design did not allow for anything like Thiaria's 37mm quad turrets, but there was space for 16 intermediate flak mounts (the Argentinians approached Italy in 1938 to purchase 37mm Breda twins, a weapon of excellent ROF but poor accuracy and reliability due to excessive vibration; the deal eventually failed to materialize), which was quite a lot for 1937 standards. Torpedoes were considered crucial for raiding, so four banks were included in the design; the Argentinians planned to install 533mm quad sets to be obtained from the USA. The most unusual feature of these ships were the extensive aviation facilities. There was a huge full-width hangar for eight aircraft built into the aft superstructure, which was divided by a splinter-proof longitudinal bulkhead. Up to four more airplanes could be stowed on deck. The Argentinians planned to embark eight floatplane fighters and four scout planes, plus one large flying boat on the quarterdeck; this ambitious plan was however never tried in practice. Armour protection more or less followed the Spanish basic design: The belt was 240mm over magazines and 180mm over machinery, decks were 110mm over magazines and 90mm over machinery. A 40mm torpedo bulkhead was provided, but expansion space (3m on each beam) was far too narrow, so the bulkheads were quite useless. Additional adjustments to Thiarian design and construction practice were worked in as construction proceeded, until the ship's exterior no longer hinted at the British origin of the basic design. The ship was launched in February 1939 after 21 months on stocks and christened ARA Puerreydon, re-using the name of an old armoured cruiser. Fitting out was well advanced when Thiaria entered the second world war in January 1940, and the ship was requisitioned in early April after Thiaria had taken some painful losses. The Navy thought the hull could be used to the best effect by gutting and rebuilding her to an aircraft carrier, but after the May elections, the Murchada administration decreed that the ship would be completed to whatever configuration that took the least time, this being the original cruiser design. 'If I can have a dubious cruiser now or an excellent aircraft carrier two years from now, I take what I can have now,' Murchada said, and the matter was settled. The cruiser was renamed LT Aigean (Gaelic: Ocean). What fittings were to have been imported were replaced with Thiarian gear; 16 semi-automatic 37mm twins replaced the planned Breda guns, and Thiarian 559mm triple torpedo banks replaced the planned US 533mm torpedo tubes. By the time Aigean approached completion, a complete radar suite was added, and eight 20mm twins were installed as light flak. When she finally was commissioned in February 1941 after 43 months of building time - an impressively short time for her size - she looked like this:



The Navy gave her a rather lukewarm welcome. With her size and ponderous superstructure, she obviously was a capital ship, but she would not have stood a chance in single combat against a real one. Her first CO called the idea of a raider with all heavy guns forward and only a single main artillery director 'clinically excentric', and Admiral Cuighnahan publicly hoped she would be shot up and burned out on her first sortie so he could have her hull turned into something useful. Her hangar arrangement was also criticized as a huge firebomb waiting to explode upon the first 102mm hit. With so many negative vibes directed at her, her career was rather luckless. She provided fire support during the invasion of New Portugal in March 1941 and raided into the central Atlantic Ocean in May. During this sortie, the RN had its hands full hunting the Bismarck, and all convoy traffic was held back, so Aigean returned with empty hands. The turmoil in July after the communists dropped out of Thiaria's government did not significantly affect Aigean because her crew was still green and had been trained in wartime; only a few ratings had to be replaced. During spring, she was briefly assigned to the main strike fleet as many other ships had their crews purged. She went raiding again in January 1942, again into the central Atlantic. She was detected by allied patrol airplanes out of the Azores and hunted by Force H and was lucky to make it home without being cut off. After that mission, Aigean was overhauled at Carriolar, although there were no significant alterations. In May 1942, she and the heavy cruiser Trasolas and ventured east of the Cape of Good Hope, hunting a British convoy. The Indian heavy cruiser Effingham fought with suicidal courage and dealt eleven 190mm hits to her, which did embarrassingly heavy damage. She nevertheless could not prevent Aigean from running down and sinking four merchants; Effingham was eventually sunk by Trasolas. When land-based Recherchean airplanes appeared, the Thiarians led the rest of the convoy escape and retreated; Aigean evaded three aerial torpedoes. During repairs, which lasted seven weeks, Aigean added eight more 20mm twins. In October 1942, she was scheduled to go on the Panama Raid together with substantial other fleet units, but ran aground near Cathair Riordan and had to stay behind and undergo repairs. While the raiding force was already on the return leg, she and the heavy cruiser LT Trasolas again went to the Indian Ocean to hunt a convoy. They located it, but then things went sour. Two escort carriers (one British, one Recherchean) were with the convoy, and their planes put two torpedoes into Aigean, ripping her stern of, disabling one of her rudders and heavily impairing her maneuverability. The Recherchean small battlecruiser Balladonia, three other Recherchean cruisers and a British one then engaged and sank both Aigean and Trasolas, with no total losses to themselves, although the heavy cruiser Mason was very badly damaged and only barely made it. Aigean was hit by over thirty 254mm and 203mm shells and three more torpedoes, going down with more than a thousand if her crew. Some 400 were rescued by the Rechercheans. Thus ended the career of a cruiser which would have contributed a lot more to the Thiarian war effort if she had been rebuilt to a carrier.

Greetings
GD