Shipbucket

I thanked you for your criticism. You have been one of those who have persistently told me that I am subpar. Such criticism is expected.

What you make of it...

If it is just the one ship, then I'm batting about 70%. That's rather darn good. But it is not the only one that needs work.

I know that. (About 30%; if I'm honest.)

My motto; "Don't let criticism throw you. Don't let critics throw you; either. Those who know their stuff, pay attention to them.
Those who don't... will soon show they don't."

What you make of it.

In the meantime... Have you seen the redo? And if that is the failhard, then sobeit.

I highly doubt this is the shape of your hull, although that's what you've drawn with that shading.

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"The first phase of the operation did not go as planned." - Anonymous

If what you wrote contained useful information, it would be helpful. There are over twenty renditions in this thread alone.

Specificity or a case example is useful.

TORPEDOES (again?):

I think he's talking about this one, and I have to agree with him. The method you've used to shade the hull is very strange and doesn't really seem to represent anything realistic or follow any pre-existing standard set around here. I admit to not having followed this thread, but it seems like a lot of rather esoteric design choices are being made so it's entirely possible you've invented some new form of hull that has benefits that escape non-technical folks such as myself.

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USN components, camouflage colors, & reference links (World War II only)

That's helpful. Thank you.

http://www.shipbucket.com/forums/viewto ... 35#p146435 this might help you, if you want to improve hull shading .

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Drawings are credited with J.Scholtens
I ask of you to prove me wrong. Not say I am wrong, but prove it, because then I will have learned something new.
Shipbucket Wiki admin

Once more into the breach?

Oooohhhh guncotton! Very nice!

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Best regards,

RegiaMarina1939

HEROES OF SPAIN: Fernando Villaamil's Charge

Sigismundo's first reckless politically motivated order to Cervera, that he, the admiral, move the Cape Verde squadron (1st Cruiser Squadron) to San Juan, Puerto Rico issued from Madrid on April 1st, 1898 (note the date), had been overtaken by a second round of Paris peace talk negotiations, more dithering by the Ministry of the Marine, and of course, Cervera's own continued delaying tactics, as he went about the remedy of what deficiencies he could within his squadron.

Not to say, that every one of his officers present with him, shared Cervera's idea of parking the squadron somewhere out of easy American reach, where it could ride out the current Cuban crisis in relative fleet in being safety. Captain Fernando Villaamil, the destroyer flotilla commander and recognized Armada naval genius, was at loggerheads with Cervera. This would normally be handled the Spanish navy way with a courteous face to face shouting match meeting between the two men in private behind a closed door. The admiral would pull rank and Villaamil should shut up and sailor.

Unfortunately, Villaamil had an advocate in Madrid. She was the Queen Regent, Christina. Mindful of the political volatility in the Spanish electorate and how shaky the Sagasta government was, how the strongman Weyler was pulling the strings apart with the Liberals and Conservatives, how the present crisis with the United States befuddled the bureaucracy, and what the Spanish public expected and demanded as urged mon by an over-sanguine press., the Queen Regent would listen to any suggestion her favorite naval captain cared to make that might at least give the illusion of successful activity in case the negotiations in Paris failed. So Villaamil’s recommendation of a guerre de course in the event of war with the Americans made it into the popular press. And with the queen’s backing, Villaamil would not shut up.

Villaamil sends off a letter a week to the Faro de Vigo, a Conservative newsrag in Redondero, Spain little better than the New York Tribune as a piece of yellow journalism. The ONI must read that foolscrap religiously thinks Cervera, and must think Spaniards fools to announce their warplans and notional ideas so publicly. Villaamil, for his part, probably does not even think the Gringos bother with such a minor regional paper. He is mostly correct. His published letters in the Faro are part of the stuff the German naval attache in Madrid clips out as news of interest and sends to Berlin along with his own comments on what he thinks it means every month. The Americans are interested in that stuff. The German diplomatic pouch “passes through three hands” as the French might say. And Theodore Roosevelt can read German fluently. So can Captain Arent Schyuler Crowninshield.

The Americans promptly show up at the Canaries, Sigismundo sends his fatal 27 July order and the public argument between Cervera and Villaamil becomes moot. Cervera must eject the Americans from Tenerife or at least hurt them there. So orders Bermejo. Spain demands it.

Cervera and Villaamil can agree on one subject. The government in Madrid does not understand the situation naval or military. It is a simple thing to tell an admiral to take your small squadron and eject a hostile force from Spanish waters (For the Canary Islands are considered part of Spain proper.). Villaamil, like Cervera , would appreciate some more from Madrid. More ships would be nice, but that chimera leaped away years ago when a Sagasta government junked the Castillo battleship program and opted for the cheaper armored cruisers approach. The destroyers, Villaamil’s idea, could have made a defense possible, even against the maximum threat Spain faces, which is the Toulon Armament, the French Mediterranean battle fleet. But that program was sacrificed for the laughable José Chinchilla program of “second class battleships”, which are the fast over-armed and undersized cruisers designed to handle the Germans in East Asia who sniffed around Spain’s Pacific empire back in 1890. No ships from Madris, then. But what Madrid could supply, for there is a submarine cable and consulate to Dakar and a quick dispatch boat ride to the Cape Verde anchorage; is when, where, what, and how many Yanquis are there at Tenerife? A transmitted copy of the New York Tribune’s reportage might be helpful. Cervera and Villaamil can read English or the bureaucratese Spanish that the translators might send, and the Yanquis are that stupid that they would list all the details of their invasion and its dispositions. From Madrid comes silence. From London, however….

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His name is Winston Churchill. He, as a military observer has seen the Spanish fight in Cuba. He was with General Valdez at Arraro Blanco, when that worthy Don gave chase to the Cuban Renegado, Maximo Gomez.
That little episode earned Winston, a Spanish medal, the Red Cross. a sort of medal of merit, for which he was ridiculed in the British press, since handing out tin was sort of a “Spanish thing”. If the British at home were a little dismissive of their adventurer officer, it must be remarked, that Winston stood tall on the horse in the same kind of withering rifle fire, that General Blanco did, and to impress a Spaniard, like him, actually means something.

Anyway, Winston left Cuba after a while to rejoin his regiment. The Queens’ 4th Hussars. Now he wrote on the sidelines, his opinion pieces, for The Daily Mail of all papers, as other fekkow adventurers, such as Hubert Howard of the London Times wrote dispatches from the Tenerife “front”. (The irony of it is that Hubert, the Times correspondent, would later be killed in the Sudan in the Kitchener Expedition [postponed a year to fit this AU timeline.].). This developed into a back and forth between the correspondents as they lampooned each other’s opinions about what Spain and America did in “This Splendid Little War” as Chuchill named it. Part of the background was the Wheeler campaign from Tocoronte to take Santa Cruz de Tenerife, and part of that discourse was the way the Americans scattered their fleet around Tenerife to blockade the island, to support their little army; thus inviting defeat in detail. The army officer (Churchill) and cantankerous correspondent (Humbert), were clueless about the reasons for those dispositions, supposing that American battleships (all the warships were called battleships for some reason), were disposed to provide gunfire support to the troops struggling to take Mount English and Mount Mercedes. Partially this was sort of true, but not entirely. Two of the Vermonts would have sufficed, but the way the Yankee dispositions were described in The Daily Mail and navally criticized by Winston Churchill, young cavalryman and supposed nautical expert, gave real clues to Cervera and Villaamil when they read the French supplied copies of Humbert’s answering cable dispatches (three days stale after events, which in those days is quite fast ) to be published by the Times in reply. Not only were the French sticking in that “third hand”, but they were kibitzing in the Spanish American kriegspiel.

Kibitz or not, this is what the Spanish commanders of the destroyer flotilla (Villaamil) and the whole squadron (Cervera) thought it meant. The Americans must be nervous about the threat from Cadiz, Cartagena and Ferrol. It was about 1,300 kilometers from Cadiz to Tenerife and 1,600 kilometers from Cape Verde to Tenerife. The distance to Sidi Ifni and to Aghadir was 600 kilometers The Americans were oriented to the north and east to meet those nearer threats A naval officer thought in terms of steaming times: That was 60 hours from Spanish Africa, 130 hours from Spain, and 160 hours from Cadiz. The Americans were 675 hours from their nearest help from their home ports, and 260 hours from Monrovia, their one African base.

So it made perfect sense to cover the north and east arcs of Tenerife by sea, as an American admiral. This is what Cervera and Villaamil concluded. And it was what Sampson disposed. In that scatter lay fleeting opportunity. If the Cape Verde squadron was fast enough, the Americans could be surpised and a portion of them wiped out. Again it was a question of steaming times. From Tocoronte and Bojamer, it was three hours steam time to blockade stations off Santa Cruz. From Punta Agana to those same stations it was at least an hour. A small window to be sure, but a night attack by the 1st Cruiser Squadron against Schley in that hour, could work. Spanish cruisers and destroyers were designed with such attacks in mind. Slash in, do some damage, circle out and turn south to round Gran Canarias and then head east north east to Cadiz or Rota and repair and refit. Become a fleet in being and either wait the Americans out or conduct a guerre de course from Spain’s Atlantic ports. Let Madrid decide that question. The exposed Americans would find their position on Tenerife vulnerable and unsustainable.
It was a workable plan and essentially what Cervera wants to do anyway, given the current realities. Villaamil’s part in the battle is to conduct the flanking torpedo attack while Cervera charges in with the cruisers to melee (and ram if necessary. Cervera is perfectly willing to trade a Spanish cruiser for an American one as long as it shocks the Americans and causes them to rethink the costs of the war. The Maine had been rude enough to shock them into this lunatic conflict; a few hundred more drowned sailors in a losing cause might shock them out of it.)

So the plan is to come up from the south through the Tenerife Canarias channel and try for the raid on the night-morning of August 17-18 or failing that date, 19-20 (no moon light to help warn the Americans.

Within Spanish doctrine the 1st Cruiser Squadron would make a cruise run for 6 days from their current anchorage (the Americans had lost track of the Spanish ships… to conserve coal and make a speed run at Schley parked off Santa Cruz de TYeneife in the final eight hours of steaming. Close battle would be joined upon arrival, hopefully around the hour of local midnight, and if things went reasonably well, the 1st Cruiser Squadron (or what was left of it), would exit the Tenerife-Gran Canarias channel south gap about dawn, turn east and spend the day in a speed run to Sidi Ifni to meet and rendezvous with the collier Lorenzo de Madeira at Sidi Ifni, take on coal and run for Rota/Cadiz and then home….

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One of the items, Hubert Humbert wrote in his dispatch, was how Spanish marksmen shot down the US Army balloon, Wheeler had deployed to spot for the Vermont’s gunfire. Over, short, left, right correction was old hat from the shore bombardment exercises the joint Army/Navy exercises conducted off the Carolinas for the past five years. Captain General Juan Carlos Martinez de Campo y Serrano Duque de la Torre was a little slow to figure that one out which is why Mount English fell to the 39th Ohio. The balloon was shot down ex post facto, after it no longer mattered, because the Gringos were now able to force the saddle back and debouche onto the Laguna plain once they held Mount English. The land battle was lost.

Funny thing about that balloon… It took four days to patch all the bullet holes and shell tears in it. When it went up again, it was perfectly safe for Army Signal Corps Lieutenant Fuller Albright, or as safe as local windy weather and inept balloon handlers could make it. He was freezing his aspidistra off at about a thousand meters altitude on a cloudless and moonless night and he wondered, what the hell he was doing up in the air in the dark with nothing but cold and stars and a ground crew who had jammed the anchor cable winch, so he could not come down. It was not entirely cloudless and starlight did give enough illumination to tell ocean from land. In theory, Albright could see a hundred kilometers to the horizon in all directions. In practice he had a heavy pair of Bushnell 10x binoculars to help him. If the Moon was out, he would be able to see craters. This night, low on the horizon to the south of Mount English something smudgy on the ocean horizon line caught his attention. He pointed his binoculars that away, focused and refocused and refocused again. He had a messenger capsule, drop line, a safety candle, paper and pencils for such an emergency. He ducks down out of the wind inside the basket, kneels and writes:
As contact reports go, it is clear concise, and to the point, and for once in war, it is accurate. We will hear from Lieutenant Fuller Albright again at Admiral Sampson’s court martial.

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About those running lights from the sternposts of his ships, Cervera is not worried. At 40 kilometers from Schley’s expected position, less than forty minutes from visual contact and final charge, he will order the lights doused, intervals increased to triple cables and doubled lookouts. In the run up from the Bijages Archipelago he has not seen a single ship at all. He’s been a ghost, not standing off in the usual Portuguese or French coastal shipping lanes. He has deliberately communicated with no-one, not even his own talks too much government to keep his movements and plans a secret.

It is three hours to contact. He orders crews to mess, to eat. They will need the energy and time to digest before what he expects will be hectic battle.

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Sampson gets the word at 10 PM local time. He reads the army’s contact warning message and dismisses it. The Spaniards must still be parked somewhere near Cape Verde. No one has sold them any coal recently and as far as last ONI reports, half of Cervera’s ships have steam plant issues (boilers not cleaned). Cervera is not fool enough to move ships under those conditions. Sampson is confident, that another week of fighting and talking on Tenerife, and the North Atlantic Squadron will be free to raid Spanish ports. Then whether he wants it or not, Cervera will have to come out of hiding and meet Sampson’s massed fleet.

Schley receives the report by Morse lamp from the army by 1130 PM local time. Watson gets the word a half hour after that time. The three American admirals make three independent decisions that will govern the naval battle.

Watson can either fall back on Bojamer and join up with Sampson there, or he can move southeast to join up with Schley. Schley is closer and Watson at the court martial never does explain why he chose southeast instead of northwest. Maybe he knew that Sampson was no good, or maybe Watson had a clear read on Cervera’s intentions and so acted.

Schley decided to stay on station and await developments. The contact report, the army gave him, estimated six to eight ships. Nothing in the report aside from location, numbers and a possible course showed how far away in steam time or possible intent the fellows in those ships had. Schley’s could have his own signaler make inquiry to the army ashore for further follow up reports with any estimate the balloon observer had about distance to those running lights, but the problem with such inquiries is that the strange ships could have doused lights or be lost in the seas between the horizon line and the balloon observer. The way to reacquire a sighting would be to lower the balloon to half height and move the horizon line in. That would put the strangers about 80 kilometers out instead of 120 and would indicate hostiles, but that would be based on the assumption that the strangers would be that obligingly stupid to leave lights shining. Schley would have about two hours to get ready if they were about 100-120 kilometers distant. Schley sent that suggestion and the army ashore told him about the problems the balloon crew were having with the winch.

Comes a final time in life, when hunches are all that a man has left, and this time was Admiral Schley’s. He could assume the worst and fall back on Watson, leave his station against orders and face court martial and ridicule for timidness. He could stay put and risk being surprised. Or he could split the difference. Schley had the four fastest American ships present in his “Flying Squadron” for a reason. Paiute and Sioux were fast freighters chosen for their speed and ease to be made into CAM ships (Converted armed merchantmen). The USS Troy and USS Toledo were formidable speedy armored cruisers, each which was more than equal to anything Cervera had. They were fast enough and stout enough to offer or refuse battle with the entire Spanish 1st Cruiser Squadron, if it came to it. Schley’s revised plan orders for the night-morning of the 17-18 August indicates what he thinks;
Article four would come back to bedevil Schley a bit at Sampson’s court martial, but considering what little he knew and how much guess work was involved, those instructions seem quite cogent and logical.

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If his time and position estimates are accurate, Cervera expects contact over the horizon within the next fifteen minutes. The time is 1:42 AM 17 August local time. He is two hours behind his planned schedule. Last minute problems with stacking ready use ammunition and stowing flammables, such as wipe rags to swage the balky gun breech blocks on his Infanta Maria Terersa class cruisers 14 cm bore guns caused him to slow down and make those last minute adjustments. The time was also used to wet down wherever possible, the wood fittings which could not be removed to reduce fire hazards. Oddly enough, the 1st Cruiser Squadron while it grayed its upper works, did not alter the peacetime black hulls. This might be an advantage in the nighttime shooting. It is as dark as Cervera has ever seen it in these waters. Lookouts with the best German spyglasses, look to the north and northwest for any sign of the enemy. As odd as it might seem, the dim glow of an enemy army’s campfires competes with the starlight above for brightness this night. Gunners will be lucky if they can see anything out there at more than a couple of miles without some searchlight help. Cervera intends to approach the enemy closely at high speed with his lights out until he is within those couple of miles if he can. That close, silhouettes will be visible, even on this dark night. And at those ranges, shining bright carbon arclights into the enemies’ eyes will destroy whatever night sight they have for a crucial moments. When the Spanish searchlights come on, that will be the cue for Villaamil’s destroyers to swing out from their stern position in line and charge forward to attack with torpedoes while Cervera heads for the center of the Yanqui line. The Yanquis will definitely be in a sea anchored station-keeping line, not in a crescent formation as the foolish Italians were at Lissa and the inept Chinese were at the Yalu River. In some respects, after the battle, and the war, puzzled American naval officers, who thought they understood Spanish naval tactical will ask Cervera what he intended with his lunatic charge. The Spanish admiral will smile and say that; “I followed Federico Carlos Gravina y Nápoli’s spirit in battle.”

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Currents had dislocated Schley’s neat box formation that his little four ship flotilla normally disposed off Santa Cruz.de Tenerife. Putting out the drags actually made the problem worse, and Schley gave his first battle orders to rectify this situation, before close contact was even made with the Spaniards. As of 2:35 AM, Toledo and Troy (pointed south) and Paiute (pointed north) were roughly staggered on the echelon line of bearing southwest to northeast. Sioux was east and out-bound from that staggered line also pointed north. This setup was about to change into another box formation with Schley’s intent to have the Paiute move in astern of Sioux to the southeast of Toledo.

Paiute was in the process when, a signal rocket (green flame exhaust) from ashore broke that evolution up. Hale rockets had been an American war staple since the Mexican American War. Not much use as artillery, the rockets were useful signal fireworks, providing a cheap and reliable means to signal at night, just by the varied exhaust flame colors. The simple rocket does its job. “Enemy in Sight”. That has to be the balloon crew, which finally reports in after all the pestering messages from the Troy, Schley’s flagship. Captain Francis A. Cook is the man pestering via Morse Lamp, Captain Charles Lowe in charge of the Army balloon detachment, in turn pesters a shivering Lieutenant Fuller Albright still stuck up in the air in that damned balloon. Poor Albright finally sees the solid wake arrow of a ship column approaching Santa Cruz. That city, still in Spanish hands, is most illuminated. One would think that a small city on a backwater island would not have modern gas lighting, or could or would afford to use such lighting with an enemy army parked on hills to the west of it within siege mortar range? It was lit up and that light should provide a nice backlighting to silhouette Schley’s ships out to sea which were 2 to 3 kilometers offshore from it.

Spanish searchlights snap on from out from at sea. American searchlights quickly answer them. In this Lumens duel, Schley wins, for his cruisers come equipped with extra powerful searchlights to operate not only for night fighting, but also to complement the photo-phone systems they are imbued with. It takes some stout candlepower to vibrate selenium mirrors over a distance of 10 kilometers. In this case a message is photo-phoned to Watson on the off chance he might receive it.

Watson does not need the message. He sees the same green flare signal rocket from mount English as he strides Wyoming’s open navigation bridge as Schley does from the pilot stand on the Troy. Watson immediately heads quickly toward Schley as he presumes Schley does toward him. Watson has the destroyer Gwen in lead, the massive battleship Wyoming and the destroyer Duncan in a firm line and under positive control. He expects to meet Schley’s cruisers somewhere near the coastal village of San Andrea where he will fall in astern of Schley’s line with Wyoming and place his destroyers to the rear, where they will station keep for an opportunity attack to destroy cripples, (hence the name, “destroyer” for these vessels as the Americans understand it.); while Schley’s cruiser line parallel fights the enemy unknowns. Watson’s actions are predicated on a list of unwarranted assumptions he makes about Schley.

As for Schley about this time, he signals to other ships by Morse Lamp ,
Independent maneuver (4) contained in the night’s revised plan, now bedevils the Americans. Captain Cook, of the Troy, charges immediately ahead; toward the Spanish van. At some point he intends to port turn to unmask starboard batteries and shoot the Vizcaya (not yet identified by pennant). Troy immediately almost rams Paiute which has not cleared out of the way. Toledo is port astern of the Troy, Captain Francis E. Chadwick in command. He sees the reckless charge Troy makes, the danger Paiute, (Commander A. B. H. Lillie in charge), is in, and orders full reverse for Toledo to avoid a compound collision which opens a gap between the two American armored cruisers. Troy then turns to port and cuts across the Toledo’s bow, fouling Chadwick’s firing solution for guns and torpedoes on the Oquendo.

Sounds confusing? It sure is to the Spaniards, who react to this violent American maneuvering with inexplicable actions of their own. It is Cervera’s turn to lose control of this battle, whose own line now is thrown into utter confusion as he, perplexed in the Vizcaya, sees the second ship in his column, the Oquendo, turn to port after he orders the Vizcaya to turn to starboard! The rest, of the Spanish cruiser line, follows the Oquendo into the port loop; leaving Vizcaya apparently alone on an opposite course… except for Villaamil and the destroyers who follow Vizcaya.

At this moment; about 3:00AM local time, Villaamil sets off independently from trail astern after Paiute and Sioux as immediate targets of opportunity. His three destroyers immediately find themselves in trouble, because Charles Sigsbee keeps his two CAMs together, swerving violently in S tracks on a baseline course. The CAMs’ withering fire from their rapid fire guns quickly shreds the nearer two Spanish destroyers’ superstructures and kills many exposed crew, including Fernando Villaamil. The American’s 9 cm shells are incendiaries and grenades. The Spanish destroyers’ topsides consist largely of sheet metal and wood. Terror’s torpedoes explode in her tubes as she tries to launch against Sioux. Furor, with Villaamil already dead from an American grenade shell, lasts a mere ten minutes longer as Paiute’s gunners hammer her repeatedly in the boilers until they finally explode. She snaps in two. Villaamil has made his gallant charge and has paid the price of his reckless courage.

Pluton is left alone of the Spanish destroyers. Her captain, Fernandez Laeto, has separated from his fellows, avoiding the shell-storm the “two weak targets of opportunity” throw at Furor and Terror. He travels east and turns north once he sights a new target. Running dark he comes upon Watson’s lighted ships in neat line ahead. Pluton charges to get within point blank Whitehead torpedo range, about two hundred yards. If Pluton is to die, Laeto figures he will take the fat sassy Wyoming with her. All three American ships immediately open up with 9cm guns. Wyoming fires her 15 cm guns. How does Pluton survive? The answer is, she does not. She gets off three Whiteheads. One malfunctions immediately and circle runs left. The Gwen dodges it. One after it leaves the tube, runs a hundred yards and then sinks. Whiteheads are known to do that thing. The third torpedo snakes its way 400 yards and strikes the Wyoming just aft the second funnel right at the thickest part of her waterline armor belt. It explodes and dishes in the 12 inch Harvey plate but does not rupture it. Bad Spanish and good American luck holds. Wyoming has a leak, and Seaman 2nd Paul Rufus Jones, an African American fireman stoker will drown and receive the Navy Cross for it as he slams shut the service door to coal bunker six the only way it can be, from the inside of the bunker. The man saves his ship as American sailors are trained to do. Wyoming races onward to join Schley in the general melee chase off Santa Cruz, for that fool has set off after THREE Spanish armored cruisers in the Troy… alone.

What of the Toledo? Chadwick, after Troy, (with Cooke and Schley aboard) looped around him and set off after Oquendo and her followers , meanders a bit south until he can orient his ship and himself in this confusing battle. In the meanwhile Duncan, Gwen and the tardy Wyoming take Vizcaya under fire and the Spanish cruiser not liking that long range gunfire attention turns away and points south herself. By now Cervera has had enough. If he can get out with his cruisers intact after this fiasco, he counts himself lucky. Time to vamoose.

But you know that Spanish luck? It certainly killed Gravina at Trafalgar, and it sure is present here. Chadwick notices the burning Vizcaya. While Gwen and Duncan swing east to parallel Vizcaya and wait for an opportunity to torpedo her; alone Wyoming takes off after Schley to rescue him from his tomfoolery and leaves the damaged Vizcaya to the destroyers. Chadwick with nothing better to do in empty ocean decides to close in and kill this “cripple” himself in Toledo. What follows is an epic single ship action as Vizcaya and Toledo hammer each other at ranges from 2500 down to 900 meters. Shots clang on the Toledo’s armor or rip through Vizcaya’s superstructure. Both sides shoot a little high. It is mostly 14 cm Spanish shot vs 15 cm American grenades until finally Toledo’s main battery of 25 cm guns score four hits into Vizcvaya’s steam engines our of a six shot massed salvo, the fourteenth massed salvo in this fight (the previous thirteen salvoes missed high and over.). The Vizcaya takes on the inflowing sea through the waterline breaks in her belt armor. She slows. Toledo opens the range to tend her own fires and damage (about 20 minutes damage control) and then closes again.

The Vizcaya is settling bows down with a starboard list, but moving and shooting. Chadwick wants to finish her off quickly. It might take another hour of beating on her with guns to finish the Spaniard. Toledo has shot off most of her ammunition. There are other dangerous Spaniards in the vicinity for gun-flashes and thunder, light and echo reflect to the west of Toledo. Chadwick orders a turn east. The range drops to less than 500 meters. Vizcaya’s gunners spit their defiance. The Spaniard’s forward 11 inch gun roars. That shell misses the Toledo’s navigation bridge by a few scant meters! Toledo replies with a broadside. The Vizcaya’s after 11 inch gun mount explodes. Maybe an American 25 cm shell hit the barbette? Who knows? Spanish survivors will insist the after 11 inch gun exploded because of faulty French supplied ordnance.

A battery launch of four Schwartzkopf torpedoes later and Vizcaya is under the waves. Toledo halts and drops boats, lines, floats and ladders to bring aboard survivors. Out of a Vizcaya crew of 580, the Americans rescue more than 400 survivors from the open sea, including Captain Antonio Eulate y Ferio and the great Admiral Cervera, himself. Francis Chadwick leads the Toledo’s crew in three rousing cheers for the gallant crew of the Vizcaya.

That noise and light show to the east is a tale told simply. Wyoming, in her Watsonic blundering forward (Captain John W. Phillip in command), runs upon Oquenda. One well aimed blast of Wyoming’s 30 cm guns later and Oquenda’s Captain Juan B. Lazaga y Garay and most of the other officers, being killed when the 30 cm shell exploded in the pilot house, Engineer Lieutenant Brazos de Lazarro, must act from aft steerage, and being the senior surviving available officer aboard points the ship west for the coast of Tenerife to beach her and get the crew off. Oquendo will ground near Candelaria, Tenerife.

Oquendo had a crew of six hundred. There will be 472 mostly badly-burned or sea-shocked survivors on the beach when the Spanish locals arrive to care for them. Oquendo will be floated off after the American conquest and it eventually winds up at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania as a US war-trophy.

What of the Princesa de Asturias and the Cristobol Colon? These ships turned south when Oquendo turned west. Troy, joined by a chasing after her Wyoming, pursues for almost an hour and a half. The two Spanish cruisers run south south east and than turn east to put on a spurt of speed. They barely have the knots on the tired and damaged Americans who let the Spaniards go. The chase breaks off at 3:47 AM the morning of the 18th local time. Schley orders a pair of red rockets launched from the Troy when it joins up with Toledo near the Vizcaya’s sinking. This is the call for all American ships present to rally on him. Gwen and Duncan are close enough to see the rocket signal;. Paiute and Sioux do not.

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A Spanish cruiser has been sunk; another cruiser has been forced aground. Three Spanish destroyers have been destroyed. The best Spanish admiral has been captured and most of their best naval officers killed or rendered utterly combat ineffective. Two armored cruisers escaped, but Schley is confident that with the chasing shell damage his ships inflicted, Princesa de Asturias and Cristobol de Colon will not be of much use for the rest of this war. Besides? Where can they go and what can they do? Schley is happy with his victory.

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Schley may be happy, but Joe Wheeler has been up this night. He has watched and waited on Mount English with Captain Lowe and Fuller Albright. Messages passed between the Army and Navy have been by Morse Lamp, Hale signal rocket and soon with the coming dawn will be by heliograph and wigwag flag.

Joe Wheeler is the senior Major General of Volunteers, a congressman from the Great State of Alabama and the highest ranking American military officer present on Tenerife. When the winch crew finally gathers enough toughs from the 3rd Pennsylvania to haul the balloon down by hand, Wheeler has a long private talk with half frozen to death Lieutenant Fuller Albright. That starts at 7:15 AM local time at Mount English and lasts until 1:20 PM back at the main 4th Corps base camp at Tequeste village on the west slopes of Mount Mercedes. Orders are heliographed to Tocoronte, and thence by landing barge from shore to ship.

Captain Francis J. Higginson of the USS Vermont has the unfortunate task of relieving Admiral Sampson and placing him under arrest pending a formal hearing to determine if Admiral Sampson is to be charged for Misbehavior Before the Enemy.

Specifically:
People can be shot for this offense…

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