John Schettler: Altered States – Volume II. Darkest Hour

Tovey watched his new flag staff officer turn and hasten away with his message to the bridge. Yes, he thought, now you may run. The time is come. All the planning and maneuvering and deployment was finished now. The bow of HMS Invincible was pointed, the ship’s course set, her guns manned and ready with battle at hand.

The ship had cleared her throat in the Norwegian campaign, providing shore bombardment briefly, though she mainly ran with the carriers as their primary covering force against the possibility of German intervention at sea. Thus far only the Twins had dared to engage, but now the Germans were bringing out a pair of much stronger ships. Let us hope we live up to our name, he thought as he took a last look at the plotting map. Then he straightened his hat, adjusted the fit of his jacket and started for the bridge himself. He would walk, not run. His order to turn for battle had already proceeded him on the swift footfalls of Mister Wells. Now he would follow, a steely calm settling over his mind. It was the witching hour.

“Admiral on the Bridge!”

Captain Bennett was waiting in his chair in the armored conning tower, his eyes lost in the cups of his field glasses. HMS Invincible was a truly novel design, Britain’s heavyweight at just under 54,000 long tons full load, she was in fact the heaviest ship by displacement in the Royal Navy. With three triple turrets mounting 16 inch guns, she had tremendous firepower and an unusual turret arrangement that saw two mounted forward of the conning tower, and the third directly behind it, amidships. This meant her engineering sections and twin funnels were pushed aft in the latter third of the ship.

Her main armor began at A turret and stretched to C turret with all of 356mm or 14 inches of hardened steel. Behind this it thinned to 305mm and eventually tapered to 254mm in the stern. Yet this gave good cover to the engineering plant and vital propulsion systems. Even the boiler room and funnels were surrounded by an armored box. With armored decks between five and eight inches, the ship had a tough shell against air attack or plunging fire. And the business end of the ship saw turret face armor of 17.5 inches and 9 to 12 inches on the conning tower. Her anti-torpedo bulge could withstand a blast from a 340kg warhead. All in all she had better protection than any other British ship of her day, and the oblique 18 degree angle of that heavy armor made it even more effective in stopping plunging fire at longer ranges.

What Hood lacked, Invincible had in abundance, and to go with it she could hit harder, range farther, and even had better speed than Hood, a truly remarkable design considering it was conceived in the 1920s. There was only one other ship in the world at that moment with a more innovative design- Kirov, and only the secret mega ships being built by Japan and Germany, Yamato and Hindenburg were bigger.

To be standing in the armored bridge of a ship like this gave one a heady feeling. This is the best we have, thought Tovey. If I could have hastened the workout of the King George V class ships I would dearly love to have them at hand now, but this ship is the might and sinew of the Royal Navy. We are facing Germany’s newest designs as well, unproven, but fearsome on paper. Now we will put them to the test. I’m going to come in at just the right angle, with all guns blazing. We’ll outgun Bismarck if we find her, but Tirpitz has been reported as well, and that is a tall order indeed.

There had been no further word from Admiral Holland on Hood, and they were no doubt engaged at this very moment. Yet that ship was already hit by those damnable Stukas off Graf Zeppelin. Tovey nonetheless believed he could still outgun the Germans-if only he could get Invincible to the fight in time. The Twins were also vectoring in behind him, set to arrive like Blucher at Waterloo… He did not like the thought of casting himself in Napoleon’s shoes, but there it was.

He was rushing to the scene like Napoleon’s Old Guard to restore order, but those damnable Twins were on his heels, and he would have only a brief time of advantage when he came into range of the heavier Germans ships before those two battlecruisers were nipping at his flank with their 11 inch guns. Let’s see what C-turret has to say about it, he thought, turning to Captain Bennett.

“Captain, let us train C-turret on those two wolves bearing on our flank. Perhaps we can discourage them.”

“Aye sir, that we can. Mister Connors!”

“Sir!”

“You heard the Admiral. Give the Twins our calling card.”

“Very good sir.”

Half a minute later the roar of all three 16-inch guns on the amidships turret shook the ship with their anger as Invincible engaged the shadows lurking to the northwest. Forty seconds passed and then Tovey heard a jubilant shout, prompting him to raise an eyebrow as he turned to Captain Bennett.

“Am I to assume we’ve a hole in one, Captain?”

“Aye sir, right amidships on the number two ship. Straddled the bastards with the first salvo!”

Tovey knew that was a proverbial long shot, and a bit of very good luck, but the Twins had done the same when they crept up on HMS Glorious, and now Britain had evened the score when it came to long range gunnery. The hit was obtained at just over 24,000 yards.

“They’ve had enough of that, sir,” said Bennett. “Both ships are breaking to the north.”

“I shouldn’t count them out of the game just yet, Mister Bennett. They’ll undoubtedly slip over the horizon, but will still be running parallel to our track. Make sure the lookouts are sharp.”

“Let them peek into the shop window again, sir, and we’ll give them another black eye.”

They were running full out, and even the two destroyers in the van, Fortune and Firedrake, were laboring to keep up speed at a whisker under 32 knots. This ship is the pride of the fleet, thought Tovey. She is one of a kind, with no siblings, and there is nothing like her for raw power and speed in the entire fleet. Look how she just sent the Twins off with one good stiff jab. She’ll outgun the German Bismarck class battleships, and she can outrun them as well, and all with armor every bit as good as the protection the Germans gave their ships.

He passed a moment of regret, thinking he should have deployed the ship together with Admiral Holland on Hood, but there was simply too much sea room to cover. At least the two battlegroups were not too far apart. He’d get there in time, he knew. Last notice from Hood had her steering 280, coming towards his own ship now. They could already hear the distant boom of naval gunfire, rolling like the low rumble of thunder on the horizon. He expected that the mainmast watch would see the smoke of that battle any moment now, and the tall spires of Hood’s mast soon after. They had already seen planes on radar all throughout the battle zone as pilots from Ark Royal mixed it up with the Germans off Graf Zeppelin.

“Air alert!” The call came in with strident alarm, a bell ringing to underscore the urgency. “Formation low off the starboard aft quarter!”

Invincible had four 2-pounder gun mounts, each with ten barrels, the same pom-poms Hood had deployed against the Stukas, but this alert was for low flying planes, and her six 4.1-inch quick firing deck guns could also be brought to bear. Crews were already at action stations and, as Tovey went to look over his shoulder at the direction of the sighting, he could see the guns beginning to train on distant targets.