Attack run on Mansgra Island

Preface

Eglen is a county with a short coast, and a large interior, therefore most of the funds dedicated for the armed forces went towards the Royal Army of Eglen and less to the Imperial Eglonian Navy. Regardless, the Navy had managed to carve out a significant number of overseas territories in strategic locations.

Setup

When war erupted between the Glorious Kingdom of Eglen and the Democratic Republic of Duscurybanr it was mostly a land-based affair. The navy had a few small skirmishes near the border but both fleets stayed out of each other's way. Druscurybanr has a larger fleet, but the ships of Eglen are generally stronger.

This status quo changed when High Command requested (read, ordered) the navy to attack in an effort to distract Duscurybanr as to create an opening in the ground war.

Plans

The Admirals assembled a small battle fleet to do a hit-and-run attack on Mansgra Island, this is one of the islands in front of the coast of Duscurybanr. Not of any significant importance, but it lay close to the shipping routes, and that could be very interesting for Eglen. But it was well within the reach of several other bigger ports of Duscurybanr, so they didn't have a naval presence there.

Battle

Unfortunatly for Eglen, the attack didn't go as planned. Their fleet was spotted early, and it came to a clash with a fleet of faster ships from Duscurybanr, although the fleet of Duscurybanr was half the size of that of Eglen. The Eglonian battleships had trouble aiming their guns at the highly manoeuvrable battlecruisers. The battleships at first managed to withstand the fire of the smaller guns of the battlecruisers. And even managed to sink two of the enemy, but when of the remaining ten, five began to coördinate their fire to a single battleship, the amount of shells became too much.
The other five battlecruisers began hunting the cruisers around, which armour was helpless against the fire of the battlecruisers. Around this time the first wave of planes arrived, and they quickly blew holes in the observation balloons of the Eglonian airships, sending them plummeting to the waves.

Planes engage ships

Then, in an unprecedented manoeuvre, the planes started attacking the Eglonian ships! Ships who had no defence against an enemy from above, all their guns could only shoot at other ships. When the first two battleships blew, the Hunters and Corvettes started to point their bows away from the planes, but the Frigates of Duscurybanr didn't want to let them escape and engaged, here the fight was hard and Duscurybanr lost half its frigate force and the other half was too damaged to move on their own power.

The planes managed to sink a total of 3 battleships, and damage a fourth one. The only reason the two escaped was because of the bomber planes running out of bombs and the battlecruisers not giving chase, as they didn't want to risk it when the victory was that clear. Looking at the numbers, the planes should've taken out more ships, but the attack was chaotic, most planes going for the same battleship, and their bombs missing all together.

Air ships are late

The airships from Duscurybanr went to the wrong side of the island first, due to a wrong understanding of the orders, and missed the fight all together. They only aided in helping the tugboats finding the still floating frigates that needed help being by getting towed back to harbour.

Defeat

The battle was a practical defeat for the Imperial Eglonian Navy, their largest assests couldn't find the highly mobile enemy. And would the fight have remained a seabattle, the local commanders could've adjusted and controlled their hunter and corvette fleet to do high speed manoeuvres to turn the battle. But the engagement from the air was unknown and the ships had no way of attacking the flying threat.

Victory

Although the Duscurybanr fleet had all it's frigate's put out of action, they tactial choices from years before to go with faster ships had payed off. And the combined warfare of air and sea power had prooved to be very succesfull. It needed refinement in tactics and training but those would come fast now there was pracitcal experience.

Tactical victory

In the grand scheme of the whole war this battle lead to Duscunybanr allocating alot of resourses to fixing up their Frigates. Sending more ships, air ships and planes out to patrol the seas, which draw away money, people, resourses and attention from the main battle on land. Which gave Eglen more breathing room and was desisive in the overall victory.

Lessons

The Imperial Eglonian Navy scrambled to find weapons to put on the decks of all their vessels that could get projectiles airborn, to defend and attack the aircraft. Also they allocated extra funds to their research department to work on faster ships.

When news hit the Admirals room about the succes of the 10^th and 20^th Fighter Wings of the Army Air Corps using the new Odonats. They wanted some of their own, this becomes the 30^th Fighter Wing / 1^st Naval Air flotilla. And a ship to carry them. That was always the difficulty with airships they had to stay airborn when they sailed with the fleet, and couldn't follow them to the colonies, but if those small Odonats could land on a flat piece of deck the ships could carry them everywhere they go!.