TEN DDS? What?
WHAT!
We didn't see a hide or hair of ANY of their Destroyers!
Ugh. Minor Victory.
The only reason they have any points to their side is from how one of our ships sank
outside of battle.
It was our own inept damcon that was our greatest enemy in this fight.
I am not going to do hour by hour because were going around in circles for quite a while there.
But apparently:
At 8:00 we made contact, almost crashong onto each other. Thereafter, was a confused tangle of combat that lasted until around 11:00.
From 8:00 - 10:00 was the bulk of the fighting.
Until 11:30 was the last chase for the Habsburg, then contact was lost in the rain.
At 14:00, DD Destructor sunk off the coast of Sicily.
If that separate blue track off to the West were the DDs of the Austria-Hungary fleet, they were
behind us.
Ten DDs and their torpedo runs would have been such a bother. A flanking attack from the side while their main fleet held us up would have broken through.
Just more targets would have changed the balance of battle.
Instead they just apparently never found the battle and mucked around until the Light Cruisers made contact with them and told them to stay away.
I... I can't tell just who was more incompetent in this battle.
This was my
first ever fleet battle and even what I have done wasn't quite so... borderline treasonous?
Baraco and Adobo will have to be in the yards for one month.
Other than the loss of Destructor, we took almost no real damage.
For their contributions to the battle, the crew of CA Adobo are recognized as Elite.
... And CL Ladron too, we suppose, for the miracle that it keeps surviving things it has no business being in.
So ends our fleet battle against Austria-Hungary, under the storm and rain, full of fury, signifying nothing.
AN:
And that's done. Whew.
From the perspective of the Austria-Hungarians, who might not know they accidentally lucked into sinking a ship to equalize the damage counters, maybe they consider it a crushing defeat morale-wise. The Spanish juggernaut shrugged off their best fire and were utterly reckless with their lives. I might make a little omake of that, but if anyone wants to make a writeup from their perspective, feel free.