Battle of Governor's Cape

09:34 Hours

• USS Skipjack sights the mast of the UNSC Anzio and the remaining ships of the Grand Fleet come in to view. Skipjack reports to Grand Admiral Banks-George the sighting of the ships, aboard the FWS Missouri for battle planning. 

• Admirals Banks-George and Schwartz order their ships to immediately charge towards the fleet, calling all ships to set sail at once. HMS Goosenaught is actually the first vessel to leave port, her crew practically slicing her moorings off for a chance to fight the Grand Fleet.

09:51 Hours

• USS Cincinnati is the final ship of the fleet to leave port, under a hail of sudden rain and thunder. 

10:12 Hours

• USS Thresher joins up with Skipjack and the two ships begin to S-curve on the outskirts of the enemy formation. By this point, they have identified all three Devastator-class Battleships in the enemy fleet.

• The Allied fleet forms up. At the head, the extremely fast battlecruiser USS Columbus takes the forward position, followed by two echelons of battleships. 

• HMS Goosenaught, straining her boilers to far above the maximum safe levels, falls in behind the two much more modern carriers of the fleet, the FWS Ronald Reagan and the USS Kearsarge. 

11:11 Hours

• USS Columbus sights the enemy fleet, as the faster battlecruiser is charging ahead. By sheer luck, the Allied Fleet is on a direct course of action with the Grand Fleet. 

• Aboard the USS New Illinois, the fleet commander, John Banks-George, orders the fleet to top speed. As the fleet prepares their guns, torpedoes, and missiles, the New Illinois has a signal hoisted on her mast. “This will determine the course of war. Our people expect that all will do their duty.”

• While all other ships in the fleet simply acknowledge the signal, HMS Goosenaught, once again showing just how near to insane her crew is, hoists the response signal “God Save the Queen, Damn the Torpedoes” The captain then promptly orders the boilers to 125%, and thick black smoke billows from her funnels as she keeps pushing forward. 

• By now, the combat air patrol of the UNSC Carrier Invincible has sighted the enemy fleet. Frantically, the UNSC fleet, not expecting action until tomorrow, rotates their guns and drops speed to attempt to make the Allied fire more inaccurate. 

• The Allied ships begin to hoist their battle ensigns and flags, however, in the ensuing event it actually becomes more of a competition, with crews hoisting every flag they can find. The USS Delta busts a display case to hoist the original state flag and on the FWS Wisconsin, her crew is hoisting practically anything that was both a) a cloth and b) a color. One crewmember recounted that the Wisconsin was so full of battle ensigns that the actual masthead was nearly invisible. 

• As if on cue, the wind around the fleet picked up and the ensigns of the fleet flew high in the wind as the seas began to roughen up. 

• HMS Goosenaught’s crew hoists the massive M.R.D. Battle Ensign, dragged from the ships hold, simply because it was extremely large. This of course rallied the Despan Fleet, while rather annoying the Federation Fleet. The Wisconsinites were simply very confused.

11:32 Hours

• Aboard USS New Illinois, battle flags billowing from every masthead and hoist, Admiral Banks-George gives the order to engage the enemy fleet. Aboard FWS Bismarck, her 8 massive guns roar out their first salvo, and the Battle of Governor’s Cape begins. 

• South of the Allied battle line, the Carriers of the fleet turn south to launch their aircraft. USS Kearsarge, while being the most advanced carrier in the fleet, is actually the second to get her aircraft away - once again, HMS Goosenaught is ignoring basically all protocol, and launching her aircraft at arguably unsafe rates. But if it works, it works. 

• The Bismarck’s salvo lands short of the light cruiser UNSC Anzio, with splashes pluming up all around the ship. The slower battleships of the UNSC cannot yet return fire, and so are for the time being at the mercy of the Allied fire. 

• FWS Missouri and Wisconsin fall into firing range. The Battlecruiser USS Columbus powers forward faster than the remaining ships, using it’s lighter construction to get itself into firing range. 

11:41 Hours

• The main Federation fleet starts to come into range. USS New Illinois and USS Prairie, purely by coincidence, fire their first salvos at the same time. However, this coincidence is interpreted by the UNSC Commander, Luke Gainey, as a far more advanced coordination of fire. Thus, he attempts to establish a similar radio coordination system between his battleships. 

• USS Columbus fires her second salvo, this time just barely missing the UNSC Devastator. Admiral Gainey orders the UNSC ships to rotate their guns to the much closer battlecruiser rather than the still-out-of-range battleships of the Allied Line. 

• Devastator, Destructor, and Decimator all fire full salvos against the USS Columbus. The ship begins to turn in an attempt to disengage, but one shell from Decimator scores a hit directly below the “C” turret, going through the aft magazine and the boiler room. The unspent ammunition explodes, and the USS Columbus explodes in a massive column of leaping flame. First Blood is drawn by the Catxis, as Columbus slips beneath the waves, taking all hands with her. Her “B” turret, as the fire reaches the guns, fires one empty salvo, a mark of final defiance. 

• Bismarck and Missouri fire their third and second salvos. Bismarck has corrected her firing solution and this time, 3 of her shells hit the light cruiser UNSC Anzio. Anzio’s steering gear is knocked out and the ship is forced to fall out of line and drop speed. 

• Wisconsin, finally reloading her guns for the second time, fires another salvo that scores glancing damage on the UNSC Belleau Wood. 

11:56 Hours to the End of the Battle

• USS New California fires her first salvo, aimed at the UNSC Decimator. No hits are scored but the Decimator rotates her guns to return fire. The remaining two battleships aim firing solutions on the New California. 

• USS Delta and New Alaska, the latter the oldest battleship in the fleet, fire their first salvos against the enemy fleet. Both ships are aimed at the Decimator, which the allies believe to instead be the flagship Destructor.

• HMS Goosenaught’s aircraft, having failed an attack run on the UNSC Anzio, trying to finish her off, decide that returning to the ship is boring, and they circle back to make strafing runs on the enemy battleships. Because of this, the aircraft are able to identify the enemy flagship, UNSC Destructor, in the middle of the battle line rather than the front. 

• USS New Illinois and USS Prairie, using the information provided by Goosenaught’s aircraft, shift their fire to the Destructor. New Illinois’ first salvo brackets the enemy flagship, but Prairies strike A-turret in the forward section of the ship, knocking half of the ship’s guns out of action. 

• USS Delta, USS New California, and USS New Alaska all fire almost-simultaneously, still aiming at the Decimator. At least 8 shells from various ships find their marks, with one hitting the boiler room and causing an explosion in the engines and rupturing the hull of the battleship. She quickly keels out of line, and will be underwater within the hour.

• The UNSC’s remaining two battleships open up with all guns on the USS New Illinois. Because the Allied ships are presenting a more angled position to enemy gunners, the two shells which do hit the ship simply bounce off of her armor. 

• A further salvo from Bismarck takes out the UNSC Rydonasaurus, a frigate. Never designed to fight in a proper battle line, the frigates are all desperately outgunned, and because the UNSC government can no longer afford to mount them with the missiles they are meant to fire, their only weapons are their single 5-inch guns. 

• Wisconsin and Missouri fire in tandem, with shells from both landing just meters short of the UNSC’s battleship line. In response, orders come out from the Destructor to execute a hard turn to port to draw the allies into a broadside brawl and throw off their firing solutions. 

• In the turn, USS Cincinnati’s guns open up on the enemy cruiser line, bracketing the UNSC Belleau Wood. Behind her, USS Dubuque and USS Moline readjust their aim and fire one after another on the cruiser. On Belleau Wood’s bridge, the scene becomes chaos as two shells penetrate the bridge and a further two hit the ship’s forward gun turret and stern magazine. The ship is quickly abandonded, before it explodes in a massive magazine detonation. This makes the USS Moline the first Federation Navy Cruiser to sink an enemy cruiser in a fleet action.  

• The two remaining UNSC Cruisers, UNSC Chosin and UNSC Alamo are both targetted by the USS Skipjack and USS Thresher respectively. While Thresher’s torpedoes miss the Alamo, Chosin is struck by two of the Skipjack’s. When she sinks, it will be the fourth and final kill of the Skipjack, and the final submarine kill of the Second Great Prairie War. 

• The Large Cruisers USS Murphia and USS Sandusky focus their intermediate-caliber guns on the enemy frigate line, both accidentally targetting the same ship, the very unfortunate UNSC Catopia. Though both ships have seen almost no action in the war thus far, their crews are determined to make this time count, and the Catopia is quickly engulfed by fire from the two pseudo-battlecruisers. USS Murphia eventually scores the killing blow, probably from a main-battery shell piercing the engine room or magazine of the small frigate. 

• By now, Admiral Gainey can see that the hard turn has cost him any advantage he may have possessed, by simply bringing his ships closer into the firing range of the advanced allied gun batteries. He quickly orders the UNSC Invincible to finally launch its aircraft and to target the enemy flagship, now identified as the USS New Illinois. He also orders one of its VTOL aircraft to evacuate him from the Destructor, hoping to avoid going down with his ship. 

• HMS Goosenaught, USS Kearsarge, and FWS Ronald Reagan’s torpedo bomber aircraft all join up for a pincer assault against Devastator and Destructor. Just minutes after Admiral Gainey left, simultaneous hits are observed on the Devastator, Destructor, and the frigate UNSC Rydonian Rap City. All three of the ships would later sink, with the killing blow to the enemy flagship being struck by a torpedo from HMS Goosenaught, making her the only aircraft carrier in the history of the Sun Prairie Nations to directly sink an enemy flagship, even if the Admiral was not technically still aboard. Kearsarge is credited with the kills on both of the other ships.

• UNSC Invincible’s aircraft line up for an attack run on the USS New Illinois. Admiral Banks-George orders the ship to fall out of line, but one torpedo still strikes home, knocking out the Battleship’s rudder, but due to the extremely heavy armor mounted by the Federation Battleship, no other systems are damaged. A second attack by Invincible is foiled when the FWS Ronald Reagan’s fighters intercept them before reaching the damaged flagship. 

• Lacking any Battleships, and now consisting of less than half the ships that they had started with, Admiral Gainey’s fleet is in total disarray. Gainey orders the Invincible to accelerate to flank speed, turn north and away from the battle, and cut off all communication with the Grand Fleet. He has just abandoned the remaining ships to themselves and to their eventual, inevitable fate.

• The missile cruisers UNSC Spirit of Fire and Pillar of Autumn launch what few missiles they do have aboard, but most are shot down before they can reach anything. One strikes the superstructure of USS Sandusky, causing her to heave-to and out of line. Otherwise, no hits are scored. In response, her sister ship, USS Murphia roars out a salvo which travels downrange and utterly destroys the tin can missile cruiser, puncturing what little armor it possesses and igniting the fuel cells on the UNSC Spirit of Fire.  

• Taking command of the situation, and seeing what will happen should the Grand Fleet continue to fight, UNSC Pillar of Autumn’s captain orders her colours struck, and the UNSC Battle Ensign is hauled down and replaced by a large set of white cloths and flags. The remaining ships of the Grand Fleet follow suit, and the Battle of Governor’s Cape is over.