The Naval Arms Race and the SMS Karl der Große
Introduction
Due to the recent tensions involving the rapid buildup of aether warships by the Great Powers of the world, this article has been compiled to give a brief background as to the field, its major developments, and the recent incident at the Franco-Imperial Border.
History of Warfare in the Aether
Early Days
Since humanity has taken to the aether, they have done so in a military capacity. The Merchant Expedition into the Concord system and the Arkwright journeys into the frozen depths of the Nikolovsk system were both military-led expeditions. However, in its earliest days, those aetherbound sailors were armed for defense only. The first true combat in the aether took place in 1904, during The Russo-Japanese War. While most Western nations maintained an aether fleet for the purposes of discouraging piracy, the Japanese saw an opportunity for offensive use. They constructed a small fleet in preparation for their conflict with the Russians, which they unleashed at the Battle of Vilyuysk. Attacking the Baltic fleet in transit from above, the Japanese managed to destroy the few guard vessels with ease and then destroyed the inactive Russian ships.
The event shook the world’s navies in a dramatic way, pushing them to correct course with a series of conferences. The first, convened two years later in 1906, attempted to restrict the construction of martial aether ships entirely, but negotiations broke down severely, and the conference failed. This started the first leg of an ongoing arms race. The Russian Empire, notably embarrassed by their defeat by the Japanese, became a world leader in the area. What they lacked in warm-water ports they more than made up for in terms of land and resources, and so they began a massive buildup of ships. From 1904 to 1917, they launched no less than two hundred ships for their new state-of-the-art navy. Most were small patrol and torpedo boats, but notably, 63 of these were battleline ships, including 5 true aetherbound battleships. The Pyotr Velikiy class was the first of its kind, carrying 8 heavy guns, 32 mid-sized guns, and an assortment of smaller armaments and torpedo launchers. It was, in many ways, a sea-based battleship transposed into the aether, and this showed in the arrangements of its armaments. Not fully accounting for the unlimited geometry of the aether, many of its cannons suffered from limited traverse options, meaning that at typical engagement angles, only around half of onboard weapons could be brought to bear. Other nations followed suit, with the United States and Britain investing vast sums to assemble new, heavy-hitting fleets. The Japanese similarly continued their investments, leading to the pinnacle of pre-Chamberlain class aether ship construction; The Yamato.
The Yamato, a Castle in the Sky
Over a thousand feet long from bow to engines, the Yamato was a colossus of the early Aether Age. With more than double the weapons complement of comparable ships, and even heavier armor, it was at the time of its construction the largest ship ever built. Due to its purpose as the flagship of the colonial fleet of Kyokoku , it was designed to be very ornamental overtop of its more practical considerations. Its bow was capped with twin sculpted figureheads of the gods Fūjin and Raijin, the hull was brightly painted, and its superstructure was heavily decorated. This led many to comment that it was less a ship, and more a castle suspended in the heavens.
There is some debate as to whether the Yamato can truly be classed as a battleship, or if it stands in its own category. This is primarily due to retrofits of a highly expanded shuttle bay in 1920 and a full flight deck in 1927. However, upon its initial construction, it very clearly fit into the same category as contemporaries such as the HMS King George V or the USS Odyssia. It has of course drifted since then. Its initial armaments were primarily built around the use of its 12-inch guns as weapons of finality, however since the late 20s the Imperial Japanese Navy has moved to 18-inch guns as their standard large armament. The venerable Yamato now fits into the battleline essentially as a carrier. In truth, it is more so an aether station than anything else, having developed a stationary identity, and taken onboard large numbers of civilians. As of the recent act of terrorism aboard the Yamato, it has seen a new wave of retrofits, with even heavier armor to better fit its defensive posture in combat, and to prevent any surprise attacks from further breaching the hull.
The Russian Civil War
In 1917, The Russian Empire broke into an expansive and bloody civil war. With the death of the Tzar and his family at the hands of the communist revolutionaries, the conflict reached new depths of violence, as both sides realized there was no possibility of returning to the old system. One of the most serious threats to the empire came in late 1918, as Admiral Sergey Kovalchuk defected to the Bolsheviks, taking the Volga Fleet with him. Kovalchuk made for the Nikolovsk Jump Gate, providing fire support for Red forces on his way. His fleet was caught by the White Navy in the skies above Novosibirsk but quickly climbed out of the atmosphere, where the true engagement began. Such it was that the first real test of the Russian fleet was to be a live-fire exercise against itself.
Both fleets climbed as they fought, eventually disappearing fully from view from the ground. Estimates put their final engagement distance after five days of fighting at over 80,000 miles from Earth. Due to the extreme ranges of combat in the aether, they resorted to the use of high-caliber flak shells in an attempt to box the opposing ships into predictable flight paths. The limited computerization of this period meant that most aiming was handled via long-range tracer shells or simply educated guesses. However, the safety of range eventually came in conflict with the irritation of little progress being made, and the two fleets closed in. The crescendo of the battle came on December 18th, 1918, as Admiral Kovalchuk’s flagship, which he had hastily renamed the Hope of the Revolution, took a direct hit to its stern that penetrated its armor before hitting, and promptly detonating its rear magazine. The White Navy under Admiral Alexander Vasilyevich Kolchak was therefore victorious but suffered heavy losses nonetheless. Additionally, in the confusion of the battle, at least 23 Red Navy vessels escaped back to Earth. These were eventually used again in the Retreat of the Bolsheviks in 1922.
The Chamberlain Class
Based on reports from the Russian Civil War, the British Royal Navy began planning a new class of battleship, one that would come to be known as the Chamberlain Class. Incorporating advanced analog targeting computers, linked weapon systems, a full sensor suite, and directed energy targeting beams, the Chamberlain class redefined naval combat in the Aether. Extremely long-ranged engagements were now the definitive battle strategy, rather than an unexpected outcome of an extended game of cat and mouse. The HMS Chamberlain was perhaps the first ship truly built to fight in the aether, rather than with considerations for ground bombardment at the forefront.
When it launched in 1927, it caught a large amount of press attention, most of it deeply negative. The British Isles had only recently come out of a brutal quarantine after the Bengal Flu Pandemic, and Lord Protector Chamberlain, who had died two years earlier, had ended his reign an extremely unpopular man. His successor, Stanley Baldwin, had been forced to reinstate parliament to quell the dissidence. As such, the launching of a new, extremely expensive warship at this time was not received well. These factors led to the ship becoming somewhat of a joke to the general public, however the changes it implemented were certainly noticed by the navies of the other great powers, and a second scramble began to construct ships that could keep up with the Chamberlain class.
The Imperial Navy
The Holy Roman Empire, being one of the great powers of the world, would have been expected to compete in the new waters of the aether as well, however, they took a different approach. Prior to their change of course, the armed forces of the Empire focused on the usage of in-atmosphere craft only, eschewing the possibility of true aetherbound combat. After successful usage in the Italian wars of the 1850s the Imperial Zeppelin Service became a primary wing of development, quickly overtaking most other nations’ efforts. Their zeppelin fleet grew to such an extent that it spawned a healthy civilian market as well, with zeppelin travel becoming the dominant form of travel throughout the Empire in the late 19th century.
However, examinations of other nations' fleets began to worry the imperial high command in the late 20s. Purpose-built aether ships were capable of combat at extreme ranges that zeppelins could not compete with, and so they begrudgingly changed course. In 1930 a funding bill was quietly passed allocating resources to the construction of a world-class aetherfleet. Under the guise of a retrofit of older zeppelins, new warships were laid down in yards across the Empire. Over the next decade, an exorbitant amount of funding was shifted to this project, eventually comprising over 60% of the Empire’s annual budget.
By 1935, it became apparent that these were no zeppelins. As 85 ships of the line lifted into the air, including no less than 43 capital ships, the Kaiser’s fleet drew eyes across the world. Their new battleships, the Carinthia class, were constructed around cutting-edge magnetic springald accelerator cannons, in what was their first usage on a production vessel. Running the length of the ships’ spines, these weapons promised devastating firepower at even longer ranges than had previously been achievable. The British Empire, who maintained a naval policy of having double the number of battleline ships as the next two great powers combined, scrambled to maintain their numerical superiority, hurriedly ordering the construction of 32 new vessels.
The Launching of the SMS Karl der Große
On April 12th, 1938, the flagship of the fleet was launched to great fanfare. The SMS Karl der Große was designed as the centerpiece of the Imperial Navy. Functionally a larger and more impressive version of the Carinthia class battleships, Karl der Große also featured an expanded command and communications suite as well as a city-sized Shield Generator, allowing her to shield other members of the fleet if needed, though only for a short time. Karl der Große left the Berlin shipyard to embark on a two-month shakedown cruise. Originally she was planned to tour the world with the new fleet, making stops at various large cities. This was imagined as a de-escalation tactic by the Imperial propaganda office. In essence, a show of force to discourage building tensions. However, the Assassination of Léon Blum the previous month scrapped the larger part of the tour, limiting it instead to cities inside the Empire, Rome, and Moscow.
On April 24th, 1938 Karl der Große took part in a military exposition in the city of Hamburg. A grand parade was held, along with displays of equipment and a recruitment drive. Emperor Karl VIII made an appearance where he spoke of the strength of the Empire and their solidarity in the face of ideological threats. This was one of the first televised events to be widely seen live by the public. It framed the Emperor standing at a podium, with the Karl der Große looming in the skies behind him. This image was on the front page of half the newspapers in France the next day, where the event was interpreted as a threat.
Due to the lack of official extraplanetary colonies, the Empire’s fleet-building activity was primarily interpreted as a tool of offense rather than one of defensive necessity. The name of their flagship likewise was taken as a deliberate snub to the people of France, as it was seen as the Empire once more claiming inheritorship of the lands of Charlemagne. This further fed into anti-imperial conspiracies spreading throughout Europe. Just a few days later, the Karl der Große made port in Amsterdam. As it steamed towards the border city it was met by the full force of the French fleet, moored just over the Rhine. Likewise, the Italian fleet had been called up to patrol the Empire’s southern border.
The situation was somewhat defused by a diplomatic exchange between the two fleets. Admiral Wolfgang von Tirpitz hailed the French commander - Admiral François Darlan - and the two shared a luncheon on a supply vessel overlooking Amsterdam. However, a majority of the damage to the Imperial reputation could not be undone. A panic had been incited on the frontier as French civilians fled the area, convinced that at any moment the ships would start fighting.
The optics of the entire event were deeply negative. Even in the largely uninterested United States, the general public came under the impression that this was yet another in a long line of attempts to bully the democratic peoples of the world. In summation of the general mood, a cartoon published on April 29th in the Houston Post depicted an exaggerated imperial bureaucrat smiling through his mustache, claiming that “All we want is peace, for the whole world!” while poorly hiding the form of a warship behind him as if it were a club.
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