Disclaimer: I don't own Mobile Suit Gundam SEED.
Summary: Three ships sail the seas in the fight against the ZAFT Forces. They serve loyally their nation, aboard the ships; the crews prepare to reintroduce a long forgotten style of naval warfare. The ZAFT pilots were thankful that there were only three ships that truly bore the name of BATTLESHIP. Still, there were three too many.
"Battlestations!"
Place: Somewhere in the East China Sea
Time: Day time, 1234 Local Standard Time
Date: April 5th, 70 of the Cosmic Era
Course: Pusan Naval Dockyards via the Sea of Japan
Fleet: Remains of Battle Group 95, three Warrior-Class Battleships and no escort ships.
Sit-Rep: 20 AMF-101 DINNs and 40 UMF-4A GOOhNs hot and inbound
"BATTLESTATIONS! ALL HANDS TO YOUR ACTION STATIONS! HOSTILES INBOUND!" the ship Public Address system announced, in stereo with other ships.
At once three lone capital ships were combat ready. The three were all that was left of Battle Group 95, a Joint Atlantic Federation-Republic of East Asia force that was sent forth as a flanking attempt to destroy the incomplete ZAFT base at the Gulf of Carpentaria, Australia, Oceania Union. The approaching site of 20 DINNs and 40 GOOhNs were to become a regular site for the three ships for the next few weeks, but in the end, ZAFT would ultimately failure to sink the three ships of the Warrior-Class throughout the entirety of the war.
ZAFT AMF-101 DINN pilot, Megan Katsby, age 14, watched as the three ships turned their big guns towards her and her comrades. It would be easy, three lumbering, overly armored and gunned warships versus sixty mobile suits. Yes easy, in theory. A theory she was just about to prove, san one fact. The ships were not slow or lumbering and there was a reason behind the armor and guns.
The force of sixty mobile suits attacked from one direction, which would prove to be a tactical error, though that was the case at any time of combat unless absolutely necessary. The ship gunners also didn't actually aim, but then again, the ZAFT mobile suits were bunched up and thus a fat target for which one only had to point and shoot. And that's what happened. To give some credit to the ZAFT pilots, they were freshly arrived and did not know how to fight properly in atmosphere yet.
The 16-in rifles were the first to sound off. Thirty-six rounds of high explosive shells that weighed in at two-tons each hurled towards the approaching ZAFT mobile suits. While the DINNs evaded and only had to worry about their aim being thrown off and being shaken to their cores, the UMF-4A GOOhNs had not been so fortunate as twelve were crushed by the extreme pressure created by the concussion of the exploding shells and two had actually been hit, one on the 'top/nose' of the approaching suit and the other right in the battery. There was nothing left of the latter and that was where three of its brethren suffered from the crushing forces applied came from.
One of the DINNs though had been as lucky as the other nineteen. Shrapnel had found the mobile suit tearing off an arm and a leg. One of the wings had been pulverized and the body looked like someone had bludgeoned the thing. It was hardly holding up as the pilot tried desperately to continue his attack, but he had moved closer and the 5-in secondary batteries already had him beaded. He closed the range and was the twin gun turrets of which each ship had twelve such turrets. The resulting fire ripped apart the DINN as the 16-in triple gun turrets of which each ship carried four continued to fire, switching to anti-air munitions this time.
The ZAFT pilots pressed their attack, even though more than half the GOOhNs had been lost to enemy fire that was appearing lucky and were maddening dodging their fire faster than they had been briefed about the ship's presumed speed. Unfortunately for the ZAFT pilots had been briefed on a theorical speed since the intelligence specialists had thought they were dealing with the same theories that applied to SPACE-going ship engine configurations and designs, not SEA-going engine designs and configurations. As such they had missed the fact that all three had very knife likely hulls that made them quite fast and that the shipbuilders had done some 'minor' modifications to the hulls and engines. The results were startling, 42.5 knots, an unheard of record for such ships of such size and design.
The gunners manning the smaller defense weapons began to track the approaching enemy as they got in close, then as one, released a hellish fuselage of anti-air fire. Normally a ship of the Cosmic Era was the most advanced around, especially military ships. The Warriors were, in fact, a step back!
They used electronically assisted manual traversing weapons for defense and there were a lot of them. Even the main guns, the 16-in rifles were loaded manually and fired manually, but with the natural support systems to aid in their loading, while range finding was done by hand with the standard issue Mark I Eyeball issued to every sailor at birth. Of coarse, a lot of the job was still assisted, but not entirely reliant on computers which had help to cut down the manufacturing costs and build time.
The ships had been given a nickname, the Galactia-Class. This was do to the fact their were minimal advance computers on the ships as had been the CCSGalactia in the 2003 AD remake of the 1970's AD classic, still watched even in the Cosmic Era. The ships nearly, entirely relied on the crews to do just about everything and the results were spectacular.
Unknown to the crews, do to their low EM (Electro-Magnetic) Emissions, they had gone nearly unnoticed until they had appeared behind the Combined Fleet of Oceania and ZAFT and preceded to sink half of the Oceanian Navy's major surface combatants and sank many of ZAFT's surfaced submarines and reek havoc with the building of the Carpentaria Base. Even after leaving the battlefield when the order for retreat had been given, the three ships had difficult proven had to track do to this same operation.
The crews, even after three days still had no idea what they had done.
And now, the ZAFT mobile suit pilots watched in horror as the well trained and honed gunners began to fill the sky before them with anti-air fire, destroying missiles left and right as they approached the ships, only to be caught and destroyed in a deadly killing field they had foolishly entered.
Pilot Katsby got a lock and let loose with seven missiles, but before the rest could launch, one of the turrets of the 16-in Rifles zoomed in on her and fired, the anti-air munitions caught the rest of her missiles they were launching and pieces of 16-in fragments punched through her mobile suit's armored body clawing at her flight suit and skin, until one piece went right through her. She coughed up blood and was blown free of her mobile suit when it exploded. She would be found after the three ships had departed the area by one of the other DINN pilots, Pilot Samues O'Ryan, THE only other survivor of the fail attack and he too had been downed. At least he had a rescue beacon with him.
Still, Pilot's Katsby missiles flew straight and true and began to slam into the center ship…
…And failed to inflict any significant damage do to the level of armor that the class had.
True, guns and gunners were thrown about, but by some twist of fate none were killed and the guns could be repaired once the shooting ceased.
As the shooting continued, a GOOhN pilot let loose with his torpedoes at the last ship in line and shot away as 5-in shells exploded or plowed through the water around him.
The torpedoes raced towards their target and impacted with great explosions like many roaring tigers and the ship faltered, but did not stop. The ship did take some damage, but the armor belt of the battleship proved tougher than it looked on paper and the torpedoes inflicted light to moderate damage, but did little to actually sink the ship.
Field repairs would hold until port could be made.
Finally, after nearly an hour of combat, the last GOOhN had been located and was hit hard by the lead ship. For all its speed, the GOOhN could not counter human ingenuity in using hand grenades and shoulder launched missiles in the anti-sub roll.
The three ships, AFS Warrior, AFS Soldier, and AFS Mercenary, sailed on towards Kyushu instead of Pusan so as to throw the ZAFT off their trail.