sakura empires unfinished monster

Night action at Savo Island

Being 100 nautical miles north east of Guadalcanal Hakuryuus task force were steaming west. On her radar, she started getting blips on the first generations screen. Craning her neck over to see the sky that was filled with their returning aircraft brought some relief, knowing it worked. Some of the planes were either smoking or spewing oil, but most were still in good condition. As they began their landing, both carriers turned into the wind to help slow the planes. Expectedly, this process was extremely busy over the next 30 minutes planes began landing on the deck using their hooks to slow the planes down quickly. Aircraft too damaged to be salvaged would be pushed over the side into the ocean while fixable or undamaged ones were taken bellow decks with the use of the forward elevator on both carriers. Placed either into a parking position or in the workshop area for repairs, all work began to make them combat ready or secure. Getting an update on her casualties, she would contact her friend. "Hey Ryujo, can you give me an update on losses?" Her tone had a hint of distraction as she was crunching her numbers.

Ryujo: "I unfortunately lost all 4 Vals 2 were shot down, 1 was too badly damaged, and the last is in need of repairs. 2 zeros were shot down, but the other 4 are fine. I also have 2 kates and 1 needing repair. All together, I still possess 18 zeros, 7 vals, and 13 kates. How about you?" Double checking that all of the info was right and gaining the full combat report Hakuryuu responded plainly to the question. "It seems I lost 8 Reppus, 4 J5Ns, and 7 D4Ys mostly from AA and that dogfight. I'll make use of my spares to replensh most of the losses. I've still got 48 Reppus, 24 J5Ns, and 29 Suiseis." Returning to their original course after recovering all the aircraft Hakuryuu and her task force began sailing towards the shortland islands at a slow speed so they would be in a prime position to launch CAP over their allies who were as of now sailing close to Guadalcanal and the battered Joint Eagle union Royal Navy task force.

Meanwhile.. 5 minutes sailing from Guadalcanal Chokai, and her fleet backed up with the guns of Hiei would silently sail into position having already slipped past the very minor pocket screen what they saw wasn't what they were expecting. Instead of the weakened enemies, they anticipated instead what they saw was... KABOOM! As if on a signal their enemy began charging towards the task force with the battleships South Dakota and Washington in the lead. Behind them was the heavy cruisers Chicago, Quincy, and Australia, who were the least/undamaged heavy supporting ships left from the earlier air raid, amongst their ranks were some destroyers who couldn't be made out in the darkness. Firing their main guns, the night was illuminated by the bright flashes from 9 16-inch main gunfire coming from Washington and South Dakota. Already a chaotic mess from the shock. Squadron leader Chokai directed her fleet to begin returning fire while splitting up to be harder to hit. While this manoeuvre started, Hiei began her assault against one of the battleship girls, her 14 inch guns firing with hot lead every 30 seconds.

Like 18th century pirates both sides were exchanging furious broadsides with one and another. All guns that could fire did so at close range, the fight alone could be compared to a knife fight for warships as a mixture of gun calibres roared into life. The noise of the big guns drowning out all sense of reason as both sides pummeled each other becoming quite the specticle for marines who watched in awe at the display of firepower unfolding in front of them some 20 miles away. Predictably, Hiei was taking the most fire from the two enemy capital ships; with 14 inch shells screaming across the open water AP shells would smash into the main belt of South Dakota before erupting into smoke as the shells exploded in a sheet of flames. All the while, the battleships secondaries were singing with deadly intent. At the other end, Chokai, Aoba, and Kako were firing on the opposing heavy cruisers, each muzzle flash distinguishing the difference of what gun fired. Moving into position, Kako and Aoba would launch multiple long lance torpedoes at their opposition. The already hard to see small amount of torpedoe wakes created by the incoming warheads was even harder to detect thanks to the nightly confused conditions of this battle.

Results would soon follow as Quincy was nailed by 2 torpedoes into her starboard engine room, cutting her speed by half in time for Chokai to find the range pumping 8 inch shells into her. However, this success wasn't without consequences as Aoba had a stray shell from Washington smash through her forwards section, blowing a huge hole into the side, causing fires to violently blossom and a heavy list to emerge rapidly. Breaking off from the action, kako would come under heavy all be it inaccurate fire from Chicago while illuminated by the Raging tempest that was Aobas burning bow. A continuous stream of shells seemed to be hammered out from Chicago, her gun barrels paint being burned off as a steady stream of shells shot out. Soon, a few bracketing shots were achieved followed up by impacting rounds against Chokai. Forced to deploy smoke, an order came from the embattled heavy cruiser. Chokai: "Hiei, we are taking pretty heavy damage here. we're going to have to pull out break combat now, and we'll cover you with our torpedoes to make a retreat."

Cursing her luck at the situation she would activate both her main skills pushing her boilers into overdrive and quickly accelerating all the while coming under intense shell fire with every once in a while taking a shell to the rear of her ship. Carefully balancing when to deploy her final charge of repair party, Hiei would decide to stop firing her main rear gun turrets to break contact more easily in the darkness. Having passed Kako and Chokai both cruisers launched heavy spreads of their torpedoes into the water forcing both Washington and South Dakota alongside Australia to steer away hard to avoid. The heavy smoke screen put up mixed with the dark allowed them to slip away. With the battle over and the squadron in full retreat. Aoba, Chokai, Kako, and Tenryu all demanifested their ship resting aboard Furutaka's sick bay. Kinugasa and Yubari were damaged but able to move. However, Hiei took the most damage, thankfully, though she was still able to make speed. When the battleship report came through, it wasn't good. Grabbing the report, Ryujo would read it out.

Ryujo: "When we managed to slip past the single destroyer picket screen, we were engaged by battleships Washington, South Dakota, heavy cruisers Quincy, Chicago, and Australia with destroyer support. We engaged the enemy but were forced to make a hasty retreat 2 hours after combat began. Enemy suspected to have taken moderate damage. Damage report for us is ranging between moderate to heavy damage. We are heading towards Rabaul now and requesting aerial support."

(Alright everyone that does it for this chapter took me a few attempts this time round as it's the first big all gun naval action I've written hope you've enjoyed and stay tuned to see if Chokai and her fleet can escape cya)