(It's like hell on wheels, haha!... get it!
"...."
You know what, I'll just stop talking)
Daniel fearlessly made his way across the deck,
It was strange even to him how he was able to keep his cool during this,
It might just be that so much stuff was happening at once that he didn't even have time to process it all, or maybe he mustered the will to fight alongside what was essentially his ancestors, whatever it was, it was by that courage alone that he was able to get across that deck,
The deck was slippery with water and a tinge of blood, and perhaps a little bit of oil. Which forced him to constantly watch his step.
The ships was moving at a speed upwards of at least thirty knots, making the already fierce seaborne winds harder to bear.
The recoil from the main guns could sweep you off of your feet,
And he even had someone tagging along with him that was probably about to faint.
Daniel proceeded down a extremely steep staircase, which went down to the 10.5 cm gun deck
Daniel was trying to provide assistance to
"Watch your step miss!" Daniel shouted to Bismarck, who was just above him
Seawater splashed over the side of the deck in violent crashing waves.
Bismarck, for the most part was still only barely able to take in her surroundings,
She wasn't using her rigging on the water, but instead was on a giant floating gun platform, fighting sirens at what appeared to be at the very limits of visual range,
Kansen-on-siren compact was fought at extremely close quarters in comparison, with the enemy being fully visible, instead of a bunch of blurry, small, faintly recognizable blobs on the horizon,
Some kansen even brought melee weapons such as swords for their intended combat style.
With such lethal weapons capable of being used at such a far distance, why didn't humans just stick to developing increasingly more powerful surface warships?
Maybe the answer to that was in her lost memory that she so very much wanted to get back.
The human crews for the weapons on the gun deck heaved shells more than half their height into the weapon, which then fired with a terrible banging sound, sending the projecting screaming towards whatever was unfortunate enough to be in it's way.
The weapon then dispensed the expended power casing with large amounts of smoke venting from the breech.
It was very interesting that these weapons were extremely light caliber guns, in comparison to the other weapons, not even the primary armament.
These weapons were many times the caliber of her own rigging, requiring individual loaders for each gun.
And there lies the vulnerability,
The crews of the guns were exposed to the outside, which was brimming with siren laser attacks just waiting to melt the crew with a single blast,
The mounted smaller dinghys and smaller boats mounted above rocked and shook with the blast of the main guns,
It was like trekking through a bomb site, and explosion could come from anywhere and swallow her whole.
Bismarck never had this feeling of existential paranoia before, almost like every step she took on deck could very well be her last.
She was so vulnerable when she thought about it.
Bismarck found Daniel tending to a wounded sailor near one of the 10.5 centimeter gun turrets,
Burns and scorchmarks were everywhere,
"Gunner took one directly to the face" Daniel said casually,
"What?" Bismarck said,
"The gunner got nearly hit by one of those siren laser beams near the eye while manning the gun, he's blinded in his good eye now." Daniel said
"And A blind gunner is pretty useless..."
Daniel proceeded to get towards the gunner's position on the turret, climbing in through the exposed rear section of the turret.
"What are you doing? If he got hit by staying in there why would you want to go-" Bismarck said,
"Eh, I'm fine, the gun shouldn't be too hard to use,
Can you lift a shell by any chance?" Daniel said.
He was acting like his survival was secondary, so either he was extremely brave or he wanted to die
Was he aspiring soldier or a psychopath?
Shells were piled on deck, and spent brass casings rolled across the deck,
"I, Uh... I think so..." Bismarck stammered out, still struggling to process exactly what is happening,
"Good, get a shell on the deck, and put it into the breech." Daniel said.
The breech was what the shell was supposed to go into, presumably.
She found a shell on the ground, right next to the turret, likely dropped by a loader.
She grabbed it with one hand,
It was actually lighter than she imagined, weighing in at around twenty seven kilograms, well within the reach of kansen, whose physical strength was practically superhuman.
The breech was easy enough to load, all she had to do was feed the shell into the hole in the weapon. Which then closed itself.
Bismarck could overhear Daniel talking to himself as he tried to figure out how to use the gun,
The scope was blasted out by siren lasers, which is probably what injured the gunner.
Luckily the electric drive for the weapon was still working, so he was able to turn it,
*Kr-UNCK!
*KREEEEEEK
The electric motor shut off with a banging noise,
*rrrrrrrrrrr-RNK!
You could tell that Daniel was fiddling a lot with the weapon, running around it, trying to make up in the gun crew's absence
There were manual cranks inside of the gunner's stations to elevate the guns,
Daniel tried to pull on one of the cranks, but it was melted to the gear it was supposed to turn, rendering it useless,
Daniel cussed to himself, banging the crank with his fist in a vain attempt to dislodge it.
He had to go out of the gun and try using the crank on the other side.
He immediately ran out of the side door he used to get in, and accidentally bumped his head on the roof of the gun shield,
Bismarck shouted something at him, (probably an "are you okay") but Daniel didn't listen, the sounds of warfare around him were too loud.
Before going into the other side of the gun,
And then...
"SCHI***! Move!" Daniel shouted, trying to get the gun to move,
This time, Daniel actually paid attention to what was inside of the gun
All kinds of things were melted, and with the scope being shattered, there was no way to get this gun working, not without a crew, and probably hours of maintenance.
——————
Just then, that annoying red cube that Daniel (forgot he) had in his pocket started acting up again,
And then, the gun started to MOVE, on its own, without Daniel turning cranks or anything.
"WHAT IS HAPPENING!" Daniel shouted
The cube started glowing brighter, and then...
*KABOOOOOM-KREEEEE
the gun fired automatically, sending a loud crashing blast through Daniel's poor ears,
Daniel felt vibrations in his pocket,
He yanked out the cube, and since it was acting strange, he put two and two together.
"You can possess things now?!" Daniel shouted at the glowing red cube.
"Yes" the cube "said", communicating via telepathy, being unable to speak with a mouth.
"What?!?" Daniel shouted
"No time to talk, the guns need loading" the cube "said"
"Since when did you care so much about what is all happening here!? You've been so frigging quiet!" Daniel said back.
The cube didn't speak, it just opened the side door.
Daniel huffed,
"You owe me a LONG explanation you freak!" Daniel shouted, getting out.
Daniel ran out from the side door,
"Daniel?? What are you doing out here? Who manning the gun?" Bismarck said, having arranged a small group of shells she found,
"NO TIME!" Daniel shouted,
The gun moved on its own.
Even though the elevation systems were not working earlier and were melted in place by laser fire, the cube seemed to operate the gun regardless of the damage already sustained
Bismarck looked even more surprised, but at this point she was so used to the constant surprises that it didn't affect her much.
The cube could make that thing work almost like a CIWS gun, the movements of the large gun were automated and so purposeful to the point where it was scary.
Daniel shoved a shell into the breech, and immediately once his hands were clear, the gun fired.
And then, a few seconds later, the shell struck an enemy ship directly, and only a few hits were enough to destroy it.
————————
A/N physics explanation time.
You all who play the Azur Lane game are probably wondering how the guns of a real ship are able to do so much damage,
I'll use a King George V class battleship from the Azur lane world and real life as an example.
King George V class battleship Prince of wales in Azur Lane firing "14 inch" guns
(The caliber of each gun is roughly the size of her eyeball, with many guns on other battleships being way smaller.)
The yield of each shell fired by these guns, as compared to Zuikaku. Each shell should have about as much yield as a roughly a hand grenade, with a recognizable lack of shell shrapnel.
Now take this versus a real life counterpart.
The Ship pictured is the HMS Duke of York, firing her 14 inch guns, with an awful lot more smoke from the main guns,
Each shell is this big, as the caliber states, exactly 14 inches across, a few times bigger than a human head, and quite long. This example is from 14 inch costal guns at Dover
This is a 14 inch shell on a King George V class battleship.
Shell splashes could reach dozens of feet high, usually going above the highest parts of a Bismarck class ship,
Even the smaller 5.25 inch secondaries had larger barrels than Azur lane Prince of wales,
(Secondary turret with nearby sailors for comparison)
Even if the guns on Azur Lane ship riggings were appropriately sized caliber-wise to their real-life counterparts, they would still not have large enough powder charge to match the sheer muzzle velocity of real life guns.
So, Azur Lane rigging guns are significantly smaller and less powerful than their real life counterparts, mainly just due to the size of the barrels, and they were also made to engage sirens and smaller humanoid targets instead of fully sized battleships.
No, back onto the story.
———————
"Cäsar, Dora turrets, stand by."
.
.
.
"FEUER!"
*THOOOOM
*THOOOOM
The ship rumbled under the sounds of gunfire,
The alien laser weapons glanced off of the hull,
The captain stared out of the window, trying to look for an exit
"Turrets Anton! Bruno! Standby!"
"FEUER!" The gunner officer shouted
*KA-THOOOM!
*KA-THOOOOM!
How many alien ships they sunk they certainly did not know only more just kept coming
"SIR!"
"What is it??" The captain said, with tones of frustration in his voice,
"Look!"
There was a gap between the enemy ships, approximately twenty degrees to starboard, only fairly visible through the smoke of the main guns firing.
"A break in the enemy formation! This could be our chance to escape!" Captain Lindemann said to himself.
"Starboard the helm!"
"Helm starboard aye sir!" The deckhand shouted,
Maybe they'll live to see another day yet.