The Future of Tomorrow Brought Today

Chapter 11: Battle of Guadalcanal

Date: August 10th, 1943

Location: Newport Naval Base, California

Time: 8:00 am

It's been a week and a half since Echo fleet had begun training. In that time they have learned to use their riggings in combat. Montana, Shikishima, Yoshino, and Midway mostly focused on learning to fight at range and keep their opponents an an arms distance. Jason and Nisshin learned how to fight at much closer range should they need to defend themselves. Though they serve as support ships rather than warships. During this time the first batch of freshly built A-1 Skyraiders, DTB Destroyers, F8F Bearcats, and F4F-3S Wildcatfish arrived at the base. Naturally Midway got dibs on the aircraft to replace the ones she had lost. When Essex heard about the new planes arriving she immediately went to talk with Commander Evans.

"Please can I have the remaining of the new planes that came in with the last batch?" Essex asks as she sat down in a chair.

Evans sighs knowing that those spare planes were for Midway incase she lost anymore during the next two weeks of training. However now that these planes were slowly being produced, it wouldn't be long until the next batch of planes arrived.

"Fine you can have them. However I only have about ten of each to give you so use them wisely."

"Yes! Thank you commander." Essex says as she does a little happy dance before regaining her posture.

"Now please leave me to continue my work."

Essex salutes before leaving Commander Evan's office. As the door closes Evan mumbles to himself.

"That girl is a walking meme."

Just then the door reopens as a the head scientist enters Commander Evan's office.

"Sir, we just finished analyzing the weapon system on U-3008." The scientist says as he walks over to Evan's deck.

The scientist then opens a file containing a diagram of U-3008 that show all of his ship's compartments.

"Alright, what am I looking at?" Evan asks.

"This is a launcher for small anti ship guided rockets. U-3008 can carry twenty-four in two launchers." The scientist replies as he points to where the two launchers are located before continuing. "One of the launchers faces forward and is located in front of the conning tower. The second is aft of the conning tower and faces towards the stern."

"What about the rockets themselves? How potent are they? How much of a threat do they pose?"

"After a single test conducted yesterday we conducted these ASGRs are as powerful as a small torpedo. These radio guided rockets are slow to turn while in flight so you have to point the launcher towards the target. Also we concluded these rockets have a range of 20km. These rockets aren't much of a threat to heavy armored ships but light cruisers and destroyers can easily be knocked out with one to three hits. Heck even heavy cruisers aren't immune to these rockets. Granted it would take at least three good hits to sink them. Overall these rockets aren't much of a game changer due to that U-3008 has to be surfaced to use them. However the potential of this technology is enormous. Imagine a ship armed with larger versions of these rockets able to hit other ships outside the range of a battleship."

"Thats incredible, report this to high command immediately and tell no one what you have told me."

Meanwhile down at the piers Nisshin watched as his old Mitsubishi F1M floatplanes were being replaced with experimental F4F-3S Wildcatfish. These modified Wildcats had just begun final trails so high command gave the approval for IJN Nisshin to test these aircraft. The Wildcatfish were only slightly slower and maneuverable than a normal Wildcat but could now be used as a float plane. Over all giving Nisshin theses Wildcatfish would greatly increase his airpower and increase is combat abilities. Now Nisshin could not only scout but also use his float planes to help defend against enemy aircraft.