My Shipyard

- Shallow Class Heavy Cruiser -

\¨ Ship Version ¨/

As the "War of the Empires" started for the Roman Empire and the nearby nations, a Roman attacking force was sent to destroy the Nothern Federation, but it failed and one of the ships lost was the cruiser Blücher. Some days after, the Nothern Federation decided to bring the Blücher afloat again, convert it to a new class named Shallow and would be later given to the Eagle Empire. The intention was to fully convert the ship in the Bergen Verft, a shipyard of the Nothern Federations, but as the news about a second attack, much stronger than the first one, came, it was decided to send the ship with the materials of the motorboats and the two main guns dismantled. The ship was finished on the Eagle Empire, but there was a failure or a small mistake on the ship, that caused the smokes generator to let a thick black fog instead of the normal smokescreen. Also, the name of the ship remained as Blücher with the intention to cause confusion among the enemy Romans, but now it was KNM Blücher instead of KMS.

The Shallow class was armed with two twin mounts of 20.3 cm guns that can use ASW and heavier shells, 12 single mounts of 10.5 cm dual-purpose guns that can use ASW shells, 12 single mounts of 37 mm AA guns, eight single mounts of 20 mm AA guns and two triple 60 cm torpedo launchers, but the ship was more known by the motorboats it carries, three visibly stored on the deck and other four stored inside the ship. Four of them are torpedo boats armed with two 60 cm torpedo tubes; and the other three are gunboats armed with a 60 mm autocannon with 30 rpm with five-clip magazines, one twin mounts of 12.7 mm AA guns. Both boats have a length of 20 m, a beam of 6 m and a draft of 1 m and a very thin armor, which allowed the three turbocharged 60-liter petrol engines (4800 hp or 3580 kW) to push the boats with 55 knots of speed. The motorboats are identified as MTB and MTG (Motor Torpedo Boat and Motor Gun Boat, respectively) and they are also identified by the codenames Emma (MTB-1), Nora (MTB-2), Frida (MTB-3), Ada (MTB-4), Ella (MGB-5), Mia (MGB-6) and lastly Anna (MGB-7). 

The class also had an aircraft catapult to launch an SXB prototype aircraft of the Eagle Empire. The plane reached a top speed of 650 km/h when fully loaded with 4 rocket, two 250 kg bombs and two torpedoes. The plane is never loaded with all the weapons, of course, and uses the "skip bombing" technique more often when attacking the enemy with bombs. The absence of landing gear forced the pilot to be extremely skilled and land the aircraft at the catapult of the ship. One of the great failures was known in the tail, that looked like a mix of an SBD Dauntless's and a Corsair's tail... the controls of the aircraft tail were enlarged to at least respond well, but the maneuverability of the aircraft was still very bad. The great failure was that if you turn the rudder too fast, the aircraft would enter in a flat spin, regardless of the altitude and speed. The codename of the aircraft was "Thea" and the nickname was "Blue Baron". 

The ship and the MTB also used two different torpedoes in their 600 mm launchers. The first one was, of course, a regular torpedo while the second torpedo was called "Slow Dummy". The second one had no explosives at all, so it was very easy to produce and less expensive, but it couldn't damaged enemy ships, it was used for distraction, forcing enemy ships to turn to dodge a meaningless torpedo and get in the direction the Blücher wanted them to go. The ship was also later installed on a radar that would be used to see within the black fog the own ship creates.

The armor of the ship consisted of 192 mm of belt armor, 30-127 mm armor in the upper deck, 51-203 mm in the armor deck of the ship, 57-158 mm in the turrets and lastly 51-152 mm in the citadel of the ship. Despite all the armor, craft and aircraft and the armaments of the ship, the engines of the ship were capable of giving 32 knots of top speed. Later, the ship would receive improved engines that increased the top speed to 34 knots.

For the appearance scheme, a mysterious man only known by the names "Fixit" and "Carpenter" was hired to do it. He decided that Blücher should stay with most of the original appearance of a typical North Roman ship, but with faint gold, it was painted a crown in the bridge, but it's only visible as a crown when seen from close. The turrets were painted with dark blue, but the paint on the sides of the turret pealed off and the back section of the ship was painted to make it looks like one of a cargo ship. The ship also had two extra flags, one of the Eagle Empire and the other of the Nothern Federation. Strangely, the ship had many marks of ice, with freezing and ice cycles forming on the main guns of the ship, but what was stranger is that the guns work perfectly, as if nothing happened or is happening to them at all. Rumors say: "It's her soul willing for revenge for those who sink her, after all, revenge is better served when cold".