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World On Fire: Shadow Ops [a Fantasy WWII Quest]
- Thread starter Zoosmell
- Start date
- Mature Fantasy Alt. History
Vote closed
Zoosmell
Blind Idiot Arcana
- Location
- Kansas
I am a generous god (and I need to convert personal suffering to happiness), so I'll give the 10 to the physical training.
Icipall
Don't worry, we can fanfix that!
- Location
- Cold snow fields of Finland
We thank you for your generous boon, oh great one.
- Location
- USA
I'm not sure why that is threadmarked, though.
All Guns Blazing Pt. IX
Zoosmell
Blind Idiot Arcana
- Location
- Kansas
[><] Calisthenics, Jogging, Gymnastics, Defensive Wind
You decide to spend your time training your body in the Same Old Way for witches, for the most part.
10 | Minimum roll of 10 needed for perk in Strength, Running, or Broomhandling! I really should have rolled more than one, but oh well!
Calisthenics is easy enough to do. Even as Midway prepares for potential catastrophe, there's almost always some unit training in the United States military's preferred means of physical training. And on a base this far from proper land, resupply, or civilization, it wasn't even that odd for a witch or two to participate with the mere mortal mundane soldiers, Marines, or sailors - even if that witch was an officer.
Jogging, too, is easy enough to find. You march with the men, chest heaving, singing along to songs ranging from reverent to ribald. The hardest part is harmonizing with voices far lower than yours, with never more than two or three other witches or mages to back you up from what you can tell.
Broom gymnastics, or broomhandling, is a lonely thing to participate in with so few witches, and with a base matron whose hatred of you is proving infectious. Much like the Brazilian dance/martial art of capoeira, it is at once an exercise, a dance (of a sort, though until recently seen as downright un-Christian), and a martial art all at once. Witch's brooms are sturdy things when made of the proper wood, and reinforced with the right spellcraft it'll hit as hard as any steel rod. You have no delusions of being able to perform this sort of thing with the broom the man from R&D effectively gifted you, however. Much too large, and far too bent in shape. Still, the techniques used for broomhandling work well enough with any long, straight pole, or even a long enough rifle.
You don't think you made any real progress, that you notice, but you keep up well enough with the men and the other witches, and the tropical island heat makes you certain you've shed your share of sweat. You get your share of stares, too, but you mentally put it off as the men being - well, men, and you having respectable measurements. A small part of your brain points out that you are Japanese and many of these men were likely at Pearl - you ignore it.
4+19=23 | Perk threshold reached for Defensive Wind Magic!
The addition of the new wand, which you are formally issued on the third, ought to have messed up your practicing with magic. And using proper grown-up men trained in proper baseball, not cricket - a sport that never could gain your interest in England, not like soccer - even more so.
But it doesn't. The opposite, in fact. Despite being unused to it, the wand is as well-behaved and obedient as your old one after a scant hour of basic practicing, and the skill of the pitcher actually helps your training. No mere boy, the man had apparently played in the AA League before the war, and he has an arm like a sniper rifle. The sheer predictability of where his fastballs land helps immensely, and when you do ask him to give you something "unpredictable", he breaks out one of the nastiest knuckleballs you've ever seen.
By the time night falls on the third, you're confident you can bounce any grenade or thrown object sent your way backwards - or at least deflect it.
Skill Obtained:
Oakwind Shield - With a wand in hand, Shizuko can now deflect anti-personnel grenades or thrown objects of similar mass on any non-critfail rolls. A full success will bounce it back, and a crit success will allow her to either catch and throw it or bounce it in a chosen direction. Can also be used to throw off aim of strikes in close-quarters combat with traditional weapons. Requires a free hand and a wand.
No votes this update, I wanted this out today and the training part kinda got away from me. I will start on the next update on Sunday or Monday.
You decide to spend your time training your body in the Same Old Way for witches, for the most part.
10 | Minimum roll of 10 needed for perk in Strength, Running, or Broomhandling! I really should have rolled more than one, but oh well!
Calisthenics is easy enough to do. Even as Midway prepares for potential catastrophe, there's almost always some unit training in the United States military's preferred means of physical training. And on a base this far from proper land, resupply, or civilization, it wasn't even that odd for a witch or two to participate with the mere mortal mundane soldiers, Marines, or sailors - even if that witch was an officer.
Jogging, too, is easy enough to find. You march with the men, chest heaving, singing along to songs ranging from reverent to ribald. The hardest part is harmonizing with voices far lower than yours, with never more than two or three other witches or mages to back you up from what you can tell.
Broom gymnastics, or broomhandling, is a lonely thing to participate in with so few witches, and with a base matron whose hatred of you is proving infectious. Much like the Brazilian dance/martial art of capoeira, it is at once an exercise, a dance (of a sort, though until recently seen as downright un-Christian), and a martial art all at once. Witch's brooms are sturdy things when made of the proper wood, and reinforced with the right spellcraft it'll hit as hard as any steel rod. You have no delusions of being able to perform this sort of thing with the broom the man from R&D effectively gifted you, however. Much too large, and far too bent in shape. Still, the techniques used for broomhandling work well enough with any long, straight pole, or even a long enough rifle.
You don't think you made any real progress, that you notice, but you keep up well enough with the men and the other witches, and the tropical island heat makes you certain you've shed your share of sweat. You get your share of stares, too, but you mentally put it off as the men being - well, men, and you having respectable measurements. A small part of your brain points out that you are Japanese and many of these men were likely at Pearl - you ignore it.
4+19=23 | Perk threshold reached for Defensive Wind Magic!
The addition of the new wand, which you are formally issued on the third, ought to have messed up your practicing with magic. And using proper grown-up men trained in proper baseball, not cricket - a sport that never could gain your interest in England, not like soccer - even more so.
But it doesn't. The opposite, in fact. Despite being unused to it, the wand is as well-behaved and obedient as your old one after a scant hour of basic practicing, and the skill of the pitcher actually helps your training. No mere boy, the man had apparently played in the AA League before the war, and he has an arm like a sniper rifle. The sheer predictability of where his fastballs land helps immensely, and when you do ask him to give you something "unpredictable", he breaks out one of the nastiest knuckleballs you've ever seen.
By the time night falls on the third, you're confident you can bounce any grenade or thrown object sent your way backwards - or at least deflect it.
Skill Obtained:
Oakwind Shield - With a wand in hand, Shizuko can now deflect anti-personnel grenades or thrown objects of similar mass on any non-critfail rolls. A full success will bounce it back, and a crit success will allow her to either catch and throw it or bounce it in a chosen direction. Can also be used to throw off aim of strikes in close-quarters combat with traditional weapons. Requires a free hand and a wand.
No votes this update, I wanted this out today and the training part kinda got away from me. I will start on the next update on Sunday or Monday.
Icipall
Don't worry, we can fanfix that!
- Location
- Cold snow fields of Finland
Wohoo!
And it increases troop morale!
Fascinating.
Sneaky invisitext!
Nice!
Now this is useful.
All Guns Blazing Pt. X
Zoosmell
Blind Idiot Arcana
- Location
- Kansas
[><] Journey to Enterprise
2:30 in the morning is not the worst time you've ever forced yourself to wake up in the morning, or even be forced to, but it's up there.
An over-too-quickly shower is followed by an over-too-slowly breakfast. You are given food by the Navy this time, and are fed things that taste almost, but not quite, entirely unlike eggs, potatoes, and ketchup. At least the bread tastes like bread, but shockingly cheap bread. The only thing warm is the coffee, which is surprisingly smooth.
You mount one of the new brooms, which has apparently been formally declared the "General Electric W-1 Circe". Takeoff is a simple affair, as Fox indicated. You stick the wand in the slot on the dashboard, power it up, and the propeller whirs noisily to life. You quickly put your leather helmet on, thankful for the built-in ear protection, and the metal helmet that goes atop it. It's a stopgap measure for when the flight uniform to go with the Circe is finalized and sent out, but it's bearable. Takeoff is at 3:10 plus a handful of seconds. You may have to push it a hair past the sedate - sedate! - cruising speed of 300 knots.
Then comes the part of flight operations you always hated in England - long flights over open water, in the dark. What's worse is that this is the middle of the Pacific, not the English Channel. If you go down, your only hope is that the Enterprise stays roughly in place enough for a supply craft to spot you, or you're fucked.
Let alone the fact that even this close to the island, the Pacific is orders of magnitude deeper than the Channel...
It is with a great sense of relief that you spot the pickets of the American fleet. Barely visible in the dark, but most certainly there beyond, were the carriers of Task Forces Sugar and Fox - TF16 and TF17, respectively, likewise respectively consisting of the carriers Enterprise and Hornet, and the Yorktown. This early in the morning, there are no flight operations on any carriers, so the deck is free of obstructions for your landing.
The size of the Circe makes doing so a little awkward. Normally with a broom, you kick out your legs, pull the shaft up to your chest, and land at a jog before going to a stop. There's also the purely vertical landing, but that takes a bit more time, and isn't really a good idea on even the lightly swaying deck of as large a ship as a Yorktown-class carrier. With this motorized broom, you have to come in for a landing almost horizontally - and at a dead run.
You manage, but you can feel the ship's deck lurch upward to meet you just as your boots touch the metal deck. You grunt as you bend your legs, before running to a stop a few meters away from the massive island.
You are quickly ushered into a cramped room full of chairs facing a blackboard - the "ready room", if you recall from your time aboard the Gettysburg. There, you are met by an officer with a mustache and a look as tired as the one you no doubt sport.
"Saitou-Williams?" he asks. You come to attention, recognizing him as a lieutenant commander - equivalent to a major.
"Yes, sir."
"Lieutenant Commander Wade McClusky. I'm in charge of the air wing here on the Enterprise. I assume you know at least a little of what's going to happen today?"
"Yes, sir."
He nods. "Probably thought you couldn't be trusted, on account of you being Japanese," he says with a sigh. He goes on to explain the operation.
Essentially, the plan is to trap the entire Japanese invasion fleet - or at least the carriers, which Nimitz and a few other admirals have concluded will be far more important here in the Pacific - between the iron jaws of TF16 and 17's air fleets, with Midway Island itself as the bait. While a few cruisers and battleships would be nice, the goal is solely to sink Japanese carriers, and for the surface ships to never get close enough to attack Midway in the first place.
"Now, we've got enough witches to cover our own squadrons, but just barely. You're the ace here when it comes to witch squadrons, where d'you think you'll fit in best?"
[ ] Dive bombers - the heroes of Midway OTL, the resounding success of the SBD Dauntless against the carriers of Midway would help bury the Devastator
[ ] Torpedo bombers - The Devastator in OTL was not entirely to blame for its dismal performance at Midway OTL. It was simply too slow, too old, and the Mark 13 Torpedo too much a failure to have any effect besides as target practice for Zeroes. True, this did exhaust the Japanese fleet's barrier CAP, but perhaps a few good witches might put their torpedoes to proper use.
[ ] Fighters - Midway, like many important naval battles of the Pacific, was not one won by fighters. Here is where the bombers won the battle and the war. Still, the Dauntless is only fast and agile by the standards of a dive bomber, and someone will have to keep the numberless Zeroes and IJN witches off them.
2:30 in the morning is not the worst time you've ever forced yourself to wake up in the morning, or even be forced to, but it's up there.
An over-too-quickly shower is followed by an over-too-slowly breakfast. You are given food by the Navy this time, and are fed things that taste almost, but not quite, entirely unlike eggs, potatoes, and ketchup. At least the bread tastes like bread, but shockingly cheap bread. The only thing warm is the coffee, which is surprisingly smooth.
You mount one of the new brooms, which has apparently been formally declared the "General Electric W-1 Circe". Takeoff is a simple affair, as Fox indicated. You stick the wand in the slot on the dashboard, power it up, and the propeller whirs noisily to life. You quickly put your leather helmet on, thankful for the built-in ear protection, and the metal helmet that goes atop it. It's a stopgap measure for when the flight uniform to go with the Circe is finalized and sent out, but it's bearable. Takeoff is at 3:10 plus a handful of seconds. You may have to push it a hair past the sedate - sedate! - cruising speed of 300 knots.
Then comes the part of flight operations you always hated in England - long flights over open water, in the dark. What's worse is that this is the middle of the Pacific, not the English Channel. If you go down, your only hope is that the Enterprise stays roughly in place enough for a supply craft to spot you, or you're fucked.
Let alone the fact that even this close to the island, the Pacific is orders of magnitude deeper than the Channel...
It is with a great sense of relief that you spot the pickets of the American fleet. Barely visible in the dark, but most certainly there beyond, were the carriers of Task Forces Sugar and Fox - TF16 and TF17, respectively, likewise respectively consisting of the carriers Enterprise and Hornet, and the Yorktown. This early in the morning, there are no flight operations on any carriers, so the deck is free of obstructions for your landing.
The size of the Circe makes doing so a little awkward. Normally with a broom, you kick out your legs, pull the shaft up to your chest, and land at a jog before going to a stop. There's also the purely vertical landing, but that takes a bit more time, and isn't really a good idea on even the lightly swaying deck of as large a ship as a Yorktown-class carrier. With this motorized broom, you have to come in for a landing almost horizontally - and at a dead run.
You manage, but you can feel the ship's deck lurch upward to meet you just as your boots touch the metal deck. You grunt as you bend your legs, before running to a stop a few meters away from the massive island.
You are quickly ushered into a cramped room full of chairs facing a blackboard - the "ready room", if you recall from your time aboard the Gettysburg. There, you are met by an officer with a mustache and a look as tired as the one you no doubt sport.
"Saitou-Williams?" he asks. You come to attention, recognizing him as a lieutenant commander - equivalent to a major.
"Yes, sir."
"Lieutenant Commander Wade McClusky. I'm in charge of the air wing here on the Enterprise. I assume you know at least a little of what's going to happen today?"
"Yes, sir."
He nods. "Probably thought you couldn't be trusted, on account of you being Japanese," he says with a sigh. He goes on to explain the operation.
Essentially, the plan is to trap the entire Japanese invasion fleet - or at least the carriers, which Nimitz and a few other admirals have concluded will be far more important here in the Pacific - between the iron jaws of TF16 and 17's air fleets, with Midway Island itself as the bait. While a few cruisers and battleships would be nice, the goal is solely to sink Japanese carriers, and for the surface ships to never get close enough to attack Midway in the first place.
"Now, we've got enough witches to cover our own squadrons, but just barely. You're the ace here when it comes to witch squadrons, where d'you think you'll fit in best?"
[ ] Dive bombers - the heroes of Midway OTL, the resounding success of the SBD Dauntless against the carriers of Midway would help bury the Devastator
[ ] Torpedo bombers - The Devastator in OTL was not entirely to blame for its dismal performance at Midway OTL. It was simply too slow, too old, and the Mark 13 Torpedo too much a failure to have any effect besides as target practice for Zeroes. True, this did exhaust the Japanese fleet's barrier CAP, but perhaps a few good witches might put their torpedoes to proper use.
[ ] Fighters - Midway, like many important naval battles of the Pacific, was not one won by fighters. Here is where the bombers won the battle and the war. Still, the Dauntless is only fast and agile by the standards of a dive bomber, and someone will have to keep the numberless Zeroes and IJN witches off them.
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- Location
- United States
In the battle of Midway, the torpedo planes did perform an incredibly important role: they kept distracting the Japanese carriers, exhausting their CAP and causing the ships to engage in maneuvers that prevented them from launching more flights. Of course, this was done by sacrificing their lives on futile suicide runs - not sure that's a position we want to put ourselves in.
The heroes of the day. The Torpedo bombers may have set the stage but it was the dive-bombers that carried the win home - there's something to be said for making sure that things go the same way here. That being said, a big part of their success was the fact there wasn't any CAP to intercept them, so our talents might be a tad wasted.
A huge part of the reason the torpedo bombers got slaughtered was the fact that there was often no fighter cover for them, due to the sheer confusion and misunderstandings of the US carrier forces. Here, we might find ourselves in the position of many OTL pilots and just not be in the right place when shit goes down.
[X] Torpedo bombers - The Devastator in OTL was not entirely to blame for its dismal performance at Midway OTL. It was simply too slow, too old, and the Mark 13 Torpedo too much a failure to have any effect besides as target practice for Zeroes. Perhaps a few good witches may change that.
Alright, I'm going to elect we go with the Torpedo bombers. If our intervention manages to net the Devastators a hit, awesome! But more importantly, we can ensure they perform their OTL role as distractions sufficiently by tying down the Japanese CAP and leaving the carriers wide open for the dive-bombers to deliver the coup-de-grace.
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Thebigpieman
I've got this, I think.
- Location
- United States
[X] Torpedo bombers - The Devastator in OTL was not entirely to blame for its dismal performance at Midway OTL. It was simply too slow, too old, and the Mark 13 Torpedo too much a failure to have any effect besides as target practice for Zeroes. True, this did exhaust the Japanese fleet's barrier CAP, but perhaps a few good witches might put their torpedoes to proper use.
- Location
- Internet
[X] Torpedo bombers - The Devastator in OTL was not entirely to blame for its dismal performance at Midway OTL. It was simply too slow, too old, and the Mark 13 Torpedo too much a failure to have any effect besides as target practice for Zeroes. True, this did exhaust the Japanese fleet's barrier CAP, but perhaps a few good witches might put their torpedoes to proper use.
- Location
- Pittsburgh PA
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[x] Torpedo bombers - The Devastator in OTL was not entirely to blame for its dismal performance at Midway OTL. It was simply too slow, too old, and the Mark 13 Torpedo too much a failure to have any effect besides as target practice for Zeroes. True, this did exhaust the Japanese fleet's barrier CAP, but perhaps a few good witches might put their torpedoes to proper use.
Icipall
Don't worry, we can fanfix that!
- Location
- Cold snow fields of Finland
Yeah, even I didn't need to get up until 3:30 during wilderness exercises.
That's fast.
We meet at Midway!!!
[x] Torpedo bombers - The Devastator in OTL was not entirely to blame for its dismal performance at Midway OTL. It was simply too slow, too old, and the Mark 13 Torpedo too much a failure to have any effect besides as target practice for Zeroes. True, this did exhaust the Japanese fleet's barrier CAP, but perhaps a few good witches might put their torpedoes to proper use.
- Location
- Dethklok
[X] Fighters - Midway, like many important naval battles of the Pacific, was not one won by fighters. Here is where the bombers won the battle and the war. Still, the Dauntless is only fast and agile by the standards of a dive bomber, and someone will have to keep the numberless Zeroes and IJN witches off them.
- Location
- USA
[x] Fighters
- Location
- United States
@Zoosmell - To what extent has the pacific campaign thus far aligned to OTL? I'm considering giving an outline of the context behind Midway and why the Japanese have put themselves in such an awful position, but if the supernatural aspects of the quest have been genuinely paradigm-shaking my analysis may not be relevant or helpful.
Zoosmell
Blind Idiot Arcana
- Location
- Kansas
Good Question.jpg
Personally, me and Fivetime disagree on the long-term impact of supernatural aspects on global history, let alone warfare, but for now the impact is well yes but actually no. Certainly, the militaries of the world are shifting (with varying degrees of success) to adapt to the revelation of the supernatural, but those very changes shift the path of history in such ways that major events OTL are still major events in WoF. The chemistry of the paint may change, and even the brush may be different, but the painting remains the same. Or close enough to look similar, anyway.
- Location
- United States
So, the Japanese have the same amount of carriers, the same CV doctrine, the same overall strategy to win the war, etc? The changes are mostly on a tactical level - Coral Sea and the like still went the same in the end?
- Location
- Singapore
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X] Torpedo bombers - The Devastator in OTL was not entirely to blame for its dismal performance at Midway OTL. It was simply too slow, too old, and the Mark 13 Torpedo too much a failure to have any effect besides as target practice for Zeroes. True, this did exhaust the Japanese fleet's barrier CAP, but perhaps a few good witches might put their torpedoes to proper use.
I forget. What's our speed compared to the planes? Are we faster than anything, how much slower are we than the fastest etc.? We are the fastest object in the sky, not counting any possible monsters.
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- Location
- USA
It's...right there in the latest story post? IIRC, the Devastator torpedo bomber, when loaded, had a cruising speed of 110 knots. Max speed without torps was 180.
- Location
- Singapore
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Oops. So we're the fastest thing in the sky. Anyone more knowledgable in air tactics want to chime in for where we should go? Actually since we are fast and aren't fuel-restricted, stick with torpedo bomber escort. Our job is to clear enemy CAP, whoever and whatever that may be.
Battle of Midway - Wikipedia
Battle of Midway - Wikipedia
Waldron's squadron sighted the enemy carriers and began attacking at 09:20, followed at 09:40[99] by VF-6 from Enterprise, whose Wildcat fighter escorts lost contact, ran low on fuel, and had to turn back.[98] Without fighter escort, all 15 TBD Devastators of VT-8 were shot down without being able to inflict any damage. Ensign George H. Gay, Jr. was the only survivor of the 30 aircrew of VT-8. He completed his torpedo attack on the aircraft carrier Sōryū before he was shot down, but Sōryū evaded his torpedo.[100] Meanwhile, VT-6, led by LCDR Eugene E. Lindsey lost nine of its 14 Devastators (one ditched later), and 10 of 12 Devastators from Yorktown's VT-3 (who attacked at 10:10) were shot down with no hits to show for their effort, thanks in part to the abysmal performance of their unimproved Mark 13 torpedoes.[101] Midway was the last time the TBD Devastator was used in combat.[102]
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