Paper on Bretonian History

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Fleet Admiral Sir Stanley Nelson sighed as he read the report. Yet another attack by the Bretonian Buccaneers; clearly their revival was not going to be nipped in the bud as many had hoped. Yet they could not be allowed to grow back to their prior strength. Looking for inspiration, the Fleet Admiral brought up a file from his database to read. One which he himself had written 16 years previously.

SUMMER EXAMINATIONS, 803 A.S.
Name: Stanley Nelson
Age: 20
Subject: Military History
Paper: 566-589 Buccaneer War

Essay Question) Assess the successes and failures of the Battle of Southampton Field. Compare the tactics used by the BAF during the battle with those of Sir Thomas Scott during the Battle of Sherwood. Why did it take another 16 years after Southampton Field for the Buccaneers to be defeated?

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The Battle of Southampton Field in 573 was undoubtedly a turning point in the Buccanneer War. It marked the end of a period of sporadic clashes with the Buccaneers in open space across Bretonia and marked the beginning of a period in which they were gradually pushed back towards their final outposts, the goals of the war having changed from destroying Buccaneer vessels to weaken them into trying to clear and secure space from them and reduce their ability to operate through assaults on their supply bases.

Clearly, in this sense, the Battle of Southampton Field was a great success for the Armed Forces; the Buccaneers lost Plymouth Station and their operations in New London were severely curtailed for several years until Dunsburry's attmpted counteroffensive in the Winter of 578-579. Yet, with the loss of their second largest base after Sherwood Station in Leeds, the issue of why the war was to drag on for another 16 years after this battle must be addressed; if the victory was so great, surely the Buccaneers ought to have collapsed much more swiftly afterwards? The answer, of course, was that the battle was if anything more costly for the Armed Forces than for the Buccaneers.

The Buccaneers may have been driven from their main base in New London, but the loss of two Battleships on the Bretonian side, during a time when the entire active fleet of the BAF consisted of only 13 Battleships, at least 7 of which were required for static defensive operations at any one time, was a major blow to the capacity of the BAF to conduct offensive operations against the Buccaneers for several years until their fleet capacity was rebuilt. In effect the cost of the victory at Southampton Field was to provide the Buccaneer forces in Leeds the time to regain their strength, safe from any major BAF offensives for the next two years. Furthermore, the BAF failed to capture the Buccaneer leadership resident at Plymouth and most historians agree that they allowed at least two of the Buccaneer flagship "Brigantine Class" Destroyers to escape through a nearby jumphole into Leeds, bolstering the Buccaneer defences there, along with probably three or four pirate gunboats.

Contrast this with the scene 16 years later, where Sir Thomas Scott's Battlegroup utterly annihilated Buccaneer forces of roughly comparable if not greater strength with a BAF force of similar proportions, suffering relatively minor losses. What can account for the differences in outcome between these two battles?

Firstly we should look at the background of both battles to see how the sitation facing the BAF was different in each case. Both battles were conscious decisions by the BAF to assault a recently located enemy supply base, both involved large battlegroups hastily gathered at short notice by the BAF, though there is considerable evidence that Sir Thomas Scott took more time to scout the Buccaneers' forces and positions than Lord Admiral Marlow did before Southampton Field. BAF forces at Southampton Field consisted of 4 great "Nessie Class" Battleships, 5 "Dauntless Class" Destroyers and 8 "Polaris Class" Gunboats, with at least 40 fighter wings, but negligible bombers with no dedicated bomber wings, owing to expectations that the Buccaneer base would be largely defended by fighters, an unfortunate misestimation. In fact the Buccaneers had rallied a force of at least a dozen of their renowned "Cutter Class" Gunships and 4 to 6 "Brigantine Class" Destroyers, depending on whether or not one accepts the claims of 2-3 escaped destroyers in addition to the three reported destroyed during the battle; certainly I feel the presence of the Debonair and the Adventure Prize at the Battle of Kingston Void the following year, both of which had been previously active in New London, strongly indicates that at least two destroyers did in fact escape destruction at Southampton Field. Buccaneer forces at the Battle of Sherwood included their last 7 remaining destroyers, though at least 3 were still badly damaged from previous engagements, and somewhere in the region of 14-18 gunships, again many of them in varying states of disrepair. Facing them, BAF capital forces were rougly similar to those at Southampton Field; 4 "Nessie Class" Battleships, 6 Destroyers and 9 Gunboats, but crucially Admiral Scott was by now employing at least 10 dedicated bomber wings alongside around 25 fighter wings, many of them heavy rather than the lighter fighters used the decade before. These force comparisons, however, hide one crucial difference in circumstances between the two battles; whilst the BAF capital forces were of similar power, the locations of the engagements were fundamentally different; the close debris field of Southampton was to prove disastrous for the BAF in attempting to maneuver their large vessels, forcing them to rely overly on their fighter wings which were badly outgunned by Buccanner gunships. At Sherwood, however, the open smog clouds of Leeds were no hindrance to the BAF Capital Fleet beyond slight visibility issues, enabling the BAF to bring the full weight of their superior firepower to bear against the outgunned Buccanner forces.

Situational differences alone, however, cannot account for the full measure of the difference in outcomes between the two battles; there is no doubt that the tactics of Admiral Marlow and Admiral Scott differed greatly and were in no small part the deciding factors in the two battles. Marlow, following conventional tactics designed to protect his fleet from ambush insisted that all his forces remain together in formation during the advance of his two columns, from the Northeast and Southeast. Whilst ensuring local superiority of firepower once battle was joined, this meant that his entire force was obliged to approach at the speed of the sluggish Battleships, giving the Buccaneers ample time in which to alert themselves of the BAF approach and prepare their forces. Scott, in contrast, utilised his preferred tactic of sending half of his strike craft in ahead of the main fleet to catch the enemy by surprise, prevent them from entering formation and engage their most vulnerable targets before the main fleet arrived, at Destroyer speed, to pin the enemy forces. The Battleships were deployed last of all once battle was fully joined and the enemy were incapable of coordinating a redirection of their ships to respond to them, bringing overwhelming to bear against each enemy capital vessel in turn. Scott's plan, as usual, worked to perfection; the Buccanners' ships were lying unprepared for the assault, were caught by surprise by the sudden arrival of a dozen BAF fighter wings and their capital ships were too busy trying to fend off the 5 bomber wings from stationary turret positions to bother trying to move into a line of battle. The main fleet of gunboats and destroyers arrived to find the Buccaneer forces spread out and vulnerable. By the time the battleships joined the engagement, the Buccaneers had already lost 2 of their Destroyers and their forces were in disarray, trapped and easily picked off by overwhelming firepower.

At Southampton Field, however, Marlow's tactics were to be shown at best to be barely adequate, at worst a costly and unfortunate failure. Forwarned of the approaching fleets, the Buccaneers deployed their forces to the edge of the field, where they were met by the BAF line of battle in a classic fleet engagement. Whilst Marlow had failed to capitalise on his advantages, his superior forces nontheless began to gain the upper hand, the Buccaneers had lost 5 gunships to 2 BAF gunboats and when the first "Brigantine Class" Destroyer, the Revenge, exploded under withering battleship fire, the Buccaneers began to fall back into the debris field. Here, however, Marlow was to make his most costly mistake. With half his forces still engaged by Buccaneer fighters covering the retreat, he ordered his lead battleships forward into the field in pursuit of the fleeing Buccanner capital ships, escorted by two destroyers and 3 remaining gunboats. The Battleships naturally found maneuvering difficult in the tight field and the Buccaneers unleashed their secret weapon - a dozen wings of various torpedo bombers, long since a favourate of the pirates. The hapless battleships were paralysed and unable to maneuver to counter the threat. The BAF light fighter wings managed to cut down many of the bombers, but in the end the Buccaneer forces fought to the death, using suicide attacks to breach the battleships' defences, not something which the BAF had anticipated. With torpedos and bomber craft impacting across the ships, the two great Battleships were doomed to destruction. The HMS Defiant ruptured in a gigantic explosion which severely damaged many neighbouring ships, whilst the HMS Valiant gradually broke apart as fires consumed its various decks. With the Battleships gone, the retreating Buccanner ships suddenly turned around and began engaging the escorts - by the time the second half of the fleet arrived to their rescue the BAF had lost a destroyer and another gunboat to the Buccaneers, and were if not for the fact that the Buccaneer bomber forces were now depleted, the remaining BAF forces could have suffered a most painful defeat.

In practice the BAF forces were saved by the sheer superiority of their forces but their remaining ships were no longer sufficient to prevent the escape of several key Buccaneer assets. It would take 2 years for the BAF to recover sufficiently to mount another major offesive, by which time the Buccaneers had managed to regain much of their strength in Cambridge and Manchester, both of which had been almost secured by the BAF by 573 A.S.. The BAF would spend years chasing down Buccaneer ships across both systems before they were ready to move against Leeds, whilst the Buccaneers continued to use asteroid fields for cover as they had done at Southampton Field. The time spent having to push back the Buccaneers in these systems left Dunburry to consolidate his forces in Leeds sufficiently to mount his 578/9 Winter Counteroffensive which, though it cost him his life, would mark the beginning of 8 years of far more mobile, fluid tactics by the Buccaneers. It was only in 587 when Sir Thomas Scott gained control of a sizeable battlegroup that the Buccaneers were once again forced onto the back foot and that the BAF regained the much needed initiative which they had lost at Southampton Field. In my mind there is no doubt that, had Marlow been able to gain a more decisive victory that day by using tactics more akin to those of Sherwood, the BAF would have been in a position to follow up their victory with an immediate offensive in Leeds and quashed the Buccaneer resistance completely by the end of the decade at the very latest. It is a great tragedy of history that such an opportunity was not taken, but we may at least console ourselves with the lessons that can be learned from this setback in the hope that we do not repeat the mistakes of the past once again.

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Sir Stanley Nelson




<span style="color:#000066">Charles Canning </span><span style="color:#000066"> Foreign Secretary</span>