Great Fleet (Gra Valkas Empire)

## Great Fleet

**Great Fleet** (大艦隊, *Dai Kantai*) (or **Imperial Combined Fleet** by Gra Valkas Empire) is a massive navy fleet of Gra Valkas Empire assembled to destroy Japan's capital and other coastal cities. It is considered to be the largest fleet in the New World. The Fleet is led by two of three Imperial Generals, Commander-in-chief Fleet Admiral Caesar that was formerly leading the Eastern Fleet, and Admiral Mirkenses that was formerly leading the Special Operations while Vice-Admiral Aurones lead the 1st Battlegroup.

The Great Fleet was destroyed by the combined force of JMSDF and Holy Mirishial Empire's one Pal Chimera. Only 9 destroyers from the 1st Battlegroup and 300 warships from the Main Fleet survived and retreated back home.

## Background

After the failed invasion of Mu and the capture of Prince Gra Cabal, Gra Valkas decide to conduct a massive naval invasion of Japan, by gathering nearly all of the ships they have in reserve and built-in shipyards from the homeland and Leifor.

Japan has long predicted a large-scale military operation could be carried out by Gra-Valkas, based on diplomatic developments as well as satellite reconnaissance images. However, they were still shocked when the news of this large-scale invasion was confirmed due to the huge number of the Great Fleet that far exceeded their initial predictions. To make matters worse, the Minister of Defense admitted that the modification of JMSDF's warships had not been completed, as well as their lack of ability to monitor the Great Fleet 24/7 due to the lack of reconnaissance satellites.

In response to the immediate invasion of Gra Valkas' Great Fleet, the Prime Minister of Japan declared a national emergency; at the same time, lifted all restrictions on the use of all forms of banned weaponry in the Geneva Convention, establishment the National Unified Military Command, as well as calling on allied countries to share resources and intelligence, all to deal with what he called **"The First Comprehensive Military Crisis since Japan transferred into the New World "** (WN).

The Great Fleet eventually met it end as the JMSDF with a minor support from the Pal Chimera managed to utterly decimated the Great Fleet along with the Grade Atlastar being disabled and captured by the JMSDF. The destruction of the Great Fleet causes the Gra Valkas to lose more than half of their naval force.

## Chronology

### New World War Arc

During their advance on Japan's Southern Sea, JMSDF intercepted the forward elements of the fleet and destroyed 18 ships including 2 aircraft carriers. Additionally, the 1st Battle Group consisting of 1st and 2nd Advanced Fleet under command of Mirkenses is thrown into chaos after Japan's submarine was able to slow them down considerably due to the "invisible" attack by Japan's Harpoon missile. This scenario becomes even direr as several more Japanese subs fire concentrated missile strikes and torpedoes, sinking several more ships. The Advanced Fleets were also isolated from the rest of their navy due to Electronic Countermeasures, radar, and radio jamming.

The Advanced Fleets were later targeted by the JASDF. The 2nd Advance Fleet was completely annihilated and the 1st Advance Fleet was just starting to deploy untested and primitive jamming techniques to deal with incoming missile strikes when 50 Japanese aircraft were detected on an intercept course with radar that was only operated at 10 to 2 o'clock. Hoping to stop the Japanese before they are subjected to a saturation missile strike, the 1st Advance Fleet launches their fighters to deal with the threat while preparing the jamming devices to prevent further losses of the fleet. However, the flight of 92 fighters were decimated and the jamming devices proved to be ineffective against the technologically advanced guidance systems of the anti-ship missiles. The fleet was then subjected to a wave of 250 anti-ship missiles, which ultimately neutralized the 1st Advanced Fleet, leaving on 9 destroyers survived.

The destruction of the 2nd and 1st Advanced Fleet brought the total loss of the Great Fleet to 660 ships in total. Even though Caesar realized that digging deeper into Japanese territory would be suicidal by this point, he forced himself to continue to the attack since death sentence would await him and his crews by the knuckle-headed officials who had no ideas what going on in the battlefield. To minimize the damages to the fleet, Caesar diverted the main fleet to attack JSDF base in Nahanath Kingdom to sap off their Air Force while calling out the Special Extermination Operations Division to bomb Nagoya city. Due to Caesar's ignorance of Japan's homeland defense, he unknowingly sent the entire bombing division to their doom.

During the plan known as Operation Barbecue, 200 Guti Maun, high-altitude bombers would be preceded by the 3rd Air Corps of 348 fighters and bombers to attack the Japanese city of Awara. This would serve as both an attack and decoy to draw air defenses away from the high-altitude bomber attack on Nagoya. The 44th Task Force would form a radio picket line, to ensure radio silence and to bombard Awara if possible. Unfortunately for the Great Fleet, the Japanese Defense Ministry detected the two bomber formations and the 44th Task Force. Both bomber formations would be shot down and the 44th Task Force would be obliterated just after they left port. The FOB of Hilkiga would later be destroyed.

Seeing that the Invasion of Japan was all but impossible, and seeing that returning home in defeat would end in his execution, Caesar decides to commit the remainder of the Great Fleet on a one-way assault on the JSDF base located in Nahanath. Though he knows that any victory there would be minor at best, he decided to die honorably against a powerful enemy while inflicting as much damage as he could. Facing off against the defenses at Nahanath, his fleet was reduced to less than 400 ships and all aircraft carriers lost. With the arrival of the Pal Chimera, Caesar decided that sacrificing his remaining forces was a waste and ordered the survivors to turn for home. Sixteen ships decided to disobey and follow the Grade Atlastar on its suicide run. They would later turn to defend against the attacking Pal Chimera while the Grade Atlastar faced off against the helicopter-destroyer Kaga and the 4th escort flotilla of the JMSDF.

Facing the Escort Flotilla head-on, Caesar thought Japan's Warships are scared the moment Grade Atlastar fired its shells with a range of 40km by splitting the formation in two. It turns out, it was a tactic made by Japan to attack with Destroyers simultaneously. However, he was wrong as Japan can counter-attack with SAM to defend the shell from hitting the warships. Eventually, the flagship of the Great Fleet, Grade Atlastar was crippled after suffering hits from 6 Type-12 Surface-to-Ship Missiles and 235 shells of 127/54 Oto Breda, taking Caesar and Luxtal with it. The JMSDF captured the ship and the Great Fleet suffered over seventy percent of its losses, including losses from Altaras and Invasion of Japan.

The decision of the Great Fleet has yet to be decided by the military higher-ups.

## Strength and Technology

The Great Fleet is a united force from various small fleets (each fleet has its own commander, united by Commander-in-chief Caesar), consists of 98 aircraft carrier, 23 battleship, 74 cruiser, 828 destroyer, unknown numbers of supply ship, bombers, and the total 1620 aircraft, which - according to Japanese experts - equivalent to the US fleets that attacked Okinawa. The total of the Warship alone is close to 1436 Warships, 230 for 1st Advanced Fleet, 210 for 2nd Advanced Fleet which formed into 1st Battlegroup, and 996 in the Main Fleet.

However, as stated before, the overall technology of the fleet is equivalent to the United States during World War 2, but is based on Japan's military mindset of that same war. The main attacking power is based on heavy-caliber guns, torpedoes and aircraft. Communication within the fleet is done by radio, light and flag signals. However, in comparison to Japan, they have little in the way of beyond visual range attacks other than their aircraft and they cannot deal with Electronic Countermeasures or ECM such as radar-jamming and radio interference. Sonar is nonexistent and is only probably using hydrophones to defend and detect against submarines. They are basically defenseless against guided missiles and only have a basic knowledge of how to counter radar and infrared guidance systems. Furthermore, though they do understand modern warfare tactics, they rely mostly on head-on brute force tactics and superior numbers.

The total strength itself was split into several fleets and Task Force. The 1st and 2nd Advanced Fleet consists of 230 and 210 warships are formed into a single battlegroup under command of Mirkenses while the Main Fleet consist of 996 Warships with Grade Atlastar as the Flagship and Fleet from Riem Kingdom consist of 56 Warships.

However, despite with the current strength itself, Mirkenses stated that the Great Fleet suffers under munitions due to the munition production was barely able to keep up with the ship production capabilities, making the actual battle strength less than what it should be. In addition, the majority of aircraft carriers deployed were light carriers created from converted oil tankers, and had less combat power than a dedicated fleet carrier.

After the failure of the Great Naval Invasion of Japan, the Great Fleet's strength has been reduced almost 80% of it's navy total strength. With the total loss of 1372 warships, only 350 ships survived the overall campaign on Japan, and the total crew lost are estimated to be at least three hundred thousand and at least a thousand are captured.