Assault Destroyer/profile

## Overview

Assault Destroyer（Amphibious Assault Destroyer / AAD）

Designation: Anti-Sub/Anti-Armor

National Origin: United States of Edenia

Designer: Gerhardt-Giraud Shipworks/Rehbiell Group

Manufacturer: Ingalls Shipbuilding/Harland-Wolff Shipbuilding/Fincantieri Shipbuilding

Mass-Produced at: Seaport

Key Features:

>>Reugart Mk16 127 mm automatic cannon

>>Giraud M19▇▇ 250 kg depth charge launcher

>>State-of the art Black Hole Armor

>>Reinforced composite hull

>>Large tough front shovel specially designed for removing roadblocks

>>Special 2500-ton heavy suspension system

## Background

Since the outbreak of the open confrontation between the Red Navy and the Allied Navy, the Allied Navy has always had an overwhelming advantage over the Red Navy no matter in quantity and quality. At the beginning of the confrontation, the Typhoon-class conventional-powered attack submarine, which was widely equipped by the Soviet Navy at that time, had excellent strike capability. However, as the second generation submarine jointly developed by the Soviet Union and East Germany (DSR), the typhoon-class still had some extremely fatal defects: due to the lack of experience of the design team and the backward manufacturing technology, the muting effect of the submarine was low so it is  extremely noisy, and is jokingly called "underwater circus" by sonar operators of the allied fleet. The existence of this inherent disadvantage led to the Soviet submarines being easily found and pursued;facing the underwater explosive network woven by the torpedo of the U-boat and the "Cubozoa" deep charge projection system carried by destroyers, the submarines of the red side were like dead fish on the chopping board. The Entente du Rhin, the immediate successor of ThyssenKrupp, blocked the Mediterranean Sea with its own trinkets, while the Royal Navy of the United Kingdom sent destroyers to patrol the North Sea. The typhoon-class had no advantage over the two rivals.

However, both the joint exercises and the actual combat in the Baltic Sea have proved that the superiority in the ocean can not be transformed into land superiority in the inland sea; the Edenia Marines have repeatedly stated in the reports and daily communication with the superior and the troops at the same level that the side lacking heavy armored vehicles could not effectively defend the newly opened landing site - in several exercises before the war as "blue army", they were all driven back to the sea in the fierce counterattack of the "red army" armored forces; while warships that can slightly reverse the situation and provide coastal fire support often have to risk being seriously damaged by shore based firepower and naval aviation to assist in amphibious operations in the inland sea. As for Edenia, which is responsible for the strategic preparatory direction of defensive counterattack and "counterattack to Europe", the landing operation — an important link between the sea and land offensive, should not be ignored.

After brainstorming several times in the Equipment Research and Development Department, the marine corps chose a seemingly whimsical solution: "Since we can't make heavy tanks amphibious, let the destroyers land!" This seemingly impossible idea was finally realized by a senior engineer. The "arduous" task was taken over by the Rehbiell Group from the Swiss Federation; This company, known as "the cradle of the largest crawler crane in the world", has launched one giant crane after another. Perhaps only the "Kuae" 10 million kg crawler crane of Celestial Husu Union Industry can match their works.

As military products need to take into account the reliability and redundancy in actual combat, Rehbiell Group prudently reported the payload data of up to 3000 tons, which once made the officers in charge of reporting laugh - a destroyer with a standard displacement of only 2500 tons? However, under the repeated requirements of the Marine Corps, the United States Navy finally agreed to the design index of the 2500 ton Destroyer for many reasons. The main design work of the destroyer is entrusted to Gerhardt-Giraud Shipworks.

Although it has the amphibious combat capability, the destroyer is even defined as "Special Escort Destroyer" by the equipment planning committee of the United States, rather than a standard regular destroyer; The ship type which is still in the planning stage is named "Amphibious Assault Destroyer", but is just called "Assault Destroyer" in order to confuse the enemy after finalization. Subsequent ships of the same specification and index adopt the same class name, and the equipment carried is limited due to its particularity.

As for the cannon that is the main weapon, in order to "support" the domestic military enterprises, and also because the 127 mm automatic cannon of Oto Melera company from Sardinia Kingdom has been unable to solve the problem of heat dissipation and reliability of ammunition feeding, the United States Navy finally adopted the 5"/54 (5 in = 127 mm)  mk16 automatic cannon of Reugart company; This kind of medium caliber naval gun with a heavy barrel, water-cooled jacket and high-efficiency automatic loader is undoubtedly a good hand in dealing with armored targets. Even the solid red main battle tank is as fragile as a toy in front of the armor piercing projectiles launched by her, not to mention the pressure brought about by the incredible high firing speed which is inconsistent with the volume.

While the combination of amphibious super heavy combat platform and naval gun can temporarily solve the problem of suppressing mobile firepower against land during landing operations, the pressure experienced by the Allied fleet in anti-submarine warfare is also increasing day by day: before the outbreak of the war, the complacent Allied navy once regarded the submarine force— one of the core forces of the Soviet Navy as not worthy of serious consideration , until a complete report was submitted urgently to allied staff headquarters - an agent sent back detailed data and some high-definition photos of a new Soviet attack submarine before his arrest.

The new submarine is No. 179 in the Red Navy, which has leapfrog progress in all aspects compared with the typhoon-class submarine: it is equipped with the radenko dual rotor propulsion system with extremely superior endurance. This shipborne power system, based on Tesla reactors, makes the 179 submarine have an almost unlimited endurance capacity; The most important thing is that the noise of the whole boat has been reduced to a very low level by the equipment of new noise reducing ceramics and special noise reducing propeller. The noise of 179 submarine in cruise state can be almost completely integrated into the marine background noise; Furthermore, the advanced and expensive titanium alloy double hull design greatly enhances the survivability and damage resistance of the submarine; In addition to the conventional medium-sized homing torpedoes, the 179 submarine also has a set of supercavitating heavy-duty torpedo launch tube located in the bow, which can sneak attack her target at a long distance at a high speed that cannot be intercepted .

The undersea circus was closed, and the ruling power of the Allied fleet over the Baltic Sea was seriously impacted; the seemingly bold and unconstrained Slavic designers created such terrifying deep-sea hungry wolves that the Allied navy had to reexamine the scientific research capability of Soviet Russia. However, even if this information was very shocking to all levels of the Allied fleet, some observers who paid more attention to the Soviet industrial field pointed out that with the technological progress and the popularization of OGAS system in the recent years, the backward technology and lack of experience were no longer the fatal limiting factors of Bolshevik equipment performance; on the other side, if the Allies fail to recognize the status  in time and remain arrogant, the destruction of the Allies will be near.

Naturally, the development of new anti-submarine equipment has also been put on the agenda. According to the report sent back by the computing center and test field, the light anti-submarine torpedoes commonly equipped by the Allied coastal combat forces at the time could not effectively destroy the Type 179 submarine with double titanium alloy hull; On the contrary, the Type 179 submarine can depend on the terrible self-reliance to shut down and hide on the Baltic sea bed, waiting for an opportunity to ambush Allied landing forces.

Taking the FN acv-66 "torrent" small combat hovercraft with the largest equipment in amphibious combat forces of the Allied forces as an example, although the MU09 324 mm light torpedoes launched by the two torpedo launchers are enough to effectively attack typhoon-class submarines or Yari mini-subs of Empire of the Rising Sun Navy in the Pacific Ocean, they can only cause little damage to Type 179 submarines. In this case, in order to keep control of the Mediterranean Sea and the North Sea, the Allies need to install anti-submarine measures on the Assault Destroyers which will be equipped on mobile patrol, coastal combat, and hot spot mobile construction operations.

Considering the difficulty of space arrangement on board, the Assault Destroyer did not adopt the most efficient "Cubozoa" depth charge projection system which the Allies had, which would take up a huge space in the ship. Instead, there is the rarely used M19▇▇ depth charge launcher of Giraud company; this 305 mm depth charge launcher can project the M19▇▇ 250kg depth charge (full weight 325 kg) or improved guided depth charge with Rhine pedigree to 3000 meters away. With the various sensors and simple thrusters, the Giraud depth charges can achieve the same anti submarine efficiency as the "Cobozoa" which have a huge projection amount; the Allied Navy believes in the great power of this kind of depth charge. After detailed evaluation, they believe that even the new titanium alloy double hull Type 179 submarine of the Red Navy will lose its combat effectiveness after 3-4 effective hits.

In view of the equipment restriction regulations which failed to keep pace with the times, the equipped depth charge launcher was regarded as a supplement to the coastal escort capability in the instrument. The main task of this type of destroyer is still to provide fire support and cover in amphibious operations. In order to carry out the original design intention of this type of destroyer, Gerhardt-Giraud not only shortened the length of the whole ship, but also strengthened the main armor zone on the huge hull compared with the size of armored vehicles repeatedly . As a result of time and labor, in theory, it can even directly resist the 105 mm APDS from 100 meters away. Based on the intelligence analysis of various torpedoes used by the Soviet Union's underwater forces and the obvious idea of supporting domestic enterprises, the Navy Minister of Sardinia Kingdom repeatedly stressed the importance of anti torpedo attack at the joint armament conference; Eventually, Gerhardt-Giraud finally agreed to carry a new type of torpedo protection system. The Pugliese X underwater protection system from Sardinia Kingdom gives the destroyer an amazing torpedos resistance capability.

In addition, another technology from Raytheon makes the ship better use of its own advantages: this special device, called "black hole", is composed of high-tech electromagnetic force field generation system and composite wavelength guided decoy system, which can create a large-scale "attraction field" that is effective for most metal ammunition and guided ammunition. This field will attract all incoming missiles, shells, torpedoes to the destroyer, thus making itself a real Main-Tank. This device also made this type of amphibious warship (i.e. the Assault Destroyer) win the unanimous praise of the Allied forces of both the sea and the land forces - any kind of projectiles can't hurt the friendly forces it protects. Of course, the crew of the destroyer who is responsible for the fire absorbing will enter the special escape capsule after the black hole field is activated according to the plan, and the small boat composed of special protection technology will safeguard the crew to the greatest extent when the ship is unfortunately sunk. Other forces in the field also strive to destroy the enemy high lethality units in a good attacking environment.

During the sudden maritime conflict in the South Pacific, the Assault Destroyer with board number 954 broke away from the Allied task fleet because of the bad sea conditions at night; after the friendly warships and the Imperial Navy exchanged fire for "unknown" reasons, the dd-954 "Laffey" Assault Destroyer joined the battle from the flank, and once raided near the cruiser "Hiei", the flagship of the Imperial fleet. In the fierce battle, "Laffey" hit the bridge of the "Hiei" continuously with its main gun. It even illegally used the depth charge launcher to attack the enemy ship in an emergency, successfully damaging the electrical equipment on it and causing a fire, making the "Hiei" the most conspicuous campfire at night. The Allied task fleet then used optical equipment to assist in aiming and correcting the target point, and the high-density fire power in a short time forced the "Hiei" to withdraw from the battle. Due to the heroic deeds of DD-954 and the propaganda machine launched by the allies,  the "Laffey" became the most famous ship name in the free country for a time, and won the title of "the mad dog of Tokelau".

In the long and protracted war in the future, Assault Destroyers have been placed on the list of units that "most want to cooperate with them" of various types of combat units of the Allied forces. And not surprisingly, it's at the top of the list. After all, as the Celestial military engineers, who snatched the destroyers and then remote controlled them into the battlefield, said, "Who would think that he is lucky enough on the battlefield?"

## Notes from the Field

Battlefield reconnaissance has revealed at least these facts about the Assault Destroyer:

**Amphibious Assault** - Assault Destroyers can only be regarded as small guys in the huge allied fleet, but they can carry out amphibious operations and play a more flexible role in actual combat. Regular Soviet armored forces can not solve these huge things in their eyes in a short time.

**Black Hole of the Cold Sea-**- The "secret weapon" of the Assault Destroyer is a kind of field which can attract the enemy's fire power directly; it will change the trajectory of incoming missiles and shells while dragging them forward, so as to improve their defense ability to a certain extent. It is rumored that the Allied spies disguised as embassy staff members stole the electromagnetic deflection field, the main component of the field, from Celestial Empire, which has been researching electromagnetic technology for decades.

**Hunting Submarine** - Like other destroyers, Assault Destroyers are also an important part of the Allied anti-submarine system; their sensitive sonar can accurately locate submarines, and use their own speed advantage to approach them. If the enemy submarine dares to refuse to come-up when the whole boat is flooded the Assault Destroyers can use intelligent depth charges to send them to the sea floor.

**Safe Driving** - On land, an Assault Destroyer can easily crush most of its vehicles and obstacles. However, they are a little clumsy at this time, and were not suitable for mobile operations with the Allies' high-speed light forces.

**Seafood Feast -** Because of the special tread design, it is meaningless to paint the bottom of the ship, which makes the four giant treads of the Assault Destroyer often be covered with many marine creatures during the voyage. Usually, marines who have nothing to do in the process are assigned to carry a submersible robot to clean up the stubborn creatures. Although it's a hard job, considering that Assault Destroyers can't be as well rationed as a luxury aircraft carrier canteen, these "extra meals" have made marines eager to clean up the bottom of the ship, especially after a lucky man finds pearls in an oyster.

## Notes

This article is an unofficial translated article.