Naval Warfare

**Naval Warfare** is warfare related to the battle on the seas. Because of the vast and wide areas of seas, Naval Warfare often happens in many ways. From Earth, it was started by using the ancient weapon such as Ballista and boarding action until to the point where Navy will not be engaged directly due to the advancement of technology that allows them to use the arsenals BVR (Beyond Visual Range). From Victorian Era, Ships of the line we're created up to 150 cannons on board but it was later changed when *Gloire*, the first Ironclad Warship was created and *Monitor* vs *Virginia* is known to be the first battle between ironclad warship. Since then, the advancement of the ironclad warship continues for over 50 years until the British Navy manage to create the first Dreadnought-class warship known as *HMS Dreadnought*. The battleship services mainly end around 10 years after World War II where Air Superiority becomes critical and the development of missiles rendered the ship direct engagement become less often. In this New World, Mu, Holy Milishial Empire, Gra Valkas Empire, and Japan are the known country to use the Ironclad Warships.

## Varieties

### Air to Sea Warfare

Air to Sea Warfare happens when a Navy Fleet manages to achieve air superiority, allowing their friendlies to conduct an airstrike towards the enemy warship. This does not limit to any air units that attack Warships or Submarines. This was first seen when Japan uses Airstrike from F-2 to sunk Parpaldia Imperial Fleet during the Liberation of Nishinomiyako where Japan attacks the Parpaldia Empire fleet using BVR (Beyond Visual Range) method.

Air to Sea Warfare is also included when one attempts to conduct a counter-attack from Sea to Air Warfare to prevent Air Superiority.

### Air to Air Warfare

Air to Air warfare only happens when the opponent possesses an Air Force to deal with enemy Air Force above the ocean. This was first introduced when Parpaldia Empire is fighting the Altaras Kingdom over the seas of the Northern Altaras as Parpaldia Empire manage to gain Air Superiority to suppress Altaras Fleet. Later, during Battle of the Folk Strait, Gra Valkas Empire Navy Air Force gains air superiority over World Union's Army, allowing their Air units to reach Cartalpas and bombed it.

Another is during the Great Naval Battle of Baltica where Air to Air battle is the first phase of the battle before the Navy arrives.

During the Great Naval Invasion of Japan, F-15J Kai successfully gains Air Superiority, allowing F-2 and BP-3C to conduct a saturation strike against Gra Valkas Great Fleet.

### Sea to Air Warfare

Mu, Holy Milishial Empire, Japan, and Gra Valkas Empire are the countries that we're able to conduct Sea to Air Warfare. Each of their Warships is equipped with anti-air capabilities to prevent the enemy from gaining Air Superiority over their skies. While this proves suitable to help the air units, the risk is the enemy may conduct an Air to Sea Warfare to suppress the fleet that possesses anti-air units.

Due to the danger of Sea to Air Warfare, one must keep pay attention to Sea to Sea Warfare as they may be attacked by either other warships or submarines.

### Sea to Sea Warfare

The most common thing happen in the New World is Sea to Sea warfare where Battleships is the strongest above all Warships. This, however, was changed when Japan was able to develop the concept of BVR (Beyond Visual Range) so Japan can destroy a Warship outside the visual range. The Sea to Sea Warfare is varied as it depends on each civilization and how their fleet works along with how advanced their technology is.

### Submarine Warfare

Submarine warfare is basically a sub-branch of sea to sea warfare, as it involves the usage of the submarine. Since only two nations have submarines (Japan and Gra Valkas), the other countries of the New World are fundamentally lacking in this type of undersea combat. The basics of submarine warfare is to use the submarine to attack while the defenders must find and destroy the submarine. Since the submarine takes advantage of the ability to dive below the waves, therefore becoming harder to detect, one might consider this one of the earliest stealth weapons.

## Doctrines

### Outside Civilization Areas

The nations outside civilizations (with the exception of Japan and Gra Valkas) still use pre-gunpowder naval battle strategies like using catapults and ballista for their ranged combat and they still use boarding action when they already spent their ammunition on defeating their enemies. Some countries like Altaras and Fenn are lucky to get previous technologies from Parpaldia and they got magic cannons but at the price of surrendering their resources and sending the required amount of slaves to the empire before the arrival of Japan.

### Third Civilization Area

Due to the fact that nations lack long-range weapons, an effective fire-control system (FCS) and their ships are limited to sails and oars for propulsion, the naval tactics are similar to those used from the 14th to 19th centuries of Earth. The maximum range for cannons was around 2 km and with virtually no FCS, the solution was similar to land tactics; by using more cannons and relying on volley fire. However, due to the unstable nature of the waves, even a full broadside might not guarantee a full hit. The main goals were to either sink or damage the other vessel or try to board the enemy ship and take it over.

Surprisingly, the Third Civilization nation does have a form of carrier, in the form of Dragon Carriers. However, these ships proved to be extremely vulnerable and were next to worthless against Japan. With the Dragon Carriers, they are able to maintain Air Superiority far before arrival of Japan.

### Second Civilization Area

Just like the rest of the nations in the New World, countries in the Second Civilization are still sticking to visual range combat. But unlike their Third Civilization counterparts, Mu, the strongest nation in the Second Civilization, is using pre-dreadnought battleships to wage naval wars. They have also aircraft carriers to wrestle air superiority against their enemies. But just like the Third and First Civilizations, they too, have no idea about submarines before the arrival of Japan and Gra Valkas in the New World.

With the arrival of Japan, Mu is now trying to get rid of magic in their naval weapons and shift to pure science and mechanical technology in controlling the oceans. With the showing of improved performance of La Kasami Kai during the Battle of Otaheit Offshore and the acquisition of blueprints of WW2 jet aircraft from Japan, Mu is more eager to cooperate and learn to Japan on how they will improve their Navy.

Some of the countries also employ Dragon Carrier but it is also left them vulnerable against enemy airstrike due to lack of Sea to Air Warfare experience along with protection from it.

### First Civilization Area

Although they have the ability to wage air-to-air wars, the First Civilization is still sticking to the old age style of visual combat range fighting. They have also battleships but those are outmatched by Gra Valkas battleships and by the smaller AEGIS destroyers of Japan in terms of speed, range, rate of fire, accuracy and destructive power. Their missile technology is still at the experimental stage and only limited to naval warfare, their famed magic jets can't match their Gra Valkan and Japanese counterparts in terms of speed, range, accuracy and destructive power. They don't have any submarine forces and are clueless about torpedo attacks. The only weapon that has the strongest firepower and accuracy is the Flying Battleships of the Ravernal Empire. But even having those behemoths of the sky, those are still not able to defeat Gra Valkas in the Battle of Baltica and *Grade Atlastar* managed to land a lucky shot on one of the Pal Chimera.

Emor Kingdom, despite having Dragon as their mount, cannot maintain Air Superiority due to 1:1 kill ratio while they are also being outnumbered by Gra Valkas Air Force.

### Gra Valkas Empire

Believing in the doctrine where numbers and power can overwhelm even a strong opponent, they mainly rely on brute force. *Grade Atlastar* is known to be their masterpiece, the Antares is their main air superiority fighter. They are also one of the two countries in the New World that uses a submarine force, the other is Japan.

While not being detailed in detail, the happenings seen at the Great Naval Battle of Baltica or the Battle of Folk Strait show that Gra Valkas seemed to be adopting a naval doctrine similar to Japan's "Decisive Battle Doctrine" (**Kantai Kessen**) during World War 2. Accordingly, aircraft and submarines will have the duty to thin out the enemy fleet, before battleships come and completely destroy the enemy in a single decisive battle. It should also be noted that Gra Valkas possesses a naval air force that is far superior to traditional powers in the New World, not only can it achieve air superiority but it can also attack and cause serious damage to enemy fleets, something no one has done before.

However, unlike Japan, the Gra Valkas naval weapons are all limited to visual range. The Antares fighters and bombers are able to be launched against opponents from beyond visual range, but the planes themselves cannot attack until they get within effective range of their guns, cannons, and bombs. Gra Valkas' naval warfare tactics still revolve around the idea of direct ship-to-ship confrontations. The carriers and planes basically protect the battleships, instead of the other way around. And due to their reliance on sheer force of numbers, the Gra Valkas admirals believe they can lure the smaller numbers of Japanese naval forces, by splitting up the Gra Valkas fleet into smaller groups, and assuming they will engage the Japanese fleet in direct ship-to-ship battles. These tactics are made worthless against BVR weapons and advanced Fire-Control Systems.

Furthermore, in terms of submarine and anti-submarine tactics, they are behind Japan as the Gra Valkas submarines are noisy and fire unguided torpedoes, while the Japanese submarines cannot be detected by the primitive Gra Valkas sonar systems and they can launch guided torpedoes and anti-ship missiles. To defend against submarines, the Gra Valkas Navy ships are equipped with depth charges, but these cannot be deployed if they cannot find the enemy subs.

### Japan

Before the transfer to the New World, Japan's naval doctrine is to defend the homeland and they can't wage wars due to the Article 9 of their constitution. Also, due to the self-imposed restrictions of the JSDF, as well as the Geneva Convention Treaty on Illegal Weapons, they can't possess highly-offensive and assault weapons. Their ships and planes, although they are used also by an Earth superpower, the United States of America, are "toned-down copies" like their Kongō-Class and Atago-Class AEGIS destroyers. The JMSDF AEGIS destroyers are copies of the Arleigh Burke-Class AEGIS destroyer but unlike their US counterparts, they can't launch long-range Tomahawk missiles. Their planes are primarily stripped out of their capability to conduct air assault against surface targets. This ability is just recently added as support to surface vessels. They are not allowed to possess amphibious assault ships and aircraft carriers. Even they lack "strong" weapons and they didn't participate at smaller international conflicts back on Earth, they are still a formidable force on Earth, especially in defensive.

With the appearance of Japan, they changed the course of warfare in the New World. Their ships' and submarines' ability to fight BVR (Beyond Visual Range) made the New Worlders' and Gra Valkas' style of close-range combat obsolete. Japan's surface fleet, as well as submarines, can wage war against aerial targets with high efficiency. Their anti-ship missiles can destroy enemy ships in one shot. Their supersonic fighters are the king of the skies of the New World. And with the adoption of an "active defense" military policy as suggested by the Japan Ministry of Defense and with the consultation from the USFJ, as well as the recent lifting of the restrictions of the Geneva Convention, Japan is now upgrading its AEGIS destroyers as well as submarines to carry and launch long-range cruise missiles, deployment of nuclear submarines in order to monitor the New World effectively and the deployment of nuclear supercarriers loaded with stealth fighters to improve its strike capabilities further.

This alone makes Japan very adept at all kinds of warfare at sea, due to versatility and their precision calculation to make a necessary amount to strike for efficiency. Japan rarely conduct a direct ship to ship confrontation other than Rodenius War and Japanese-Parpaldian War. As of the New World War, Japan has been forced to use its naval forces to their fullest extend, opposing Gra Valkas submarine warfare and the Great Naval Invasion of Japan.