Battle of Hathi Point

Battle of Hathi Point
Part of the Pan-Septentrion War
<imgur w="300px">YCNVBvo.png</imgur> Map of the movement of Menghean and Tyrannian forces before the battle, and the Menghean force's retreat, with the battle site marked in orange.
Date 6-7 March 1940 Location Hathi Point, Khalistan Result indecisive
Belligerents
Greater Menghean Empire	New Tyran
Commanders and leaders
Nam Yŏng-uk	Charles Norton
Strength
Total: 11 combat ships 3 heavy cruisers 4 destroyers 4 escort ships	Total: 10 combat ships 1 battleship 2 heavy cruiser 3 light cruisers 4 destroyers
Casualties and losses
1 heavy cruiser 2 destroyers	1 light cruiser 1 destroyer

The Battle of Hathi Point was a naval engagement between the Royal Navy and the Imperial Menghean Navy fought during the night of March 6th-7th as part of the Pan-Septentrion War. It centered on a nighttime encounter between the Royal Navy battleship HMS Warchild and a column of three Taegisan-class cruisers, which had sailed southwest along the coast of Khalistan in the hopes of interdicting Tyrannian convoys to colonial forces stationed there.

The result of the battle was indecisive, with the two task forces eventually breaking off from one another. The IMN lost the heavy cruiser Obongsan and two destroyers, while the Royal Navy lost [undetermined]. Both sides claimed victory, in part by misreporting enemy losses. At a strategic level, the Royal Navy did succeed in preventing the Menghean cruiser column from breaking through to its ports along the coast of Naseristan, and subsequent Menghean coastal raids would be more cautious in their scope. It also provided an additional morale boost to the Allies, coming a month and a half after the sinking of the Baekjin, which also involved HMS Warchild.

Background

After its defeat at the Battle of the Portcullia Strait in 1938, the Tyrannian Royal Navy had a diminished presence in the East Helian Ocean, while the Imperial Menghean Navy still maintained most of its combat capability. HMS Indomitable was lost during the battle, as was the carrier HMS Furious, while HMS Resolute was damaged and torpedoed several weeks later, and HMS Indefatigable was so severely damaged that she had to return to Tyran for repairs. This left only the HMS Warchild and a collection of cruisers and submarines in opposition to the Imperial Menghean Navy, which after repairing its less severely damaged capital ships was able to resume operations in the Helian Ocean.

In addition to supporting the Army's advance along the coast of Khalistan, the Imperial Menghean Navy also turned its attention to the task of interdicting Tyrannian supplies being shipped from Casaterra to Meridia. With naval superiority on the surface, the IMN leadership hoped that a sustained campaign of commerce raiding could starve Tyrannian troops in Khalistan and Naseristan, giving Menghean, Dayashinese, and pro-independence militia forces an advantage in the land war. While the fast battleship Chŏngdo and the battlecruiser Baekjin conducted long-range operations across the Helian Ocean, smaller cruiser and destroyer formations worked their way along the west coast of Khalistan, seeking to protect Menghean supply ships while attacking Tyrannian convoys and coastal positions.

These coastal raids, however, faced the constant danger of interdiction from the surviving Tyrannian forces in the Acheron Islands, which included the battleship HMS Warchild and a submarine flotilla. Though under repair for the first few months after Portcullia, Warchild was soon operational again, and in January 1940 she contributed to the sinking of the battlecruiser Baekjin during its homeward voyage. Menghean warships along the coast were forced to operate in tighter groups to defend themselves against surface warships and submarines, which in combination with the cracking of the IMN's communication codes made them easier to avoid and intercept.

In late February 1940, the IMN decided to send the third heavy cruiser division on a southward patrol along the coast of Khalistan, in the hopes of luring the Tyrannian fleet into a confrontation. All four Taegisan-class cruisers in the division had recently been refitted with launchers for the Dayashinese Type 93 torpedo, which had a longer range and a heavier warhead than the Menghean Type 34, its closest counterpart. The heavy cruiser Johangsan was initially slated to take part as well, but she suffered damage from a submarine-launched torpedo on February 26th and had to return to Menghe for repairs. This left a task force of three well-protected heavy cruisers, escorted by the 18th Destroyer Division and the 6th Escort Ship Division, mainly for protection against submarine attacks.

As the IMN had not yet adopted the Ostlandian Enigma machine, its at-sea communication codes could still be broken by Tyrannian intelligence forces, who identified the formation's departure from Moradabad and sortied with advance warning to counterattack. Admiral Norton's plan was to intercept the Menghean cruisers at night as they passed Hathi Point, leaving them with limited room in which to maneuver and disengage. While Tyrannian intelligence had some information suggesting that the IMN had fitted Dayashinese torpedoes to its cruisers, Norton nevertheless pushed for a close-range night attack, as the Menghean 32-knot cruisers were fast enough to outrun the Warchild and too heavily armored for Tyrannian heavy cruisers to safely engage alone.

Order of Battle

Royal Navy

Battleships: 1

• Resolute-class (1): HMS Warchild (damaged)

Heavy Cruisers: 2

• Centurion-class (3): HMS Centurion, HMS Confiance

Light Cruisers: 3

• Defender-class (2):HMS Despatch (sunk), HMS Dagger
• Leander-class (1): HMS Lawford

Destroyers: 4

• A-class (2): HMS Ardent, HMS Actaeon (sunk)
• H-class (2): HMS Haste, HMS Havoc

Imperial Menghean Navy

Heavy Cruisers: 3

• Taegisan-class (3): Taegisan, Obongsan (sunk), Munsusan

Destroyers: 4

• Imsil-class (4): Imsil, Dogye (sunk), Sabuk (sunk), Sinsŏng

Chain of events

Tyrannian ambush and destroyer engagement

As dusk fell, the Tyrannian formation loitered north of Hathi Point under radio silence, awaiting the arrival of the Menghean formation. When coastal watch positions reported the movement of unknown ships off the coast at 2020 hours, the formation moved to intercept, hoping to pin the Menghean force against the shore.

At 2314, a lookout on the Menghean destroyer Imsil reported seeing a low silhouette far off the starboard bow. Without notifying Vice Admiral Nam, who commanded the formation, Imsil turned on her searchlight to sweep the area around the incoming ship. She identified a division of four Tyrannian H-class destroyers, but not the other ships in the formation, which were still behind the forward screen. Mistaking the attackers for a lone patrol, Vice Admiral Nam ordered his own destroyers to break from the line formation and engage the enemy destroyers with gunfire, in the hopes of sinking or repelling them before they could spot the cruisers. The remaining ships were to keep their lights off and refrain from firing.

In the blistering exchange of gunfire which followed, one Tyrannian destroyer, HMS Actaeon, was severely damaged, and another suffered damage to her torpedo tubes. As in previous small-combatant engagements, the Menghean destroyers' high-velocity 130mm guns delivered accurate fire, leaving Menghean forces confident of victory.

Main force engagement

As the retreating H-class destroyers drew nearer, the light cruisers HMS Despatch and Dagger opened fire on their pursuers, scoring a direct hit on Dogye which tore through her bridge. Imsil and Sinsŏng turned back, realizing that they had encountered a larger force, but the destroyer Sabuk apparently did not receive the order to withdraw and maintained its course. Both Sabuk and Dogye came under withering fire from the Tyrannian cruisers, who believed that they were attempting a torpedo run.

Correctly concluding that his destroyers had come under attack from Tyrannian light cruisers, but still lacking information on the full size of the enemy force, Vice Admiral Nam ordered the heavy cruisers in his formation to open fire on the Despatch and Dagger, which had given away their positions with searchlights and muzzle flashes. Dagger suffered a penetrating hit to her forward boiler room at 2328 and had to reduce speed, but remained afloat. Despatch came under concentrated fire from both Taegisan and Obongsan, suffering 12 shell hits in the course of a few minutes.

The heavy cruisers Centurion and Confiance now joined the engagement, hoping to draw fire away from the Despatch. Though his force was outnumbered, Vice Admiral Nam insisted on pressing the attack, confident that his cruisers were better armored than the enemy's and could withstand their gunfire without suffering critical damage. An 8-inch shell did strike Taegisan's aft fire-control director, knocking it out of action, but her main and forward rangefinders remained operational. Centurion, meanwhile, was forced to withdraw from the battle line after multiple hits ignited stored aviation fuel for her seaplane, starting a fire amidships.

As the Tyrannian cruisers shifted their attention to the Menghean main force, they lost contact with the destroyers Imsil and Sinsŏng, which regrouped at a distance of six kilometers from the Tyrannian cruiser line and fired a spread of eight torpedoes each. One of these narrowly missed the Confiance, passing just behind the stern; another forced the still-damaged Dagger to make an abrupt turn and narrowly dodge. By sheer coincidence, two of the fired torpedoes continued toward the HMS Warchild, which had not yet opened fire. Having received reports of torpedoes passing near the cruisers, Norton ordered the ship to turn its searchlights to the water and commence evasive maneuvers. She managed to dodge the first torpedo, but the second struck her port side. Her damage control team concluded that the flooding was confined to her watertight torpedo protection compartments, but her evasive maneuvers broke off her firing solution on the Taegisan, delaying her entry into the battle by several minutes.

It was only at 2335 that the HMS Warchild fired her first broadside, this time targeting the second cruiser in the formation, which turned out to be Obongsan. The first salvo disabled both of Obongsan's forward turrets. Realizing only then that his ships had encountered a Tyrannian battleship, Vice Admiral Nam ordered his cruisers to prepare to fire their long-range torpedoes. Yet in the course of the gun engagement, Nam had lost contact with his four destroyers, and only knew that they were somewhere between his cruisers and the enemy battle line. Imsil and Sinsŏng reported their locations at 2340, but Nam did not yet know that Sabuk and Dogye had been disabled, and ordered his cruisers to hold their torpedo fire until the remaining destroyers were accounted for.

Obongsan suffered a 6-inch shell hit near her aft torpedo tubes at 2342, setting off a large explosion as the torpedoes' oxygen tanks ignited. Above-decks ready ammunition for her aft 100mm AA guns added to the blaze. Burning heavily amidships, the heavy cruiser drew additional fire from the Tyrannian cruisers, but was unable to return fire as the smoke from the blaze had obscured her aft rangefinders. As her citadel sat very low in the water, and incoming shells were approaching at a nearly horizontal angle, the cruiser did not suffer any penetrating hits to her propulsion machinery or magazines. Yet she accumulated dozens of penetrating hits to the non-critical hull spaces above her armor belt, causing the fire to spread rapidly as smoke from the funnel uptakes poured into her internal compartments.

Meanwhile, HMS Despatch broke with the formation in the confusion of the night battle, pursuing a destroyer sighted to port after mistaking it for the source of the torpedo attack on the Warchild. It was in fact the Sabuk, which had failed to withdraw earlier. At the close range of the nighttime encounter, the Menghean destroyer's 130mm armor-piercing shells penetrated the Despatch through its citadel belt in several locations, though the damage was not critical, and Sabuk took more punishing damage from the cruiser's own guns. Recognizing that the Sabuk was in trouble, the captain of the Munsusan ordered her gunnery teams to focus on the Despatch, scoring a hit on the magazine which failed to ignite the powder storage but did tear a large hole below the waterline. Sabuk attempted to withdraw under a smokescreen, but suffered a boiler room explosion (some sources say a magazine explosion) and began to sink.

Menghean force withdraws

Concerned that he might lose the Obongsan, Vice Admiral Nam ordered his cruisers and escort ships to execute a 180-degree turn to starboard and retreat northeast in a reverse column order. The sharp turn caused Obongsan to list to port, raising more of her armor belt above the waterline; a direct hit from Warchild tore into her "C" and "D" boiler rooms beneath the funnel. Taegisan was forced to adjust her own turn and pass behind her struggling sister ship, drawing away some fire in the process. Han Jong-ok, captain of the Obongsan, reported that he could still withdraw at reduced speed under the power from the remaining boilers, but by this time the cruiser was also taking on water through the many shell holes in her hull and was unable to manage even half speed.

By this point, Nam realized that the unaccounted-for destroyers had probably been lost, and ordered Taegisan and Munsusan to fire torpedoes from their port tubes as they withdrew. Though initially he had held out hope that the survivors could cover the Obongsan during its retreat, the Vice-Admiral concluded that the greater priority was to prevent the loss of additional ships, and at 2358 he ordered the surviving ships to turn off their searchlights and cease fire. Obongsan, still burning heavily and now sitting low in the water with a growing list to port, continued to draw shellfire from the Tyrannian fleet. She capsized a few minutes after midnight, torn apart by an aft magazine explosion in the process.

Rear Admiral Underwood, aboard the Confiance, originally wanted to continue the pursuit; his ship had suffered only minor damage, and the damage control teams aboard the Centurion had managed to put out the amidships fire which had broken out near the beginning of the engagement. Still unsure about the extent of the torpedo damage to the Warchild, Admiral Norton ordered the battleship and heavy cruisers to break off the pursuit and return to the Acheron Islands for repairs. HMS Lawford and two of her destroyers attempted to establish contact with the Menghean light vessels at the tail of the formation, but were unable to locate them through the smokescreen trailing the Menghean fleet, and instead moved to pick up survivors from the Despatch.

Outcome

The Battle of Hathi Point was fairly indecisive, with both sides claiming victory. Tyrannian news media, building on the recent sinking of the Baekjin, treated it as a decisive success in turning back a cruiser raid, and initially reported that the Taegisan had been sunk as well. The IMN also erroneously concluded that the Warchild had suffered critical torpedo damage, only later recognizing that it was still capable of engaging in open-sea sorties.

Norton lost the light cruiser Despatch and the destroyer Actaeon, while suffering moderate damage to the Dagger and Centurion and one other destroyer. Inspections in port found that the flooding damage to Warchild was in fact contained to her torpedo protection, and that there was no risk of further flooding to her engine rooms on the far side of the inner bulkhead, but using the available facilities in the Acheron Islands they could only manage temporary repairs. Combined with regular bombing attacks on the docks, which began several weeks later, this limited the Warchild's ability to harass Menghean forces, but the battleship remained operational.

By comparison, the Imperial Menghean Navy lost one heavy cruiser, the Obongsan, and two destroyers, Sabuk and Dogye, with Taegisan suffering minor damage and Munsusan emerging largely unscathed. Though these losses were slightly heavier, they were smaller as a proportion of Menghean warships in the area. Nevertheless, the IMN ordered an investigation into the failure of the cruiser formation to break through, with superior officers sharply criticizing Vice-Admiral Nam Yŏng-uk for poor command and improper reconnaissance during the engagement. Nam, for his part, contended that it was impossible to conduct reconnaissance flights at night, and that limited moonlight made it difficult to spot the enemy fleet. Nam Yŏng-uk was eventually allowed to retain his rank, but he was transferred to command of a destroyer squadron off the coast of Azbekistan.

See also

• Battle of the Portcullia Strait