Panay's Ghost

I'm going to take U-29's answer to the depth-capabilities question as teasing Belfast.

After all, Belfast asked the submarine equivalent of what's your three sizes, yet didn't mention any warning of repercussions  ('I could tell you, but I'll have to kill you afterwards').  Therefore, I take the answer she received with a grain of salt.

The flibblety bilbblety Link

Probably the third option:  if land masses- no matter how tiny- can get a Belle that simply, there'd be no stopping the race to ship-ify every dinky island in every ocean, sea and lake.  ...And then there's the continents (spoiler: The Good Ship Europa would be a basket case)...

From my understanding of Shinto, any thing suitably sublime enough may become a home for a kami.

My suspicion is that if that thing can't be sunk, the kami residing in it isn't a ship's spirit.

1 hour ago, Käpt'n Korky said:

I like her colour, her culinary taste, but what is the thing under her Umbrella?

Also 10 mystery points to @Panay's Ghost, who guessed correct, while everyone else had BB fever.. 

Elementary, my dear Käpt'n.  A rear admiral's flagship and Lt. General Omar Bradley's ride on D-Day alone, plus her extensive prewar history outshined any US battleship save Nevada...and we've already been bankrupted by met her.

I believe the gear under Augusta's umbrella is one of her 5"/25 caliber Mk 10 AA guns.  ...Just the thing to defend and retaliate against poop-laden seagulls.

She'll be a part of my fleet.  I am indebted to her Christmas kindness.

(proper introduction pending...)

All I ask from her is regular updates on Thetis.

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Surface fleets may now rest easier, as their submarine enemies now more closely follow the rules of war.

*Sighs* 

Well, looks like it's time to rewrite the Rules of War... 😉 

9 hours ago, Legate of Mineta said:

So, the current situation is that you can have these semi-immune Fleets of defeated Submarines just going wherever they please. And heaven help you if all your escorts are already sunk. We are coercing them to obey the rules.

Yes, that's a terrible, horrible situation.  I volunteer to personally track them down for you and learn the secret of their techniques.  😜

Such a misleading video.  This is Ragyō's theme.

...Here we go.

3 hours ago, TwoHeavens said:

I don't think Cavour said anything particularly nasty about her sunk/scrapped sister... it sounds like she's talking about "her" in a very "live" and present sense, not insulting the sunk battleship Leonardo da Vinci, nor talking about a ship or boat in this case under construction. So that would mean she's talking about the Giulio Cesare. Who is not only alive and well, but will be until 1955 or so as I recall.  

Silly could also mean quite a bit of things coming from a martinet like Cavour, so I tended to take both her comments to that effect to be more of a loving exasperation than any real slight. 

Two separate gripes, TH.  In her letter, she was referring to the writer of the seventh letter, who can only be Giulio Cesare.

In the interview, she referred to Casare as 

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a ship immensely… unique in personality. I’m doing my best to prepare her for the coming war, but I worry her head is too much in the clouds to give the subject the thought it requires. 

and then went on to note that

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Our youngest sister, Leonardo da Vinci, had a similar weakness and lost her life to a magazine explosion more than two decades ago.

It is possible Cavour didn't mean anything causality-wise (that because Leo's head was "in the clouds" she therefore experienced a magazine explosion and was lost).

However, given Cavour's attitude--especially with regard to her surviving sister-- I'm not willing to give her the benefit of the doubt.

I seem to recall a certain letter delivered by Rawalpindi:

I wasn't particularly impressed with her letter and I'm even less impressed with her in interview.

The cultured don't speak ill of the sunk, much less a scrapped sister (to keep karma from coming back to bite you if nothing else).

But that's fine. I'll give her your regards at the launching ceremony and look out for her in '40. 😉

2 hours ago, Käpt'n Korky said:

There happened more at Verdun, than "just" the battle you think of. So what if you have a really historically busy place or person?

The Guépard-class destroyer we've met specifically stated that her namesake is the Battle of Verdun (that I'm thinking of):  an event.  If she were named for Verdun itself, I would suspect (as I suspect with all location-named Belles) that unless and until the place is blown off the face of the Earth it has no last day and would then be counted among ships named after generic wildlife, weather conditions, adjectives and/or just given numbers (who don't worry about such things).

As far as historically busy or not, the common tradition is that a person gets a ship named after them posthumously.  Not all die as spectacularly as say, Hans Lüdemann or Sergey Kirov, but the common denominator here is that they have a date of expiration.

It's well known by now that a Belle is effected by her Death Day.  What about the Death Day of a Belle's namesake?  Or, if the ship is named after an event, the date of that?  If the event happens to be over a span of days (such as the Battle of Verdun) would the first or last day of said event be of significant importance to her?

In Update #98, it was evident that a certain Belle is skittish where the Ides of March is concerned.  Is that a real danger, or simply a touch of paranoia?

But isn't the battleship HMS Lion under construction at Newcastle upon Tyne when the war begins?  Even assuming that anything of the battlecruiser HMS Lion was left to reassemble (she was sold for scrap in 1924!), why would one settle for resuscitating that hull, when she could be provided a bigger, brand-spanking new ship?

Unless that is what you mean by rebuilding warships that were scrapped.  If so, then the only thing standing in the way of  Vickers Amstrongs turning out a new receptacle for her would be labour and materials.

The very same things that stood in the way historically.  If things had turned out differently and there had been consistent available resources to finish her?  Who's to say?

I do think that the Captains of Belles have a war to fight though and while it may be Neutral, the INPF isn't a country.  Shipbuilding from scratch should probably remain in the hands of the various countries, if for no other reason than even with a freshly commissioned ship and crew (and a handful of souvenirs from her battlecruiser days) , there is no certainty the Belle of HMS Lion would awaken.  (And the Royal Navy is gonna need every ship it can beg, borrow or build).

4 hours ago, TwoHeavens said:

Recap & Conclusion:

Sqaulus and Thetis are unique in that not only were they still commissioned, while technically being wrecks/sunk they were in a condition that could and did eventually allow both boats to return to active naval service. You're not going to find many ships of any age that fit that profile, and precious few submarines too. All the more reason that both subs should be recovered with all due haste. A submarine is a valuable asset. A submarine with a Belle is valuable beyond measure.

A submarine is a valuable asset.  A submarine with a Belle is valuable beyond measure.

Far be it from me to argue with that statement. 😁

I couldn't agree more with TwoHeavens.

I think the more interesting question is if Sinterklass/ Santa Claus/ Saint Nicholas believes in Belles...

😉

***

It has been established that Belles who are sunk and re-floated are never quite the same.  I'm curious if that is true for the Belles of ships that were lost, re-floated and returned to service before the start of the war.

Such potential does exist.  Consider USS S-38 (SS-143): who had a mishap in July of 1923, but following repairs and clean-up has been in active service.   Another example is the Spanish destroyer Císcar, victim of the Spanish Civil War but refloated and repaired. 

Would it be something from her past that she'd rather not dwell on, or would there be more obvious consequences to the Belle?

 There is also the question of ships in the process of being salvaged at the start of the war: HMS Thetis and USS Squalus.  Both submarines have been below since Spring, with salvage operations well underway; under optimal circumstances (in real life) Thetis should be raised on September 3rd and Squalus on September 13th.  As of September 1st however,  circumstances have become less than optimal. Are they among the first casualties of the war, or is there still hope of recovering them?

22 hours ago, Ninjapacman said:

I assume you're referring to USS The Sullivans, who in herself is an entirely isolated case.  As the only ship in history that I can think of named after a specific set of more than one person, she is unique in both her namesake and their circumstances, and likely has several caveats on what a belle would otherwise know about her namesake.  She does however, fall under the classic category of being named in response to said persons' demise, when all five died during or after the sinking of USS Juneau.  I would also like to add that we are strictly talking Pre-September '39, for the purposes of lore, so a ship like USS The Sullivans (Being 1943 commission) would be wholly unknown to whatever presenter we get.

Sadly, The Sullivans is not unique:  USS Rogers (DD-876) was named for three brothers on USS New Orleans who were all killed in the Battle of Tassafaronga (which occurred less than three weeks after USS Juneau was torpedoed).

The policy for US warships between 1900 and 1980 (i.e. during WW2) was firm: warships received names of deceased individuals only.  The only reason then to give a US warship the name of a living individual, would be to "experiment" with what kind of link a Belle created might have; a move that would no doubt be controversial.

Certainly if any Imperial Japanese warships popped up named after individuals (living or dead) that would be why...

15 hours ago, Wellington99 said:

And are there Belles who believe in Santa Claus?

Last year's Christmas Party (Part 1)

and 2...

and 3.

The saga continues.  Bravo!

Thank you for providing me a poetic checklist, Korky.

Only seven submarines

We've met in '39

So many as yet unknown, unseen

I will make them all mine.

1 hour ago, Ninjapacman said:

 

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I only wish the beach towel could have been the Naval flag of Imperial Germany

 

2 hours ago, David J said:

If Enterprise is in the game she should have grey hair like in Azur Lane instead of the stereotypical blond American stereotype (nothing against it but its to emphasize the Grey Ghost bit or at least have clothes in that color).

She was known as the Grey Ghost?   I've heard she was known as The Lucky E, The Fighting Gray Lady, and The Galloping Ghost of the Oahu Coast. 

There are so many ships nicknamed Gray Ghost / Galloping Ghost  (RMS Queen Mary was the Grey Ghost and USS Houston was The Galloping Ghost of the Java Coast) that it probably wouldn't be a useful thing to base appearances on.

6 hours ago, Ninjapacman said:

And there lies the flaw in your plan.  Of all the belles you’re trying to get Kirov and Nawlins drunk.  You’ll be under the table before they’re slightly tipsy.

And don’t say you can just not drink with them.  They’re a Russian and a partier from the Deep South.  They expect you to share in every drink and go one for one with them.

I think it's even worse than that:  New Orleans struck me as a bartender, meaning she'd pour/mix drinks for everyone else in the room before she got around to herself.

I'd be more afraid of her knowing the skeletons in my closet than the other way around. 

6 hours ago, Legate of Mineta said:

PG;

Let's just say that the time and effort to do that *is* possible. But...since the difference in weights is measured in *orders* of magnitude...

...it's extremely, extremely unlikely.

That said...you'd be the coolest submarine captain on your block!

I doubt it, since I suspect David J would beat me to the punch.

I'm not greedy.  A whole submarine fleet decked out with 8" guns will do me just fine. 

2 hours ago, Ninjapacman said:

For example, you probably can't put Iowa's beautiful 16" guns on Rawalpindi, but you might be able to put some incredible 5"/38s on her.

2 hours ago, Legate of Mineta said:

Ninjapacman;

Well...actually...

...

...if you really, really, really, really, really, really work at it...

...

So, if I really, Really, Really,Really, Really, Really, Really work hard at it 

I could get a 16" gun on Nautilus, right?