Battle of Kaizaruka

Battle of Kaizaruka (Mirselec Kaizaruka ta Kakobe)
Fourth Global War
Date	29 September 1944 - 1 October 1944
Location	Southern Sea of Aiza, near Kaizaruka Rocks
Result	Decisive Risevan Victory
Combatants
Risevne	Barise, Kavena
Commanders
Auseri Sosten, Berin Agamerk	Jarn Masun, Erian Hars
Strength
3 battleships, 5 fleet carriers, 8 cruisers, 25 destroyers, 11 submarines, 38 support vessels	4 battleships, 6 fleet carriers, 5 light carriers, 11 cruisers, 26 destroyers, 14 submarines, 66 support and landing vessels in convoy
Casualties
1 cruiser, 3 destroyers, 1 submarine sunk, 53 planes lost	1 battleship, 3 fleet carriers, 4 light carriers, 6 cruisers, 13 destroyers, nearly 60 support vessels sunk
Notes: {{{notes}}}

The Battle of Kaizaruka, known in Mirselec as Kaizaruka ta Matnaira or the Great Victory of Kaizaruka, was a major naval battle fought in the Sea of Aiza between the navies of Risevne, Barise and Kavena. The battle resulted in a decisive victory for the Risevan Royal Navy, whose forces sunk 3 heavy carriers and crippled another two without suffering major damage to their capital units; at the same time a huge convoy of nearly 60 ships, meant to supply and reinforce the invasion forces on Garmagos Island to the southeast, also came to grief after being viciously attacked from the air and sea.

The Battle

30 September

Morning Attacks

The two skirmishes of 29 September, though they caught the Risevan force off balance and succeeded in causing severe damage, also had the effect of giving away the position of the coalition's main carrier group from which instructions were being sent out by radio in large amounts. The voluminous transmissions were easily picked up by the second escort group screening the west, which passed on the messages to the Vanguard Group and Sosten's flagship; this, as well as the constant flow of information from his reconaissance planes screening the northwest, allowed him to work out with relative certainty where the enemy was.

On the other side intelligence was much poorer; after losing Screen Group 1 in its chase, the commander of the light cruiser squadron was ordered instead to return to its station and continue cruising, while the reconaissance seaplanes were sent out to shadow the enemy vessels. Plane cover was patchy, however, and the night of 29/30 September was very cloudy, making the task even more difficult. The relatively inferior signals intelligence of the coalition forces also made it difficult for them to ascertain the Risevan fleet's position.

Nonetheless, after the two engagements, both sides were clearly headed into engagement. Sosten was quick to grasp several facts; firstly the enemy carriers were moving into a course almost parallel to his, and closing as quickly as they were it was best for him to strike early and utilise the longer range of his aircraft to cripple the enemy before risking a reply strike from a heavier force. Secondly, both admirals agreed on the speculation that with combat drawing close, but without certain information, the enemy's carriers would probably choose to launch heavy air patrols while keeping a large proportion of their strike force on the deck to be armed, fuelled and scrambled at the first opportunity. Given this Sosten's plan was to launch two decoy attacks from the southeast, where the Barisem and Kavenain most expected the Risevani to come; the main blow, however, would come circuitously from the northeast, where most of the forces would be directed into the carrier group.

In accordance to this plan, at 0410 nine reconaissance aircraft were launched to ascertain the coalition fleet's course and posision, and an hour and a half later the first decoy wave of fighters was launched. Soon after them all the carriers of the Vanguard Group launched the first attack wave at around 0600, and the Wing Group launched at 0635; at the end of their briefing Admiral Agamerk is said to have told the pilots: Now is the time to do your utmost; your king, your nation and your people expect nothing less of you. The pilots replied him with cheers.

The first Risevan aircraft to attack the group, as planned, came from the southeast and arrived at around 0745; the squadron of fighters, accompanying 12 torpedo bombers, managed to evade the screen of destroyers in the low cloud cover, but ran straight into the air patrol envelope. While the fighters engaged, the torpedo bombers quickly dived below the clouds only to find that they had been above the battleships Luzeno and Mardatein, and attacked at very close range. The entire group was annihilated by anti-aircraft fire, but a torpedo struck the Mardatein aft which did detonate, severely damaging its propellers and engine spaces and reducing it to about 12 knots. Meanwhile, the squadrons of fighters took similarly heavy losses, but succeeded in throwing the coalition fleet off balance and caused heavy losses amongst the combat patrol fighter that would need quick reinforcement.

The torpedo attacks, as well as the fierce fighter combat which had broken out in the north, immediately drew the attention of the coalition fleet, and as fighters were directed to the area the northeast of the group was left relatively open, being screened by just 6 destroyers and several submarines.

At around 0853, after making the circuitous route and flying above the clouds to minimise the risk of detection, the first wave descended and to their surprise found that they were very near to their ultimate targets, the four carriers of the coalition Main Carrier Group. Surprise was complete; after the fierce aerial combat, and the torpedoing of the Barisem light cruiser ''Nivalis'' at around 0810 by Risevan submarine G-36 (which left the cruiser dead in the water and again led to Masun to order more ships south and ready his aircraft for counterattack), the decks of the carriers were jammed with all sorts of planes, all in different stages of refuelling and arming, as the carrier crews scrambled to prepare fighters, bombers and torpedo bombers alike.

The order to arm as many aircraft as possible had been given by Mirges Ronsand, commander of the carrier group; unsure whether to replenish the air patrols first or launch a counterattack, and taken by surprise at the initial decoy strike, he decided to partially arm his aircraft and await orders, not knowing that his superior was equally surprised by the sudden developments, and equally ignorant of the enemy's exact position. While the coalition commanders dithered the first wave of 62 dive bombers, 20 torpedo bombers and 56 fighters exploited the unique chance. ''Magon'' was struck by six bombs, Sholdau by three; shortly afterwards a torpedo scored a direct hit on Malexem, followed by a single armour-piercing bomb which plunged through the flight deck and detonated in the hangar deck where a whole squadron of aircraft were being refuelled and armed, causing a explosion which shattered the flight deck, set the whole ship aflame and was followed by several secondary explosions. Finally Kenairom was also hit, by two torpedoes and five bombs which also set off explosions both above and below flight deck. Strangely, four attacks were launched on the last two carriers in the group, Nikenor and Wargedau, but no hits were scored on them, just four near misses.

Aftermath

Just 40 minutes after the last sortie from KV Ainzera had landed and the battle was considered over, Admiral Sosten debriefed his staff officers onboard his flagship; during this brief he made a rejoinder to his colleague's exhortation at the critical stage of the battle the day before, saying "Our battle has ended in victory, and you have done well. Shame be upon anyone who belittles in any way the worthy men who joined this battle." This message was later broadcast to the pilots in the respective carriers.

The immediate results of this defeat, in any case, were at once clear; with both the Kavenain and Barisem fleets so badly damaged, the armies of the two countries fighting against Risevan forces on Garmagos Island would be trapped and cut off from either resupply or reinforcement, while the Risevan navy could finally move in to play the role of supporting the defenders with devastating effect. The very next day after the battle carriers began flying attacks on enemy positions all along the landing beaches, and two days after the battleships moved in to bombard the attackers in the same way they had bombarded the beach before their own assault. The victory at Kaizaruka made victory on the island much more certain.

In the long term the numerical superiority of the two navies, which had kept the Risevan forces at bay for so long trying to find a decisive encounter, was badly dented if not destroyed. Against 11 Risevan fleet carriers the navies of Barise and Kavena used to muster 25; now they could put together 19, of which 5 were crippled. Most grievous though was the loss of hundreds of experienced aircrew on board the lost carriers as well as the surviving ones - 412 planes were lost, many with the loss of their well-trained pilots.