As Jade Glimmer arrived at the city of Las Pegasus, exhausted from her escape from Saddle Arabia, Rapier Apple was making a speech to the Equestrian’s 1st Western Fleet under the command of Vice-Admiral Grey Hood. Composed of ten sloops of war, ten frigates, fifteen 74-gun 3rd rate warships, five 98-gun 2nd rate and the flagship, Royal Sovereign with 104 guns, the 1st Western Fleet was the most powerful Equestrian in the Western ocean, one of the lynchpins of Alternia and Rapier Apple's war plan.
It was a simple one as things go. Destroy the Saddle Arabian navy, and then land Equestrian troops on Saddle Arabia. The problem was how. And moreover, Alternia, Rapier, and the REINS head, Admiral Whitehead knew the Saddle Arabian King Iosef and his chief admiral, Admiral Erik “Raider” wanted to achieve the same thing.
Equestria had a hundred and twenty eight warships of varying types in the Western Ocean. Saddle Arabia had a hundred and thirty-one. The types of ship and their fleets were as such:
Equestrian Ships:
Formations:
1st Fleet: Commander: Vice Admiral Grey Hood, flagship: Royal Sovereign
2nd Fleet: Commander: Vice Admiral Fair Wind, flagship: Ark Royal
3rd Fleet: Commander: Vice Admiral Warspite, flagship: Princess Celestia
Light Fleet/Coastal Operations: Rear Admiral Dreadnought, flagship: Lucky Jack
In contrast Saddle Arabia’s fleet was composed as such:
Formations:
Grand Fleet: Grand Admiral Ironsides, flagship: Kings-Hammer
Home Fleet: Vice Admiral Sea-tack, flagship: Scylla
Raiding Fleet: Grand Admiral Erik Raider, flagship: Golden Hind
The Saddle Arabian and Equestrian Fleets were quite evenly matched, though the Saddle Arabians were more concentrated in numbers. And thus, we come to the chiefmost problems with naval warfare at the time.
It was bloody difficult to replace ships lost.
It was bloody difficult to bring ships into battle.
The two problems are interrelated because wooden ships were expensive, and because the sea is a big place. Wood ships needed a lot of timber for one, and specific timber at that. You needed timber that was strong enough to build with (oak, gumwood, teak, and other hardwoods) but also tall, and very old trees (pine, red-oak, etc.) for the masts. Each ship, and especially the larger ships that would form a battleline, require a lot of labour, and a lot of specialized craftsponies or craftshorses to make the rope, sails, tack, pulleys, pumps etc. that a sailing ship needs. There was also all that cannon each ship had. Every ship (even a frigate who “only” had 38 guns) could hold more cannon than an entire army would be using.
Thus, both Equestria and Saddle Arabia actually wanted to avoid a massive battle. If it had to be a big naval battle, it had to be one where one side held all the cards. And avoiding battle with a fleet is fairly easy. All one has to do is to use the open ocean to his or her best advantage.
But how would the fleets actually come into contact then? How would one side provoke the other into a more advantageous position.
Saddle Arabia’s Erik “Raider” planned to launch raids against Equestria’s Western coast to enrage the pony admirals and force them to engage.
Alternia, Rapier and Whitehead were anticipating this strategy and decided their best bet was to destroy the eyes of the Saddle Arabian fleet - the galleasses and their frigates - slowly, through the use of their lighter ships, before engaging the larger Saddle Arabian fleets with at least two of the Equestrian main fleets.
Furthermore, the group also agreed that they should do their best to lure the Saddle Arabian fleets to pursue the Equestrian fleets. To do this, Alternia herself decided to embark on the 1st Fleet.
We know from her diaries that Jade Glimmer was to put it, simply astounded, as she arrived in Las Pegasus. She had listened to Rapier Apple’s defiant speech, and then, she saw Alternia herself take to the podium to speak to her sailors. The “princess” herself, radiant, wise, and yet, firm, encouraged her soldiers and sailors, inspiring them as they watched and listened. It must have been quite a sight.
Later in the evening, after briefly meeting and welcoming a tearful Jade Glimmer back home, Alternia boarded the Royal Sovereign and sailed off on the eveningtide.
The three main Equestrian Fleets and the two main Saddle Arabian fleets then proceeded to jockey for position, trying to whittle each other’s numbers down. Trying to wait for the right moment. It could be when some of the larger ships might be damaged by a gale, or three months. Maybe a ship made a wrong turn. Or perhaps a fleet would run low on supplies. The admirals on both sides were watching and waiting.
It was a tense, boring, and for the officers, high-stressed, standoff. The Equestrian 1st Fleet led by Vice Admiral Grey Hood was shadowed the Saddle Arabian Grand Fleet led by Saddle Arabian Admiral Ironsides. The Saddle Arabian Home Fleet led by Vice Admiral Sea-tack was shadowed by the Equestrian 2nd Fleet led by Vice Admiral Fair Winds. The Equestrian 3rd Fleet led by Vice Admiral Warspite was split, part of it helping to shadow the main Saddle Arabian fleets, the other part of it, mainly the frigates and sloops of war or brigantines, were helping the Equestrian Coastal Fleet (led by Rear Admiral Dreadnought) repel the Saddle Arabian Raider fleet led by Grand Admiral Erik Raider himself.
Most of the action thus took place between the smaller Equestrian and Saddle Arabian ships, at least at first, and thus, Rear Admiral Dreadnought found herself matching wits with Erik Raider.
Dreadnought’s original name was Gentle Seas, but as per many Equestrian admirals, had changed her name to reflect the more militaristic nature of her job. Despite outnumbering her opposing Saddle Arabian fleet though (13 frigates and 24 brigs/sloops of war versus 13 frigates and 22 galleasses and brigantines), Dreadnought knew that Raider could simply split his fleet apart and go up and down the coast with his command, raiding towns or putting down shore parties that could then strike inland. She needed to stop this at all costs.
So she did, by employing better reconnaissance. Dreadnought was a pegasus originally trained in weather management. Although she knew she couldn’t control the wild and untamable winds of the Western Ocean… but she could anticipate, at least to a degree, how they worked and knew how to use the pegasi assigned to her fleet to recon the seas.
Raider was a good commander, but the problem was he had no answer for Dreadnought’s use of pegasi. The pegasi didn’t need to get too close. Just close enough to locate his ships. Then all Dreadnought had to do was concentrate her ships, and make for the location of Raider’s ships.
It didn’t help that back at Equestria, Jade Glimmer was doing her best to completely destroy Saddle Arabia’s ability to protect its secrets.
Glimmer’s diary, which she had kept with her, partly out of sentimentality, partly out of her need to share her thoughts with something, contained a wealth of information about important Saddle Arabian ministers and more importantly, how they thought, which slave assisted them, as well as their roles in government.
Although the slave rebellions had mostly been crushed, the REINS still maintained a few cells within Saddle Arabia, and with Jade Glimmer’s information, they were able to get operatives into the Saddle Arabian admiralty, or at least into the houses of the officers of the Saddle Arabian admiralty.
Furthermore, Raider was being very dedicated in sending his reports back to Saddle Arabia, thus, Dreadnought was given what essentially was live updates on where Raider was, and what his plans were. She wouldn’t act on them immediately, because if she did, she’d compromise the operatives. However, she would use her pegasi to confirm for herself and to the Saddle Arabians, that they had been found out, before issuing her ships orders.
With her far better intelligence, Dreadnought was thus able to ensure that after two months, Raider had nothing to show for. Not a single Equestrian town had been raided. Instead, a series of engagements had occurred between groups of Equestrian ships and Saddle Arabian ships. All were terribly inconclusive, as the Saddle Arabians quickly drew off when they realized that they were outnumbered by Dreadnought’s far better concentrated fleet.
What was more, Eric Raider was getting frustrated, and it was during this moment that he made a big mistake.
Raider decided he would take his frigate, The Golden Hind, five other frigates and eleven other galleasses, and ostensibly pulled back. It was to be a feint, an attempt to trick Dreadnought into thinking that he had given up.
But in reality, he was going to circle around and strike Las Pegasus. He knew the Western Ocean quite well and there were winds blowing south that could take him there very quickly.
Dreadnought was informed about and had had completely anticipated his maneuver though, and decided to turn Raider’s trap against him. She took most of her light fleet, eight frigates, including her frigate flagship, the Lucky Jack and sixteen sloops of war and brigantines, and intercepted Eric.
It was a meticulously planned operation. With her knowledge of the weather and all the pegasi she had available, she couldn’t make cloud cover, but she could make a very light sea mist that would at least mask their approach from the horizon, at least slightly.
And when they were close enough, and the winds in their favour, Dreadnought sent in a pegasus reconnaissance team, just to let the Saddle Arabians know that they actually had found them, and attacked.
Eric Raider was horrified, but he wasn’t a fool. He formed his fleet up into a line and tried to pull his ships away. It was too late of course, but he was going to do his damned best.
Despite his efforts, the two lines of light ships engaged in a battle that would be known as Dreadnought’s Catch, exchanging cannonfire and blasting one another with cannonfire. The Equestrian fleet’s numbers were telling though. Eric found his ships being raked by Equestrian ships free from the broadside engagements.
In the midst of this Dreadnought’s flagship, The Lucky Jack found Raider’s flagship The Golden Hind, the two frigates blasted at each other like mad, and that was when Dreadnought met the first hiccup to her plan.
The Golden Hind was a unique ship, in that instead of being made completely out of the standard white oak, it was made out of two types of oak. A white oak outer sheathing, followed by a live oak inner sheath, and then another white oak sheath.
This odd combination, ended up making The Golden Hind extremely resilient to cannon fire. Try as they might, The Lucky Jack’s gunners found that they were making no impact on the hull of their enemy.
Dreadnought thus improvised and asked for help. After consulting with the captain of the Lucky Jack, Surprise, she ordered her gunners to aim at The Golden Hind’s sails and signalled the sloop-of war The Cocky Rake to rake the stern of The Golden Hind. After that, she forced a boarding action and her Equestrian crew managed to finally subdue the Saddle Arabian crew, forcing Eric to surrender his sword to Dreadnought.
All of the Equestrian ships had suffered moderate to light damage, with two sloops of war sinking. But the Saddle Arabians had lost ten ships sunk (all galleasses), four frigates captured, and only one frigate and one galleass managing to escape. Their raiding fleet had essentially been halved, its leader captured, and was unlikely to pose a threat. What’s more, the Saddle Arabian navy had lost a significant percentage of its lighter ships, and were going to have more difficulty covering the ocean and scouting.
Unfortunately, the Equestrians hadn’t reckoned for Admiral Sea-tack.