The Ocean, South of Esthirant, March 10th, 1640

KRI Tirtayasa, Indonesian Fleet

The group of 5 Indonesian ships continued to approach the Parpaldian fleet. Earlier, they had fired 10 anti-ship missiles from all of the ships as they haven't reached the range of their guns just yet. A moment of silence fills the bridge as the crew looked at the approaching Parpaldian fleet. 

It's a battle which would be considered to be in the realm of fantasy where modern 21st century warships fight against the old warships of the 19th century. The enemy still has the numerical advantage, but a majority of their fleet still consists of wooden ship of the lines and their ironclads can be considered to be comparable to those in the mid-19th century.

"Any signs of further movement from the enemy?" Laksamana Pertama (Commodore/Laksma) Bambang asked again.

"No, sir" The officer reported, "The enemy fleet has continued their path and increased their speed."

"After we had fired 10 of our missiles... Have they gone crazy?" Bambang muttered to himself.

Bambang had tried to gamble by firing 10 missiles at the enemy. He hoped that the demonstration might be enough to show their disparity of strength. He didn't want to waste too much of his missiles, so he figured that this might allow a quick victory. Of course, such a thinking is idealistic and as such, Bambang no longer had any choice.

Understanding the need to deal with this battle quickly, he made up his mind, "Alright, proceed with our current paths. I don't want more of our missiles wasted on them."

As such, the Indonesian fleet refrained from firing more missiles and decided to fight this battle the classic way. A missile is simply not a cost effective weapon against the outdated ships of the Parpaldian Empire.

Parpaldian 1st Western Fleet

The 2 fleets of 54 total Parpaldian warships sailed at its maximum speed towards the 5 Indonesian fleets in the distance. All around, the atmosphere of the battle is tense as if someone could choke on it. For a short while, nothing happened as the two fleets closed their distance.

The ships of the Parpaldian fleet were spread all throughout the ocean and are not formed into a line formation. They were facing an enemy that went against their conventions, so they had to adapt. The engines and tears of the wind gods worked hard to keep the ships at a speed of at least 11 knots, but as the steam engines that are on some of the ships were superior to the Tears of The Wind Gods, they were slightly faster.

Then something finally happened. At around 35km, the Indonesian ships opened fire. Clouds of grey smoke could be seen from the barrel of the 127mm guns on the 2 Indonesian ships, specifically, the Maestrale-class and Mogami-class. It's clear that the Parpaldian ships had just entered the range of the 127mm guns of those ships, though the 76mm guns of the Martadinata-class and FREMM frigates has not opened fired yet.

Admiral Balus looked on with surprise, "They're firing at this range..?" He thought to himself.

He seemed to be skeptical that the enemy could fire and hit his ships at that range, but after factoring in the earlier attack, it doesn't seem to be out of the possibility. Additionally, the Indonesian ships began firing at rapidly, at a reload speed of approximately 1.5 seconds and 3 seconds respectively.

"Brace for impact!" He quickly ordered.

'BOOM!'

'BOOM!'

Surely enough, the shells from the 127mm guns flew quickly and soon, large splashes of water could be seen from the fleet and some of it would hit the Parpaldians. The shells that had missed would shake the lucky Parpaldian ships as their crew held for dear life. Meanwhile, the High Explosive shells proved their lethality against the wooden Parpaldian ships. The shells exploded, quickly lighting the ammunition of the ships on fire and causing a huge explosion.

At the same time, a shell landed close to Balus' ship, the Flare, but luckily landed in the sea beside it.

'SPLASH!'

A small pillar of ocean water could be seen beside the ship as the shell hits the sea. A small amount of sea water splashed onto the decks of the Flare.

Balus didn't sigh for relief as there isn't any time it. As soon as the first wave of shells landed, another one would follow. Such is the reality of this technologically one sided battle that the Parpaldians are facing. Parpaldian ships exploded one-by-one and none could do anything about it. Some shells would miss, but many would still find its mark.

"Kh.. They're firing this quickly and accurately?!" Balus thought to himself, questioning the rapid fire rate and accuracy of the Indonesian guns.

In the heat of battle, he ran towards his communications officer who is nearby and ordered, "Get our remaining wyverns up into the air!"

The officer hesitated for a bit. It was understandable since they were only left with 2 squadrons of Wyvern Lords. Their 8 wyvern carriers had lost all of their wyverns and were pretty much dead weight. If they were to lose those 2 squadrons, they would pretty much have no way to gain air superiority, but 2 squadrons wouldn't matter anyways.

"Now!" He shouted.

The comms officer ran to his manacomm and relayed the order to the wyvern carriers. Meanwhile, Balus clenched his fist as he knew that he would be sacrificing his men to this battle.

Dragon Carrier Addis, 1st Western Fleet

In the back of the Parpaldian Fleet, wyverns lined up to the runway. Each of them carrying a single squadron each due to the small size of the ships.

As the squadron were cleared to take off, they ran through the runway and took off as they flapped their wings to gain lift.

Soon, all of the squadrons took off and are now headed straight towards the enemy fleet. All around them, ships were being sunk and the Parpaldian fleet. Even the ironclads were being sunk despite having metal hulls.

The Flare, 1st Western Fleet

Balus looked above as 2 Wyvern squadrons flew overhead. To send 20 wyverns for a strike mission is such an awful idea, but he had to swallow this pill regardless of how tough it is.

Suddenly, the Indonesian ships stopped firing, much to Balus' surprise.

"They stopped?" He thought to himself as he quickly grabbed his spyglass.

From the spyglass, Balus could see that the Indonesian guns began to rotate and aim at the wyverns. After which, the guns started firing once again. It's clear for Balus that the enemy intends to shoot down the wyverns with their guns.

"They're firing their guns at the wyverns? Are they mad?"

The enemy were doing something that once again defied the common sense of this world. Everyone knew that primary naval guns were too inaccurate to shoot down aircrafts, but considering that this is the same enemy that took out 80 wyverns and released those lights, Balus continued to observe.

Much to his shock, the guns began to shoot down the wyverns with a terrifying degree of accuracy. The Wyverns fell one-by-one under the rain of shells and Balus could roughly see splashes of water appearing in the distance.

"Wha.. What?! Impossible!" He cried out.

All of the wyverns were downed before they could even reach the enemy. They weren't even able to buy any significant amount of time as sacrifices, the enemy had weapons that were capable of denying them of it. They never knew of technologies capable of increasing the effectiveness of anti-air weapons. After all, the machine guns they use, although it's more effective than the ballistas used by less advanced countries, it still needed time to shoot down any enemy air units.

Balus looked down with a face full of complex emotion. He didn't know how to feel about this. While the Parpaldian Imperial Navy was second to Altaras in terms of experience, they never expected to be crushed in such a defeat, especially after the branch has been modernized and was the biggest in the region.

"This isn't a fight anymore... This is just.. a massacre." He thought to himself.

Suddenly, an officer ran up to him with a worried look on his face, "Sir! The Dios has just been sunk! The 2nd Western Fleet has just lost Admiral Arkaon!"

Once again, more bad news came after another. Without Arkaon, the 2nd Western Fleet is now under the command of their Vice Admiral. Even so, this would definitely affect the morale of the fleet.

"Order our fleets to retreat." Balus ordered as he made a tough decision.

Balus didn't want to see any more ships sunk as they've already lost too many of them in this engagement. Their initial combined fleet of 64 warships were now reduced to 11. Their large ship of the lines sank to the bottom of the ocean and their ironclads, which were supposed to be invincible in the 3rd Civilization Area, were not spared either.

Their enemy, while significantly smaller in numbers, had ships that turned the battle upside down. Their guns were frighteningly accurate and there was nothing they could do about it.

For Balus, it's clear that Parpaldia will lose this battle. It's simply one they could not hope to win. Thus, with a heavy heart, he ordered a retreat.

KRI Tirtayasa

The crew of the KRI Tirtayasa looked at the radar and through the window of the frigate's bridge. From there, they could see the sights of wooden ship of the lines turning to the opposite direction, clearly in a retreat. With this, everyone knew that they had won a huge and decisive victory. For Bambang, the victory isn't much of a surprise and it felt like he was toying with a child who is unaware of the advancements and effectiveness of modern weapons.

A crewman in the bridge looked at the Parpaldian fleets with a military telescope and asked, "Should we continue firing, sir?"

Laksma Bambang looked at the crewman and shook his head, "No, we've done enough damage. They're not going to be able to do anything with 11 ships, but we still need to deal with the 68 enemy ships in the north east. Our mission isn't to annihilate their navy, but to stripping it from any offensive capabilities."

The crewman nodded and the order would be relayed as the squadron went to attack the other fleet that is currently participating in the battle. The squadron turned hard to starboard and started to move towards the location where the other enemy fleet is reported to be located in.

Meanwhile, the Parpaldian 1st Southern Fleet and 1st Eastern Fleet, which were also participating in this battle in another direction were met with Indonesian F-16 Fighting Falcons. The fighters attacked the fleets with all of their might until they were relieved by the Tirtayasa and her squadron.

This battle, which would be known as the Naval Battle of Esthirant, had Parpaldia lose 96 ships in total with 36 ships managing to retreat. It would be a catastrophic defeat for the Empire as it no longer had any 1st and 2nd rate Ship of the Lines in its disposal, alongside a huge amount of their powerful warships. Later, the Indonesian warships began to wreak havoc to the Parpaldian warships that were stationed in their southern naval bases. Many Parpaldian warships of all sizes would sink under the hands of these Indonesian attacks following this major naval battle.