The last two weeks have not been kind to Kantaria. Such fluctuations in fortune are one of the hallmarks of warfare we are all keenly aware of, though that makes our situation no less unpleasant. Much of the Kantarian Navy is severely damaged and being repaired as rapidly as we can manage, our flagship needs extensive repair both externally and internally, and the likelihood of multiple marine landings later in the month has fallen sharply due to the heavy casualties we sustained in the battle near Marietta. Our planned ground offensive on the Western Front is not directly endangered by these setbacks, but it might not get the assistance from warships and marines we were hoping it would. 

Our problems began late last month. The Procyonidae has been in many battles and been augmented and modified countless times since it was constructed and deployed over two years ago. It's main armament of 40 700 mm railguns is truly awe-inspiring in most situations, but their destructive potential is not exclusively limited to what they are aimed at. They jolt the structure they are incorporated in with great force every time a broadside is fired, and many thousands of broadsides have been fired over the years, many hundreds in just the last few weeks. This and other factors have taken a great toll on the structural integrity of the ship below the armor belt. We have needed every capital ship we could muster during these recent months, and thus things like intensive internal inspections and repairs have been few and far between. On the 18th, the alarms being set off by the progressively worsening state of the interior structure below the turrets and the turrets themselves intensified from a mere reminder to a furious demand for immediate attention. 

Marshal Larien has a Level 2 education in naval architecture from before the war as well as his post-Revolution academy training for commanding naval fortresses and leading crews. Thus, he was qualified to comment on the state of the Procyonidae. He personally inspected the areas that were setting off alarms after I was convinced to withdraw our flagship from frontline duty, and he was remorselessly blunt with me.

"These issues have been neglected for months, and these howitzers have been fired over the last 3 weeks as if decay and resupply concerns don't exist. These cannons need to be replaced, this ship needs to be drydocked and the bulkheads replaced or reinforced, and you need to ensure wherever it will be repaired is far enough away from the front to not be at risk of being bombed every other day." he urgently told me with a very stern look.

"If I had ordered the ship to remain deployed, would you have used your override authority as the fleet base commander?" I asked without any hostility.

"Without a moment's hesitation." he responded with little need to deliberate. "I would have utterly hated to do that to you, but I would if you had become that unreasonable. This ship needs repairs and it needs them now, even more so since you practically live in this thing."

"I chose well when I promoted you to that position. I want subordinates who will become insubordinate if I give idiotic orders." I smiled sincerely to him as I patted his shoulder. 

"Nah, you promoted me only because Lucien is one of your dream cubs. Anyway, you need to get this ship out of harm's way now. Marietta is too dangerous for such intensive repair work to be done. It needs about a week of drydocking for the first repairs to be completed."

I was extremely unhappy with the dire diagnosis, but he is highly competent in this field and everyone who accompanied him (some of which are full-time Level 3 architects) agreed. Of course, I was promised repairs would be conducted as rapidly as they could manage, but this needed to start immediately. We thus lost the aid of our flagship for most of the rest of the month. It could be safely returned to the order of battle after a week, but it needed to soon return to have the remaining work done over a period of a month or even more. 

Soon after this unpleasant news, we decided to conduct a short and intensive artillery bombardment across the Western Front to gauge the enemy's response and to disrupt their ability to predict our actions. We had no intention of launching this grand campaign for at least half a month, but we were curious about whether our heavy fire support would be sufficient for the job. We soon were apprised via the enemy counterfire that what we had wouldn't be enough. Far more shells came back at us than we were firing. Marshal Shorin warned if we didn't withdraw our field cannons soon or bring to bear more firepower, we would incur severe losses to artillery that we couldn't readily replace due to industrial allocations to other things. We caused substantial damage during the barrages in late January and got the answers we sought, but lost 3% of our howitzer strength as a consequence. We launched a second short artillery offensive on the Western Front on 1 February, this time with more artillery and the assistance of our flagship. Results were more promising, but losses in percentages were about equal rather than substantially favoring the enemy. 

Marshal Taneru for a variety of reasons decided to make another go at Marietta on 2 February. Unlike the last two battles, we were not fully prepared to meet the enemy at sea. Some units were in bases well to the south for refitting, the Procyonidae was still in serious need of continuing repairs to the internal structure, a large portion of the Likurian fleet promised to us was not in range to arrive at the battle in time even if they immediately sailed to us at flank speed, and the remainder was contending with their own problems. We were all alone and some units had to arrive late, facing a combined force that had been weakened but was a very grave threat in this particular situation. 410 of us (discounting the fortress guns and the assortment of field artillery) faced 730 of the enemy, and 60 of those 410 arrived after the first fleet-level exchanges had begun. Our only hope of victory was the 50 stealth warships of the 5th Fleet successfully ambushing the enemy at their weakest point in the rear, or some other grand mishap or fluke we couldn't predict or facilitate. 

The Kantarian 1st Fleet opposed the equivalents of both nations, first just the Bengarian 1st, and then both simultaneously. We fared quite well against the Bengarians and we started to become hopeful. The 1st Wesitarian Fleet, led by their leviathan just as ours was, was better equipped than their ally. This paired with the severe disparity of numbers caused our point-defense capabilities to become overwhelmed, and most of our other fleets were struggling to hold the line or falling back. The 5th Fleet, to our great disappointment, was detected by the enemy far outside their maximum range and immediately came under effective fire from cannons and aircraft. Some of them managed to close within range and fired their comparatively smaller guns at the enemy, but the fleet mostly accomplished little more than to draw some fire away from us and suffer 20% sinking for the trouble. 

As the battle wore on, it became increasingly apparent we were going to lose this one at least on a tactical level. We were too badly outnumbered to compete with them even with our qualitative superiority, our long-planned ambush with our new technology had been a failure, and the Likurians could not (some of our more agitated officers would say would not) arrive before everything was said and done. Worse yet, our 1st Fleet and elements of the 2nd and 4th were in the process of being outflanked. The latter half of the battle was defined largely by the ordeal of the aforementioned formations having to resist a force over twice its size while practically colliding with another enemy force racing to their rear. If these forces were from any other nation, they would have likely been destroyed as an effective fighting force. Since it was we who were caught in this predicament, the majority of the force evaded the enemy encirclement and either retired further south or remained in battle closer to Marietta. We paid dearly for such heroics, as nearly 90% of the 1st Fleet suffered moderate or worse damage, and the Procyonidae was pushed below 50% armor integrity. Renewed calls for me to stay ashore during conflagrations of this nature were made by the Council after word of this made it to them.

The battle was an extraordinarily ferocious and destructive affair in general, but we clearly came out the loser. Damage to our naval forces neared 50% ultimately, which is frighteningly high regardless of results, and disastrous compared to the approximately 32% the combined enemy force incurred. Several capital ships were destroyed outright, including a baseship. The large presence of artillery near the coast and the extensive damage they incurred precluded Marietta itself being bombarded or any other substantial acts of destruction inland. I am fully convinced that I and other strategic officers played a role in this debacle. In retrospect, our strategy didn't seem to predict or directly react to the enemy's maneuvers and strategy as extensively as it should have. No one can say for sure whether the results would have been much different if we had constructed a plan as predictive as I feel we are capable of, but we were indisputably caught underprepared and this led to higher losses.

As the chief strategist of our nation, I had the unenviable task of explaining to our people and military why we lost an engagement close to our home. I readily admitted I felt my pre-battle performance was not what I would deem faultless and thus I was a factor in it, though everyone understands not even I am perfect. While I didn't inappropriately sugarcoat the loss, I stressed to everyone that no one can win every battle and we still were able to conduct our land offensives as well as at least limited marine attacks in tandem later in the month. We were far from thwarted in general this winter and I still expected we would fare at least moderately well on the Western Front. 

Strategist Cometai of Likuria spoke to me shortly after the highly destructive affair. I pretty much waved off the forces that were en route to here since both sides had now retired and wouldn't be a threat to each other again for at least a few days. He promised he would do all in his power to try to counteract the effects of this with a naval victory near his continent. I was very candid with him, telling him their navy is not as well equipped or trained as ours and I doubted the Wesitarians would allow themselves to be so exposed. He responded by saying they have learned much from us and that their chief adversary will have to send many of their damaged ships back to be repaired in a timely manner. I was too sullen and distracted to be very responsive to anything he was saying.

We are currently conducting repairs to our mauled navy as rapidly as we can. It could take as long as 20 days to replace all destroyed components and repair all armor, and that doesn't include internal damage (capital shells slamming into a ship's interior structure cause terrible damage and carnage regardless of the tier). We had fully recovered from the last great conflagration not even a week ago, and now we have many more vessels needing urgent servicing. We have many things requiring manufacturing besides ship components, and I honestly don't know how much ought to be diverted to recovery when we're also racing to begin a campaign that will dwarf the ambitious one we waged almost a year ago in the exact same zones. Of course, the pounding our flagship both gave and took set back the interior repair timetables several days.