"The enemy fleet has been spotted ahead! We're kind of catching up! Putting down the binoculars, General Lindemann breathed a sigh of relief and said to his lieutenant beside him.

Then he gave a loud order to fight, ordering all positions to enter combat readiness: "Prepare for battle!" Sound the battle alarm! Main gun loading! Increase your speed! ”

A large cannonball was loaded into the chamber of the dimly lit main gun turret, and then the cartridge was pushed in and the bolt was closed.

The gun operators in the turret prepared everything before firing, and then waited quietly in their positions, waiting for the order to fire.

On the bridge of the battlecruiser Scharnhorst, General Lindemann felt the speed of the warship under his feet.

This time he threw off the large forces and led the fastest battle cruiser force out to the designated position, which was to find the Soviet Black Sea Fleet and deal a fatal blow to these Soviet battleships.

When the German fleet passes through Turkey, it will inevitably be leaked by Turkey, and the German top brass is actually well aware of this situation.

While Turkey leaked these secrets, it also implicitly informed the Axis powers of the fact that they could not keep them secret.

According to Turkey, the Soviets planted their own spies in Turkey, and they never stopped monitoring the Turkish straits.

So, even if Germany was very angry about the leak, Turkey could still shift the blame to Soviet spies and keep itself neutral.

In order to ensure the elimination of the Soviet Black Sea Fleet, the German naval top brass fully considered all possible problems when drawing up the battle plan.

For example, intelligence leaked that the Soviet Union knew what kind of countermeasures the Soviet Black Sea Fleet would take after the German fleet entered the Black Sea.

Speaking of which, there are only two possibilities: the first is to stay in Sevastopol and wait for the Germans to come to the door as a defensive force; The second possibility is to leave Sevastopol immediately and take refuge in the safer Sea of Azov.

Because of this, in order to weaken the power of the Soviet Navy on the Black Sea as much as possible, Lütjans drew up a bold battle plan.

In fact, this plan of action is very simple, it is just a simple transfer of troops to intercept the Soviet fleet in advance.

It was not surprising that the top commanders of the German fleet, accustomed to fighting naval guerrilla warfare, could come up with such a plan.

They had always judged the position of the enemy's possible passage in the vast Atlantic, and it was so simple to intercept a fleet in the Black Sea.

The Germans, who had already decided that the Soviet fleet was going to go through the Kerch Strait, naturally sent their own interceptor fleet.

This interceptor fleet was not very strong, consisting of only 3 battle cruisers and 4 cruisers, and the commander was the commander-in-chief of the Mediterranean Fleet, General Lindemann.

Although the force was not very strong, the fleet was quite fast, and it took 17 hours to cross the Black Sea diagonally and reach the Kerch Strait at 3 p.m.

Such a long-distance run is a test for the command of the entire fleet. General Lindemann withstood this test, so near the Kerch Strait, blocked the Soviet fleet going north.

The German detachment, which had found the Soviet fleet, continued to accelerate at this time, and the speed of the entire fleet increased to the level of 26 knots.

The speed of 26 knots was almost the limit of the battlecruiser Counterattack, and after a long night of travel, the performance of this battleship from England was still quite stable.

Compared with the Soviet naval fleet opposite, which was like a crawling speed of about ten knots, the German fleet's advance speed can be described as flying.

You know, the Soviet fleet was followed by numerous civilian ships. There are also a large number of supply ships as well as special functional vessels.

The main reason why Gorshkov has not been able to speed up is actually because there are too many auxiliary ships in the Black Sea Fleet, which seriously affects the speed of his fleet.

Another serious problem is that the Soviet battleship Paris Commune, built around 1911, is an old battleship of the Gangut class.

Now Gorshkov has only one such battleship in his hands, and this battleship is already old, both from the point of view of design and maintenance.

Even the brand-new battleship of the Paris Commune was armed with only 12 305 mm cannons, each mounted on four triple turrets.

Although it seemed like a lot, it had no advantage over the battlecruisers in Lindeman's hands.

Although the German Scharnhorst-class battlecruisers were equipped with 283 mm guns, they were new guns with long firing range and fast loading speed, and their advantages were very obvious.

Moreover, because the German fleet was superior in numbers, it also had a clear advantage in the artillery base, with Germany having 16 283 mm guns and 6 381 mm guns on the Counterattack.

So, when the German fleet appeared at sea level, Gorshkov realized that his fleet might be in trouble.

But as the commander of the Black Sea Fleet of the USSR Navy, he did not choose to escape, but led the battleship Paris Commune, with six cruisers, to meet the fleet of the Germans.

Almost simultaneously, Gorshkov also called the Soviet Air Force near the Caucasus, hoping that they could provide cover to drive out the German fleet.

Now he can only rely on the air force to drive out the powerful German fleet. It's a pity that because of the transfer, the Soviet Air Force in the Novorossiysk region really didn't have any decent aircraft.

Most of the aircraft stationed here are old I-16s, which are used for training and patrolling.

Not to mention decent sea-attack aircraft, there are not even serious bombers here, and at the same time there are no pilots who can attack the sea on their own.

Even so, having received Gorshkov's request, the Soviet pilots in the Novorossiysk region took off their planes and intervened towards the Kerch Strait.

"Boom!" At a distance of 20 km, the German Navy's 283 mm caliber cannon was the first to fire. The slender barrel spewed out a dazzling tongue of fire, showing a devastating ferocity.

The range of this new artillery is more than 40 km, and at a range of 20 km, the accuracy is quite terrifying.

It is precisely because of this that General Lindemann, who has relied on it, decisively ordered to take the lead in firing and accelerated to seize the dominant position at the T-shape.

The Soviet-German naval battle of Kerch officially began at this moment, and this naval battle was the first large-scale naval battle between the two sides in the Black Sea.