Under the starry sky, two steel battle fleets bombarded each other on the sea nearly 20 kilometers apart, which was not the most magnificent scene in the history of human warfare, but it was destined to go down in history as an epoch-making dividing line. Pen ~ Fun ~ Pavilion www.biquge.info a new industrial empire has risen strongly, challenging the old hegemonic power from the economic, diplomatic, colonial, and military fields.

If you win the sea power, you win everything!

In this era of the nascent development of aircraft and submarines, the cannon of giant ships is still the core force that determines the victory or defeat of the sea. Most people only see what they see in front of them, but they don't know that the changes of the times are already surging, and Christian August has taken a path that is not willing to be ordinary through his own choices. In the front seat of the cockpit of the "Thunder" battleship, he stared at the sea in front of him with determined eyes, and the dancing orange flames were not festive flowers, they unmistakably revealed the position of the enemy's main battleship, which was the most valuable prey of the entire naval battle.

Under Christian's direct command, six Lightning-14s passed through the battlefield unscathed and came to the upper waters of the Thames estuary. The more dangerous the place, the safer it is, and this peculiar philosophy is vividly interpreted in this German high-speed fighter boat squad. On several occasions, British ships rushed past from tens of meters away, not knowing whether they did not notice them or mistook them for their torpedo boats, and they quickly disappeared into the night.

Suddenly, another flare burst into the night sky, almost directly above the British fleet, clearly reflecting the silhouettes of the three British capital warships. Judging from the high-speed warships close to the sea, these British ships appeared to be extraordinarily large, like three castles floating on the sea, and at least a dozen alert ships were scattered around them. Christian knew that it was easy to attract the attention of the enemy crew, and even if these British battleships did not have time to use shrapnel shells, they could quickly concentrate secondary and machine gun fire to intercept them, in addition to the German artillery fire that fell from time to time, it was also a threat to be underestimated.

Thinking of this, Christian skillfully pressed the signal button to remind the "Lightning-14" warship behind him to keep up with him. There were still three or four thousand meters to go before the British capital ships, and a little further before they could enter the torpedo range, at this time, he resolutely steered the boat in the direction of London. Over the past few years, Christian has passed through the waterway many times, sometimes by ferry, sometimes by racing speedboat, and without considering the possibility of being intercepted by British ships, he would have been able to sail the Thunder to the nearest pier to Buckingham Palace. Of course, given the intricacies of family relations in European countries, it was not advisable to attack the British royal family or military and political dignitaries, and Christian's move was only to get closer to the British main fleet, and his warship did not enter the Thames at all, but turned behind the British fleet. Rather ironically, a small group of British Navy high-speed torpedo boats approached from the direction of London, sailing some distance with Christian's squad of battleboats and passing a British destroyer. Despite the traditional Iron Cross logo painted on the hulls of the German battleships, none of the British sailors realized that a dangerous enemy was nearby, and unlike conventional surface ships, British battleships armed with machine guns were a real mortal threat to Christian's squad.

Three kilometers, two kilometers, one thousand meters...... The flares once again illuminated the sea, and the silhouette of the British capital ship was clearly visible to Christian and the German crew, who could make out most of the details of the British battleship on the masts, bridges, chimneys, turrets, anchors, lifeboats, and even signal cables.

"Attack the front ship" - Christian's "Thunder" gave the battle command with its tail lights.

The six "Lightning-14s" had already entered the lightning strike course, and without any hindrance, they had been approaching less than 300 meters from the target before firing torpedoes, even if the British super-dreadnought was sailing at full speed, there was not enough time for it to turn around in time, not to mention that it was moving slowly at a speed of about 12 knots.

At the other end of the battlefield, the command team of the German fleet headed by Schell was watching the battle from the bridge of the "King", and suddenly saw a British capital ship explode one after another, and the first reaction was that its own shells hit its ammunition depot through the layers of decks, but if you look closely, the explosion occurred outside the battleship, and it was scattered in many places from bow to stern, and only a torpedo attack could cause such an effect.

"Five or six torpedoes." Captain Gord confidently judged.

"Is it our submarine?" Colonel von Trotta speculated, but it was clear that this did not match the intuitive feeling of most officers. Because the submarines deployed by the German Navy in the waters of the Thames estuary were afraid of the mines laid by the British Navy and the shallows near the shore, they could usually only operate far from the shore, and a submarine only had four bow torpedo tubes at most, unless two submarines worked together at close range, it was possible to put the same British battleship on five or six torpedoes in a similar amount of time.

At this time, Captain Gold's confident voice came again: "High-speed torpedo boats, definitely our high-speed torpedo boat unit!" ”

The speaker was unintentional, Natsuki suddenly remembered Christian, and unconsciously took a deep breath......

In the distance, the glow of the flares faded, and the silhouettes of the three British capital ships disappeared into the night, with only a clear glow of fire, which was the British battleship damaged by the German fleet's artillery fire. When another flare illuminated them, the British battleship that had just exploded neither capsized nor withdrew from the battle, and it was clear that the torpedo that hit it did not have the most direct damage effect, and it proved that the attacker was a German high-speed warship carrying a light torpedo. Even so, the German fleet won the battle. German submarines had already spotted and stared at the group of old battleships leaving the English Channel and heading north to the Thames, and with their slow speed and limited range, they could not set off a strong wind and waves, and the large German torpedo boats that were on alert on the periphery also spotted the British torpedo boats approaching from the direction of Harwich Harbor at an early stage, and reported the whereabouts of the target to the flagship by radio. The two armored cruisers "Long" and "Prince Albert", which were temporarily incorporated into the main German fleet, led the old light cruiser "Tethys" and four large torpedo boats to rush to the city. They were in a good position on the inner line, and the timing of their sortie was just right, so they launched a successful volley against the British torpedo boats, not only destroying many enemy ships, but also learning from a captured British crew that the opponent was about to launch another round of torpedo attacks.

After receiving this important information, the German main fleet quickly adjusted its formation, and the four dreadnoughts "King", "Caesar", "Elector", and "Oldenburg" formed a central column, "Moltke" and "Goeben" occupied the right flank, four light cruisers occupied the left flank, and large torpedo boats guarded the capital ships and slowly withdrew to the Dutch coast.

At about 2 o'clock in the morning, the British Navy launched a surprise attack from the direction of the Thames with two groups of high-speed torpedo boats, and another group of British torpedo boats entered the battlefield from the direction of the English Channel. However, two of the three British capital ships were damaged one after the other, and they only followed in the direction of the retreat of the German fleet at a very slow pace under the command of Jericho, while the old battleships of the British Channel Fleet were attacked by German submarines, and the torpedo tracks that appeared on the surface caused them to make a slightly exaggerated evasion, and by the time the aging battleships were regrouped, half an hour had passed.

Lacking the support of the main fleet and the Channel Fleet, and being harassed by German high-speed warships, the two-sided attack tactics of the British torpedo boat group failed to lead a shocking reversal after all. After the fierce battle, the sea was covered with the debris of British ships, and only the "King" of the six German capital ships had added new injuries, and with the state of the German fleet, it was fully capable of sweeping the British Channel Fleet and completely knocking down the former world's No. 1 navy, but the ammunition stock of each ship was not much, and the "Caesar," "Oldenburg," and "Goeben" had reached a dangerous limit, and the German fleet did not take the initiative to attack again, which could be regarded as leaving a fig leaf for the opponent.

While the British Navy was focusing all its attention on the Battle of Thames, a two-ship formation of the German battle cruiser "Blucher" and the light cruiser "Gloudenz" was quietly approaching the Strait of Dover. Under the guidance of the two U-boats, they cautiously sailed through the safe channel on the French coast side, and on the way they encountered the alert ships of the French Navy, and the "Blucher" and "Gloudenz" sent a communication signal from the British Navy, claiming that they were pursuing the wounded German submarine; due to the frequent movements of British ships in the past few days, and the Channel Fleet had been transferred out of the English Channel the night before, the French could not figure out the situation at all, and the "Glaudenz" used the discovery of torpedo tracks on the sea surface to "intimidate" them, and they were actually able to pass through the customs in a foolish way.

Taking advantage of the fact that the British and French navies had not yet reacted, the two-ship formation composed of "Blucher" and "Glaudenz" sprinted at a speed of 26 knots, and reached the sea area of Le Havre at dawn, and happened to encounter a convoy of transport ships sailing from France to Britain, because the elite forces of the British navy were transferred to deal with the German fleet, and only some old protective cruisers, small gunboats, and armed fishing boats remained in the strait to escort the escort, plus a few light ships of the French navy, barely guarding against the attack of German submarines. In less than a quarter of an hour, the Blücher, which had been skilled in gunnery, sank two British gunboats and two armed fishing boats, and severely damaged the British protective cruiser Poseidon, and the Gloudenz sank several transport ships in quick succession -- if they were now full of British officers and men, this sea would have become a terrible hell on earth.

Knowing that two German surface warships had appeared in the English Channel, the British Navy hurriedly recalled the troop convoy that had just set sail from Southampton and Portsmouth, and the French Navy also sent their recently transferred combat ships from the Mediterranean Sea to try to intercept German warships in the waters of Cherbourg, but before the French ships could be deployed, "Blucher" and "Gloudenz" had already rushed through the "narrow sea" between Cherbourg and Portland, and the vast Atlantic Ocean would show them a different kind of freedom.

(End of chapter)