The sky is faintly white, and the dawn is approaching. In the southern part www.biquge.info of the Coen Peninsula, more than 100,000 British troops have formed an encirclement of the German-Irish landing force, and a new offensive frenzy will be set off when their long-range heavy artillery will end their large-scale artillery bombardment of the landing area of the allied forces.

Around the small town of Abersoch, in the fortifications that took a day to build, in the fire shelters built using craters, on the originally picturesque beaches, nearly 80,000 coalition officers and soldiers gritted their teeth and endured the bombardment of the enemy's heavy artillery.

It must have been a bloody battle!

At the same time, under the cover of six destroyers, three slender and imposing-looking heavy cruisers were sailing at high speed in the waters south of the Coen Peninsula. The two heavy cruisers in front, the towering mast is hung with the battle flag of the German Navy with a large white background and a black eagle cross flag pattern, and the four twin naval guns adopt a standard backpack layout of two in the front and two in the rear, and the aircraft catapult is installed in the rear position of the amidship and carries a light seaplane with a single engine, a wing, and a single seat, which is the second generation of the German Navy's Prince Albert-class cruisers "Prince Adalbert" and "Friedrich Karl"; The heavy cruiser at the rear of the hall is larger, the mast is hung with a green, white and red background, the Irish Navy battle flag with a crown shield pattern, its four sets of triple main guns look much more stylish, the front two main turrets are a backpack layout, the rear two turrets are staggered a little farther away, the third main turret is equipped with an aircraft catapult on each side, and the second chimney has a box-shaped hangar, which is the famous Danu-class heavy cruiser "Nuada" of the Irish Navy.

Any fleet should have its command ship, and this small fleet is no exception, but the role of the flagship is not measured by the size of the battleship. The lead heavy cruiser "Prince Albert" had a detachment commander's flag and a rear admiral's flag above it, meaning that the combat formation was under the command of a German rear admiral.

Sailing through the Great Bend in the southern part of the Cohen Peninsula, the explosive flames on land directly entered the fleet's field of vision. Inside the enclosed bridge of the "Prince Adalbert", officers in dark blue double-breasted uniforms watched the situation in the direction of the coast and talked in German in a whisper. Obviously, using large-caliber guns of the battleship level to bombard enemy field troops has the same effect as hitting a frog with a big stick, which is a completely unequal torture, and the weaker side has no power to fight back. Although people expected that the British army would put train guns on the Cohen Peninsula in the early morning, they did not expect that after a day of bombing and shelling, the British train guns would arrive at the front line so quickly.

At the rear of the battle bridge, there were two wall-mounted telephones dedicated to the ship's internal communications, and two lieutenants were waiting there every step of the way. When the phone rang, a lieutenant picked up the phone, answered a few times, and hurriedly reported to the supreme commander here:

"Sir, the Nuada has sent a light signal suggesting that we reduce our speed and carry out shelling from here."

Including the bearded rear admiral, all the German officers were a little surprised when they heard this report.

"But here is still nearly thirty kilometers from the long-range heavy artillery of the British."

"Yes, even if the enemy is within our maximum range, if we fire from here, there is no way to guarantee the accuracy of the shot!"

"At the current speed, there are twenty more minutes before an effective artillery strike can be launched. With our outposts watching, we don't have to worry about falling into the enemy's trap, and even if we encounter a large number of lightning strikes, we won't suffer in a daytime battle. ”

The general waved his hand and signaled the officers not to express their opinions at this time. When everyone had shut up, he slowly spoke: "The sky is about to dawn, ladies and gentlemen, British planes should enter the battlefield earlier than ours, and the closer we are to the hinterland of Britain, the greater the risk we take, so it is indeed wise to stop here." ”

The thrilling night battle made the officers unconsciously regard the British lightning strike ships as the number one threat at the moment, and ignore the air combat units that stayed away from the battlefield all night. A number of Allied ships had been sunk and damaged by British torpedo boats and submarines in the area, but their biggest loss so far, the dreadnought "Frontier Governor", was sunk by British bombers.

"We are now 28 kilometres from Kricius." The navigator wasted no time in calculating the target distance.

"Just do it!" The general gave the order very decisively.

With the continuous increase in the range of artillery, the concept of over-the-horizon shooting has long been introduced into the naval community, and in the early days of the last major war, the German fleet had carried out effective over-the-horizon shooting with the observation of carrier-based aircraft, but considering the accuracy and combat efficiency of shooting, most subsequent naval battles were still conducted within visual range.

More than ten years after the war, the German Navy has served 11 heavy cruisers of four classes, and the main guns tried 203 mm, 240 and 283 mm specifications, after repeated comparisons, the 55 times diameter 203 mm naval guns produced by Krupp have become the standard configuration of the latest two-stage heavy cruisers, and Ireland's standard military salute class and Danu class heavy cruisers have also selected this type of naval gun. According to the standard charge of the German Navy, the range of the ship's guns at an elevation angle of 30 degrees can reach 30 kilometers -- the main guns of the German Prince Albert class and the Count Scheer class both have a maximum elevation angle of 32 degrees, while the heavy cruisers of the two classes in Ireland have a maximum elevation angle of 32 degrees and 35 degrees respectively, which means that their ultimate range is more than 30 kilometers.

The battle order was immediately issued, and the nine coalition warships quickly reduced their speed to less than 10 knots. The three heavy cruisers adjusted course and headed northeast on the port side, with all their main guns raised. Also equipped with a unified firing command system and semi-automatic loading equipment, the Irish heavy cruiser's firepower output efficiency is undoubtedly superior, but its biggest disadvantage is that it is too expensive to counterfeit -- the standard displacement of the Prince Adalbert class is 14,500 tons, 4,000 tons less than the Danu class, and its cost is only 60% of that of the Danu class.

Putting all this aside, while the warships were making adjustments, the "Prince Adalbert" sent a coded telegram to the sentinel destroyers in front, asking them to closely observe the impact point of their own artillery fire and transmit the calibration data back in time.

Everything was ready, just as the rumbling explosions coming from the direction of the coast subsided, and the German general made a cross on his forehead and chest, and after a simple prayer, he resolutely gave the order to shoot.

The ultra-long-distance artillery bombardment can be described as "a mistake of a thousand miles", the British train guns went through many rounds of adjustment to find the target, and on the side of the coalition fleet, the shooting parameters calculated by the navigators according to the navigation charts and compasses were also outrageous at the beginning, but their advantage is that the lookout on the outpost destroyer has professional judgment, and visual observation can obtain more accurate calibration data, and if it is an attack on a target the size of a battleship, the probability of hitting an ultra-long shot is extremely low, for heavy artillery groups distributed in an area, The chances of the shelling being effective are much greater.

After correcting the firing parameters, the three coalition heavy cruisers began to enter the rhythm of rapid fire, and after about ten minutes, the Outpost destroyers sent back an exciting report: an extremely violent explosion was observed on the coast, most likely a large number of ammunition ignited by artillery fire.

Regardless of whether it was the British train guns or the ammunition of the field artillery units that were killed, this had an immediate effect on preventing the British from continuing to shell the coalition landing force, while the British field artillery deployed in the near shore area was completely powerless against the attackers who were far out of range, and had to watch their heavy artillery units be ravaged - even if their own aircraft or ships reported the position of the enemy ships in real time, it was difficult for the ground artillery to hit the long-range targets in a moving state, What's more, most of their guns are also limited by range.

Seeing that the British long-range artillery bombardment had completely stopped, the three Allied heavy cruisers quickly adjusted their guns and smashed heavy artillery fire on the British field troops that had reopened the offensive -- on the outskirts of Abersoch, the British infantry of the entire regiment and battalion repeatedly attacked the beachhead defense of the Allied landing force under the cover of the tank troops. Due to the shortage of anti-tank weapons and the destruction of many fortifications in the British shelling, some coalition positions were quickly breached, and at the height of the situation, a British tank unit even broke through to a position two kilometers away from Abersoch, raising its guns to threaten the coalition ships that were unloading supplies on the shore. At the critical moment, the coalition soldiers, who had no way to retreat, launched a Jedi counterattack with the support of naval guns, and quickly recaptured the lost position.

The appearance of Allied fighters quickly halted the British ground offensive, but the British did not retreat, each of their field artillery positions was protected by a considerable number of anti-aircraft guns and machine guns, and whenever the British Air Force gained superiority or balance of power, even if it was only temporary, the British on the ground would launch a new offensive at the right time, like a wave after wave to wash the last defensive positions of the Allied forces. At the same time, British planes continued to break through the interception of coalition warplanes and launch attacks on coalition ships transporting landing troops and war supplies, and the wreckage of stranded and sunken ships was littered near the few beaches in the south and southeast of the Cohen Peninsula.

The desire for victory and the mission to defend the country collide fiercely on the Cohen Peninsula.

The fighting on the battlefield of Abersoch was extremely stale, and the Allied command resolutely committed reserves - the German 4th and 6th Airborne Regiments and the 2nd Irish Airborne Battalion and the 1st Airborne Commando Group landed in Portkelen in the northwestern part of the Cohen Peninsula, where the soldiers of the German 3rd Marine Division followed closely for the amphibious landing. The landing conditions here are not as good as those in Abersoch, and heavy equipment such as tanks and artillery must be concentrated on two narrow beaches to land, which is very easy to be blocked by the British Air Force, but the situation has reached this point, and the coalition forces have no choice.

(End of chapter)