At sunrise, the Sandwich coast, located on the east side of the northern tip of Sood Island, was filled with heavy gunfire, and about 3 kilometers from the coast, a large torpedo boat of the 1898 class with the designation T-111 had been cruising for a long time at a low and medium speed of about 10 knots. Pen | fun | pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 info In addition to the original crew, a group of Marine Corps officers were carried on board this old light ship with slightly less seaworthiness. Colonel Jon Wittmann, commander of the 5th Naval Infantry Regiment of the 2nd Marine Brigade of Germany, recently celebrated his 43rd birthday, was the commander of the 5th Naval Infantry Regiment of the 2nd Marine Brigade of Germany, and was a recipient of the Order of Merit of the 3rd Class, the Order of the Red Eagle of the 3rd Class and the Iron Cross of the 1st Class.

One company of the first naval infantry to land in Sandwich was part of Colonel Wittmann's 5th Naval Infantry Regiment, and according to the complete battle plan, five more companies of the regiment would be landed that morning, that is, half of the regiment's strength would be included in the first attack wave on Sood Island. Under these circumstances, Colonel Wittmann set up his regimental headquarters on a light warship closest to the coast, which could not only grasp the battle situation at the first time, but also coordinate the warship's firepower to provide support in time.

In order to better observe the battle on the shore, the officers of the naval infantry regiment set up a pair of artillery mirrors on the side deck of the ship, fortunately, the sea conditions at this time were rare and calm, otherwise with the wind and wave resistance of this 500-ton ship, the artillery team mirror would not be able to be used at all.

"Not good, the British artillery hit one of our Hubert tanks, it must have been damaged, I saw a crew withdrawing from the tank, but the British artillery was well hidden, I couldn't find any trace of it, I didn't see the cannon flames." The lieutenant who operated the gun team mirror reported to his colleagues what he had observed.

"Let me see!"

Colonel Weitmann, who was standing nearby, took advantage of the situation to squeeze the lieutenant away. The main reason for this surname is that the German naval tank unit is still in the "invincible" stage -- Britain, France, Russia, and other countries have not yet developed and equipped similar tracked combat vehicles, and they rarely use wheeled armored vehicles, and the main function of the German Hubert combat vehicle is to break through the enemy's position, so naturally there is no trump card. However, Colonel Wittmann was a rising star in the naval world, and he participated in the Battle of Amiens, the Battle of the Oise, and the landing of Flanders, and was praised by his superiors for his flexible combat strategy and superb military management, but it was only a matter of time before he had yet to enter the ranks of generals.

"The British army has light guns of about 50 mm, and the accuracy is relatively high, and the position is definitely not far away...... There is a house on the north side of the road that runs parallel to the coast, with a white façade, most likely behind that house...... Hans, ask Captain Schalke to open fire on the white-walled house north of the road at 25 degrees north-west, and try to fire a few shells first. ”

The combat bridge of the large torpedo boat of the class of 1898 was too small to accommodate too many people to crowd inside, so Wittmann only sent one of his officers to stay on the bridge to be responsible for coordination and liaison, he stood by the hatch next to the bridge, heard the colonel's order, and hurriedly got into the battle bridge, and after a while, the gunners of the three main guns on the boat received the captain's shooting command through the microphone, and it took them less than half a minute to adjust the shooting Zhuyuan, accompanied by a sound of "pay attention to fire", the 35 times the diameter of the 88 mm naval gun made a powerful roar, There was a slight shudder from the hull, and the scene in the gunner's mirror was blurred for a moment, but the shells flew long enough for the deck to stabilize again.

"Very accurate, very accurate!" Colonel Weissman whispered as he adjusted the gun mirror slightly. Seeing that the impact point was close to the target, the gunners on the boat did not need to adjust the firing data, and directly fired the second and third rounds of artillery fire, which lasted no more than one and a half minutes from receiving the firing order to the completion of the third round of firing, and the efficiency was far superior to that of the field artillery of the German Army.

The sound of nearby artillery stopped for a while, and the colonel's eyes took off the gun mirror, and he turned to his liaison officer and shouted, "Tell the captain that he has done a very good job with these guns, and the target should be killed." ”

The officer quickly slipped into the bridge, and Colonel Wittmann picked up the binoculars he had hung on his chest. The ships carrying the first landing force are returning to the fleet from the shore and are meeting the second group four or five kilometres offshore. In contrast, the second group of boats was much smaller in number, and mostly sampans and rubber boats with their own power, which were slow and had a weak load capacity, and had no resistance to enemy fire, a scene that gave Wittmann a sense of powerlessness. Although the German Marine Corps was formed at or above the regimental level much later than that of an old maritime empire like Britain, with the support of some members of the royal family and senior admirals, the training level and equipment level of the German Marine Corps showed a momentum of catching up, and the performance and quality of several landing ships installed by the German Navy were very good, so the landing operations carried out in Flanders were a classic example of amphibious landing operations in the 20 th century, except for a slightly smaller scale. At that time, most of the soldiers under Wittmann's command landed in regular landing craft or lightly armed speedboats, and the scene was pleasing to the eye. Of course, the Belgian coast is only 200 nautical miles from the German mainland, and the voyage from the German mainland to the Faroe Islands is at least four times that, and there is no technical difficulty in transporting a large number of landing craft to the Faroe Islands.

I hope all the best...... Colonel Wittmann thought to himself.

On Sood Island, on the north side of the Sandwich coast, more than 600 German troops had landed, and they formed a beachhead defense line in companies and platoons with the trenches dug by the British as the main body. After repelling the first British counterattack with light and heavy machine guns, grenades, and naval artillery support, all but two Knife Platoons attempted to capture the high ground on the north flank, and all the remaining troops remained to hold the landing ground. One of the three Hubert-13s brought ashore by heavy landing craft was destroyed, and the other two also "drilled" into the trenches, and the hulls were sheltered in the chariot positions dug by the naval infantry on the basis of the British trenches, leaving only the rotating turrets outside, and it was difficult for the British artillery fire to hit turret-sized targets, and once the war required, the two tanks could quickly move out of position to support the naval infantry in the attack or carry out tactical counterattacks.

Under the watchful eye of the light cruiser "Cologne" and the large torpedo boats S-175 and V-186 of the 1906 class, the high ground north of the German landing position had been combed twice by intensive artillery fire, so when the soldiers of the 5th Naval Infantry Regiment were panting and climbing this mountain ridge with an average altitude of nearly 200 meters, the British had long abandoned their positions, leaving behind only stumps and broken arms and some damaged weapons. Due to the lack of artillery, the German soldiers occupying the high ground could not take advantage of the altitude to attack and suppress the British troops in the lower places, and the view of the battlefield from here was not as good as that of reconnaissance planes hovering over the battlefield, and their role seemed to be only to meet the commandos who climbed the sea cliff on the north side. However, the high ground on the north side fell into the hands of the Germans, which was a big psychological blow to the British officers and men who gritted their teeth and held their teeth in the port of Sandwich and the positions on the west side, even if the German reconnaissance planes left the battlefield, their every move was in the eyes of the Germans, and moreover, it was not difficult to disassemble one or two mountain guns weighing several hundred kilograms and carry them to the mountain beams; once the German artillery was in place, the depression between the two mountain beams would put the entire German guns at a low level, and such a deterrent was actually even worse than naval guns.

However, not only were the British unable to recapture the heights, but it also became very difficult to hold the existing positions. Looking at the dense German ships on the sea, the British commander stationed on the coast of Sandwich sent a telegram of despair to his superiors - unfortunately, the Germans captured the British codebook in the battle of Vogue Island, and in just over a week, the British troops stationed on Sood Island did not have time to obtain the new communication code, so the contents of this telegram were quickly placed in front of the German commander.

To Lord Sir Grierson: Our unit was shelled by the German fleet at 7.30 a.m. this morning, and then the German landing attempt was discovered. Our officers and men stubbornly held their positions and launched a counterattack against the enemy who had landed, but the disparity in strength was huge, and the positions on the north side and the No. 1 high ground had all been lost, with more than 1,000 casualties and only three usable artillery pieces left. In view of the continuous arrival of German follow-up landing forces, and the complete control of the German fleet in the nearby seas, German planes repeatedly bombed, it is estimated that our troops can still hold out for two hours. If the remnants of the officers and men were to withdraw to Kvalbard under German fire, the losses would be heavy, and I would then allow the hors de combat to surrender to the Germans. Glory belongs to Great Britain...... Colonel Michael Townsend saluted

Looking at the deciphered British message, Natsuki could not see the joy of happiness on his face, and he stood quietly in front of the porthole, watching a group of landing craft in an empty state sail from the newly arrived fleet in the Faroe Islands in the direction of Little Dimen Island. It took four days and nights to sail from the German mainland, and the infantry, despite their knowledge of the water and their frequent boat rides, still exended a lot of energy during such a long voyage, and even if they were not mentally fearless and their bodies were not in the best condition, the landing craft carried by this fleet had no such worries, as long as the fuel tanks were filled with fuel and the most basic maintenance of mechanical parts, they could go into battle under the control of the pilot, so as to make up for the lack of landing ships.

Soon after, the ship's communications officer knocked on the door and handed a report to Vice Admiral Fleiss von Mayne, who had previously become the commander of the 2nd Marine Brigade and was temporarily appointed commander-in-chief of the Faroese Theater Marine Forces to assist Natsuki in the amphibious landing.

After reading the report, Lieutenant General Mayne turned around and said to Natsuki from a distance of more than a dozen paces: "Your Highness, our reconnaissance plane has sent a report that a British unit has been found north of Kvalbard, about a regiment in size, and it should be here to reinforce Sandwich. ”

Natsuki snorted coldly: "If this is Grierson's decision, then I can only say that this old opponent really has not made any progress at all, does he think that relying on submarines, torpedo boats, and a few ship guns disassembled from battleships can cover the support troops into the battlefield?" It's stupid! ”

Although the British Marines had fought a good battle in the Abbeville area of the lower Somme, they were later beaten by German Marines at Amiens, so Vice Admiral Mayne said with disdain: "The British have been far worse off in land warfare than naval warfare in modern times." Beaten to the ground by the militia in the United States and beaten by Napoleon in Europe, the Duke of Wellington's victory was largely due to the Prussian army. I think that British land commanders are overly idealistic than pragmatic and professional admirals, or rather, arrogant blindfolded them to the situation before them. ”

(End of chapter)