September 3, 1914, fine. Pen × fun × Pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 InfoThe Zeppelin, which belongs to the 2nd Airship Squadron of the German Navy, cruises along the Dutch and Belgian coastlines to the English Channel as usual. In order to avoid interception by Allied aircraft, these German airships usually flew at an altitude of more than three thousand meters. The cold and thin air caused a lot of trouble for the crew of the airship, and it was not easy to distinguish the surface of the sea from a height of several thousand meters.

On this day, it was the German Navy airship numbered L-12 that entered the English Channel for patrol reconnaissance. It was a brand-new, large airship with an aluminum keel, and it reached a length of 160. 6 meters, with a diameter of more than 18 meters, relying on 3 packed into 24 airbags. 10,000 cubic meters of hydrogen floats in the air at a top speed of 90 kilometers per hour in the windless state, and can be carried on bombing missions2. The impressive endurance of 6 tons of bombs or incendiary bombs allowed it to fly from Germany to any corner of Europe.

Until the aircraft gains sufficient altitude and anti-aircraft attack power, there is only one enemy for the Zeppelin, and that is the vagaries of the weather.

At 10:05 a.m., the crew of the L-12 airship spotted a dense crowd of ships in the sea between Portsmouth and Le Havre. In the telescope, they are as numerous as the splashes of water on the tip of the waves, and the soot emitted from their chimneys forms ribbons of smoke in the air for hundreds of meters, and the scene is spectacular.

Realizing that the British Navy was engaged in an important military operation, the crew of the German airship immediately sent information to the command via a radio transmitter. In less than half an hour, the exact message was placed on the desks of Tirpitz, Müller, Pol, and Scheer.

At noon, Natsuki, who was far away in Sedang, received a secret telegram from the High Seas Fleet Command through the Army Staff, which informed him that the British Navy was carrying out a large-scale crossing operation in the English Channel.

Since the fierce battle between the German mixed fleet and the British Channel Fleet in the southwest corner of the North Sea, the British Navy has entered a hibernation period. For half a month, except in the waters close to the British coast, there was hardly a British surface ship to be seen in the huge North Sea, and the only few battles were fought between British submarines and German alert ships, and both sides suffered losses, and no change occurred in the North Sea pattern regardless of the course or outcome of the battle.

In the English Channel, shipping between England and France was busy from the first day of the war, especially around 10 August, when the first British expeditionary force set sail for France, and shipping from Southampton and Portsmouth to Le Havre and Rouen reached its climax. It is said that every 10 minutes, a transport ship departed from British ports and safely arrived in France with well-trained British soldiers, along with tens of thousands of tons of war materiel, including horses, artillery, ammunition and medical supplies. A few days later, the first British unit engaged the Germans at Mons. However, the Battle of Jutland changed the tide of the North Sea in an unexpected way, and it also made the situation of Britain dangerous. Under pressure from the population and Parliament, the British military decided to suspend the dispatch of an expeditionary force to France, while the more than 10,000 British soldiers who had arrived in France continued to fight alongside the French. Since the specifications of weapons and ammunition in Britain and France were not identical, in the following period, British ships continued to deliver war materials to France and withdraw the wounded to the mainland, but the scale of shipping had slipped from its peak, and no more than twenty ships sailed to and from the English Channel every day.

Since the outbreak of the war, the surface ships of the German Navy have not entered the English Channel, but from the day before Britain entered the war, German submarines launched attacks in these waters. On 3 August, U-7 sank a French cargo ship near Calais, and U-8 fired torpedoes at two French warships in quick succession off the coast north of Le Havre, sinking a French destroyer. On August 4, Britain entered the war, a large number of British ships sailed out of the port, tightly sealed the passage in and out of the English Channel, and escorted the British and French ships crossing the channel, and the activities of German submarines in the English Channel became alarming step by step - on August 9, the U-10 was attacked by British destroyers when it surfaced to recharge, and barely evacuated with injuries; On 13 August, the U-6 was sunk by a torpedo fired by a British submarine while afloat; On 20 August, U-33 was besieged by several British escort ships after attacking a British cargo ship and was forced to surrender due to submarine failure......

In a month, the German Navy lost 2 submarines in the English Channel, and 14 Allied ships were confirmed to have been sunk, the largest being an 8,000-ton coal carrier. Compared with the German submarine detachments that began to show their skills on the North Atlantic route in late August, the German Navy's 3rd Submarine Detachment, which was responsible for operations in the English Channel, had a really difficult time.

For all this, Natsuki, who was a "guest" on the Western Front, never ignored it. Through his participation in the combat operations of the 5th Army, he gained a practical understanding of the German Army's strategy and tactics and battlefield performance, and also tried to look at naval operations from the perspective of the overall situation of the war, which gained some new inspiration and ideas. Although the Battle of Verdun was not over yet, and Crown Prince William's army was still in danger of falling short, it was no longer much point to help here as much as he could.

Natsuki resigned on the grounds of a military accident, and Crown Prince William reluctantly asked for advice, hoping that the resourcefulness of the "Hohenzollern genius" would help him continue to win, and in return, he promised Natsuki that if he needed his help one day, even if it was against his will, he would definitely come forward.

Natsuki accepted the favor, and in order to avoid spending time on the bumpy journey, he boarded a two-seater reconnaissance plane at the German airfield closest to Sedan, flew directly back to the mainland from the Western Front, and then flew to Wilhelmshaven by special plane.

At this time, Wilhelmsport gathered the absolute elite of the existing forces of the German Navy. The eight capital ships -- "King," "Caesar," "De Fllinger," "Elector," "Oldenburg," "Goeben," "Moltke," and "Blucher," -- were all fierce swords on the high seas with fierce firepower and great speed. The first four ships participated in the Battle of Jutland and the Battle of Flanders one after another, and their outstanding combat performance is obvious to all; The latter two ships were returned to the naval combat sequence in time thanks to the day and night repairs of the shipyard workers, and the "Elector" was the second of the King-class battleships, which was officially commissioned in late August after sea trials, adjustments, and training.

On the mast of the "King", Natsuki saw the Admiral and Fleet Commander flag of Reinhardt-Scheer.

He knew that although the victory of the German mixed fleet in the Battle of Flanders had dealt a heavy blow to the confidence and morale of the British Navy, it had filled Schell, who had fought for the first time as the commander of the main fleet, with regrets. Because since the outbreak of the war, he has not personally commanded ships or formations to sink a British capital ship in the true sense of the word.

Although there was no communication in advance, after meeting with Scheer, Natsuki was happy to see that the two still had a tacit understanding. They unanimously agreed that in order to cover the large-scale transportation of troops and materials carried out by their own navy in the English Channel, the British Home Fleet would definitely respond in the North Sea -- this was a precious opportunity to completely defeat the British navy!

In addition to the eight capital ships in good condition, Scheer assembled an escort force of 7 light cruisers and 28 large torpedo boats, and a support fleet of 2 old battleships, 4 armored cruisers, 14 large torpedo boats, 5 torpedo boat carriers, and the aircraft-carrying carrier Bismarck.

This is basically the strongest lineup that the German Navy can put together at this stage, and it is also the tactical configuration that Natsuki has arranged in two important naval battles in succession.

In terms of the timing of the attack, tactical strategy and determination to attack, Natsuki and Scheer can always coincide, but this time the strength of the opponent, the two have different judgments.

In the First Battle of Jutland, more than half of the main ships of the British Home Fleet were lost, and the German Navy successfully overshadowed the British with mines and submarines at Scapaflo, and the British Navy's strength in the home waters had fallen to the lowest point in hundreds of years. Schell felt that even if the British shipyards worked in shifts day and night, the speed of repairing the ships would not be much faster than that of the German shipyards, so in response to the troop transport operation in the English Channel, the fleet they sent was likely to consist of 4-6 capital ships, 6-8 old battleships, a number of armored cruisers, and about 40 light ships.

Although the German Admiralty obtained espionage reports that at least two of the three British battlecruisers deployed in the Mediterranean were still working with the French Navy to defend against the Austro-Hungarian Navy and the von der Tann, which had taken refuge in Ottoman Turkish waters, Natsuki believed that the British would not make such a trade-off. He felt that the British Navy had recalled all three battle cruisers to the mainland, and that only the old armored cruisers, unfit for the main fleet, remained in the Mediterranean. Therefore, the current available forces of the British Home Fleet are not below the German High Seas Fleet, and the most pessimistic situation is that the German fleet will have to deal with more than 10 British capital ships, as well as significantly more old warships and light combat ships than its own.

Natsuki's concerns are based on a variety of rational considerations, which are clearly "dissenting voices" for Scheer. After listening to the analysis of the chief of staff of the fleet, he realized that his initial estimate might indeed be overly optimistic. However, the number of ships available to the British Home Fleet is one thing, and the size of the fleet sent into battle is another. Whether they had the courage to come out of the nest depended on who was in command of the British Home Fleet, and it was also inseparable from the attitude and determination of the British military and political leadership.

Now, Natsuki has no way to find the answer to this question in history, and the reality of war strategy makes it difficult for him to accurately determine the authenticity of the information on all sides. After consulting with Scheer, he agreed that the fleet should set sail at midnight in order to move forward to the waters of the East Frisian Islands the next morning when airships and planes could go out to reconnoiter and thus occupy a position conducive to maneuverability.

(End of chapter)