As for the port raid plan concocted by Natsuki, a considerable number of German naval officials and senior generals felt that this plan was a little bold and a little reckless, and it was a little outrageously new. If the fate of the www.biquge.info was to be decided by the Naval Council, it would inevitably be a bitter debate, and the end result would probably be a run aground, and the Hohenzollern genius had once again taken advantage of Wilhelm II's arbitrariness in naval affairs.

For the battle plan admired by the Kaiser, the whole navy had to go all out.

Despite the mixed reviews of his colleagues, Natsuki was confident in the operation. Because in the history of the Old Plane, the raids on Zeebrugge and Ostend did take place, but the offensive and defensive sides were diametrically opposed. It was in April 1918, at the end of World War I, that the British Navy sent light ships and marines to attack the two Belgian ports occupied by the Germans. The attempt to blockade Ostend ended in failure, as the Germans moved the buoy lights that guided the two sunken obstacle ships, causing the British to sink the two blockade ships far from the mouth of the canal, but at Zeebrugge the British navy was more successful than to make up for the failure to blockade Ostend. For a long time thereafter, German mine-striking ships and submarines deployed here were trapped in the harbor and could not continue to attack the Allied sea routes.

Now, Natsuki launched a night attack in the same way, and it is also destined to be a combat operation of positive significance: this is the first time that the German Marine Corps has launched an amphibious landing operation under actual combat conditions, which can boost the morale of its own military and suppress the morale of the opponent, and it is also the first time that the four dreadnoughts of "Nassau", "Rhineland", "Helgoland", and "Thuringia" have returned to the battlefield after repairs and technical modifications. It happened to be a restorative real combat run-in.

After the battle began, the four German dreadnoughts, which had a devastating power against ordinary ports, were just watching from afar. On the breakwater at Zeebrugge, the alternating cover, rapidly advancing German landing force was constantly closing in on the defenders' positions, and there were not many Belgian troops stationed there, and from the sound of gunfire, there was at most only one company, armed with two or three machine guns, and those shore defense guns that did not serve any purpose in close combat.

Since the outbreak of the war, although the Belgian army has not been able to hold back the powerful German army, their stubborn resistance in Liège, Lières, Ronsen, Latan and other places still won them the respect of the whole world, and the Belgian king and his army are hailed as heroic models of defending justice. To a large extent, people ignore what kind of army the Belgians have, and how much courage and determination do Belgian soldiers have to continue to fight against a strong enemy when large swathes of the southern territory have fallen and the war on the Western Front is losing one after another?

The answer, fear, will disappoint those who support and sympathize with the Entente front.

Under the repeated shelling of German large torpedo boats, the firepower of the Belgian positions at the northern end of the breakwater was sharply reduced, and the German naval infantry who landed on the shore suffered only few casualties during the offensive phase.

"Hands up!"

Corporal Hank Rolfler rushed into the bunker with several naval infantrymen and shouted angrily in German. The Belgian soldiers, in their tall military caps, apparently understood, stared in amazement at the murderous Germans and the bayonets in their hands, and when Lorfleu shouted a second time in a high pitch, they all honestly laid down their weapons and raised their hands in the air as if they were stretching.

The more than 200 German naval infantrymen who ascended the breakwater included not only skilled engineers in explosives, but also professional gunners - these people were drawn from the German coastal fortifications and were familiar with the operation of various types of artillery.

The Belgian military industry is well developed, but their advantage lies in the manufacture of firearms. In the battery at the northern end of the breakwater, the Germans captured a total of 4 cannons, all made by Krupp, which brought great convenience to the invaders. The German gunners quickly turned two of the 6-inch guns towards the inner harbor, and they loaded the breeches with neither ordinary nor armor-piercing shells, but shell-fired flares.

A moment later, the night sky was lit up with two dazzling flares, and the inner harbor of Zeebrugge was illuminated. Seeing the scene in the harbor, the German soldiers occupying the breakwater instantly understood the tactical value of this operation: twenty or thirty small ships without masts and chimneys were neatly docked at the berths on the north side, which, judging from their silhouette and size, looked like high-speed torpedo boats with sharp attacks but short ranges; To the east are three ships with a single mast and a single chimney, and generally warships above the large torpedo boat are equipped with at least two masts and two chimneys, and they should be small frivolts operating in the near sea. Such a small fleet, although not comparable to the main formation of the British Navy, could provide cover for Allied ships sailing in Belgian waters and strike a sharp blow at German ships trying to get close to the Belgian coast.

The first factor in the raid was its suddenness, when the British ships at anchor were like fish in a net, even if they struggled instinctively. However, in the southern waters of the canal, a moving black shadow caught the attention of the German gunners, its lines were not as slender as those of the destroyers, and its posture was somewhat clumsy, but judging by the flickering flames of the ship's guns, it must have carried a cannon of more than 4 inches in caliber, and on its mast there was a Belgian military flag.

Ever since the naval landing force signaled a successful landing, four large German torpedo boats and the light cruiser "Mainz" outside the harbor have been firing into the harbor, and the columns of water from the shells have turned the quiet harbor upside down, but their shots clearly lack the crosshairs through the breakwater.

Zeebrugge is not a huge port like Liverpool or Hamburg, the bay behind the breakwater is not small, and the inner port of Zeebrugge has a 10-kilometre-long canal leading to Bruges. If the shelling had been launched without artillery correction, even if the German capital ships were fully present, they might not have been able to sink all the British ships anchored in the harbor. Blocking the port was not a one-time solution, but considering that the German ground forces had advanced to a front more than twenty kilometers from Bruges, if Bülow's corps could occupy Bruges in a relatively short time, the British navy stationed in Zeebrugge would have to sink the ships to prevent them from being captured by the Germans.

The German gunners did not want to use the Belgian shore defense guns in their hands to kill all the Allied ships here, the reason is very simple, the batteries on the breakwater are not solid fortresses poured with reinforced concrete, only the side facing the sea is built with an old-fashioned stone breastwork, and it is okay to use these shore defense guns to attack those ships that have no power to fight back, and there is almost no chance of victory against the gunboats that have entered the battle state.

In the face of unclear battles, the gunboat did not fire directly at the Germans occupying the breakwater, but fired at the German ships outside the harbor through the breakwater.

In a situation where no one can see anyone, the effect of such shelling can be imagined.

At the same time, two old German warships on a blocking mission had bypassed the breakwater, but they had to sail more than a thousand meters forward to reach the ideal blocking position in the narrower channel, and a large German torpedo boat followed them to the outer harbor channel in order to provide more effective fire cover.

Seeing the position of the British ships clearly, the German gunners occupying the Belgian batteries no longer fired flares, so as not to expose their own blocking ships. Blinded by the darkness, they desperately opened fire on the Belgian gunboat, which began to return fire with small-caliber rapid-fire guns. After a mess of this for a while, several British ships in the harbor suddenly turned on their searchlights. The beam of the searchlight swept across the water, and the defenders immediately spotted the two uninvited guests who had sailed into the inner harbor.

Regardless of whether they were attacking ships or blocking the shipping lanes, guns and artillery fire from all directions were coming at them in unison.

The two old ships that carried out the blocking mission are not ordinary auxiliary ships, but decommissioned notification ships. Before the advent of destroyers, they played the role of fleet outposts, with weak firepower and high speed, as well as some light armor protection. Before the damage to the hull could no longer support them to continue sailing, the two ships finally reached the narrow opening of the channel, and struggled to cross the hull, head to tail, and the crew lowered the transport boat and lit the explosive fuse placed at the bottom of the ship.

When three green signals representing the success of the operation popped up in the noisy night sky, on board the "Helgoland", Vice Admiral Wilhelm von Reims turned to Natsuki and said: "Congratulations, Your Highness, we have won again!" ”

Natsuki raised the corners of his mouth slightly: "Our naval career is gradually on the right track, and victory will be taken for granted, but we can't take it lightly at any time." Maybe a British fleet is rushing here, no less powerful than ours? ”

This made General Lance slightly nervous. Although the High Seas Fleet defeated the British Navy at Jutland and Flanders in succession, the military force that had been roaming the seas for hundreds of years was not completely defeated. At a recent naval operations conference, the generals were surprised to hear from intelligence officers: the British Home Fleet currently had no less ships at its disposal than the German High Seas Fleet, and its main warships still numbered 10, including the new battlecruiser with triple 13.5-inch guns!

After successive defeats to their opponents, the British went to great lengths to repair the damaged ships and find ways to speed up the construction of those ships under construction, although the Germans took similar measures, but the rigorous and realistic national character made them a little delayed in this regard - all the damaged ships were fully repaired according to the tedious process of evaluation, overhaul, testing, and adjustment to ensure that they could be restored to the maximum combat strength, and the confident German engineers also made suggestions for technical modifications and upgrades of these ships in passing, And it was actively supported by the top of the Navy. "Nassau," "Rhineland," "Helgoland," and "Thuringia" were equipped with expensive and accurate new optical rangefinders, firing control commanders, and radio communication equipment; in accordance with the lessons learned in naval battles, the armor thickness of the 150-mm caliber twin-mounted secondary gun was enhanced, the shield area of the 88-mm single-mounted secondary gun was expanded, and the 37-mm small-caliber rapid-fire gun was equipped with a frontal shield, thus greatly improving the combat and survivability on the original basis. But this also led to their official return to the operational sequence until October.

(End of chapter)