"Boom!" With the earth-shattering roar of the main guns of the German battleships, a blood-colored cloud with a radius of tens of meters suddenly exploded around the British coastal defense battery. The wind dances wildly, and the flames blow in the face; As far as the air waves could reach, the surrounding grass, trees, stones, and gravel all shattered and exploded, and flew into the sky like a storm.

"The average impact point is 300 close to the target and 200 to the right." In the rocking seaplane, the pilot immediately shouted to the communicator sitting behind him after roughly observing and estimating the cloud of smoke and dust on the ground with the power of the explosion on the ground. Surrounded by a large number of electronic instruments, the communications soldier immediately put on his headphones, his fingers flew, and began to enter the information on the primitive keyboard in front of him, which was crucial for the calibration of artillery fire. More than 20 kilometers away, the German battleship, which had just completed a round and a half salvo, calculated the latest firing elements by a sophisticated machine based on the number transmitted by the seaplane, combined with the position of the battleship itself during this time. Compared with the bombardment of moving targets in naval warfare, the difficulty of hitting fixed targets has obviously been greatly reduced.

Under the calibration of the aircraft, the German battleship formed a straddle fire in the third half of a salvo. Four huge fireballs rose around the British battery, and the flames and dust from the explosion completely enveloped the British battery's view. Feeling the obvious tremors coming from the ground, the British garrison officers were filled with anger and anger, and their eagerness to annihilate the enemy had completely turned into nightmare fear and disbelief.

In the contest between large-caliber shore defense artillery and heavy artillery of battleships, in the vast majority of cases, naval ships did not dare to lightly seize the edge of land artillery. Because the main battleships in the sea, without exception, will have a situation of roll and pitch. If the timing of the shot is slightly deviated, there will be a large deviation in the impact point; Even the German capital ships with gyroscopes that compensated their guns in real time. Tens of thousands of tons of warships compared to its heavy armament. Nor is it strictly an ideal firepower platform. The land, on the other hand, not only does not have any shaking, but also has the attribute of using the entire earth as the fulcrum, and it is an infinitely stable firepower platform, and the artillery can easily hit the most ideal trajectory.

In addition, the land artillery also has obvious advantages over the naval artillery in terms of observation and defense. Due to the limitation of the center of gravity of the battleship, the altitude of the main mast is no more than 50 meters at most; And for the sake of weight, the protection of the battleship cannot be very comprehensive. With the exception of the main armor belt, main turret, gun mount and conning tower, all other areas are vulnerable to large-caliber artillery. The land artillery, on the other hand, has no restrictions at all. The lookout for the land artillery to identify the impact point of the bullet can be built very high, and the land artillery can also be protected by concrete and steel armor at any cost. Both in terms of accuracy and resistance to blows. Land artillery is far superior to naval artillery.

Due to these factors, when naval warships encounter the coastline of a port guarded by shore-based heavy artillery, they generally choose to avoid it. The only exception to this is when shore guns are orders of magnitude less powerful than naval guns, and naval guns can calmly name them outside of their effective range. Therefore, at the beginning of the German battlefleet's big attack, the British shore artillery commander was not only angry, but also had a little excitement and joy in his heart that the other side sent the precious capital ship to his heavy gun. But now he couldn't laugh at all. Relying on the aircraft's long-range vision, the opponent fired a very threatening straddle shot at an ultra-long distance of more than 22km; And although the observation height of your own side is enough, but such a long distance. But it is far beyond the distance that the current British optical rangefinder can effectively measure a few jù!

"Boom!" A huge brilliant flame suddenly exploded on the British battery, and the ground rumbled violently; The British soldiers hiding inside the fort looked in horror at the sand left behind on the ceiling. lest these cement slabs break and collapse when they are unhappy, burying them all alive in the underground fortifications. Thankfully, the reinforced protection of the land guns, regardless of their weight, worked, and the fortifications were still strong after a heavy blow from a 350-mm shell. Their good fortune didn't last long, though. After a short time, another shell hit the gun position, and the violent vibration caused the battery to be misaligned with the bearing and joint; The gun changed from a tank that could rotate 240 degrees to a tank that could only rotate at a limited 40 degrees at 5 o'clock, and lost its range of fire against the German ship group.

Although the frequency of fire suppression on the opposite shore was rather slow due to the fact that the German battleships were in consideration of the decisive battle of the fleet, and only one and a half salvos were fired by one battleship every three minutes; However, even so, under the air calibration of the aircraft, it still caused great damage to the British shore-based artillery. Two 13.5-inch batteries were knocked out of order from a distance of 22 kilometers, and one 12-inch battery was completely incapacitated in a violent explosion when a shell fell from a wide angle to break through the fragile top armor. German seaplanes went one after the other, always maintaining one plane hovering over the target, providing the ship guns with a number of shots.

By evening, British land-based shore artillery fire at the mouth of the Thames River had been lifted by long-range bombardment from German battleships. The British coastal positions dotted with craters burned with raging fires, mixed with black smoke clouds that reached into the sky. Due to the effective suppression of the British land-based shore artillery by the firepower of the German battleships, the work of the German minesweepers was also carried out quite smoothly during this period. They have cleared a safe passage for the main fleet that is about 1,200 meters long and more than six kilometers deep, and continues to extend inward like the tentacles of an octopus. From time to time, the crisp fire of rifles and the detonation of mines resounded on the surface of the sea, causing strong waves to ripple for kilometers away.

As for the levitating mines laid by the British, the German minesweepers also had a way to deal with them. They detonated all the floating mines in an area of sea with their rifles, and then pulled up a wide and flexible net of mines between the two boats, and slowly sailed forward at the same speed to drag the dangerous objects away from their original waters. Due to the shallow draft of the minesweeper, it is not possible to make contact with suspended mines at a depth of several meters. As soon as the nets are visibly deformed by the netting of the mines, the torpedo boats that pull the nets will decisively withdraw from the area and then detonate them with intensive rifle fire. Although it took time and effort to do so, the number of British mines laid in the sea area was gradually decreasing at a considerable rate.

"Stupid British, do you think that with mines and large-caliber shore guns, you can stop the attack of our German fleet?" On the flybridge of the battleship Caesar, Scheer looked at another huge column of fire exploding in the sea in the distance, and couldn't help but snort contemptuously. Perhaps to highlight the majesty of the British Empire, or perhaps to the fact that the British simply did not believe that any hostile nation's naval warfare forces would appear on the doorstep of the empire, the British shore artillery generally lacked the necessary concealment, which gave the German seaplanes an excellent opportunity to observe. The coastal defense combination, which was a headache for every naval commander, was now quickly cracked under the-for-tat response of the German army. At present, as long as our minesweepers continue to work hard to clear a safe waterway, the German High Seas Fleet can drive straight into and destroy the most elite coastal core area of the entire British Empire with divine punishment!

"Found periscope on starboard!" Just as Scheer fantasized about his fleet slaughtering in the estuary, doubling the amount of evil that Britain had committed against other peoples over the years, a shout of surprise from the deck made him instantly excited. He hurriedly followed the prestige, and saw that more than a thousand meters away from the direction pointed by a sailor's arm, there was a small white spray that was different from the blue ocean surging and scattering. Seeing this, Scheer was shocked, because according to the battle plan formulated by the Admiralty, there would be no submarines of his own side around the fleet at this time!

The mournful sirens of "Woo ......" sounded abruptly on the Caesar, and the German sailors, who had been on the deck with great interest in admiring the movements of the minesweeper troops, began to run wildly; The six 88-mm rapid-fire guns on the side also began to turn their muzzles at a rapid pace and fire heavily at the target location. The British submarine that was discovered was not ambiguous, and immediately fired all 2 bow torpedoes at the German battleship and began to dive at full speed. Two white water trails soon appeared on the surface of the sea.

Looking at these fast-approaching ghosts in the sea, the captain immediately gave the order to fill the rudder on the right; The massive battleship then turned around on the surface of the sea, and its maneuvering speed was so fast that the German sailors were tempted to jump into the sea and thrust its steel side. However, due to the timely detection and evasion, the two torpedoes eventually sped past the port side of the Caesar, which was close to a position of the Caesar, and did not pose any threat except for a few torpedo boats in the rear to deftly evade. As it were, some of the Caesar's sailors were still dripping with cold sweat on their foreheads and backs, and a pious prayer in praise of God rang out on the deck.

"Boom! Rumble! Another rapid rapid-fire gun fire sounded not far away, and the "Pomerania", which was at the end of the Fifth Battlefleet, began to make a sharp turn, and the battleship was temporarily tilted sharply. Scheer clutched the steel railing in front of him, looking nervously at his own ship behind him, hoping that it would be able to save the day like his own ship. This time, however, God did not continue to favor the Germans. A little more than a minute later, a huge column of water as high as the mast burst out from the port side of the Pomerania; The surging sound of the huge explosion made the muscles on Scheer's face tense instantly! (To be continued......)

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