What the hell is a private enterprise?

Chapter 591 Prelude to Internal Strife

Meanwhile, the situation in the eastern part of the country also saw a major reversal.

This attack group, consisting of a large number of Harriers, anti-submarine aircraft, and a few Tornadoes, was originally prepared to die, since their aircraft were simply not up to par. In particular, the retro tactics of a dozen or so anti-submarine aircraft attacking with torpedoes made the pilots almost feel like they had traveled back to more than fifty years ago.

Many company commanders have expressed strong dissatisfaction. They are not afraid of death, but they cannot treat human life so cruelly.

However, Terence suppressed these voices. When the few warships that were "single" in the east were discovered by the early warning aircraft, he took the initiative to take on the attack mission, but then ordered all the warplanes to strictly refrain from firing on their own.

Then Teren did something no one expected:

He hailed the lone warships over the public radio, threatening them that the heavenly army had arrived and they should surrender immediately instead of remaining stubborn!
The simple announcement left their own pilots bewildered and even terrified, fearing that Hans might become enraged and send hundreds of fighter jets to attack.

After all, the Third Fleet's volatile temper and disregard for human life were well-known. Even the Japanese were humbled by the Kamikaze spirit. Would they accept surrender?
Actually, Terren wasn't sure either. Wilson had asked Schmidt how to properly hand over the warships, and Schmidt's answer was to have the British first announce their surrender, and then they would naturally know what to do.

Teren had no choice but to comply, and after waiting about ten seconds, he heard the reply from the radio:
"This is HMS Incomparable, the flagship of the First Squadron of the Royal Navy Home Fleet. Thank you for helping us break the Third Fleet's hold on us. I'm sorry for the trouble I've caused you. Please give my regards to Colonel Philger; we've heard Robert mention him."

"We are about to withdraw; these hijacked warships will serve as compensation to the King!"

"??"

The sheer volume of information left Teren momentarily stunned. After regaining his senses, he called out several more times, but received no response.

You are the Royal Navy, so what are we?
And the name Robert feels somewhat familiar... Wait, now is not the time to think about these things.

He could at least confirm that the Third Fleet had not broken the agreement, and immediately ordered the group of aircraft, which had also overheard the conversation and were completely bewildered, to have two Gale fighters speed past the warships, but not to attack them.

The two Tornado fighters, still somewhat skeptical, ultimately carried out the order. They engaged afterburners while keeping a close watch on the warships, but even after closing to 15 kilometers, they found no signs of catapult-launched aircraft or firing. Mustering their courage, they pushed the throttle all the way down and charged toward the warships.

Two Tornado jets flew low overhead, one after the other, and could clearly see three brightly lit battleships and one aircraft carrier, but the decks were empty and there wasn't a single person in sight.

Moreover, just by looking at them, they could tell that those warships were quite large, especially the massive 508mm turrets of the Mubi, which, combined with its slender hull, gave it a powerful and awe-inspiring presence.
After successfully flying over the warship without being attacked, Teren was finally certain that the warship below had surrendered. He ordered his own aircraft to monitor the situation and sent Philg and the Marines to the scene by helicopter at full speed.

Regardless of what shady dealings might be involved, at least the number and tonnage of the ships are correct!

The helicopter, which had been waiting for a long time, took off immediately, and after flying for more than ten minutes, it saw dazzling lights on the misty sea.

The first four Marine Corps Lynx helicopters circled around and, finding no danger, landed on the Malta. Then, the transport helicopters carrying a group of Royal Navy sailors began to land.

While the helicopter carrying Philger was still circling, he noticed the massive aircraft carrier. As he had expected, it was a typical late-war carrier with a straight flight deck. However… the hull didn’t look like the Bismarck; the style felt more like a classic Royal Navy design!

As he jumped onto the deck, his eyes were fixed on the aircraft carrier's island superstructure, and the more he looked, the more familiar he felt, as if he had seen it somewhere before.

The round turret looks exactly like the 113mm QF dual-purpose gun from the British during World War II. The bang-bang guns on the island are also easily recognizable, and the masts on them are even flying the Union Jack!

Looking at the island layout again, there is a small island with an independent mast behind the funnel, used to direct the take-off and landing of fighter jets, which is even more familiar.

Suddenly, Philger thought of something and ran to the other side of the aircraft carrier, where he immediately saw two outboard elevators.

With all these characteristics combined, the source of the familiarity finally became clear:

This is the Malta!
Not only does it have the typical early Y-series aircraft carrier island design, but it also features outboard elevators and a twin-island layout that were very advanced for its time. In addition, the Y-series equipment that can be seen everywhere makes its identity clear.

But the construction of the Malta was terminated halfway through, and how could the Third Fleet have the blueprints for the Malta?
Meanwhile, the other officers who had disembarked also noticed the anomaly and started shouting something.

When Philger walked over, they excitedly pointed to the other three battleships not far away, which were also brightly lit. Philger glanced over and was even more dumbfounded:

The closest ship to the Malta was the battlecruiser HMS Hood, a familiar layout that the Royal Navy would never forget!
The massive turrets of the Incomparable were also extremely conspicuous. The layout of two forward and one aft, as well as its large length-to-width ratio, immediately reminded him of Fisher's blueprint ships, and he seemed to understand the news that the Allied forces had detected a giant ship with 20-inch guns:

That was the Incomparable, the fantastical super battlecruiser that existed only on Fisher's pen and paper, and it was famous for its 508mm naval guns, which later scholars and enthusiasts are no strangers to.

As for HMS St. Vincent, it is even more conspicuous: the centrally located No. 3 turret is clearly in the style of the G3 battlecruiser. It should be noted that the G3 project was a model that Britain seriously discussed during the Naval Treaty period and almost actually came to fruition, so there is more information left behind.

(Comparison of G3 blueprints and the Saint Vincent)

The turret layout and superstructure style of the St. Vincent are almost a perfect match for the G3!

Three Y-class battleships that existed only on paper or were cancelled, and one sunken HMS Hood, left Philger and the other sailors who arrived one after another somewhat confused and bewildered.

While the other Marines couldn't identify the warships' models, the Union Jack flying over the four British warships was very conspicuous, and they were equally puzzled.

After most of the helicopters landed on the deck of the Malta, they conducted a brief inspection and then flew to several battleships to quickly take over the ships.

To their astonishment, all the warships were empty, but all systems, including the engines, were functioning perfectly. The ammunition magazines inside the turrets, still warm from the gunpowder, were full, and even the lower storage compartments were piled high with canned goods, vegetables, and meat. Even the fuel tanks were full!

Despite having undergone high-speed sailing and two consecutive days of combat, the warship looked brand new, as if it had been serviced in port. It was in excellent condition, with hardly any rust in the corners!
After boarding HMS Incomparable, Philger found the ship's logbook in the captain's cabin. Although the contents had been torn out, the style of all the items was perfectly in line with the Royal Navy of that era. Even the fountain pen was a Conway Stewart Dinkie series, which was often used for bridge writing because it was short and easy to hold!

This means that the Incomparable might not even have been copied by the Lost Empire after obtaining the blueprints, otherwise they wouldn't have bothered to follow the Royal Navy's lead in such details!
At this moment, Bender and Tren, who were behind him, anxiously inquired about the situation from Filger, who remained silent for a while before calling back:
"We have successfully captured the aircraft carrier HMAS Malta, HMS Unbeatable, and the battleships G3 and HMS Hood. No resistance was encountered, no personnel were found on board, and the ships are in good condition. Over!"

"...The Third Fleet is destroyed!"

"We won!"

When a spectacular explosion was observed in the smoke from the shore, and the smoke gradually dissipated, everything finally settled down.

The arrogant and overconfident Third Fleet paid the price for underestimating the enemy; its reckless landing proved to be an absolutely wrong strategy.

A few dozen Swifts were still fighting tenaciously in the sky, but the coalition forces, now emboldened, no longer fled. One F-16 even dared to fly low over the wreckage of the fast fleet, which was not yet completely sunk, and took a picture of the Graf Zeppelin aircraft carrier with half of its hull raised high.

The B-class fast fleet first took hits from dozens of missiles from F-18s and Mirage 2000s, then B-1Bs hit it with 170 more, and then B-52s followed up with additional hits. In total, it took more than 300 Harpoon missiles, and none of them survived.

The slower fleet was destroyed even faster. In the end, some of the bolder pilots could sink many ships by strafing them with machine guns. They also discovered from the debris that the ships contained a lot of wooden structures, making them inferior even to civilian ships.

This means that roughly 90% of the ships in the Third Fleet are either civilian landing ships or decoys used for deception, only for launching V1 missiles.

Upon learning the truth, Wayne at the Orgrove base slammed his fist on the table, clutched his head in frustration, and said:

"I was so stupid. I should have known. The Third Fleet's attack on the British was because they were certain that we couldn't organize a fleet in a short time and could only engage in non-close-range air combat. So they set up a bunch of fake targets to fool us. They've always had this habit!"

"Actually, the early warning aircraft had reported some anomalies before. The reflected signals from their radar scans were weak, but we ignored them. The reflected signals from wooden ships are vastly different from those from all-steel battleships!"

"The tactics are wrong too. The fast fleet has been trying to stay ahead to prevent us from noticing anything unusual."

"..."

At this point, the Allied headquarters had completely transformed into a large-scale scene of Xianglin's lament. In fact, although the situation was urgent, the powerful intelligence and reconnaissance system had discovered many problems, but they were all considered "unimportant" and deliberately ignored.

At this point, many people were filled with regret and despair, realizing that if they had known the truth earlier, there would have been a hundred easier ways to deal with the Third Fleet.

Finally, Johnson stopped him from reflecting and said:
"Now we should be thinking about getting as much as possible. The Third Fleet still has a lot of new technologies that we haven't encountered before. Let the planes try to damage the propellers of a few ships and force a few ships to land. This will be very important for us to deal with them in the future."

This proposal received widespread approval, but just then, a servant brought new intelligence:
Terren captured the four warships that had broken away, including three battleships and one aircraft carrier!
Although Terren's actions had tried to avoid the Allied forces as much as possible, all he could do was delay them for a while and buy them a time advantage.

The intelligence that came at this time also mentioned that Terren forced the surrender, which, after a period of information entropy distortion, became "Terren forced the surrender of 4 Third Fleet warships".

This left the Allied forces completely stunned, and Pierre, who was the most shocked, immediately asked:

"Weren't they attacked?"

The attendant thought for a moment and replied:

"The pilots nearby said they did not hear any attack orders. The Royal Air Force aircraft stopped loitering and appeared to be escorting and monitoring the ships. At the same time, he also saw many low-altitude, low-speed targets flying toward the warships, most likely helicopters going to board them."

"Three battleships and one aircraft carrier?!"

After muttering a few words, Pierre suddenly stood up and angrily rebuked:
"This is a victory for the allied forces, and the captured warships should be divided equally among us!"

The others also seemed to wake up from their dream, especially the representatives from Norway, Switzerland, and Holland who had put in a lot of effort.

They know the British style all too well; they would absolutely go against their conscience and keep all the spoils for themselves!

The ships separated from the fast fleet are all capital battleships, which are far superior to the bunch of junk in the slow fleet!

A large group of people were clamoring to split the spoils equally, which made Johnson suddenly realize why Terren hadn't sent any messages for so long. It turned out he was making a fortune in secret and eating behind everyone's back!
He immediately issued a telegram ordering Terren to bring the captured warships to Eagleville for surrender, so that the Allied forces could take them in and investigate any potential dangers to prevent any backup plans left by the Third Fleet.

Terren quickly replied and readily agreed to the request, but stated that all the crew members had already fled and that they would need to wait for reinforcements before sailing back. At this point, they could only remain at sea and could not move.

The Allied headquarters, upon receiving the news, believed it to some extent. After all, if Hans were still alive, things certainly wouldn't have gone so smoothly. But if they waited and the British filled the positions with men, it would be much harder to pull them down!

The chickens on the scene were the most anxious, because the Allied planes had just tried to check the details of those warships, but reported that they were stopped by the British whirlwind on the grounds of danger, obviously wanting to take them all for themselves!
The thought of Ying getting the better deal made Pierre anxious and uncomfortable, so he went straight to Wayne and Johnson and said:
"We're the ones taking the hits at the front, but the British are using us. We must make them stop immediately and withdraw those warships so that the Allied forces can take them over after the surrender ceremony!"

Everyone else nodded in agreement, but Johnson was also in a dilemma:

Can you spit out what you've already eaten? They may not understand the Third Fleet, but they certainly understand Dai Ying!
All that talk about trust and alliances is utter bullshit; these guys will do anything for profit.

However, it was impossible to simply sit idly by and watch Britain gain an unfair advantage. The Allied forces immediately contacted Prism Building and then used the treaty as leverage to pressure Blair's cabinet.
Stop right now! Don't try to take it all by yourself!
Little did anyone know that Blair was also facing a major headache at this time, as he too was confronted with an unexpected situation:
Before the operation, the Royal Navy's opinion was that they only needed one battleship and one aircraft carrier, or if that wasn't possible, just the aircraft carrier and the other ships could be divided up, in order to avoid public outrage.

But when Philger reported the models of the four ships, Band couldn't sit still. He couldn't give up any of the three battleships: the Mighty G3 and the Hood!

Sailors aboard the HMS St. Vincent have discovered that its guns are 16.5-inch 419mm guns, larger than the G3 they had imagined. The enormous 508mm guns are also astonishing in reality. The significance of the HMS Hood goes without saying.

Let alone handing them all over, even choosing one is difficult!
Moreover, Philger said that the hulls of these four ships are very new, and he judged that they could not have been launched more than two years ago, so no one was willing to give up or dismantle them.

This would be disastrous for Blair: if the Royal Navy changed its mind and wanted to seize everything, wouldn't the Allied forces be in an uproar?
(End of this chapter)