Starting with the smashing of Dunkirk

Chapter 138 Cross-Sea Artillery Strike, Precise Target Kill
After discovering the threat posed by the enemy's latest air defense measures to the airship force, the Demacian Admiralty finally convened a meeting and reached the following conclusion:

All daytime bombing was to cease from August 1st. Indiscriminate nighttime bombing of central London was to be extended until January 1st, 1916, after which it too had to cease.

The Navy's assessment reasoning was that by early 1916, with technological advancements and further development of enemy and friendly aircraft engine technology, enemy reconnaissance fighters equipped with new firearms might be able to shoot down airships at altitudes above 5000 meters from their maximum flight altitude.

Therefore, by 1916, all remaining airships were to be permanently repurposed for reconnaissance purposes and no longer used for any attack missions.

In fact, after these successive losses, the Demacian Navy didn't have many airships left to use.

Two months ago, during the Lviv airborne/Lviv bombing mission, the airship force reached its peak size of 71 ships. Later, two ships were lost for various reasons during the mission, and Major Peter Strasser's ship crashed into the ammunition depot at the Lviv railway station.

Before this round of bombing began, Demania had only 68 usable airships left. As a result, 30 airships were put together for the mission on both the eastern and western fronts. After several rounds of bombing, 21 airships remained on the eastern front, and only 23 of the 30 airships remained on the western front. However, several airships were damaged or mechanically broken due to storms and other reasons.

Ultimately, Demania's airship inventory decreased from 68 to 52. The Navy also announced the cancellation of all subsequent airship construction plans, and the remaining 52 were all converted for reconnaissance by 1916.

The resources saved were used for aircraft research and development, as well as the improvement and design of surface ships.

In any case, Demania built 50 fewer airships than in the same period in history, saving the equivalent of the budget and resources of three Mackensen-class battlecruisers.

The direct and primary reason for all of this was, of course, that "enemy fighter planes invented a tactic of using machine guns loaded with white phosphorus bombs to shoot down airships."

However, that's not the whole reason.

There was also a less important reason—precisely in the days following July 28th, another simultaneous surprise attack by the Imperial Navy against the Britannians achieved results far greater than the days of air raids by the airship force.

It was precisely this suppression of battle results that diverted a significant portion of the high command's attention from the airships.

All of this dates back to several months prior, to battles such as the Gorlice Breakthrough on the southern sector of the eastern front—

At that time, in order to conceal the important fact that he and the main force of the 6th Army had gone to the Eastern Front, and to keep the enemy on the Eastern Front from falling into a false sense of security, Lelouch asked the commander of the 4th Army, the Archduke of Württemberg, to launch a feint attack on the Frankish-controlled Calais region on the Western Front.

In the end, they even turned the charade into a real deal and won over Calais, which led to the subsequent developments.

……

Three flowers bloom, each showing its own beauty.

The timeline goes back to July 28, 1915.

This was the first day of the large-scale bombing campaign on both the eastern and western fronts.

It was also in the early hours of that day.

Cape Grine, near the port of Calais, was occupied by the Demanian 4th Army just over three months ago.

On a concave white cliff facing northwest along the coast, two rows of eight twin-mounted 380mm armored turrets have pointed their dark, metallic muzzles toward the Dover anchorage, 37 kilometers to the northwest.

There is no doubt that the civil engineering work on these eight coastal defense turrets began more than three months ago. At that time, the Demanian army had only recently captured Calais.

Initially, they simply looked for naturally recessed and soft areas in the cliff face, excavating some areas to accommodate the turrets. Subsequently, they carried out extensive construction work, including the excavation of ammunition wells and railway tunnels leading up the cliff.

Finally, a little over a month ago, Krupp confirmed that the new steel produced by Colonel Lelouch's three-phase electric arc furnace steel plant and the new gun barrels forged were a complete success and could replace the old guns.

Krupp then transported the 16 old-style large pipes originally intended for the battleships "Barria" and "Baden" to the Calais front for the final turret installation work.

Archduke Württemberg, commander of the 4th Army, provided full protection for this secret project, ensuring its secrecy and also organizing engineering units to assist with the work.

However, the engineers of the Grand Duke of Württemberg alone were not enough to complete the task, so the construction team secretly conscripted some Frankish and Biligin prisoners of war who were unwilling to surrender to do hard labor here.

The specific work of organizing labor and engineering machinery was handled by Mr. Guilford, Lelouch's brother-in-law and the Economic Coordinator of the Sibylline Occupation.

All of this ensured that the project was completed on schedule.

The planning of this project, of course, involved consulting Lelouch's crucial opinions. The very idea of ​​"being able to bombard the Royal Navy's Channel Fleet home port across the strait" was originally proposed by Lelouch.

Later, Vice Admiral Hipper of the Navy, the Archduke of Württemberg in episode 4, and the Duke of Rupprecht in episode 6 all held brief, secret meetings and finally decided to carry it out. The specific details, of course, were left to Lelouch, the one who initially came up with the idea, to plan.

Lelouch initially considered directly adopting the "railway gun anti-ship" experience from the Dunkirk siege.
However, after sitting down with Krupp's technicians, his brother-in-law Guilford, and Colonel William Keitel, the artillery commander in charge of the bombardment mission, Lelouch changed his initial idea.

The experience of the Dunkirk siege proved that the rate of fire of railway guns was ultimately too slow! Even with the maximum elevation angle limited, it could only fire one round every minute and a half. This time, to reach the Dover anchorage 36-38 kilometers away, the elevation angle of the artillery absolutely could not be restricted! (The port itself has a depth of 2 kilometers, so the nearest berth to the Cape Green Bay coastal artillery positions is 36 kilometers, and the deepest berth is 38 kilometers.)

The 380mm gun, the same type used in the Barria-class main guns, required a 40-degree elevation angle during testing to hit targets more than 38 kilometers away. (The Queen Elizabeth-class main guns, modernized before World War II, had their maximum elevation angle limit increased to 40 degrees, with a maximum range of 35 kilometers. The Barria-class main guns were more powerful than those of the Queen Elizabeth-class guns of the same caliber, employing a high-speed, lightweight projectile design, achieving a range of 39 kilometers at 40 degrees and exceeding 40 kilometers at 45 degrees.)
Therefore, the cannons that ultimately bombarded the two ports on the opposite shore from Cape Grignard in Calais had to have their maximum elevation limited to 45 degrees.

但列车炮得在20度最大仰角时，才可以做到1分半一发。如果抬高到45度，就得4～5分钟一发了！

All of this led Lelouch to change his plans, instructing his brother-in-law to find a way to procure engineering machinery and labor to build these gun emplacements, ammunition silos, and fixed automatic ammunition hoists and conveyors within three months. Power would be supplied entirely by the local fixed power grid.

After this series of operations, the completed turret could achieve a firing rate of over 20 seconds per volley! That was even a few seconds faster than the turret itself mounted on the "Barria-class" battleship.

While carrying out these constructions, Lelouch did not forget to make use of the waste materials. He instructed his brother-in-law to reinforce the railway leading to Cape Greene, which would facilitate the transport of artillery shells and also make it easier to bring over the original train artillery group during wartime to make good use of its remaining power.

Of course, those railway guns were also temporarily modified to remove the maximum elevation angle limit.

All of this went unnoticed by Britannian reconnaissance planes and spies—a seemingly unbelievable event, but actually the result of Lelouch's ingenious design. To ensure the secrecy of the fort's construction, he abandoned the firing arc of the fort, and the location was completely unlike that of a normal coastal artillery fortress.

In other words, normal coastal defense armored turrets, in order to have a wider field of fire, must be placed as high and open as possible. Moreover, each bastion will basically have a 360-degree rotating armored turret at its highest point, such as the Dunkirk coastal fortress.

However, Lelouch specifically chose to locate the fort in a recessed area of ​​the Calais White Cliffs, and also selected a slope halfway up the mountain.

The location was even more treacherous than the coastal defense guns on Iwo Jima. And the ultimate cost of all this was that these turrets had a combined firing arc of less than 30 degrees.

However, that's enough! Because these facilities weren't built to help the Franks defend Calais; their sole purpose was to bombard Dover on the other side!

As long as we can kill as many people as possible and destroy Dover Port and the surrounding anchorages, we're willing to let everyone perish together!
Whether Demacia wins or loses in this world is not important; what's important is that Bulldog is not around!

All of this has led to the fact that, over the past three months, no matter how frequently reconnaissance aircraft from the Republic of Burkina Faso flew over the strait, they failed to notice Demania's construction plans.

The two places are only thirty-odd kilometers apart, yet everything was done so smoothly and secretly.

Of course, we also have to thank Demand's air force; the fighter squadron commanded by Colonel Mark Immelmann on the western front was extremely effective.
With German-made fighters having a monopoly on the firing coordination system, any reconnaissance planes from Britannia that dared to fly across the Channel were basically doomed.

They don't even need to fly across the strait. As long as the German planes dare to take off from Dover Airport on the other side, the German planes can take the initiative to fly across the strait and kill them over their own airport.

……

Sharpening a knife for a thousand days is for a single moment of use.

Regardless of how much manpower, resources, intelligence deception, and ingenuity were expended to deploy these fortifications so stealthily, no matter how much effort was put into them.

Anyway, today is the day when everything will come to a head.

Under the coordination and command of an experienced artillery lieutenant colonel, all the turrets began to turn, raise their elevation angles, and fine-tune the various parameters to a specially calculated estimate.

This artillery lieutenant colonel was none other than Lieutenant Colonel William Loeb, who had been transferred from the 6th Army on the Eastern Front.

The reason he was transferred here was, of course, because he had participated in the Dunkirk bombardment and had practical experience operating coastal artillery to attack battleships.

Finding artillery officers with superior skills and higher ranks within the Demacian army is easy. However, finding one who has severely damaged a battleship with heavy artillery is extremely difficult.

"Pre-aiming complete, please provide instructions."

After Lieutenant Colonel Loeb finished his operation, he ordered his men to send a light signal into the sky. Using a large communications focusing reflector, they shone the agreed-upon flashing signal towards an airship located more than ten kilometers to the north at an altitude of 4 meters.

"It seems the ground is ready. The target port has good visibility. Clearance to fire."

On that reconnaissance airship, another artillery officer with a higher rank than Loeb, Colonel William Keitel, was apparently assigned the role of "fire observer" today.

Colonel Keitel was also temporarily transferred from the Eastern Front, since he had also severely damaged the Warspite with his artillery last time.

A proven track record is always the most impressive part of an officer's resume.

Loeb received permission to fire and finally officially issued the order to launch.

With deafening roars, eight twin-mounted 380mm turrets, five 380mm single-barreled railway guns, and fifteen 280mm single-barreled railway guns were deployed.
Following a predetermined sequence, the first round of attacks was launched in stages and groups towards the main anchorages of Dover on the opposite shore.

(End of this chapter)