Starting with the smashing of Dunkirk

Chapter 140 Let the Royal Navy and Air Force bleed to death here.
As the "Magnificent" truly lived up to its name, Major General Horace Hood was utterly dumbfounded.

The two Bellerophon-class dreadnoughts were thus completely wiped out, one scrapped and the other sunk by explosion.

Just six months ago, the Strait Fleet was only qualified to use "pre-dreadnoughts" and didn't even have a single "dreadnought".

Later, due to the Dunkirk siege and the excessive losses of the pre-dreadnoughts, there were simply not enough ships available. It was only then that Lord First Lord of the Admiralty, Walton, made a decisive move and allocated a batch of relatively older, slower dreadnoughts to the Channel Fleet to ensure the effectiveness of the blockade of the Strait.

This led to the addition of the Bellerophon-class corvettes and the Intrepid. Currently, the Bellerophon is deployed in Portsmouth, while the Intrepid is undergoing simple maintenance in Southampton, not in Dover.

The Demanians essentially sank both of the dreadnoughts that are currently anchored in Dover across the sea.

But the nightmare is far from over.

The entire attack lasted only about 20 minutes, giving the Demacians at least 40 minutes of stationary targets to shoot at, plus more than an hour of moving targets.

While the two dreadnoughts were being targeted and destroyed, the train gun corps also achieved several victories.

Five 380mm railway guns concentrated fire on the Edward VII-class pre-dreadnought HMS Dominion at Folkestone anchorage, and after a 40-minute bombardment, hit the ship six times, sinking it completely.

The 15 280mm railway guns first concentrated their fire on the Formidable-class pre-dreadnought HMS Prince of Wales at Folkestone anchorage, and sank it in just 15 minutes.

They then proceeded to massacre the other auxiliary ships at Folkestone anchorage, and finally sank the last remaining Minotaur-class armored cruiser of the Burkina Faso Navy before the anchorage was evacuated. This was the "Peak Armored Cruiser/Half-Step Dreadnought" with four 240mm guns.

Meanwhile, the coastal artillery group did not rest after sinking two dreadnoughts. They eventually shifted their target to expand their gains. In the hour before the enemy ships evacuated, they sank one of the Duncan-class pre-dreadnoughts, the HMS Exmouth, and the Devonshire-class armored cruiser, the HMS Rossisk.

In addition, there are the Chatham-class light cruisers HMAS Melbourne, HMAS Sydney, HMAS Brisbane, and HMAS Canberra, as well as nine destroyers.

Coincidentally, the patrol light cruiser squadron deployed to Dover Harbour that day consisted of four Chatham-class light cruisers named after Australian cities, and they were also the only warships in the Royal Navy of Brisbane named after Australian cities.

Some of these ships were built in Australia, such as the "Brisbane," while the rest were built using the financial revenue that Australia, as a self-governing territory, paid to its mother country, hence the name.

This battle, by a twist of fate, wiped out the Australian elements in the Royal Navy. All the naval tributes that Australia had been offering to its motherland over the years were swept away.

最终，多佛港和福克斯通锚地的2小时炮击作战，总计击沉/击毁无畏舰2艘、前无畏舰3艘、装甲巡洋舰2艘、轻巡4艘、驱逐舰9艘，堪称单方面屠杀的史诗大胜！
Most importantly, the Royal Britannian Navy had no chance to retaliate at all; the Demanian Navy and railway artillery suffered zero casualties in this battle.

However, the Demacian Army Air Forces suffered only minor casualties—in the last hour or so of the battle, combat reconnaissance planes from Dover and behind Burkina Faso were rushing toward the strait as if they were free, attempting to interfere with the German reconnaissance planes and airships' fire control.

Originally, Burkina Faso's fighter jets would never dare to fight on foreign soil or take the initiative to cross the sea to the south side of the strait to fight; they only dared to stay on their home turf.

But today we are forced to fight on foreign soil, hoping only to disrupt the enemy and reduce fleet losses.

The country even urgently scrambled all available aircraft from London to fly 100 kilometers to Dover, and without even having time to refuel in Dover, they flew directly to Calais.

In this way, for a Burkina Faso aircraft to reach the battlefield, it would have to fly at least 130 kilometers, while the combat radius of aircraft at that time was generally only 200 kilometers (of course, after the battle, Burkina Faso aircraft did not need to fly back to London, but could land in Dover, saving 100 kilometers of return journey).
If Burkina Faso's aircraft fly that far to carry out missions, their combat effectiveness will inevitably be greatly reduced, and their loiter time will also be limited.

Unfortunately, the country's air force is currently in a state of "almost completing the muzzle coordinator, but not yet completing it."

If this war had been delayed for another month or two, and continued until September, the Burkina Faso air force might have closed the technological gap on the difficult point of "deploying machine guns directly in front to avoid machine gun bullets hitting the propellers".

But they haven't been able to do that yet. The air force originally planned to hold back and play it safe for the next two months, keeping a low profile until they broke through the technological bottlenecks before going out and having fun.

The naval blunder forced the air force to no longer hold back and endure the situation, leaving them no choice but to fight a losing battle.

As a result, the skies over the Dover-Calais Strait turned into a scene of carnage on the morning of July 28.

A scaled-down version of the Battle of Britannia took place more than twenty years earlier, and this time the home and away teams were switched.

The Demacian side was well prepared. Colonel Immelmann, the captain of the air force, had already received information from Lelouch and Keitel that once the coastal defense guns and railway guns opened fire, the enemy's combat reconnaissance aircraft might retaliate like a swarm of bees after a hornet's nest has been blown up.

Therefore, Colonel Immelmann had long been waiting in ambush, having mobilized a large number of aircraft he could muster in advance, and had also instructed ground crew to prepare sufficient fuel, ammunition, and spare parts.

Colonel Immelmann personally led a team, using Albatross III fighters and Fokker fighters, to spread out a large net, just waiting for the enemy planes to crash into it.

Because there might not be enough elite pilots, Colonel Immelmann made a special trip to the rear hospital where the pilots were being treated before the operation to see if any of the wounded were recovering well and could be discharged early to fight.

Finally, he discovered that more than a dozen pilots, including Manfred von Richthofen, had been wounded in the Battle of Lviv three months earlier and were all fit to return to their units, so he brought them all back.

Baron Richthofen was originally supposed to be working under Lieutenant Colonel Polk, Immelmann's old partner, who was currently with the 6th Army on the Romanian front. However, since the air combat mission on the Eastern Front was not heavy at the moment, Immelmann had temporarily transferred the recovered pilots from the Eastern Front to the Western Front to cover for them, with the promise that they would be released after this air battle was over.

The recovered pilots, including Baron Richthofen, were all eager to try and make a name for themselves.

……

At 6:50 a.m., the first wave of Britannian aircraft arrived, totaling 32 planes in 8 squadrons of 4 each, which should be the entire air force of the Dover base.

Colonel Immelmann personally piloted an Albatross III fighter plane, leading 40 of his men into the air to intercept the enemy. They not only outmatched the enemy in terms of quality and flying skills, but also gained a numerical advantage.

Baron Richthofen also flew a Fokker fighter, fighting alongside the group.

As the enemy planes charged in, Richthofen felt a surge of anger: he already knew that Lieutenant Student, who had fought alongside him in the Battle of Lviv, was now a captain and might soon be promoted to major.

Because the opposing team shot down four enemy planes on their very first sortie! And they continued to achieve merits and were already ace pilots!

And he was still just a lieutenant! On his first combat sortie, he only shot down two enemy planes before being struck and crashed by an enemy aircraft, spending three months in the hospital. His classmates had all shot down 10 planes while he only had 2. Who wouldn't be anxious?
Fortunately, during his three months in the hospital, Baron Richthofen smoothed out many of his rough edges and reflected on many details. Having emerged from this ordeal, he was confident he could reclaim his rightful glory.

"Rat-a-tat-tat~ Rat-a-tat-tat~" Two air-cooled machine guns spit out sharp tongues of fire towards the front of the nose, and with each roll and approach, they were able to accurately circle around to the back of the enemy aircraft.

As the killing began, Richthofen became the second member of the squadron to achieve a kill – the first enemy aircraft was shot down by Colonel Immelmann himself, and the second was Richthofen's turn.

The other comrades also started their operations, and in no time, Burkina Faso planes were falling like turkeys over the Strait of Calais.

Richthofen felt a rush of blood to his head, yet his senses were heightened as if by divine intervention. He repeatedly charged into the enemy formation, relentlessly firing at each enemy aircraft and tearing them to shreds with his ammunition belts.

A small portion of the team had just achieved a kill, while another small portion hadn't even had a chance to get a kill before the battle was over.

Upon returning to base, a count revealed that even the highest-ranking commander, Colonel Immelmann, and a few pilots had only managed to shoot down two aircraft.

But a little-known young baron lieutenant shot down three planes in one go!
"Hey! Lieutenant Richthofen! Congratulations on shooting down three! I heard you shot down two in Tarnuf too. You're an ace now!"

After landing, while he rested with coffee and snacks, Colonel Immelmann smiled and handed him an ace pilot's badge, patting him on the shoulder in encouragement. His comrades nearby tossed him into the air and caught him as he landed, playfully teasing him.

"Thank you, sir! I will work even harder!"

The tea break ended quickly, because less than half an hour later, a second, even larger group of planes from London appeared across the Channel.

The aircraft that had just landed to refuel and replenish their ammunition were forced to take off again immediately.

Because it was an inside line operation, the German aircraft only needed to defend a very small area of ​​airspace. They didn't need to carry much fuel; their fuel tanks were only filled to two-thirds full. The extra tens of kilograms of weight saved could be used to carry an extra two thousand rounds of machine gun ammunition.

Richthofen, piloting a Fokker fighter whose cockpit was nearly overflowing with ammunition belts, wobbled and took off again. His aggressive bombing strategy left his comrades speechless.

"Britannia dog, prepare to die!" Richthofen no longer conserved bullets. He knew that when the aircraft was heavily loaded, it should fire at a distance with heavy firepower. Originally, he would approach within 200 meters and put the enemy aircraft into the aiming star circle before firing, but now he would fire head-on from 300 or 400 meters away.

A hail of bullets rained down relentlessly. They opened fire with several long bursts, unleashing five or six hundred rounds before finally shooting down their first enemy plane.

This new tactic of naturally engaging in long-range head-on fire inspired his comrades, who imitated it without instruction. In a short time, well-equipped German aircraft were almost always eliminating the defenseless Buccaneer aircraft in long-range head-on exchanges.

Britannian aircraft have yet to solve the problem of firing forward; they have to rely on the rear-mounted machine guns of two-man aircraft to fight back, so their firepower is zero when they are charging head-on.

Before the two sides even engaged in battle, more than a dozen Burkina Faso planes crashed, belching flames and thick smoke, shattering the country's morale.

Unfortunately, the Demania aircraft had enough machine gun ammunition to launch such a volley before engaging the enemy, and this tactic did not affect the German aircraft's endurance at all.

Colonel Immelmann and Richthofen, among others, fought fiercely and relentlessly, taking off three times in two hours and shooting down an unknown number of enemy aircraft.

Finally, when the enemy fleet in Dover had all left the port and dispersed, no longer daring to linger in Dover, the air force on the other side finally quieted down and stopped coming to interfere.

Postwar statistics show that the Bretons lost a staggering 200 fighter-reconnaissance aircraft! They practically emptied the entire London air defense perimeter of planes here, draining them dry!
Meanwhile, the German Air Force, having been well-rested and operating on the interior, lost only 11 aircraft and 7 pilots. The pilots who bailed out were all recovered because the area was near Calais and under German control.

The Bretonnia lost more than 200 pilots and more than 200 rear gunners, a total of more than 400 elite air force personnel, none of whom returned alive.

After all, the battlefield was on the Calais side. Pilots who crashed into the sea could not be rescued by their own people. The elite air force of the entire southern region of Burkina Faso was decimated and drained of its strength. At least half of Burkina Faso's veteran pilots were lost in this battle, and the backbone of the entire air force was directly broken.

The most excited person must have been Baron Richthofen. He took to the skies three times today. On the first sortie, he shot down three enemy planes. On the next two sorties, he loaded even more ammunition, shooting down six planes on one sortie and four on the other. He only managed to shoot down four planes on the last sortie because the enemy had been wiped out and he had nothing left to kill. In fact, he still had more than 800 rounds of machine gun ammunition in his plane that he had nowhere to vent his anger.

On July 28, Lieutenant Richthofen set a record of 13 kills, which, combined with the two he shot down on the Eastern Front in early May, brought his career total to 15, placing him among the top 20 Demania pilots.

In comparison, Colonel Mark Immelmann, the father of aerial combat and the highest-ranking commander of this unit, has only shot down 31 aircraft to date, ranking second in the entire military. However, he accumulated these 31 kills after nearly a year of air combat. (The current leader is Lieutenant Colonel Oswald Polk, who has been transferred to the Eastern Front and is now the commander of the fighter unit, with 33 kills.)

At this rate of progress, the rising star, Baron Richthofen, will likely catch up very soon.

By 9:00 AM, the battles on the sea and in the air had completely ended.

Inside and outside Dover Harbor, various wrecks continue to spew thick smoke and flames, telling the story of the devastation of this horrific defeat.

The railway artillery units had already been ordered to withdraw by the commander of the German 4th Army, the Archduke of Württemberg, to the rear to avoid being attacked by the Franks and suffering losses.

Only the eight coastal defense armored gun turrets that couldn't be moved remained. Since they were idle anyway, they began shelling the dock piers of Dover Harbor, civilian and merchant ships that couldn't leave in time, shipyards, ship repair yards, warehouses, and even large cranes.

The remaining half-day of shelling reduced all the warehouses, port facilities, and military buildings at Folkestone anchorage in Dover to rubble, and also destroyed dozens of civilian and merchant ships.

Two small oil depots of the Strait Fleet in the dock area were also destroyed by heavy armor-piercing shells, leaking out tens of thousands of tons of fuel oil, which burned everywhere.

The plume of smoke rose so high that it could be seen even from London, 100 kilometers away.

This air and sea battle, which involved several battlefields, has finally come to a complete end.

-

P.S.: I'll post a chapter summary tonight, which will include a list of the remaining fleets and sizes of various countries' navies. It's a data review, so it's posted as a summary and it's free.

(End of this chapter)