Starting with the smashing of Dunkirk

Chapter 143 Clearing the Minefield, Surprise Landing at the Dniester Estuary

Lelouch's idea of ​​equipping airships with small-caliber anti-tank guns and clearing floating mines from the air can only be noted down for now, to be put into practice by the Baltic allies later.

The Demacian Black Sea Fleet certainly doesn't have time for such fancy maneuvers right now. All they can do is send the following airships, armed with heavy machine guns and loaded with ammunition, to take over and then use the heavy machine guns to clear as many floating mines as possible.

While machine gun bullets may not be able to penetrate the metal casing of a mine, hitting the fuse tip can easily cause it to accidentally detonate.

This impromptu tactic was put to use that very afternoon, and after a trial, it proved to be much faster than using surface torpedo boats to aim one shot at a time, and it also made it less likely for any to escape.

When surface torpedo boats search for drifting mines, they are prone to misjudging or missing them. However, from the air at a lower altitude, the field of vision is very clear and unobstructed. As a result, the efficiency of the latter part of the mine-clearing operation increases dramatically.

This move is an unprecedented innovation in human history; it was Lelouch's own pragmatic idea, not a copy of any predecessor's wisdom.

Heavy-duty bottom-sweeping minesweeping chains should have appeared during World War II, but by then airships had already been decommissioned due to their questionable survivability, leaving the navy to rely on minesweepers to perform such tasks.

It was Lelouch's early invention of the heavy-duty bottom-scraping minesweeping chain that allowed this weapon and the airship to overlap and coexist in the timeline, and also unexpectedly found another new use for the airship—perhaps in the future, the Imperial Navy's airships, in addition to reconnaissance, could also be used for minesweeping, working together with warships towing minesweeping chains to achieve twice the result with half the effort.

Throughout the day on July 29, Demania's tugboats and airships worked in perfect coordination, and the mine-clearing progress far exceeded expectations. They thoroughly searched the coastal waters 50 nautical miles north of Sulina, clearing more than 400 mines in total!

If you don't have a good grasp of the number 400 mines, just look at some comparative data—during the entire World War, the Luza Black Sea Fleet deployed a total of 35,000 mines, which was the total number deployed over several years.

So sweeping away 400 mines at once is definitely not a small number. A fully loaded large mine-laying cruiser laying down all its mines would be about that many.

When General Spee finally heard his subordinates' report on the progress of mine clearance, he was completely stunned.

"They swept that far? More than 50 nautical miles a day? With the old-fashioned minesweeping cables, it was already good if we could clear a few nautical miles of safe shipping lanes each day. Even when we were testing heavy minesweeping chains, we could only manage a maximum of 30 nautical miles a day. Now, with the addition of airships, they've reached 50 nautical miles? That's an increase in efficiency by so many times!"

Admiral Spee was very excited and praised Lelouch even more.

Other officers under General Spee, such as William Sussun, who was nominally a vice admiral in the Ottoman navy, also looked at this remarkable landing force officer who had transferred from the army with new respect.

(Note: William Sussun was originally a rear admiral in the Demanian Navy. After the start of the war, at the behest of the Demanian high command, he joined the Ottoman Navy with ships such as the Goben, and the Ottomans promoted him to vice admiral. Last year, the Battle of Cape Saleh between the Goben and two Lussar-class ships was commanded by William Sussun.)
Meanwhile, the enemy's Black Sea Fleet, Lusa, remained completely unaware of the Demacian fleet's movements until nightfall on the 29th. They were busy dealing with air raids that day and did not send out a reconnaissance fleet to the south to search.

They didn't even know that their own minefield had been cleared more than 50 nautical miles away, which shows that the fleet was poorly managed and lacked unity.

This was a common problem in the Rusa Navy at the time: the initiative of the middle and lower-ranking officers and soldiers was very poor. If the senior officers did not think of any tasks to be assigned, the lower-ranking officers would basically only do things when prompted, without any reminders.

Each student acted as if "the teacher forgot to assign homework, so the students quietly made a fortune by not doing their homework," with no good students reminding the teacher to assign homework.

Moreover, even when missions are assigned, lower-ranking officers and soldiers often disobey orders and refuse to engage in combat, sometimes even staging mutinies. On the Black Sea Fleet side, the famous Potemkin mutiny occurred many years ago, and it was later made into a movie.

On the other side of the Baltic Sea, Baltic Fleet Commander Nikolai Otovich von Essen also ordered the Gangut-class battleships to launch an offensive to find opportunities for combat, but the sailors mutinied and refused to go into battle, believing it would be suicide.

The loyalty of the Lusa sailors to the Tsar during World War I was highly questionable. Even the final cannon shot that ended the Tsar's reign was fired by sailors from the patrol ship "Alar".

This lax and undisciplined approach ultimately made the Black Sea Fleet slow to react to the Demacians' minesweeping operation, failing to conduct any reconnaissance for two whole days.

Therefore, late on the 29th and early on the 30th, the "Hamidiya" and "Meddiye" continued to tow the minesweeping chain forward to clear the way. After dawn on the 30th, the airships followed again, repeatedly observing the sea surface and firing at the drifting mines that had broken the anchor chain and surfaced.

By the evening of the 30th, the Demanian fleet had swept to the mouth of the Dniester River, at least 80 nautical miles from Sulina.

It was only at this point that the Demanian fleet encountered some misfortune—the cruiser "Meddie," which was bracing itself against mines, struck a mine on its own.

At the time, two anchor mines laid by the French were deployed in very close proximity. The first anchor mine struck the protective grille of the "Meddie" dozens of meters ahead of the bow, blasting it apart.

The warship continued to glide forward due to inertia and was unable to stop immediately to replace the grating. As a result, it collided with the second mooring mine that had leaked in through the breach in the protective grating.

For those who don't understand this scenario, imagine an RPG with a tandem warhead firing at a Bradley armored vehicle with slat armor on the Iraqi battlefield. The first section of the tandem warhead blows through the slat, and the second section then penetrates through the hole in the slat and blows into the main armor belt.

Such bad luck is unavoidable and not a fault of our own. No mine-clearing operation is ever completely risk-free.

Fortunately, the warship itself was prepared, and the lifeboats were ready to be launched at any time. There were not many sailors on the Meddidier at the time, and many of the positions were not on board, so the order to abandon ship was given immediately.

In any case, a safe passage to the mouth of the Dniester River has been cleared, and the subsequent large fleet can proceed safely. The only cost was an old cruiser built in 1903, and the sailors all escaped to lifeboats. This price was completely acceptable.

Moreover, the "Meddier" was only unable to sail and did take on a lot of water, but it did not sink directly - the accident site was shallow water, and if it had been dragged a few more nautical miles to the shore, it would have run aground and sunk directly.

Upon hearing of this situation, Admiral Spee immediately ordered two destroyers to replace the Meddidier and continue the final cleanup operations, and to sail into the Dniester River estuary lagoon area to clear the final landing anchorage channel.

Once inside the mouth of the Dniester River, cruisers were essentially useless, as the area is a lagoon with a much shallower draft than the Black Sea, only four or five meters deep enough for navigation. Cruisers couldn't get in; only destroyers could.

Once the destroyer is inside, there's no need for any fancy maneuvers. Just brute force and drag the heavy chains across the riverbed. Since the destroyer has limited horsepower, a shorter chain will suffice; the lagoon isn't very wide anyway, so it'll be enough.

In such a shallow area, even if there were mines buried, they wouldn't be anchor mines, but rather bottom mines.

These types of mines are significantly denser than water on average, and sink directly to the bottom when dropped into a river. However, the tentacles on bottom-diving mines are also longer than those on anchor mines, sometimes reaching one or two meters or even longer. When a ship passes by, even if the draft is insufficient to hit the mine body, the mine will still explode if it hits the tentacles.

To deflect such mines, Lelouch's tools are actually simpler. With enough force, a miracle can happen. Scraping the bottom and hitting the mine's body, or the mine hitting its tentacles while rolling, will cause it to explode.

That night, explosions echoed throughout the mouth of the Dniester River. The Demanians, with just two old destroyers, completely cleared the landing zone. One of the destroyers was hit by a torpedo and sank on the riverbank outside the dock.

A small number of Lusa people's army troops are also stationed in the land defense zones on both sides of the Dniester River, but their strength is very weak.

"Damn it! Are those Demacian warships? How did they end up here? Quickly organize a defense!" Colonel Lusa frantically ordered.

"Sir, where should we defend? Should we build defenses in the warehouses at the dock? The enemy has warships!"

The colonel was stumped by his subordinate's question. "Yes, where are we defending? This isn't the front line at all. There aren't even any artillery positions. There's only a second-line regiment guarding a few port towns."

No one had ever expected the enemy to come in from the river mouth, and there were no permanent firing positions or fortifications on the bank facing the river mouth.

Soon, the Demacian warships opposite opened fire at extremely close range, especially the destroyer that had struck a mine and run aground on the shoal next to the dock. However, the ship's three 88mm guns were still operational, and they fired directly at the direction of the anti-machine gun fire on the shore.

How could the Lussa people, armed with M1910 Maxim heavy machine guns, withstand an 88mm gun with a turret?
The few sentry troops, under the bombardment of naval guns, quickly scattered like birds and beasts.

The main force of the Lusa Army in this area is currently mainly defending the Romanian front and Odessa in the rear.

The Dniester River estuary is an important place, with several bridges spanning the river and some docks and boats on both sides of the lagoon. But it's also not unimportant, being about 30 or 40 kilometers from Odessa, in the middle of nowhere.

In short, the Romanian Front of the Luza Army had no idea that the Demanians would appear in such a place.

In the early hours of the 31st, a regiment of the German 6th Army's Independent Airborne Training Division was the first to successfully land on both banks of the Dniester River estuary, and directly seized the docks, civilian boats, and a bridge spanning the Dniester River.

The landing force didn't even need landing craft, because they landed directly at the dock, and the transport ships could directly berth at the berths.

At most, the movement was a bit violent when docking, and the hull of the transport ship was somewhat dented.

The first regiment to land was directly commanded by Colonel Erwin Rommel, Lelouch's second-in-command.

"Rommel has done a good job, establishing himself quickly. Order the follow-up transport fleets to bring reinforcements ashore and build defensive positions on both banks of the Dniester River estuary! Try to land as many people as possible this morning."

Tell them to be wary of a counterattack from the Odessa garrison! We're only 30-40 kilometers from Odessa. Once the garrison learns that we've landed here and cut off the Dniester River, they'll definitely try to retake the city. We should quickly build fortifications and wait for them to attack!" Lelouch had originally been observing the landing site from the command tower of the Goben using binoculars, but he found it too far to see clearly, so he ran up to the lookout tower atop the main bridge and observed using a 60x magnification fire control system.

Seeing Rommel successfully land on the beach, Lelouch was very excited and immediately asked the navy to send a telegram to the rear, ordering the transport fleet that had set sail from Constanta to come closer.

……

At the same time, at the headquarters of the Romanian Front in Odessa.

Army commander General Alexei Evert was awakened from his sleep by the shrill ring of a telephone dialed by his subordinates.

"Hello? What's wrong?" General Eft was quite dedicated; although still a bit drowsy, he forced himself to wake up immediately and get into work mode.

He knew that the call coming in at this time must be about urgent military matters.

"Report to the commander! The enemy fleet bombarded the mouth of the Dniester River an hour ago, and then troops landed directly and seized the dock areas on both sides of the lagoon! A few minutes ago, there was an update: they seem to be going upstream and have also captured a bridge spanning the mouth of the Dniester River!"

Admiral Evert's pupils dilated and contracted rapidly: "This is impossible! At the very beginning of the war, the Black Sea Fleet laid minefields at the mouth of the Dniester River! How did the Demagnesians get in?!"

While shocked, General Evert quickly went to the map and studied it for a while.

Last night's news indicated that the German 6th Army's 2nd and 3rd Corps, part of the Balian corps, which were advancing from the Romanian border, had penetrated more than 30 kilometers into our territory. They are now 120 kilometers from the mouth of the Dniester River and more than 150 kilometers from the city of Odessa.

The commanders of the three corps at the front, including Denikin, are retreating in stages according to their orders, building a deep defense to buy time. They are also employing a scorched-earth strategy along the way, betting that the Demanians will be overwhelmed by the devastating terrain and their logistics will collapse.

Only then can our side take advantage of the Demacians' exhaustion and lack of food and ammunition to launch a counterattack, stabilize the situation, and dampen the Demacians' morale.

But now, the Demacians have landed behind our backs!
They also occupied a very useful port anchorage and seized the bridge on the most important border river between the former Romania and Kievan Rus'!
"It's over! The entire defense plan formulated by the front is about to be completely overturned! Those useless naval officers! Didn't we agree not to leave any usable ports for the enemy? Didn't we agree that all ports south of Odessa would be blockaded with mines? Did the Demacian fleet just fall from the sky?"

Admiral Evert grew increasingly angry and, in a fit of rage, grabbed the landline and dialed the Black Sea Fleet headquarters in Sevastopol.

"Hello? Connect me to General Andrei Eberhardt!"

A moment later, General Eberhart hurriedly answered the phone, and immediately launched into a scathing attack:
"What are you naval forces doing! The Demanian fleet suddenly arrived at the mouth of the Dniester River this morning! They even cleared mines and went deep into the estuary, where they landed! They also seized the docks and bridges!"
The three German 6th Army units that we are holding off on the Romanian front are about to be surrounded and encircled by the Demagnesians!
I need the navy to deploy immediately and drive away the Demacian fleet at the mouth of the Dniester River! This will allow our army to launch a counter-offensive and retake the Dniester River landing site! If the navy can win, our army will definitely be able to push the landed enemy back into the sea!

General Andrei Eberhardt was also stunned by the questioning for a while, and in the end he could only grit his teeth and agree to the request.

The problem is that the Black Sea Fleet is not currently concentrated in one place. Some of its warships are deployed in Odessa, while most of its main ships are in Sevastopol.

Admiral Eberhardt needed to ascertain the enemy's strength before deciding how many warships to send to intercept them. Otherwise, if the enemy outnumbered them, the Odessa port fleet wouldn't be able to handle them, and it would be a pointless suicide mission.

Admiral Eberhart's mind raced for a moment before he called the Odessa flotilla command: "Get Rear Admiral Lukin back!"

Soon, Major General Vasily Konstantinovich Lukin, commander of the Odessa squadron, answered the phone and requested instructions from the commander.

"Immediately dispatch several high-speed destroyers to scout the mouth of the Dniester River and ascertain the size of the enemy force. If the attacking enemy fleet does not have dreadnoughts, you will have to rely on the Odessa Squadron's combat power to handle the situation on your own!"
If you discover that the enemy has deployed Moltke-class destroyers, quickly spread out and have the main force of the Odessa fleet sail southeast to rendezvous with us. Then we can join forces to deal with the Demacians!
I will immediately lead the main force from Sevastopol and sail northwest to meet you. The exact rendezvous point will be determined by radio later—however, we must maintain radio silence for the first six hours after departure to prevent the Demagnesians from intercepting our signals too early and intercepting either of our forces individually!
Only when we are almost at the point of meeting up will we be allowed to send telegrams to each other to inform each other of the specific coordinates and make minor adjustments to our course. Understand?

Major General Lukin immediately and decisively accepted the order: "Understood! Mission accomplished!"

Soon, the squadron in Odessa and the main force of the Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol were forced out, one heading southeast and the other northwest, heading in opposite directions in an attempt to rendezvous.

Meanwhile, Rear Admiral Lukin's fleet of one Novik-class and three Unreason-class high-speed destroyers formed a reconnaissance squad.

After leaving Odessa harbor, they immediately turned due south, then slightly southwest. Their mission, of course, was to ascertain the size of the Demanian fleet that had launched the surprise attack on the mouth of the Dniester River, and whether the Odessa squadron could handle it alone.

The Lussa had also considered launching reconnaissance aircraft from Odessa, but their radio limitations were now exposed once again.

Many of the Lusa's reconnaissance aircraft were not even equipped with radios, so they could not "immediately transmit the enemy situation to the rear after aerial reconnaissance detected the enemy forces" and had to wait for the reconnaissance aircraft to fly back alive and report the enemy situation verbally.

Currently, the Demanians have deployed a large number of escort fighters along the coast between Sulina and the mouth of the Dniester River, ready to intercept and shoot down any Lusa aircraft they spot. The Lusa, lacking reconnaissance aircraft with radios, are completely ineffective for reconnaissance unless they can fly back alive.

The impoverished empire of Lusa once again paid the price for its focus on guns and cannons while neglecting radio technology.

In the modern communications environment, the cost of a classical army that only has one radio per division would be far too high.

Lelouch on the other side has already assigned a radio to the platoon level of the assault battalion, while the Russa people are only assigned to the division level.

In this situation, the only option is to send destroyers to act as scouts and spot as many enemy ships as possible.

The four destroyers quickly formed a search formation and sailed south for an hour before spotting a large group of enemy ships deployed in the waters near the mouth of the Dniester River.

"Damn it! How can there be so many Demanians? Has the entire Ottoman navy been mobilized?! Run! Send a radio warning to Rear Admiral Lukin immediately!"

The lead Novik-class destroyer quickly noticed the enemy situation and immediately began to turn around to prepare to send a telegram.

But they also knew that the enemy had definitely spotted each other much earlier—because there were still airships hovering above the enemy fleet.

An airship's field of vision is, of course, much farther than that of a surface ship. In fact, the "Novik" spotted the airship 20 minutes before it even saw the enemy warship.

But they had no choice but to sail south for another 20 minutes under the airship's line of sight to confirm the size of the enemy surface fleet.

As a result, they had barely confirmed the situation when they discovered they were already surrounded. The Demacians, with the help of airships, had spread out to the flanks 20 minutes earlier, waiting for the Lusa reconnaissance fleet to slip in.

When the Lusa people discovered the enemy ships, there were already enemy ships to the east and south. The west was not surrounded, but that was only because the west was land and could not be surrounded.

The Demanian torpedo boats, which had circled around from the east, immediately began releasing slow-moving torpedoes from a distance towards the retreat route of the Lusa reconnaissance and destroyer squadron. If the Lusa fleet had turned around at full speed immediately, it would likely have been caught in the net of torpedoes.

This tactic of forcing the enemy to move around forced the Lusa reconnaissance team to observe carefully and take precautions.

This brief delay allowed Demacian high-speed warships to close the distance.

The Demanians actually dispatched the battlecruiser "Mooch," which fired directly at the fleeing destroyer 10,000 meters away with six 150mm guns on one side—it's pathetic, considering that the "Mooch" could at least reach a high speed of 26 knots, while the Ottoman Navy's cruisers were generally slower than 26 knots, and even slower than the battlecruiser.

If we don't use the HMS Moltke to pursue, we can only use destroyers, but destroyers have no advantage against each other. Since that's the case, let's use the battlecruiser to do the dirty work, making the most of its capabilities. At worst, we can keep the main guns at bay and just use the 150mm and 88mm guns on the sides to finish the battle.

The Lusa people frantically tried to escape, and the first "Irrational" class destroyer was unfortunately caught in the crossfire by a torpedo launched prematurely by the Demania destroyer.

The destroyer's small size was no match for the torpedoes, and it sank immediately.

The remaining three destroyers, seeing that a direct charge might not be successful and they might die in vain, suddenly made a snap decision, turned back, and decided to charge and launch a volley of torpedoes at the "Moldyck".

But the Demanians weren't about to let them succeed. Seeing the three destroyers turn back, the USS Moltke turned and cut off their attack before they even entered torpedo range. Then the other Demanian light ships continued to flank and close the distance, with their 150mm and 105mm guns raining down on the three destroyers.

Soon after, the three Lusa destroyers were also brutally destroyed, achieving no results whatsoever.

Their only achievement was sending back the radio message before they sank that "there are battlecruisers in the enemy landing fleet."

Lelouch, hiding aboard the flagship "Goben" at the rear, observed the entire small battle through the fire control system and couldn't help but feel a sense of awe:
"The Lusa people are really willing to spend money. They can give away 4 kills by using nets and scouting. If this kind of reckless person were in World of Warships, they would have been kicked long ago."

(End of this chapter)