Starting with the smashing of Dunkirk

Chapter 158 Moonlight Landing Operation
Lelouch hadn't really intended to get involved in Hipper's naval battle planning; his main purpose in coming here was to find a way to sow discord among the enemy.

After all, knowledge comes in stages, and everyone has their own area of ​​expertise. He wasn't a professional in naval matters and hadn't received any naval combat training.

However, after hearing that this operation would require Hipper and Scheer to lead a high-speed fleet headed by battlecruisers and a low-speed fleet headed by battleships respectively, to cooperate in the operation.

Lelouch also slightly changed his original idea.

He felt that, without affecting the overall situation of the navy, he could take some initiative to create more opportunities for the Hipper faction to make contributions and have more moments of glory.

Of course, national interests and the overall interests of the navy are paramount, and Lelouch would never do anything that puts the interests of a small group above the national interest.

His plan was certainly designed to both bring greater victory to the country and ensure that his brothers would have meat to eat.

However, he still needs to think carefully about how to do it and needs to gather more information.

The two quickly arrived at the temporary joint command headquarters of the army and navy in Königsberg. Hipper got out of the car first, then led Lelouch inside, introducing him to some contacts along the way.

Königsberg is the capital of East Prosen and can be considered the "birthplace" of the Prosen-Hohenzollern family.

According to the Demacian military system, there is no such thing as a "joint army-naval command" under normal circumstances; the army operates independently of the army and the navy operates independently of the navy.

However, this Baltic operation, or more precisely, the Gulf of Riga operation, was temporarily established because it might involve amphibious landings. The navy needed to seize control of the sea first and then cover the army.

The command headquarters usually houses the three top leaders who discuss military matters together. The leader is Field Marshal Mackensen, commander of the 11th Army, who is also the highest-ranking army commander in charge of the entire Lithuanian and Latvian front.

The other two were Vice Admiral Franz von Hipper and Vice Admiral Reinhard von Scheer. One commanded a battlecruiser detachment, and the other commanded a battleship detachment; their roles were clearly defined.

Before Lelouch arrived, the three of them had already devised a preliminary plan for the subsequent operation in the Gulf of Riga.

When Hipper brought Lelouch in, Field Marshal Mackensen and Vice Admiral Scheer looked at him with some doubt and wariness, as if they did not understand why Hipper had repeatedly petitioned Field Marshal Tirpitz, hoping that the Navy would invite such a mere colonel to come and impart his experience in amphibious operations in order to fill any gaps in their knowledge.

Although Mackensen and Scheer knew to some extent about Lelouch's deeds, and knew that he had been involved in the Dunkirk siege, the Hungarian campaign on the southern front, and the recent Black Sea campaign.

They also knew that behind Marshal Leopold and his nephew Marshal Rupprecht, there was a young man who was suspected to be their chief of staff.

However, they still felt that Demacia had too many outstanding military talents, and each army group and fleet had its own excellent chief of staff. Why would they need to bring in someone from an allied force to give orders?
Fortunately, Hipper also noticed that the atmosphere wasn't very harmonious, and that Marshal Mackensen and Lieutenant General Scheer didn't seem very enthusiastic about welcoming Lelouch, so he quickly helped him introduce them:
"Colonel Lelouch is an old friend of mine and an important staff officer of Field Marshal Rupprecht of the 6th Army on the Southern Front. The main reason for inviting him here is that Field Marshal Rupprecht, as a pioneer in amphibious operations, won the first large-scale amphibious landing operation in human history!"

The 6th Army split its forces to bypass the enemy and land at the mouth of the Dniester River, encircling three corps of the Romanian Front in one fell swoop! This resulted in a great victory with the annihilation of 150,000 enemy troops! The subsequent landing at Nikolayev also accelerated the collapse of the enemy forces defending Odessa and Nikolayev.

The successful experience of amphibious operations on the southern front may be worth learning from and addressing our shortcomings. I would like to invite Staff Officer Lelouch over to discuss and share our experiences and lessons learned.

Furthermore, Lelouch, in the Black Sea theater, was adept at exploiting the internal instability and mutual distrust among the Lusa people to further weaken their fighting capacity. I think we can learn from this and see if we can make slight adjustments to our own operational plans to coordinate with the overall propaganda war—after all, the great Clausewitz said long ago that military affairs are a continuation of politics.”

Lelouch had never seen Lieutenant General Hipper speak so cautiously, even though he used to be much more amiable and approachable in front of Duke Rupprecht.

But in front of Mackensen and Scher, he had to try his best to be more adept at social maneuvering.

Even so, Lelouch could still sense the unhappiness between the two, especially Vice Admiral Scheer.

No one wants their plans, already formulated by their staff, to be interfered with by allies.

Finally, Marshal Mackensen, being older and relatively indifferent to fame and fortune, calmly said, "Hipper, then you can introduce the current established plan on our behalf."

"Thank you, then I'll offer my initial thoughts." Hipper expressed his respect to the old marshal before producing a battle plan and giving a brief overview.
"The joint operational plan between our battlecruiser detachment and the 1st battleship detachment with the 11th Army is as follows:"

The 11th Army is currently engaged in a standoff with the enemy's 2nd and 12th Armies of the Northwestern Front on the Courland Peninsula and in southern Latvia. The enemy's 12th Army was borrowed from the Northern Front by the Northwestern Front.

The Northwestern Front of Lusa is responsible for the entire Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia region. The Northern Front, on the other hand, is responsible for the Lusa capital region surrounding St. Petersburg, but St. Petersburg itself is currently not under any threat.

Therefore, the Tsar granted special permission to temporarily transfer the 12th Army of the Northern Front to the command of the Northwestern Front. The Northern Front would retain only one army as its standing force, namely the 1st Russa Army, also known as the Guards Army. If St. Petersburg were threatened in the future and the 1st Guards Army was insufficient to defend the capital, the Commander-in-Chief of the Russa Army could at any time transfer the 12th Army back to the Northern Front.

Currently, the 5th Army of Lusa is deployed in Estonia, as well as in eastern Latvia and Lithuania, bordering Belarus. Therefore, we don't need to consider this army in this campaign; Marshal Hindenburg and Lieutenant General Rodendorff will handle it.

The 11th episode of Marshal Mackensen's series focuses on dealing with the enemy in episodes 2 and 12.

Of the enemy's two army groups, the 12th is mainly deployed on the Courland Peninsula and the port city of Riga. Therefore, our plan is for the navy to first use the advantage of its new minesweeping weapons to secretly clear a channel, then break into the Gulf of Riga, defeat the enemy's rescue fleet, and then forcibly cover a portion of our landing force to land behind the port of Riga.

While the landing was taking place, another part of the 11th Army that remained on land also advanced northward, joining the landing forces from the north and south to encircle and cut off the entire port of Riga, and incidentally also to cut off the entire Courland Peninsula west of Riga.

In fact, given Marshal Mackensen's combat prowess, even without organizing a landing, a direct assault on Riga could have been successful. However, Riga is located by the sea, making sea access very convenient. Meanwhile, the enemy had previously gained control of the sea, allowing them to continuously transport reinforcements and fresh troops into Riga, which made our assault very difficult.

The naval landing is secondary; the key is to cut off the enemy's maritime supply to Riga and also to cut off reinforcements entering Riga. Once this is achieved, the enemy's 12th Army can be completely annihilated!

After hearing the overview, Lelouch did not immediately offer his opinion. He knew that Mackensen and Scheer's basic ideas were correct; the key to the future lay in the execution and the advisors' attention to detail and their thorough consideration of all possible unforeseen circumstances.

Riga and the Courland Peninsula are indeed suitable for encirclement warfare. During the final stages of World War I, the German army attempted encirclement tactics in this area and eventually entered Riga. However, this wasn't a flanking maneuver; rather, it was a single-pronged advance from south to north.

Finally, they managed to push to the rear of Riga and cut off its retreat, but because of the slow movement, part of the 12th Army of the Russian Army withdrew in advance, and ultimately failed to annihilate it completely.

During World War II on Earth, although Operation Barbarossa did not achieve any major encirclement and annihilation battles in the early stages, the USSR later surrounded and ultimately destroyed the German Courland Army during its counter-offensive.

Clearly, this terrain is ideal for encirclement and siege warfare involving infiltration and cutting off enemy forces, and even for coordinated landings. Lelouch doesn't need to question the strategic planning and simulations done by his predecessors; they must have put in a lot of effort and done a very thorough job, so he can simply use them directly.

However, since Lelouch has come, and he is well-versed in war history, has thousands of hours of experience with Hearts of Iron, and has also read all the related historical materials, he can certainly learn from more successful experiences from later generations.

After thinking for a long time, he picked up a pointer and pointed to the two access routes to the Gulf of Riga on the map:
"As everyone probably knows, there are two shipping routes to and from the Gulf of Riga."

The Irbe Strait on the west side is 27 kilometers wide, with a central main channel that is 15 meters deep, allowing large warships of any draft to pass.

The Sihuma Strait to the north, located between Sihuma Island and Estonia, is less than 8 meters deep at its deepest point, making it inaccessible to battleships and battlecruisers.

Now, our army has just acquired the weapon to clear mines from the Irbe Strait on the south side, but the enemy is unaware of this.

So, shouldn't we take advantage of the information gap that 'our main warships can enter the Gulf of Riga, while the enemy doesn't know that our main warships can enter the Gulf of Riga' and lure them in?

In this way, when the enemy learns that our large ships can directly enter the Gulf of Riga from the Ilbe Strait, their suspicions and distrust will be much stronger, since they have truly suffered a great loss.

Lelouch's analysis was objective and did not criticize any of his predecessors' plans, which eased Lieutenant General Reinhard Scheer's resistance somewhat.

He carefully followed Lelouch's train of thought before cautiously asking, "How exactly do I seduce him?"

Lelouch: "For example, as we all know, the Empire's armored cruisers are designed for high sea state environments, and in order to adapt to the Kiel Canal's passage, they are not actually very particular about draft."

The Empire's most powerful armored cruisers were previously the Scharnhorst-class, but both were sunk in the Battle of Dunkirk earlier this year. The remaining York-class and Prince Albert-class, a total of four ships across two classes, are likely unable to pass through the Shioma Strait north of the Gulf of Riga to enter the Gulf.

The largest ships the Empire could sail through the Strait of Shioma were the Victoria-Louis-class armored cruisers, products of the last century, armed with only two 210mm main guns and nine 150mm secondary guns. These ships were no match for the Rurik-class and Bayan-class armored cruisers specifically designed for the Strait of Shioma by the Russabalo Fleet. As for the Empire's light cruisers, they were even less of a match for the enemy's Rurik-class cruisers.

If we send only a small number of older armored cruisers and some light cruisers to break into the Gulf of Riga from the Siuma Strait in the north, harass and disrupt enemy shipping lanes, and destroy some transport ships first, wouldn't that lure out the enemy's armored cruiser fleet from the Gulf of Finland to the Gulf of Riga to intercept our light warships?

Then, our main fleet will enter the Gulf of Riga from the Irbe Strait, trapping and annihilating the enemy's auxiliary fleet that has been lured in. Afterward, we'll find a way to engage their main fleet in a decisive battle. Although the enemy's dreadnoughts won't be damaged in this entrapment, crippling their cruiser fleet will be enough to weaken their overall combat power.

Lelouch's words were yet another typical example of a piecemeal tactic: "luring out a portion of the enemy's forces to roam freely, then striking them down with a single blow."

Before the official decisive battle, first take advantage of the situation to chop off a few of the enemy's fingers, and then have a fair and square final battle.

However, as soon as he finished speaking, no one, including Hipper, cheered. Instead, Reinhard Scheer looked at him with pity, as if sympathizing with his lack of common sense.

“That’s a good idea, but how can we get our cruiser fleet to enter the Gulf of Riga via the Strait of Hiuma in the north? Don’t you know that there are coastal defense batteries on Hiuma Island and on Saarema Island to its south?”
Both islands are equipped with 305mm coastal defense guns on their western side, facing the vast waters of the Baltic Sea, and 203mm and 152mm coastal defense guns on their eastern side, facing the Strait of Shiuma. Moreover, the narrowest part of the Strait of Shiuma is only 8 kilometers wide! That's only one-third the width of the Irbe Strait, the main shipping lane on the western side of the Gulf of Riga!

If our warships follow the centerline of the shipping lane, it means they'll be only 4 kilometers from the island's coast. Even if the enemy's shore artillery isn't directly alongside the shore, it'll be at most 5-6 kilometers from our shipping lane. Do you expect our cruisers to navigate through this narrow strait while facing shore artillery 5-6 kilometers away?

Lelouch: "We can change the landing plan. Instead of landing directly east of Riga, let's land on Shiuma Island! We'll use the marines to take care of the island's garrison. As far as I know, there shouldn't be many troops stationed on the island. The main force is the coastal artillerymen, and there aren't many infantry."

When Lelouch brought up the topic, Lieutenant General Scherrer was completely unable to respond, because it involved intelligence about the enemy army, which he knew nothing about.

He could only instinctively look blankly at Field Marshal Mackensen of the Army.

Field Marshal Mackensen was quite knowledgeable. Although he was old, he still remembered many enemy situations by heart. He immediately replied, "There are indeed not many enemy troops on Shiuma Island and Sarema Island."

Theoretically, there were several thousand infantrymen, but they were all second-line troops. The total strength was claimed to be 2, but the rest were militia, or rather, male fishermen from the two islands, who had all been given brief training by the Lusa military.

Lieutenant General Scheer didn't know how much combat power was needed to "annihilate several thousand enemy infantry and twenty thousand militia," so he didn't dare to easily reject the plan. In any case, the navy had already prepared transport ships and escort fleets for the landing operation. If Field Marshal Mackensen was willing to give the order to change the landing destination of the elite troops of the 11th Army who had already received amphibious warfare training, then the navy could still give it a try with them.

Fortunately, the terrain of the landing site on Hiuma Island is not much different from that of the landing site on the eastern coast of Riga Port.

Of course, the details need to be confirmed. A few days before the operation, the map of the target landing area should be distributed so that junior officers can study and familiarize themselves with it.

If the entire plan is slightly adjusted, at least a week of preparation time will definitely be needed, even if the preparation is very efficient—thankfully, the two landing sites are not far apart, both located along the coast of the Gulf of Riga.

If the distance is even slightly greater, adjusting the staff plan will require an extra half month or even a month of preparation time.

Field Marshal Mackensen thought about it carefully for a moment, then summoned several trusted staff officers from his 11th Army to discuss whether changing the landing site was a sure thing.

The staff officers obtained aerial photographs from the Navy showing detailed enemy deployments on the island.

The deployment of patrol forces on the island may change, but fixed facilities like shore artillery will not be moved, so the army and escort fleet mainly focus on the location of shore artillery.

After final deliberation, the staff officers of both the landing force and the escort transport force stated:
"A surprise landing on Shiuma Island is feasible, but it must be done at night, preferably far from the enemy's coastal artillery positions, and in a relatively undefended location."

It can be seen that the enemy only has concentrated coastal defense artillery at the narrowest point facing the strait, and there is no heavy artillery on the other sections of the western coastline.

However, this landing method has a major problem: it's impossible to capture and occupy enemy coastal defense batteries like in the Dunkirk airborne operation. Because the landing zone is far from the coastal defense batteries, the enemy forces there will have ample time to adjust their deployment.

In the worst-case scenario, they might try to turn their guns around and bombard us with shore-based artillery, but those casualties are manageable. Even if the landing forces reach the vicinity of the shore-based artillery, they will have ample time to destroy their own guns; capture is impossible.

Marshal Mackensen, upon hearing this, offered no comment, but instead stroked his beard and looked at Lelouch with amusement.

Lelouch, however, laughed heartily: "Isn't that perfect? ​​If our army can successfully capture their shore guns after a surprise landing on Shiuma Island... then the enemy's armored patrol fleet, fearing for their lives, will not dare to enter the Gulf of Riga along the Shiuma Strait."

"We need them to blow up their own coastal defenses before they'll believe there's no firepower on the strait that can threaten their fleet. Then our cruiser fleet will storm into the Gulf of Riga and sink all the transport ships and merchant vessels in Riga harbor before their cruiser fleet dares to enter the trap."

Lelouch was very confident in the plan because he knew that the Demacians had done the same thing in the Battle of Riga in 1917.

They not only successfully landed and seized the two small islands controlling the strait on the north side of the bay, but the battleships escorting the landing force also sank the last of the Lusa Borodino-class pre-dreadnoughts, the Slava, which came to support them.

(Note: "Slava" is a transliteration; some documents translate it as "Glory". There were a total of 5 Borodino-class ships. The other four were sunk in the Battle of Tsushima in 1904. The last surviving ship was sunk by German ships in 1917 off Shiuma Island, north of the Gulf of Riga.)
In his previous life, Lelouch also enjoyed playing online games like "Great Naval Battles" and "World of Warships," and he had glimpsed them once while looking at historical warship information in the games.

The Lusa people never imagined that these small islands would be targeted by the enemy and subjected to a landing operation, so the troops on the islands were extremely weak and easily defeated.

It appears to be 2 people, but in reality, it's just 2 fishermen who haven't even been fully armed. It's estimated that only three or four people were issued one gun, and the others could only follow behind with bullets, harpoons, and javelins, waiting for the militiamen in front to die before picking up their guns and fighting again.

Marshal Mackensen was somewhat swayed by how persuasive his explanation was.

In any case, landing in Riga was not his core objective. Marshal Mackensen's core objective was simply to ensure that the enemy could not continuously reinforce or aid Riga from the sea, and also to ensure that the enemy forces in Riga, once surrounded, could not retreat by sea.

Therefore, as long as we land on those two islands, control the strait on the north side, and let the Demania cruiser fleet in, we can cut off the enemy's 12th Army's sea supply and retreat routes.

The remaining task could be accomplished by the German 11th Army through a frontal ground offensive.

Mackensen completely disregarded the weak 12th Army of the Lussa.

On the Eastern Front in 1915, it was common for a single Demand army to chase and beat two opposing armies.

It takes at least one against three for the fight to become more difficult and for it to be a back-and-forth battle.

It is enough for the navy to handle the enemy's reinforcements and retreat routes.

"In that case, I think this new plan is worth considering, and I personally support it in principle," Marshal Mackensen said first.

“Since His Excellency the Marshal has agreed, I have no objection in principle.” Lieutenant General Reinhard Scheer had no choice but to go along with it and express his opinion first before going into the details. “But I think the revised landing plan and escort plan must be made more detailed.”

In addition, although no mines have been laid in the Strait of Hiuma, there may still be mines in the wide waters outside the Strait of Hiuma. Our reconnaissance and minesweeping fleet will go further north in the next few days to reconnoiter the new target waters.

Meanwhile, the combat troops took advantage of this time to refine their plans.

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P.S.: Sorry for changing the map so drastically; it seems like many people aren't very familiar with the campaign's background. Another 12,000 words today.

Many people were probably a bit confused by the previous chapter, as there were no comments. So I'll just have to slowly unfold the protagonist's strategies and tactics.

Some of the strategies may require more explanation and background information, so please bear with me.

Because many people are not familiar with World War I, the strategic background cannot be glossed over like it was with World War II, otherwise many people will not understand it.

The previous chapter included a map of the shipping lanes near the Gulf of Riga, along with my annotations. Readers who didn't understand it should pay close attention to that map.

(End of this chapter)