Starting with the smashing of Dunkirk

Chapter 161 I was clearly chasing a light cruiser, how did it turn into a battleship?

September 4, 1915, 3 p.m.

In the temporary naval command post in the port of Memel, Lelouch was helping Vice Admiral Hipper and Vice Admiral Scheer to sort out the list of ships to be deployed that night and the details of their deployment.

In a sea area south of the Gulf of Riga, a fierce battle has broken out between the cruiser fleets of the two countries.

No matter how ingenious the scheme, or how insidious the deception, to be implemented, it ultimately requires a real, bloody battle to succeed.

Just like even if Lelouch had the wisdom of Zhuge Liang, he would still need a vanguard like Zhao Yun, who was both highly skilled in martial arts and bold and meticulous, to help him feign defeat and lure the enemy.

If the vanguard responsible for luring the enemy is not skilled in martial arts or lacks courage, the bait may be eaten by the enemy before the plan is fully executed, and then the enemy may escape unscathed.

At this very moment, the German general playing the role of "feigning defeat to lure the enemy" was none other than Rear Admiral Friedrich Berdek, the commander of this light cruiser squadron.

This Friedrich Berdik had always been a key aide to Vice Admiral Hipper, originally responsible for commanding the light cruiser and smaller reconnaissance squadrons of Hipper's fleet, providing escort for the main force.

In Earth's history, this man also led the "Moonlight Landing" in 1917, helping amphibious landing forces capture Shiuma and Saarema islands.

Now, by sheer coincidence and due to Lelouch's butterfly effect, these island-seizing operations have been brought forward by two years, and the naval commander in charge of escorting and subsequent harassment is still Friedrich Berdik.

As the enemy armored cruiser group drew ever closer through his binoculars, Rear Admiral Berdick knew he was no match for them.

Their mission was simply to buy time, to delay until dawn the next day, so that their battleships could pass through the Irbe Strait, which had been quietly cleared of mines, and secretly enter the Gulf of Riga.

By the time the enemy realizes something is wrong when it gets light tomorrow, it will be too late.

Therefore, we absolutely cannot linger in the fight now; the primary objective is to stall for time and play hide-and-seek.

"The enemy has split into two groups to pursue us. One group has calculated the lead time and is anticipating that our fleet is heading west, so they have gone ahead to block us from the west. The other group is perpendicular to our current course and is heading straight from north to south to cut us in half."

Rear Admiral Berdick looked at the nautical chart, combined with what he had just seen through his binoculars and the previous aerial reconnaissance intelligence, and quickly deduced the enemy's intentions.

The enemy came from the north. For the first two hours of this afternoon, Major General Berdick chose to flee south in order to buy as much time as possible and create distance.

However, the Gulf of Riga has a total depth of less than 200 kilometers. It can't retreat much further south before it reaches its end, and further south it would be within range of enemy land artillery on the southern shore.

So in the end, they still had to flee east or west.

Berdick had previously feigned a westward escape, but this was detected by enemy aerial surveillance. As a result, the enemy split into two groups, one of which had already advanced diagonally westward ahead of him. (See image below)
Now, Berdick must make a decision: whether to continue charging westward or turn back.

"Commander! Let's turn back! Now that we know there's another enemy force intercepting us from the west!" His adjutants and staff officers urged him.

But Berdick's face was ashen and resolute; he did not make a hasty decision.

"No rush! Pretend we don't know there's someone blocking our way ahead, and then we'll play around with that enemy fleet to the north, drawing them closer to us and making them more closely aligned with their allies, so we can suddenly turn around!"

Otherwise, the enemy force to our north could simply turn slightly east and still cut in from the left, blocking our left front. They would catch up in one or two such attempts.

Berdick's instructions were not to be questioned, so his subordinates did not say anything more and carried them out meticulously.

The Demacian military tradition of unconditional obedience to orders played a crucial role in this dangerous moment.

Half an hour later, the two sides drew closer and closer, and on the western horizon, Lieutenant General Basilov's other "iron pincer" of "pincer encirclement" was finally revealed.

Two Rurik-class armored cruisers and several light warships were blocking Rear Admiral Berdick's path.

Berdick immediately gave the order: "Hard to starboard! All warships turn 180 degrees to starboard and then turn to 85!"

This order was only given to Berdik's flagship, the light cruiser HMS Regensburg; the other ships had to follow the signals from the Regensburg and execute them in turn.

Several officers in the command cabin of the "Regensburg" had heard the order, and although they relayed and carried it out, they still had doubts and couldn't help but ask Rear Admiral Berdick:
"General! The enemy is directly in front of us and on our starboard side. Why don't we turn 180 degrees to port? If we turn to starboard, won't we get closer and closer to the enemy ship during the turn?"

Berdick: "That's exactly the effect I want—when each ship is closest to the enemy ship, launch the torpedoes on the port side of each cruiser in the slowest, longest-range mode. The torpedo boat force should not make any rash moves and should preserve the torpedoes for later use!"

The officers then realized that, after a moment's thought, many of them admitted that although the tactic was risky, it could indeed catch the enemy off guard.

Even if the torpedoes don't actually achieve any real success, they will definitely scare the enemy and greatly reduce their pursuit efficiency.

……

"The enemy has turned back? Has they finally discovered our intercepting forces lying in ambush to the west? Too bad, it's too late! They can't escape! Heading 115, block their route to break through to the north!"

On the armored cruiser "Rurik", Lieutenant General Basilev, the commander of Lusa's side, realized that the enemy had discovered an ambush when he saw Rear Admiral Berdik turn around.

But Basilov wasn't worried at all. By the time he discovered the ambush, it was too late!
His fleet immediately changed course, with the western flank, which had been blocking the enemy's advance, now pursuing them from behind. Meanwhile, the northern flank, which had been blocking the enemy's path, now moved alongside them, blocking their escape route to the north.

Everything was as orderly and wonderful as Lieutenant General Lev Brazil had imagined. But this wonderful feeling only lasted for 15 minutes.

Fifteen minutes later, a panicked cry came from a Rosa destroyer that was scouting for the Rurik: "Torpedo! Enemy torpedo spotted on starboard!"

"Torpedoes? Damn it! How could the enemy possibly attack us with torpedoes from that distance!"

In an attempt to evade torpedoes, Vice Admiral Basilev's interceptor fleet quickly broke formation. Each ship was forced to choose its own maneuvering method based on the actual situation.

Most warships chose to turn north, wanting to face the enemy from the rear, to ensure they were as far away from torpedoes as possible, and to ensure that the size of their ship's projected area was as narrow as possible.

This frantic, emergency evasive maneuver wasted nearly half an hour of Lieutenant General Basilev's time. Finally, he discovered it was all a false alarm, and he had managed to evade all the torpedoes.

"How can the enemy's torpedoes travel so slowly yet have such a long range? They must have set up a special low-speed mode to save fuel!"

After reorganizing the formation, Lieutenant General Basilov finally understood the problem in a fit of anger and embarrassment.

The low-speed, long-range torpedoes of Demand ships are nothing new in the North Sea; the Britannian Navy has seen them several times already, and they're incredibly annoying.

Although this torpedo travels slowly, at only 20-something knots, which is not much faster than the speed of a warship, it is difficult to hit an enemy ship in good visibility conditions.

However, it is surprisingly effective at harassing and forcing the enemy to reposition, causing them to lose their composure.

In this era, torpedoes were clearly in a relatively useless position. With the improvement of the accuracy and effective range of naval guns, most battles ended before the torpedoes could even be launched.

The Demacians' tactic of maximizing range by any means necessary has inexplicably squeezed out the remaining potential of torpedoes that were previously sidelined.

Lieutenant General Lev Basil had previously learned of the existence of this torpedo from intelligence provided by allies, but he had never actually seen the enemy use it in naval battles.

It was our first time meeting, so I was inevitably a bit flustered.

Theory and practice are ultimately different.

After all this turmoil, catching up with Major General Berdik again would be relatively difficult. After reassessing the situation, Lieutenant General Basilev gritted his teeth and made another decision:
"Order all Novik-class destroyers to break formation and advance at full speed, preparing to intercept the enemy cruiser fleet from directly ahead! All cruisers, maintain your original course and speed!"

He knew that cruisers lacked a speed advantage and could only close the distance gradually by slightly cutting diagonally and inward. Only high-speed destroyers could directly intercept the enemy head-on.

But this order was certainly risky. Destroyers were fast, but whether they could stop enemy cruisers was another matter entirely.

Those RUSSA destroyers were quite decisive; upon receiving orders from the fleet commander, they immediately accelerated to full speed and began overtaking and intercepting.

……

"The enemy was delayed by us and knows it will take a lot of time to catch up, so they sent the destroyers to accelerate alone, wanting to intercept head-on? Go for it! Maintain a 30-degree relative heading to engage the enemy outside the maximum range of their torpedoes! All ships, ensure that all guns are at firing angles!"

After observing the enemy's movements, Major General Berdik also deduced Lieutenant General Basilev's intentions.

This battle was unavoidable. The enemy was forced to send out a destroyer group alone, leaving us with no choice but to fight back and defeat the enemy destroyers. Even if the enemy's armored cruisers closed the distance again, there was nothing we could do.

When the two sides engaged in battle, it was already close to 3 p.m. He had used torpedoes to delay them once, and now it was almost 4 p.m. He was betting that if he could destroy the enemy destroyer fleet before dark, then even if they were caught up, he would still have a chance to escape in the night battle.

Rear Admiral Berdick's Bremen-class light cruisers were the first to adjust their course and sail at full speed at the forefront of the fleet. After closing in on the Lusa destroyer to within 6 kilometers, the Demania light cruisers opened fire with all their might.

The Bremen-class light cruisers were first built in 1903. Although they were called light cruisers, they only met the standards for light cruisers in terms of speed. Their firepower was somewhat inadequate, as their main guns were only 105 mm in caliber, which was similar to the main guns of later destroyers. Some later destroyers could use 127 mm guns, which were an inch larger than Bremen-class light cruisers.

However, the Bremen-class was good because it had a considerable number of main gun barrels, a total of 10: one twin-mounted main gun turret aft and fore and aft, and three single-mounted guns on each side, mounted in the gun gallery deck. Therefore, a single side could have 7 guns firing simultaneously (4 aft and fore, plus 3 on the sides).

Such firepower density is quite good for destroyers hunting Lusa. Anyway, with the destroyer's armor, it would be severely damaged by a 105mm shot, so there's no need to go for 150mm.

The 105mm shells rained down on the Lusa destroyer in droves, and the Lusa crew quickly realized that the Demanian army's light cruisers, equipped with "a large number of small and medium caliber guns," were a perfect countermeasure.

Before they even entered torpedo firing range, several Royal Navy destroyers were severely damaged and twisted, scattered and broken. Two of them were seriously flooded and had difficulty sailing, while two others had their core compartments penetrated, their propulsion systems damaged, and their speeds dropped sharply.

During this time, the Rosa destroyer also launched a counterattack against the Demanian light cruiser with its guns, but the Bremen-class's armor belt, which was about 80 mm thick at its thickest point, could greatly reduce the damage from the destroyer's small guns; only minor hits would result in penetration.

Don't be surprised by the Demacians' bizarre early shipbuilding ideas, such as putting armor on light cruisers. That's how the Demacian Navy haphazardly experimented back then.

Despite having the tonnage, they didn't equip light cruisers with 150mm guns, sticking with 105mm guns instead. The saved tonnage was used for armored destroyer guns, resulting in some hybrids that didn't quite fit the bill.

However, it must be said that this hybrid weapon is indeed effective in countering enemy destroyers and engaging them in gun battles. The only drawback is that this armor-reinforced tactic is only useful in gun battles with destroyers; if faced with torpedo attacks, the armor becomes completely useless.

The application scenarios are really limited.

The Demanian fleet gained a huge advantage in the artillery battle phase and ultimately destroyed four Lusa destroyers. However, as the Lusa destroyers withstood huge losses and finally rushed into torpedo attack range with their numerical advantage, the situation immediately reversed!
"Turn! Prepare to launch torpedoes!" The remaining Lusa destroyers, seeing that their moment of triumph had finally arrived, began to adjust their course, facing the enemy with their broadsides, and then launched torpedoes into the sea with a "plop plop plop".

Rear Admiral Berdik, seeing the enemy destroyer group's movements in the distance from the bridge of the "Regensburg," immediately deduced that they must be launching torpedoes.

He gritted his teeth and immediately ordered: "All warships, form a single column, heading 335, and proceed! Each ship may open fire freely on its port and starboard sides!"

Upon receiving the order via flashing lights, the ship captains were all greatly surprised, but the strict discipline and efficient execution of the Demacian army ensured that they immediately carried out the order.

Heading at 335, this is almost perpendicular to the direction in which the enemy destroyer group just launched a barrage of torpedoes! They're trying to let all the enemy torpedoes come from the bow and see if they can dodge them.

If they dodge it, the warships in front can provide a warning to the warships behind. If they don't dodge it... then it's practically like using the lead warship to clear all the mines! That's too dangerous!

But at this moment, it is the best option for the fleet to escape.

Rear Admiral Berdick did not issue the order arbitrarily, but made the decision after observing the enemy ship's torpedo launching actions.

There are several ways to launch torpedoes. One method is for a large number of destroyers/torpedo boats to enter the torpedo range almost simultaneously and then concentrate their fire on the same target in a fan-shaped pattern.

Faced with this tactic of firing from multiple points towards a single point, a head-on confrontation is absolutely futile. The only option is to turn around and distance yourself, trying to get as far away as possible to evade the attack.

Another method of torpedo launching involves warships that are difficult to approach. Therefore, each warship fires from approximately its maximum effective range at the enemy ship, immediately pulling away before the next warship moves to that position and fires. This is somewhat similar to the "half-circle tactic" used by ancient dragoons, where each dragoon would charge to the apex of the half-circle arc, fire, and then retreat. (See diagram below)
In today's battle, the Rosa destroyer could not execute the first torpedo attack tactic because the enemy's naval gunfire was too intense and the cost of continuing to advance would be too high. It could only choose the second tactic.

The choice itself is not actually problematic.

Because when they had just chosen the second launch tactic, both sides were still moving at an angle of about 30 degrees to each other and relatively parallel. After each destroyer launched torpedoes near the apex of the semi-circular arc, it quickly pulled away. The torpedoes radiating in a fan shape could still cover the tracks of multiple enemy ships.

It was only after seeing the enemy ships launch torpedoes that Rear Admiral Berdick made a last-minute, decisive change to the formation.

This is something the Lusa destroyer could not have predicted before launching the torpedoes.

All I can say is that Major General Berdik was too decisive.

The distance between the two sides was rapidly closing, and the Demacian light cruiser group turned their main guns at port, the direction from which the Lusa destroyer was attacking, and continued to fire.

However, as the two sides drew closer, the Rosa destroyers, which had already launched their torpedoes and were attempting to retreat, gradually crossed the centerline of the Demania cruisers' column and began to appear on the starboard side of the Demania cruisers. The three 105mm guns on the starboard side of the Demania light cruisers, which had previously had no opportunity to fire, now had a chance to be used.

The war has progressed to a point where it is very close to the classical tactics of half a century ago, similar to the situation during the Battle of Lissa.

One side charges headlong, like a sharp knife, piercing into the middle of the enemy's formation. They must withstand the disadvantage of the enemy gaining a T-shaped advantage.

If today's battle had been a fair exchange between cruisers, Berdick would have been committing suicide by fighting like this.

Fortunately, this battle is currently a cruiser group charging into a destroyer group. The Lusa destroyer's gunnery is very weak, so even if it is occupied at the head of the T-shaped formation and is subjected to concentrated gunfire, it doesn't matter.

The lead cruiser, the Bremen, was quickly hit by seven or eight shells from the Rosa destroyer, but it also returned fire, hitting the enemy with four shots.

Then, a large swarm of torpedoes finally arrived.

Because the Demacian battleships chose to break through in a single column, most of the torpedoes fired by the Lussa from the same point in a fan-shaped pattern failed to cover the Demacian cruisers' tracks and were simply wasted.

However, the torpedoes located in the very center of the fan can still be covered, and the difficulty of dodging them is greatly increased.

When the lead ship, the Bremen, spotted the torpedo, it was almost head-on with the enemy's torpedo.

The captain of the Bremen instinctively ordered a hard port turn to avoid the danger, but it was too late.

With two loud booms, the two torpedoes that were originally heading straight for the bow were instead redirected by an emergency hard turn to port, causing the ship to turn to left and expose its starboard side. As a result, the warship's projected distance on the torpedoes' tracks actually increased, and both torpedoes exploded on the starboard side.

"Captain, we've been hit by torpedoes! Two! The starboard side is taking on massive flooding, the ship is going out of control!"

The Bremen suffered severe damage, with a massive explosion occurring on the starboard side amidships, affecting the bridge and conning tower.

Captain Johannes Valentine of the Bremen had both his legs blown off. The surviving helmsman, his face covered in blood, rushed over to ask him for instructions on how to salvage the situation, as damage control seemed beyond saving.

(Note: Historically, the Bremen was sunk by torpedoes from the Russa in late 1917, after the landing operation on Shiuma Island. The captain also lost both legs in the attack.)

Lieutenant Colonel Johannes Valentine, fueled by a surge of adrenaline, gritted his teeth and gave the final order: "Don't stop! Keep it firmly to port!"

"What? We've been hit by a torpedo! Continuing to turn hard to port will only make the warship's projection on the enemy's torpedo track even longer!" The helmsman was still a little confused.

"That's exactly what I mean! Execute it immediately!"

The helmsman didn't think; the Demacians' mechanical obedience to orders led him to execute without considering management or understanding.

Driven by inertia, the Bremen continued to drift to the left, eventually turning almost sideways.

"Boom boom boom boom boom boom!" The ship, which was over 100 meters long, lay directly across the torpedo fan. All six of the Lusa people's torpedoes hit the starboard side. Finally, the starboard torpedoes hit eight torpedoes, and all the compartments on the starboard side were blown up and flooded.

However, since the Bremen was positioned horizontally in the torpedo trajectory, while the subsequent five light cruisers were positioned bow-to-bow in the same trajectory, the other five ships could certainly evade all the torpedoes by taking cover behind the Bremen.

On the second-ranking cruiser, the Regensburg, Rear Admiral Berdik, the squadron commander, was also taken aback by the unexpected turn of events ahead.

"Commander, should we turn around and go around the Bremen? The Bremen has suddenly swerved sideways; if we don't turn, we might collide with it!"

The helmsman on the Regensburg also urgently requested instructions from the commander.

"Don't turn! What you need to do now is slow down immediately! Dead-Slow!"

When the accident occurred on the lead ship, Rear Admiral Berdick did not choose to steer around the accident site, but instead applied the emergency brakes.

The Regensburg and the four cruisers that followed also began to "brake" and slow down.

Rear Admiral Berdick's judgment was correct. If they turned around to bypass the accident site, there might be other torpedoes coming from the other side. Going around would be suicide!
However, being directly behind the Bremen, all incoming mines were blocked by the Bremen, making it impossible for any more mines to come.

Let's wait until this wave of torpedoes has completely passed before we talk about it.

Moreover, Major General Berdick astutely judged that perhaps he would eventually not need to turn, but only slow down.

A few minutes later, his judgment was proven correct, because just as the Regensburg was slowly drifting to the spot where the Bremen had just been, the Bremen had already sunk.

If a light cruiser is hit by eight torpedoes on one side, it definitely won't last more than three minutes.

The Regensburg and other ships resumed their speed and rushed past the spot where the Bremen had just sunk, passing right over the wreckage of the Bremen.

As they passed the location of the sinking, the ships dropped lifebuoys with ropes attached, so that the crew members who happened to be near the track could grab the lifebuoys and climb back up.

The fleet didn't have time to stop specifically to rescue people, so they could only do this rescue along the way, because the Lusa armored cruiser was still chasing them.

Major General Berdik chose this risky tactic precisely to buy time for a breakout.

Ultimately, of the 240 crew members on board the Bremen, only 32 were recovered; the remaining 208 were confirmed to have either been killed in the explosion or drowned while trapped in the cabins.

"Avenge our brothers on the Bremen! Fire!"

Having broken through the torpedo barrage, the Demanian light cruiser fleet faced the Rosa destroyers, who had already exhausted their torpedoes, with complete impunity. Moreover, as they broke through the torpedo barrage, the distance between the two sides had closed to within 3 kilometers.

At this distance, neither side needs to aim, and both can penetrate the other's armor.

However, the Demacians' firepower density was obviously much higher. At this distance, there were enemy ships on both sides of the German ships, and all 10 105mm guns on each ship could be used to their full potential. It had been many years since they had encountered such a situation.

The Lusa destroyers, however, generally only had two main guns that could threaten the German ships, resulting in a firepower density difference of at least five times per ship.

"Boom boom boom!" One 105mm and 150mm shell after another slammed into the Lusa destroyer, quickly blasting several of the closest destroyers to pieces.

(Note: The Bremen-class light cruisers only had 105 guns, but Rear Admiral Berdick's flagship was the Wiesbaden-class, which had eight 150 guns. That was a class of cruisers that had just been built in 1915.)
The Russa's Novik-class destroyers, the Zabiaka and the Winner, happened to be on the same course as the German ships' breakout attempt. Within minutes, they were bombarded and sunk by the ship's guns, likely due to the continuous shelling detonating the ship's ammunition magazine.

The other Lusa destroyers, which were a little further away, were spared from being directly blown up, but most of them were severely damaged and lost speed while trying to escape.

Major General Berdik fought his way through the enemy lines at full speed.

Taking advantage of the fierce battle between the Lusa destroyer and the German light cruiser, the main Lusa force, under the command of Vice Admiral Basilev, took the opportunity to close the distance. The 203mm main guns on the Lusa cruisers began to unleash their maximum firepower on the German ships.

Rear Admiral Berdick, not wanting to get entangled with the enemy, took the opportunity to make a slight turn, exposing the other side of the hull to the enemy, and then launched all the torpedoes in slow mode.

Lieutenant General Brazil was enraged and lost his composure, thinking the other side was just bluffing, and ordered the fleet to continue the pursuit.

As a result, the third ship of the "Bayan-class" armored cruisers, the "Rusa," a warship with the same name as the country of Rusa, was hit by a torpedo in the bow due to its reckless pursuit and it was too late to avoid it when it spotted the torpedo.

Fortunately, the torpedo hit the bow, so only a few compartments were flooded, and the core area was not affected. A 1-ton patrol ship wouldn't be sunk by just one torpedo. After the bow was blown apart and the bow became submerged, the ship's speed would inevitably drop sharply. The "Lusa" dropped from 21 knots to 13 knots, and it immediately fell behind and withdrew from the pursuit.

After that, Rear Admiral Berdik relied on his high speed and the occasional feint of throwing torpedoes to bluff the enemy, successfully escaping Lieutenant General Basilev's pursuit until it was completely dark.

Vice Admiral Brazil was already terrified by his "boy who cried wolf" act. He didn't know if Berdik's large torpedo boats had actually launched all their torpedoes, nor did he know if the German light cruisers had run out of torpedoes.

Just like in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, when Cao Cao faced Zhuge Liang beating the drum in the middle of the night during the Battle of Hanzhong, even though he knew that the enemy was almost unlikely to launch a night attack, he dared not gamble that the other side might suddenly mix the truth into the nine falsehoods.

Ultimately, the majority of the night was spent being stalled by Major General Berdick's skillful maneuvering and maneuvering.

……

When the first rays of dawn pierced the horizon from the east, Lieutenant General Basilov was already somewhat drowsy and bewildered.

He chased Major General Berdik all night, and finally almost caught up with him from the southernmost point of the Gulf of Riga back to its northern entrance.

In fact, saying that they "chased" them to the northern entrance of the Gulf of Riga is not entirely accurate.

In the last few hours of the night, he had lost track of the enemy and was unsure where they had fled to.

Therefore, Lieutenant General Lev Basil decided to adopt a wait-and-see approach. Since they had already turned north and were not far from the exit of the Shioma Strait at the northern entrance of the Gulf of Riga, they might as well head straight for it and block the southern exit of the strait.

Basilev was terrified that the enemy would escape through the route he had come from, which would be a huge embarrassment.

He rushed to the southern entrance of the Strait of Shiuma, hoping to see if the enemy was really fleeing in that direction after daybreak. If he could block them, that would be best. If not, he could wait until daybreak when visibility was better to conduct aerial reconnaissance to find out the enemy's location before giving chase.

This time, we'll have a whole day dedicated to the hunt! I refuse to believe we can't catch them!

As the sun slowly rose, the view over the sea gradually became clearer, and Lieutenant General Basilev could indeed see several hazy ship silhouettes at the exit of the Shiuma Strait to the north.

"Great! The enemy was indeed trying to outmaneuver us and then slip away the way they came! How can we let them succeed! Charge in and wipe them out!"

At Lieutenant General Basilev's command, the Lusa Fleet charged toward the enemy with overwhelming momentum.

But as the distance between the two sides shortened to less than 15 kilometers, it gradually became 13 kilometers, 12 kilometers... and the sun gradually rose higher and higher, and the view became clearer and clearer.

Suddenly, Lieutenant General Brazil's pupils dilated and contracted violently a few times.

"Damn it! Why are they Heligoland-class battleships?! I was clearly chasing a few Demanyan Wiesbaden-class light cruisers!"

When four Rusa 203mm armored cruisers, believing they were chasing German light cruisers with only 150mm and 105mm guns...
When dawn broke, I saw that the enemy light cruisers in front of me had turned into two battleships. I was absolutely horrified.

"Boom boom boom!" The Demacians, seeing through the rising sun, realized that the approaching ship was the Lusa armored cruiser, not their own. So, the 16 305mm 50-caliber battleship main guns immediately fired.

The massive jet of water landed hundreds of meters away from Lieutenant General Basilev. Although the water didn't splash on him, it felt as if a thousand alpacas were stampeding through his mind.

This is absolutely infuriating!

(End of this chapter)