The Twilight of Empire: Starting from Dunkirk

Chapter 156 Times Have Changed

July 15, 1940, 23:00, Hampshire, off the coast of Portsmouth, The Solent.

This is typical of rough sea conditions in the Atlantic Ocean.

The daytime clouds transformed into a thick, impenetrable fog at night. This fog was not a light veil, but rather like a cotton blanket soaked in ice water, pressing down heavily on the sea. Visibility was cruelly compressed to a pitiful 1500 yards (about 1.3 kilometers).

There was no moon in the sky, and even starlight could not penetrate this thick, leaden-gray curtain.

The sea was pitch black, and apart from the dull thud of the ships cutting through the waves, the surroundings were eerily silent. In this weather, even the hungriest seagulls of Portsmouth wouldn't leave their nests.

In this darkness, a steel behemoth is sailing through the thick fog at a speed of 15 knots.

That was the pride of the Royal Navy's Home Fleet—the battleship HMS Rodney.

This treaty-era monster, with a full-load displacement of nearly 40,000 tons and three triple 16-inch guns mounted in an unprecedented triangular layout, now resembles a blind beast with its eyes covered.

It sails on the waters off its home port, which it knows best, yet every step it takes is fraught with danger.

Admiral Tovey and Field Marshal Pound stood side by side on the towering, open bridge of the HMS Rodney. The July sea breeze, carrying icy salt foam, brushed against the cheeks of the two naval commanders. But they paid no heed to the cold, their eyes fixed on the endless darkness ahead.

Surrounding them were the warship's best-eyed and most experienced lookouts.

These sailors, who had undergone rigorous selection and consumed large amounts of carotene daily to maintain their night vision, now had bloodshot eyes and tears streaming from the corners of their eyes from being exposed to the wind for so long.

But it had no effect.

The limits of optical observation were further compressed in the dense fog. They could see nothing at all; even if a 10,000-ton cruiser were crossing the course two thousand yards away, they could only vaguely make out its blurry silhouette when they were about to collide with it.

Tovey was extremely uneasy about this "blind men and the elephant" voyage, and he gripped the brass railings of the bridge tightly.

"This is utter nonsense," Tovey complained to Pound in a low voice. "In this weather, without any escort destroyers, a battleship carrying over a thousand men is just wandering aimlessly in the strait. If even one German S-boat is patrolling nearby, we won't even know how we died."

Marshal Pound did not speak; he simply took a deep breath of the cold air and then shone his light onto the foremast above the bridge.

Tovey followed Pound's gaze, his expression of disgust deepening.

At the top of the forward gun breech of the USS Rodney, where the general's flag should have been hung, is now occupied by an extremely ugly rectangular metal mesh frame.

Pound and Tovey certainly recognized it as a "Radio Direction Finder" (RDF, an early term for radar), which the Admiralty was pushing to equip.

However, compared to the earlier models developed by the Admiralty, this heavily modified version that Sterling forced upon the company appeared much bulkier. The densely packed mesh frame looked like a rusty spring mattress, and at this moment, accompanied by the faint hum of the base motor, it was slowly and incongruously rotating in the cold wind.

"So that's the eye Arthur so confidently promised could be used to guide the main guns?" Admiral Tovey's voice was filled with the resistance of a traditional fleet commander. "I know the RDF can give early warning of bombers, but that only tells them the general direction. To expect this crude thing that can't even measure the azimuth accurately to provide firing data for the 16-inch main guns? That's a desecration of naval fire control and ballistics."

Tovey complained, "It not only ruins the battleship's concealed silhouette, but also adds several tons of dead weight to the top of the mast, severely affecting the warship's resilience in rough seas. Marshal, I trust the Sterling family's armor steel and armor-piercing shells, because they are solid steel."

"But I don't really believe that these vacuum glass tubes, which are prone to burning out due to vibration, and those few rough copper wires are more reliable than my battle-hardened fire control officers and the nine-meter-long baseline optical rangefinder."

"The British Navy will indeed be limited in the fog, but we must never hand over the right to fire our 40,000-ton battleships to these fragile electronic toys."

"General, the naked eye and optical lenses have physical limitations, but electromagnetic waves do not."

Arthur's voice suddenly came from the internal communicator in the corner of the bridge. It was the latest high-fidelity explosion-proof intercom system developed by the Sterling family's electronics company.

Arthur did not freeze with them on the open bridge.

"Standing on the bridge in the cold wind will only make you catch a cold and cause retinal congestion; it won't really help with beyond-visual-range target acquisition," Arthur's voice came through the loudspeaker, even tinged with provocation. "Forget your obsession with optical instruments, and move to the depths of the warship's armored box—the Combat Information Center (CIC)."

(Information Center). That's the true brain of this battleship.

Tovey and Pound exchanged a glance, their brows furrowing simultaneously.

In the early stages of World War II, the "war information center" was an extremely advanced concept that even completely overturned the traditional naval command doctrines.

For centuries, supreme command and all information about a warship were concentrated on the open bridge or the heavily armored conning tower. The captain had to stand at the highest point, observe the enemy situation with the naked eye and through binoculars, and then issue orders to the engine room and turrets through a megaphone.

But Arthur did the opposite.

With a mixture of suspicion and subtle repulsion, the two supreme commanders followed the sailors leading the way, descending the narrow, steep steel gangway, layer by layer, into the heart of the battleship.

As he walked down the gangway, Admiral Tovey looked at the thick, black coaxial cables on both sides of the passageway, which were clearly newly laid and tightly wrapped with insulating rubber, and his doubts deepened.

It is simply impossible to empty two storage rooms inside the armored dome of a 40,000-ton battleship and complete such a massive and complex wiring and cabinet installation in just fourteen hours.

How did Arthur do it?

The answer is simple: he didn't just start modifying the Rodney today.

Not long ago, when HMS Rodney, as the flagship, brought Arthur and his army back to the British Isles from the burning ruins of France, the Sterling family heir had already "made a call" to the Admiralty leadership, requesting that the interior space of the 40,000-ton battleship be requisitioned during the ship's rest period to test his concept of a "future naval warfare command system".

So, during the ten-odd days that the USS Rodney was in port replenishing ammunition and fresh water, Arthur directly stuffed hundreds of Sterling Shipyard’s top electrical engineers and skilled welders into the ship’s hull.

They received three times the wartime allowance and worked an extremely insane 24-hour shift system.

The heavy display cabinet had long been firmly fixed to the earthquake-resistant base below the waterline with high-strength bolts. Hundreds of meters of coaxial cable had also been laid along the ventilation duct. The base of the radar antenna had long been welded to the front mast, just waiting to be covered with that ugly metal mesh.

This is also a helpless move by the British Admiralty in terms of strategic deployment—why did they do this in that extremely dangerous situation not long ago?

In Operation Catapult, intended to deter the French, Marshal Pound had no choice but to reluctantly send the relatively lightly armored battlecruiser HMS Hood to the Mediterranean to provide cover, instead of deploying the more formidable HMS Rodney, which boasted nine 16-inch guns.

Because at that critical juncture, the absolute core of this home fleet was sitting in its berth at the shipyard, being "gutted open" by hundreds of electrical engineers, undergoing this top-secret electronic overhaul.

It is simply unable to leave port.

All of this happened a full week before Tovey took office. The fleet commander, who had just been transferred back from the Mediterranean, was still in his office in Whitehall, London, taking the oath of office as commander of the Home Fleet in front of a portrait of the King and a heavy Bible.

It wasn't until this morning that he finally arrived in Portsmouth and stepped onto the deck of his own flagship.

Therefore, when he saw the ship covered with newly laid black coaxial cables, the empty ammunition compartments, and the extremely ugly metal mesh frame at the top of the mast, this traditional commander felt so bewildered and subtly angry.

Because he suddenly discovered that the warship that originally belonged to him had been taken by Arthur before he even had a chance to command it.

But that's the Sterling family's execution and capability. If Arthur wanted, the British Empire's proudest battleship could be turned into his private weapons testing ground at any time.

He planted the seed a month ago.

And now, that seed has sprouted. Arthur intends to use this complex electronic cabinet called the "War Situation Center" to forcibly pull those traditional fleet commanders down from their high-up, open-air bridges, stuff them into an iron canister where they can't see the sea or hear the sound of gunfire, and use screens and coordinates to command a war that concerns the fate of the empire.

Pushing open the heavy, watertight door, a complex mixture of smells wafted out.

The war room was cramped and stuffy. There was no sea breeze, and the air was filled with the acrid smell of vacuum tubes after long hours of use. Tovey's first impression of the place was how stuffy it was.

The lighting inside the cabin was strictly controlled. Apart from a few tactical anti-aircraft lights emitting a dark red glow, there was no white light illumination. This was to protect the operator's night vision and avoid screen glare.

In the dim red light, a dozen Sterling Electronics technicians, dressed in anti-static work clothes, sat intently at their respective control consoles.

The visual center of the entire cabin is a circular cathode ray tube display (PPI) about 30 centimeters in diameter, embedded in the center of a huge metal cabinet.

It was emitting a ghostly green glow.

A bright green scanning line, like the second hand, sweeps 360 degrees clockwise across the circular screen at a fixed frequency.

Arthur took off his suit jacket, leaving him in only a crisp white shirt and a slightly loosened tie. He stood before the machine, the green fluorescent light reflecting off his angular face. Against the red background light, he looked like a deity performing some kind of dark magic ritual, or rather, a charlatan.

"Welcome to the nerve center of modern warfare, Marshal." Arthur turned around, bowed slightly, and pointed his cane at the machine. "Type 284 fire control radar, a heavily modified Sterling Heavy Industries version."

Marshal Pound took a step closer and looked at the constantly rotating green screen.

Historically, Britain did develop radar very early on, but early radar had wavelengths of several meters (meter-wave radar). Moreover, that kind of radar was extremely crude; it could only display a blurry peak on the screen, telling you "there may be something tens of kilometers ahead," but it could not tell you the exact location of that thing, let alone accurately measure the distance. It could only be used for early air defense warning.

But what Arthur is about to unleash is the ultimate weapon that will completely change the landscape of electronic warfare in World War II.

"At the very back of this rack is a cavity magnetron that Stirling Labs has just achieved mass production of."

"Magnetron." Arthur's voice was filled with absolute confidence in his family's technology. "It compresses the radar wavelength from the coarse meter level to the 10-centimeter level (S-band). At the same time, the peak power reaches 100,000 watts."

General Tovey had no concept of these dry statistics. He frowned and asked, "What does this mean?"

"That means we're no longer blind. In fact, we see better than anyone else." Arthur turned to the main operator on the screen. "Begin hunting."

"Yes, sir. Antenna rotation speed 15 rpm, beam elevation angle to zero, sea clutter suppression activated." The operator quickly adjusted the knob.

Arthur looked at Tovey: "Admiral, for tonight's test, I've borrowed an old, nearly decommissioned Class V destroyer from Portsmouth as the hypothetical enemy. According to the plan, it should currently be maneuvering erratically in this area at top speed. It's under strict blackout and maintaining complete radio silence."

Tovey immediately picked up the direct line to the bridge: "Bridge, any findings from the optical rangefinder and lookout?"

The officer's desperate voice quickly came from the other end of the phone: "Reporting to the commander, it's all thick fog outside, visibility is less than 1000 meters."

"Code. I can't see anything; the optical rangefinder has completely lost sight of the target."

Tovey put down the phone and looked at Arthur: "My lookout can't see anything."

"7

"Of course we can't see it. Our prey is 16 kilometers away."

Arthur smiled slightly and pointed to the green PPI screen.

The instant the green scan line swept across the upper right corner of the screen, an extremely clear and bright green spot of light appeared. Behind this spot, there was even a very faint, tiny clutter wave, like the tail of a comet.

"Report! Target contact!" the radar operator shouted, "Distance 18450 yards (approximately 16.8 kilometers), azimuth 042. Target is moving at high speed!"

Tovey and Pound's hearts skipped a beat.

"Because it's centimeter-wave, its resolution is extremely high." Arthur tapped his finger on the faint "comet tail," a reflection of radar waves striking bubbles created by the propeller's agitation of the seawater. "Marshal, Admiral. We can not only see this destroyer, but we can even analyze its wake turbulence through the echo. This allows us to accurately calculate its course and speed."

"Target speed 32 knots, heading northwest, currently performing a zigzag anti-submarine maneuver." The operator quickly reported the precise data using a slide rule.

The war center was deathly silent.

General Tovey felt his throat was a little dry.

He instinctively turned his head, only to meet Field Marshal Pound's equally shocked gaze. In the eerie green glow, the two naval commanders, both veterans of the last World War, simultaneously conjured up the same word in their minds—Jutland—a word tinged with the heavy smoke of war and regret.

That was the biggest worry for the British Imperial Navy in the past twenty-four years.

On that evening in 1916, the large fleet, possessing overwhelming tonnage and firepower superiority, had seemingly cornered the German High Seas Fleet. But as night fell and the thick fog of the North Sea rolled in, the once invincible fleet instantly became blind.

Tovey knew all too well the despair of being like a blind man groping an elephant in the dark.

Back in Jutland, he was the captain of the destroyer HMS Onslow. He led his ship blindly in a charge through the thick fog of night, unable to even make out the outlines of the German warships, and could only fire torpedoes at the occasional flashes of their muzzle flashes. Meanwhile, Pound was the captain of the battleship HMS Colossus. He could only stand on the bridge, listening to the surrounding gunfire, watching as Admiral Scheer's main German fleet, under the cover of darkness, slipped away like ghosts through the gaps in the British fleet, turning what should have been a decisive battle into a close encounter.

The humiliation of that night proved a fact: without night vision, no matter how many 15-inch cannons and how many tons of armor, it's just a punch to cotton.

Tovey took a deep breath, pulling his thoughts from Beihai twenty-four years ago back to the oscilloscope in front of him.

Sixteen kilometers away, a destroyer was under complete blackout. In traditional night battles, unless it deliberately opened fire and exposed its muzzle flash, it was a ghost that could disappear into the darkness at any moment, just like the German torpedo boats that darted through the fog during the Battle of Jutland.

But now, times have changed.

The ghost was pinned to a glowing, round glass screen.

It didn't fire, didn't turn on the lights, and didn't even emit a single radio noise, but all its course, speed, and even the wake of its propeller were completely cleared by this machine called "radar".

It has nowhere to hide under the illumination of electromagnetic waves, just like an escaped prisoner locked on by a powerful searchlight.

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