Codegease: Air and Land Warfare 1946

Page 233

As the wheels of the 19th century slowly rolled forward, on the azure link connecting the Baltic and the North Sea, a city that had been fought over for so long finally came under the name of Prussia.

Kiel, the rising star who would later become world-renowned, would share the same fate as the newly established German Empire and the spirited young Germans.

When the empire rises, Kiel will also rise; when Kiel rises, the navy of the German Empire will also rise.

When the naval officers and men are in turmoil, Kiel will also be in turmoil; when Kiel is in turmoil, Germany will also be in turmoil.

In the darkness, fate's dominoes have bound the three together, and no one can break the curse.

……

When Germany, in a frenzied, resurrected state, attempts to break the curse, the nation will once again be on the brink of war, and Kiel will also be on the brink of war; as Kiel marches toward war, the oars of Germany will also be on the brink of war. The fanatical youth, the Führer's cries, transform into a heartless wolf, howling amidst the bloodshed and lamentations of the North Sea.

When the navy is reduced to sunken ships scattered across Europe, Kiel will also crumble; when every day the streets of Kiel crumble under the rain of bombing, Germany will also crumble; when Germany crumbles, all will, all dreams, will crumble.

……

No one would believe that Kiel was once one of the most prosperous jewels of northern Germany, nor would anyone want to imagine that the once-powerful high seas fleet, which had perished in Scapa Flow more than 30 years ago, is now gone—you could count the rest on one hand.

The Emden's deck had long since turned to charcoal by the raging flames. The reckless destruction by both its own and its adversaries left this light cruiser with only a tattered bow decoration for posterity.

The ship that capsized by the dam was the miniature battleship Admiral Scheer, its hull facing the sky. Workers had been busy dismantling the hull to use as filler for reinforcing the dam.

The heavy cruiser Admiral Hipper was salvaged and laid out on its berth like a rotting blue whale, blending seamlessly with the surrounding dilapidated buildings, beyond any possibility of further movement. Following the advice of Field Marshal Cunningham, the Northern Alliance shipwrights had already equipped this massive corpse with numerous small- and medium-caliber anti-aircraft guns to reinforce the port's air defenses.

The light cruiser Leipzig and the destroyer Z34 were in better berths further away. Unlike Hipper, who was beyond saving, their boilers were heated after repairs, and they were just waiting for a telegram ordering them to "depart and rendezvous with the Royal Navy battleships."

These former German sailors were still on board, dusting off the deck, when they heard an unsettling, muffled command—air raid sirens were blaring in downtown Kiel.

In the cabins of Leipzig and Z34, sailors hurriedly ran to their positions, preparing to pull up the anchor and shift the engine into gear; in the distance, around the Hipper, beside the scaffolding that had not yet been dismantled, the men who were busy carrying ammunition onto the ship also frantically grabbed the nearest anti-aircraft guns.

……

Dozens of Mustang fighters, laden with rockets, flew in from the south, skimming the coastline of Hamburg. After a long period of trepidation, the generals of the Northern Union were both delighted and alarmed upon hearing that two Britannian airships had arrived over Lübeck. Forgetting all the chaos at hand, they urgently dispatched the nearest air force to confront these mysterious monsters.

It was the same fighter squadron leader, Easy, and the same guy who had risked his life to protect the ground in Schönebeck. They staggered and flew to the upper rear of the two-ship formation at six o'clock.

The two airships were lined up in a horizontal formation, surrounded by escorting air-to-ground aircraft carriers. The main guns on the sides and bottom of both ships were aimed at the ground, at the British troops who were still struggling on the road.

"OK, guys, today's a big job..." Easy couldn't help but take a deep breath - let alone them, a bunch of flying cowboys, even the most experienced WWII veterans wouldn't believe that a thing the size of a battleship could be flying in the sky while bombarding the ground with cannonballs the size of oil drums.

They were experiencing something far more intense than when civilians saw Zeppelins descend upon the British Isles at night – back then, blackout was a foreign concept, and people were more afraid of the oppressive presence of such a creation.

This time, however, the Mustangs are going to challenge something that seems to truly embody the concept of "impregnable fortress".

At a command, more than twenty fighter jets, fully loaded with rockets, accelerated and swooped down toward the stern of the USS Glass on the right. Accompanied by the roar of propeller engines and the tidal wave of rockets, dark plumes of smoke and flashes of green light scattered like storm clouds under the rising sun.

"My god..." As Easy circled back to the stern, he could hardly believe that the Skyship's hull had remained unscathed from over a hundred rockets, despite being protected by those dazzling yet mysteriously terrifying shields. Such high-density firepower could have crippled an entire brigade of German tanks back in the day.

"The airships seem to be equipped with high-strength shields different from those of the KMFs, which may require a large amount of heavy firepower to be concentrated in one place before the ship itself can be attacked." - According to the army's combat records, most KMFs' shields would easily collapse and malfunction after being hit by the main gun fire of an M4 tank several times, which naturally led to the development of such an air combat plan.

But these are ships, not tanks or armored vehicles. How much firepower would it take to cover such a large number of combat units? Or rather, where are the weak points of these seemingly impregnable green crystals?

The second squadron of American fighter planes circled around to the front of the Skyships' formation, making a large turn and directing all their firepower at the USS Glass, which had just been attacked; the third squadron also came up with a sudden idea, splitting into two groups to attack the USS Glass from both sides simultaneously.

The smoke and shrapnel from the rockets' explosions fell like spring rain on the ground beneath the sky. Even after exhausting all its strength, the Glass still swam freely among the clouds like a whale, maintaining a distance from the Robles beside it. The ship's armor still gleamed like a brand-new battle sword.

Easy sat in the cockpit of the Mustang, pinching his face repeatedly, desperately trying to recall whether he had been drinking before boarding the plane—what kind of monster had these aliens brought in front of them? Was he living in someone's bedtime magic storybook?

……

In contrast, the Imperial officers and soldiers in the Skyship were somewhat apprehensive—of course, the rockets were far from exhausting the shield's energy reserves, and the shield control room could also keep track of the movements of the American warplanes.

They were worried about other things. Both the USS Glass and the USS Roblus were Calian-class aircraft carriers, equipped with heavy and slow guns of around 100mm caliber, completely incapable of dealing with these persistent flies. The task of anti-aircraft warfare was left entirely to the carrier-based aviators.

Yes, the pilots of the aircraft carriers were always in the rear, and they only understood that air combat in this world was no longer about the aircraft carriers forming aerial formations. Having never participated in actual combat, they thought that since the US and UK had recently seen a sharp drop in fighter sortie rates, they could handle the situation with carrier-based forces alone.

Well, before the air battle had even begun for ten minutes, nearly half of the KMFs on the USS Glass had crashed. Looking around, with that huge swarm of Mustang fighters flying back and forth, you'd think the US military was escorting them.

Just then, the captain received a message from the princess.

"where are you?"

"Your Highness, we have arrived over Lake Puron and are about 20 kilometers from Kiel. We have also spotted British warships about 50 kilometers to the north, which are loitering in a scattered formation in the waters between the land and the archipelago. We have been ambushed by American warplanes and have suffered heavy losses of shipboard forces. We need air support."

"Assess for yourselves whether the Sky Fleet can continue to bombard enemy ground defenses in the Kiel direction while simultaneously attacking the British fleet and returning safely, all while its whereabouts are completely exposed."

The captain was stunned when he heard this—the people of District 45 didn't know that the Skyship's controllable shields weren't omnidirectional, but they knew it themselves.

Not to mention whether Kiel and the British fleet's anti-aircraft firepower would allow them to confidently activate their shields, the Mustangs were constantly following behind them and they couldn't shake them off. If more and more enemy planes appeared and something unexpected happened, who knew what the consequences would be?

"Ahem... We just want some escort support, Your Highness." The captain stammered, giving Elizabeth such a vague answer.

"If the situation isn't looking good, I have another mission for you." The princess had also figured out the situation. "Cancel the attack mission and turn south. The Roblus and Grass will maintain a single column formation and advance at full speed along the west coast of the Jutland Peninsula. I need you to investigate the distribution and intensity of the anti-aircraft firepower deployed by the Northern Alliance around Hamburg. Of course, whether you can break into the enemy's rear and escape unscathed is up to you."

After thinking for a moment, the captain ordered the flagship to ascend to cloud level, quickly recall the KMF, and then turned and left.

……

The sky was in chaos. At that moment, in Kiel Bay, right next to the Danish coast, aboard a torpedo boat with a red background and a white cross, young Danish sailors stared at the dense black shadows under the sun.

This E-boat did not originally belong to Denmark—it was a former German naval vessel that had been left idle in Kiel shipyard. It was handed over to the Royal Danish Navy for use in patrolling the Danish coast and assisting in the laying of mines.

For a country with only a handful of patrol boats, a high-speed sampan equipped with machine guns is extremely valuable, which made it difficult for the Danish sailors, who had long been accustomed to comfort, to adapt to the challenges ahead.

The airships that were supposed to bombard Kiel's city were gone, replaced by a large-scale sortie of Britannian aircraft, like birds flying in unison through the forest before an earthquake—six years ago they had done the same, but this time the insignia in the sky was not a lion and snake, but the Iron Cross.

Thunder rumbled across the outskirts of Kiel as the Royal Navy fleet, withdrawing from the Baltic Sea, hurried past them. Centered around the battleships King George V and Howe, they formed an anti-aircraft formation, facing the dark shadows swooping down from the sky.

The young men on the torpedo boat lay huddled in the cabin for a long time before getting up, almost missing the light signal sent to them by the British.

At the stern of the British fleet, the unfortunate destroyer HMS Lookout, previously unable to keep up with the formation due to leaks in its hull, became the target of concentrated enemy fire. The engulfing flames and the damaged hull rendered the increasingly listless destroyer unable to continue its journey towards the distant beach.

The immediate priority was naturally to rescue the British sailors. It sounded easy, but anyone working in a battlefield under heavy fire for the first time would be apprehensive. The British warships calmly kept firing into the sky, while Britannian KMFs and fighters swooped down at high speed between the warships, immediately throwing the torpedo boat helmsmen into a panic.

The deafening roar of artillery fire all around them nearly ripped their eardrums. Gunpowder residue, fragments of KMFs and fighter planes constantly landed on the Danish flag at the stern like seabirds swarming for food. The young men dared not straighten their backs, maneuvering the speeding ship beneath them with a half-crouched posture. In a moment of panic, they nearly collided with the massive King George V, almost getting drowned in the battleship's surging wake.

……

But as Danes, they were not alone. Soon, more torpedo boats, bearing red crosses on white backgrounds and blue stars of the Northern Union, joined them in the wake of the receding Royal Navy ships, accelerating toward the HMS Lookout who had called for help.

Finally, familiar faces appeared in the sky, but it was clearly not enough—they were Hurricane fighters that the British had previously provided to the Danish army as an emergency measure. Their performance was mediocre, and after being hastily painted with the Danish red-edged white circle insignia, they came to fight.

The Royal Navy seemed to have no intention of staying here any longer, or even lingering in the Baltic Sea for much longer. In Kiel harbor, with their backs to Hipper's figure already covered in anti-aircraft fire, the Leipzig and Z34 took the opportunity to raise the NATO flag and sail out at full speed, joining the British fleet and hurrying away with the pursuing enemy aircraft toward the Great Belt Strait to the north.

Several KMFs and torpedo boats were left to entangle around the Lookout—the Britannian soldiers were clearly intentionally keeping their distance from the half-sunken destroyer and the torpedo boats beside her, but only because they were worried that doing so would be mistaken for an attack on the British sailors struggling on the surface.

Conversely, the other firefights continued unabated. Another hurricane crashed into the sea, leaving a trail of flames, and disintegrated into fragments along with the waves; while more patrol boats attempting to approach hesitated before the ammunition belts swept across the sea by KMFs and jet fighters.

All that's left of the Lookout on the surface is the bridge and the funnel. More and more crew members are calling for help from the water. Torpedo boats only have so much space. What should they do...?

……

Finally, with a deafening roar from the sky, what fell was no longer a hurricane.

The young men looked up at the unfamiliar eagle shadows in the sky—a squadron of fighter planes painted entirely in dark blue, shorter and more compact than the Mustangs, Thunderbolts, and other Allied aircraft, their wings adorned with white stars echoing with the roar of machine guns.

After shooting down the last KMF chasing the hurricane, more and more of these deep blue falcons hovered over Kiel Bay until the last torpedo boat, laden with crew members who had fallen into the water, left.

The enemy retreated in disgrace towards Berlin, and F8F Panda fighters cleaned up the mess, began to regroup in the sky, and returned to the north.

The sky had been perfectly clear, but for some reason, Lolland Island, which borders the Baltic Sea, began to be covered in dark clouds. A sea breeze also picked up suddenly, casting even more dark shadows toward Copenhagen.

Thus, amidst the lingering excitement of aerial combat and the unsettling anticipation, the fighter jets flew over the Danish islands and approached the Kattegat Strait, above two giant aircraft carriers whose decks were painted with 41 and 42 respectively.

"Calling Zulu 9, deck cleared, ready for landing. Midway, communication closed."

Chapter 316, Section 405: Sharpening the Sword and Preparing for Domination of the Ocean

On a map of the Baltic Sea, there is a strange island.

It covers an area of ​​67 square kilometers and is only 35 kilometers from Sweden. Its geological features are very similar to those of the Swedish islands, yet it does not belong to this peaceful three-crown country. It has always been located 50 nautical miles to the west, in the territory of the red flag with a white cross.

This is very strange for an island in an inland sea, and perhaps that is why Bornholm Island began several years of turmoil after the devastation of World War II.

After the Germans conquered Denmark, the white cross flag was replaced with the swastika flag, becoming a key move by the Third Reich to contain the Soviet Union from the sea. Due to its sparse population, it also became a target area for V1 missile tests in 1943.

When the "Great Führer" committed suicide in Berlin and the Danish people celebrated the peaceful liberation, the German troops holding the island became a key target of the Soviet Air Force. Subsequently, the Red Army officers and soldiers stationed on the island sent them to prisoner-of-war camps.

Today, war has returned to Northern Europe. The Red Navy, unable to withstand the onslaught, has taken away all the Red Army officers and soldiers and lowered the hammer and sickle flag. Now, next to the Danish flag that is flying again, there are the flags of Sweden and the Northern Union.

Defending this land was an order from the Northern Union high command. The Royal Danish Army was somewhat crude in terms of both weaponry and personnel quality. In comparison, sending Swedish Army officers and soldiers to this land that was both familiar and unfamiliar to them was a wise move.

Foreign visitors and wars came and went, and many changes took place on the island.

The coastal defense positions originally left by the Germans were urgently repaired, and Swedish officers and soldiers built a bunch of anti-aircraft guns of various calibers around the largest dock on the island in the small town of Lenne. They also built a simple airfield among the small villages in the north of the island.

After Denmark joined the Northern League, following orders from its high command, most of the island's residents evacuated to Denmark and Sweden. Those left behind, besides the elderly, women, and children, included many local young people who were willing to defend their homeland.

The officers and soldiers handed over the remaining weapons that the Germans and Soviets had not yet had time to transport—Mauser 98Ks and Mosin-Nagants—to them as weapons for self-defense.

Swedish troops don't need these. They not only have the AG42 semi-automatic rifles and M45 submachine guns developed and manufactured by their own arsenals, but also have enough anti-tank guns and mountain guns. They even have several L60 light tanks carrying 20mm cannons. Like the anti-aircraft guns, this is all thanks to Swedish arsenals, including Bofors. Only the radar station was provided with assistance from the US and Britain.

In an instant, Bornholm transformed from a beautiful island into a silent warship. Apart from the Swedish warships and civilian boats coming and going, only the island's residents would go fishing in the northern coastal waters.

Such preparations were not in vain; everything would be revealed today as air raid sirens blared—soldiers watched as more than twenty Britannian armed transport planes emerged from the gloomy sea of ​​clouds.

Unlike previous bombings, missiles, even more robust than torpedoes, suddenly appeared behind the transport planes, maintaining a constant altitude and speed as they flew at the rear of the formation, like Valkyrie spreading her wings and calling for shooting stars, soaring over Bornholm Island.

……

The story goes back about 15 minutes, when Major Valard's armed transport planes took off from Germany and passed by Rügen Island—where several brand-new Britannian destroyers were already lined up at sea.

The cargo holds of the transport planes, including the major's, were not carrying rockets and bombs today, nor were there any KMFs being airdropped. Instead, they were filled with a large number of sophisticated machines.

“We will arrive at the island in about 10 minutes, Your Excellency,” Valar contacted Duke Rabinowitz, who was in command of the fleet. “Your new weapons may begin operation.”

He handed control over to the co-pilot and ran into the cargo hold to personally supervise the controllers in completing the next task.

The destroyer's missiles took off one after another behind them, rapidly climbing in the direction the aircraft had disappeared into the distance—some officers and soldiers had already noticed that these new missiles seemed to be considerably longer.

"Attention all aircraft! The Navy's missiles have been launched. Immediately take control of all missile guidance!"

As radio waves crisscrossed the sky, the missiles' exhaust plumes began to dim, and they unfurled their small wings, following behind the aircraft like seagulls, slowly approaching, guided by instruments inside the transport plane.

Vallar returned to the captain's seat, and with great anxiety, Bornholm Island finally appeared before them.

"Oh? The difficulty has been increased?" The Swedish soldiers' anti-aircraft guns fired black chrysanthemums all around. "All aircraft, listen up! Prioritize manual aiming mode, control the missiles to attack enemy ground targets, and at the same time, watch out for ships."

Not long after the words were spoken, the tail flames of several missiles that had just flown in front of the transport planes gradually dimmed, and after swaying from side to side and flapping their small wings, they crashed headlong into the bustling air defense positions on the island.

"Not bad, not bad." Valar looked at the fireballs on the ground. Except for three that were shot down, the rest hit their targets.

"Major! Ships have appeared in the 10 o'clock sea area!" At this moment, a missile guidance aircraft that had not yet locked onto a target spotted two cargo ships sailing from the north.

"I don't need to explain this, do I?" Valar flipped through the newly issued experimental manual and informed the crew, "Change manual aiming to intelligent assisted guidance. The former is for attacking stationary targets, while this is the mode for attacking moving targets."

"receive."

……

While the major and the duke were still compiling combat reports on the new missiles, Elizabeth and a group of officers were discussing a photograph of a large ship and a pile of documents in the Capitol, waiting for news from them.

Today they finally learned the true identity of the "large cargo ship" next to Szczecin—the unfinished aircraft carrier Zeppelin of the deceased Nazi Germany.

"In other words, like our aircraft carrier battleships, it's a floating airfield without main guns, but with a complete runway and hangar, right?" With this in mind, yesterday Britannian fighters and KMFs attacked the Zeppelin while the Soviet Air Force was off guard.

The result was unexpected—the jet fighters' rockets easily created hole after hole in the aircraft carrier, and the KMF's recoilless rifles easily ignited the already dried flight deck.

"This is not the kind of defense a capital ship should have. It shouldn't be within the fleet's engagement range at all." With this initial question in mind, it was only after using the thinking of Area 45 that it suddenly dawned on me: Since American and British fighter jets take off from airfields tens or hundreds of kilometers away, why can't aircraft carrier-based aircraft do the same?

Recalling the previous Battle of Rügen, where British aircraft sank destroyers with torpedoes, and then summarizing the aircraft of Sweden and Denmark, and looking at the recent report of "being intercepted by a large number of unfamiliar American aircraft with dark blue paint while attacking the British fleet," the only conclusion that can be drawn is that the Americans and British have deployed more "sea airfields" in northern Denmark.

The Danish islands stretch over 150 kilometers from north to south, a distance far beyond what the current navy can handle in combat. Even with the longest-range firepower, warships need guidance to engage moving targets. As for the air force, isn't it too much trouble to rely solely on recoilless rifles and rockets to bombard large warships? And getting battleships to launch and recover armed transport aircraft is even more difficult.

Of course, with the Portman's torpedoes, it could sink them with some effort. But the problem is that the Portman's size limits its ability to operate for extended periods, the size and power of the torpedoes it can carry are limited, and the speed of these underwater KMFs and torpedoes is also limited.

Taking the Battle of Rügen Island as an example, the two fleets encountered each other and began fighting at a distance of more than 20 kilometers. Even if the Portmans were immediately launched, at least 20 minutes would have passed by the time they approached within an effective range to attack the Soviet forces, which would not have had much impact on the final outcome of the naval battle.

This is still dealing with gunboats within visual range, let alone aircraft carriers hundreds of miles away. Perhaps taking the Portman with the submarines would be a good idea, but the previous attack on the King George V by the Udrih submarine has already proven that the Northern Fleet, as an adversary, will almost never give their behemoths any good opportunity to get close to the capital ships.

"I don't know if the Northern Alliance's aircraft carriers are as solid as the Zeppelin, but the Soviet battleships that we severely damaged in the Battle of Rügen, and the British battleships that cruised freely in the Baltic Sea before, prove that before our airships reach a certain scale, missiles are the only effective means of attack."

Thus, the engineers of "traditional weapons" who followed the expeditionary force worked overtime, relying on their existing expertise to hastily send this new experimental missile into actual combat.

……

However, when they received the reports from the Navy and the aircrew, they were somewhat pleased, but still wore pessimistic expressions.