524 Air Attack (Part 1)
The destroyer Mosns was conducting routine patrol outside Kiel Port under the command of Captain Albert. Since the Germans completely lowered their heads and raised their hands to admit defeat, the Royal Navy was finally able to enter the Baltic Sea. Most German ports, especially important military ports, were immediately taken over by the British, American and French navies.
Of course, Albert didn't like this task very much. He thought that he could retire and enjoy life after defeating the Germans, so he had to continue galloping on the battlefield with an old bone. As an officer over 60 years old, this is indeed a bit cruel.
In fact, Albert retired before the war broke out. At that time, he had been a naval major for 15 years, and there was basically no hope of being promoted to a lieutenant colonel with his ability. So he did not continue to occupy the pit and did not shit, and chose to go home to start a business.
However, the outbreak of the war changed Albert's life. As a senior officer, he was re-enlisted and returned to active service. After working as a deputy captain of the cruiser, he finally obtained his own warship for the first time, which was the Tunns.
As the first ship of the late-stage M-class destroyer, this little guy with a displacement of 1,000 tons is inconspicuous in the Royal Navy. Even Albert doesn't like his ship because he was ridiculed by his colleagues as an old cow eating young grass. As the oldest destroyer in the Royal Navy sequence, this is really not an honor, and this is also the main reason why Albert urgently wants to retire.
However, the Russians disrupted Albert's plan because the Allies were preparing to interfere with the Russian Revolution. The Royal Navy could not enter the warehouse and release the Manan Mountains, so they had to run to the small bathtub of the Baltic Sea to continue to make trouble.
"Everyone cheered me up and my eyes widened!"
Logically speaking, the last shift was on duty before the morning. Captain Albert didn't need to do it himself. The mission was not particularly important. It was just a routine patrol of the port. No one believed that the Russian Navy would come to the door. Unless the Russians were completely crazy, they would come to seek abuse. Anyway, the Royal Navy despised the Russian Baltic Fleet. Even if they annexed the main force of the German High Seas Fleet, what if?? In recent years, the High Seas Fleet had to pretend to be grandchildren when facing the Royal Navy. What's the point?
However, Albert is a very cautious person. When he graduated from the military academy, the school evaluated him as being cautious but not enterprising. Although the Royal Navy is conservative, it is very important to the so-called enterprising spirit. People like Albert will basically not be reused.
The same is true for the mountain. In Albert's military career, he was basically a green leaf who beats the edge drum. In the end, he only had a destroyer captain. To be honest, this position can be held by a senior captain. It is a shame for a senior major like him to hold this position.
Fortunately, Albert has taken the blame for honor and shame. If he really valued those things, he would not leave a comment on it that lacked enterprising spirit. Anyway, Albert now wants to spend his last military career safely and honestly, and it is best not to happen. So in order to prevent the tragedy in the last moment, he, as the captain, set an example and personally supervised the most difficult class every day.
Well, if Albert's report was taken seriously, Sukhoi might have encountered all this. Fortunately, Albert's personal credit was poor and was not appreciated by his superiors. Based on the jokes he made before, his discovery was not taken seriously. Colonel Bazer threw his report directly into the trash can.
So Kiel was not prepared for the direction, the soldiers were sleeping loudly, the sentries were wandering, and they were waiting for Sukhoi to slaughter like lambs to be slaughtered!
Half an hour later, when Sukhoi flew over Kiel Port with the first attack waves, there was no movement at the port below, no anti-aircraft alarms, and no anti-aircraft guns, so calm that even Sukhoi couldn't help but shake his beard.
"Yushenko, lead your men to attack anti-aircraft gun positions. Destroy them!"
"Malinnov, go to the airport with me!"
The first wave of attack waves instantly divided into two groups. A group of them roared into dives, roaring towards the anti-aircraft artillery positions in the port. Bombs were thrown down. In mid-air, they suddenly "disintegrated" and threw out hundreds of small bombs in their "beauty" in one breath.
Cluster bombs are still new in this year. At least the Allied soldiers stationed in Kil Harbor have never seen such things. So when these deadly columns exploded in the air, they had no response.
In an instant, the anti-aircraft artillery position in Kiel Port was covered by cluster bombs. After a rumbling continuous explosion, the equipment on the position was greatly damaged. Fortunately, there were not many soldiers stationed on the battlefield early in the morning, otherwise it would be more than just some artillery equipment.
After the first wave of cluster bombs was thrown, the second wave was dropped. This wave still had cluster bombs, at least it looked like, but in fact it was a spreader, and the bullets dropped were all butterfly thunder, which is the b-43bdragontooth anti-infantry landmine widely used by the US imperialists in the Vietnam War.
This mine is like a small butterfly, which can be directly spread by an airplane, and once the fuse is activated, it cannot be removed (the only way to remove it is to make it explode). This gadget is actually not powerful and basically cannot kill people, but it can make you become a disabled person in minutes.
This evil weapon is simple to produce and is cheap to build, but it can make the unfortunate infantry that is hit worse than death, and can greatly increase the logistical burden on the opponent.
Of course, the use of this mine at Kiel Port was not for abuse, but was completely used to paralyze the air defense of Kiel Port with the mother bullet. In fact, the effect was also quite good. When the poor artillery soldiers just rushed out of the barracks and rushed to the preset position, butterfly thunders were slashed, and screams continued for a while, and the poor artillery soldiers hesitated for a while.
"We need engineers, the faster the better! Why? Idiot, our positions are full of mines! What do you ask where the mines come from? Of course they fell from the sky... I'm not crazy, you can tell by looking at them!"
The air defense firepower of Kiel Port was paralyzed in minutes, and even the young men of Sukhoi were incredible about their achievements. You should know that Kiel Port was quite good at defense. It can be said that it was armed to the teeth, but such defense was actually a paper tiger, which was broken with one stab. This made Sukhoi's young men very happy.
So they completed the first wave of bomb drops and did not return immediately. Instead, they entered the attack route again and again, constantly creating chaos in Kil Port. Even if they did not fire, just one dive could scare the Allied soldiers on the ground.
On the other hand, Sukhoi, who was responsible for heading to the paralyzed Kiel Airport, encountered trouble. It was not that they had been subjected to fierce resistance. In fact, the resistance at the airport was minimal. Unprepared Allied soldiers waved and cheered at Sukhoi's young men before they dropped bombs.
Such a state of defense naturally cannot withstand the tossing of Sukhoi's young man, but what makes Sukhoi more depressed is that there are not many planes on the airport! You should know that when the last aerial reconnaissance was conducted a day ago, the sides of the runway were densely filled with planes. How could it disappear in one day?
Sukhoi couldn't help but think of a very bad possibility. They were late and all these planes had already taken off! In other words, he and his young men could be besieged by groups of enemy planes at any time!
When Sukhoi thought of this, he felt cold sweat and no longer had the good mood of everything before. He ordered the radio in the back seat to contact a fairy hundreds of kilometers away.
In the waters near Bornholm Island, a large fleet is slowly sailing westward. This fleet includes two super fearless, six fearless and 10 cruisers. On the flagship Bavaria, the fleet commander Lieutenant General Basilev and the Baltic Front Political Commissar Li Xiaofeng were anxiously waiting for Sukhoi's telegram.
Sukhoi's success or failure is directly related to the direction of the battle. As the first large-scale air-to-sea attack in human history, even Li Xiaofeng, who had tried his best to promote this matter, was completely unsure.
Although he had provided Sukhoi with many new weapons and formulated corresponding tactics according to the experience of later generations, this was 1919 after all. The conditions were still too simple, and it was the first time that the big girl had been in the sedan chair. During this period, many problems that could not be imagined would arise, and these problems could completely ruin the entire operation.
"Comrade Sukhoi called!"
Li Xiaofeng almost blurted out: "Think!"
"The situation has changed, no enemy planes were found at the airport, please give instructions."
This news caught Li Xiaofeng off guard. He thought that Sukhoi's call either indicates success or failure, but he did not expect that the message was so weird. He did not find the enemy plane? He did not find it if he did not find it. The key point is to get the enemy ships in the port!
Li Xiaofeng wanted to beat his chest and stamp his feet, but he immediately realized that it was abnormal. It was not normal for the enemy plane to disappear. Where did they go? Could it be that they learned the news in advance and transferred it?
Li Xiaofeng thought of many possibilities in an instant, but he immediately eliminated them one by one. If the enemy is prepared, Sukhoi will definitely be intercepted, and now there is no sign of this. According to this inference, it is very likely that the enemy's air force is going to perform some kind of mission.
"Oh no!" Li Xiaofeng stood up suddenly. He thought of a possibility and immediately ordered Basilev: "Call Danze and Konisburg and tell them to be prepared for the air strike!"
In fact, Li Xiaofeng's reaction was a little slower. Not long after his telegram was sent to Danze and Konisburg, a large number of enemy aircraft came to observe. The procedures were similar to Sukhoi. The Allied air strikes were also divided into labor and cooperation, some suppressed air defense firepower, some destroyed port facilities, and of course the most were aimed at the ships in the port. The biggest difference between them and Sukhoi was that the Allied had more aircraft, which looked even more scary.
But there were a large amount of thick smoke rising above Ze and Konisburg, and the explosions and the whistling of the planes were deafening. The Allied Air Force seemed to be preparing to wipe the two cities from the map in one breath!
Anyway, for the residents of Danze and Konisburg, this day was black, and they suffered heavy casualties. The large number of houses were destroyed and wailed everywhere, just like hell on earth.
When the Allied fleet left Danze and Konisburg, they were quite satisfied. They couldn't wait to send a report to the rear and report the great results. According to their statement, Danze and Konisburg were completely destroyed, and the enemy's ships suffered heavy losses. At least, they also lost more than 50% of their combat effectiveness!
So is this the case? Unfortunately, no! The Allied Air Force was probably too optimistic about the killing they had caused. In fact, the main force of a certain immortal's fleet was not in the port at all. Only some warships were anchored in the port, and most of the others were civilian ships.
Moreover, even these ships did not suffer too much damage. The Allied torpedoes were not suitable for shallow water environments. Most of the torpedoes were directly inserted into the soft mud and sand of the seabed. A small number of them struggled to float up and launch a charge but failed to destroy many targets. The Allied air force was too excited and regarded the splashes that had rushed up as explosions. The results on paper were naturally quite exaggerated.
As for the bombs, it has to be said that the hit rate of high-altitude horizontal bombing is really terrible. Most of the bombs were dropped into ships in the seabed and urban areas rather than ports, which is the key reason why the residents of Danze and Konisburg suffered even more heavy losses.
Of course, in addition to the reasons for the poor air strikes, organizational chaos is also a key factor. Although the Allies have division of labor, this division of labor is still too rough. Several waves of aircraft groups with different missions flew over the target almost at the same time, and launched attacks almost at the same time. Everyone interfered with each other and influenced each other. There is no need to say much about the chaos.
Even more than one air crash occurred during the air raid. According to statistics from East Prussia afterwards, the biggest damage to the Allied Air Force was not the air defense firepower on the ground, but the chaotic organization of the Allied. At least more than twenty aircraft died or indirectly at the hands of their own people!
In short, in addition to its massive air strikes, the result can only be described as lackluster. The strike on the Red Flag Baltic Fleet can basically be considered physical injuries. Except for a few destroyers and cruisers with too little backs, most ships were only slightly injured and could continue to fight without repair.
At the same time, Sukhoi's young man also launched an attack on the warships in Kiel Port. Will their performance be better than the thunder and raindrops of the Allies? (To be continued...)
Chapter completed!