Their respective main forces had converged in one place.
"Range 20,000! Enemy lead ship altering course to heading one-seven-zero!"
"...Not easy. Have coordinates been relayed to the Air Force?"
"Relay complete! Bomber squadrons of the 2nd Air Corps are mobilizing!"
"The problem is what comes next."
Admiral Lütschel let out a low hum.
His initial plan had been simple: to exploit the Combined Fleet's speed advantage to cut across the enemy fleet's path and concentrate all main battery fire on the enemy lead ship using the 'T-crossing maneuver.'
However, though the enemy flew the red flag, they were former sailors of the United Kingdom who had spent their entire lives at sea. The moment the enemy fleet discerned the Imperial Fleet's maneuvering intent, they immediately turned their bows to force a parallel course engagement (同航戰), matching headings.
On the nautical chart, the tracks of both fleets wheeled about, interlocking perilously.
"All turrets, firing solutions input complete! Armor-piercing shells loaded!"
"Director crosshairs aligned on the enemy lead ship!"
Massive steel gun barrels raised their elevation in unison. Further maneuvering tactics were meaningless. What remained now was a contest of whose shells would tear through armor first.
A primitive firepower duel.
That is, a fleet decisive battle.
Admiral Lütschel silently jerked his chin.
The captain shouted without delay.
"All batteries, commence firing!"
Flash! Boom, boom, boom, boom!
In an instant, blinding flashes and massive flames filled their vision. The recoil pushed the hull of the ten-thousand-ton battleship sideways.
Hundreds of water columns erupted in all directions. The trailing battleships and cruisers opened their gunports in unison. Steel shells containing tens—no, hundreds or thousands of tons of kinetic energy screamed as they split the sky.
The naval battle had erupted.
Splash! Boom!
"Port side, 400 yards! Enemy shells incoming! We've been straddled!"
"Y-you son of a bitch! Helmsman, hold her steady! Hard starboard! Turn to starboard!"
Beyond the conning tower's bulletproof glass, house-sized water columns shot up, pouring saltwater like rain. The enemy fleet flying the red flags likewise did not retreat, fiercely spitting out main battery fire as they closed the distance.
Screech! Crash!
The stern of the flagship Vittelmark shook. The entire hull vibrated as the electric lights flickered like mad.
"Kuaaack!"
"Get down!!"
Sailors rolled across the floor. One signalman thrown by the impact was knocked out cold, and broken overhead pipes vented roaring steam.
"Report! Where did we just get hit!"
"Starboard third bulkhead! The armor plate is dented! The main armor belt... the main armor belt barely held!"
The executive officer shouted into the voice tube like a madman.
"Damage control, move now! Seal the watertight doors before the boiler room floods!"
Now the acrid stench of gunpowder and the reek of blood began to spread even into the conning tower. On the deck above, shell fragments rained down like hail, shredding structures and sailors alike.
A crude firefight where blood, oil, and steel clung to one another. It was the very moment the doctrine of big ships and big guns was being proven.
"Admiral! Altitude 10,000 feet! A large air formation is diving!"
An urgent transmission from the radar room. The voice was tinged with the joy of the living.
"It's the Air Force! Dive bomber squadrons entering!"
Only then did Admiral Lütschel's expression, which had been fixed in grim silence, relax.
"Right on time."
And as if in answer.
Eeeeeeeeeng!
The distinct, ear-splitting wail of sirens. Imperial attack planes began punching through the clouds, diving vertically.
"A-Anti-aircraft guns! Deploy the anti-aircraft barrage!"
Tu-tu-tu-tu-thud!
The Red Fleet's formation turned into pandemonium in an instant. Anti-aircraft guns elevated to maximum angle scattered black curtains of shell bursts into the sky.
The overwhelming numerical inferiority of the Air Force was within expectations. They had secured as much anti-aircraft capability as possible in preparation, but it was clearly insufficient.
In other words, they were prey laid out before birds of prey.
"Release!"
Hundreds of pounds of aerial bombs poured down. Bombs that punched through decks caused chain explosions inside the hulls.
Kwaaaaaang!
"Enemy number two cruiser hit! Ammunition detonation!"
A blood-red pillar of fire shot up as the cruiser bearing the red star was broken in half at the waist.
"Admiral! The enemy vanguard is collapsing! HMS Sovereign is... sinking into the sea...!"
"There is no time to mourn."
Admiral William, observing through binoculars, swallowed the bitter taste and ordered.
"Continue the bombardment. Coordinate with the Imperial Navy and send every last one of these red bastards to the bottom."
The Imperial Air Force was ruthless. Fighters and bombers that had secured sufficient loiter time thanks to auxiliary fuel tanks poured down bombing runs that were practically massacres over the sea.
But the United Republic was not taking it like fools either.
"Upper right! Unidentified air formation approaching!"
"...It's the red bastards' Air Force! They were hiding in the clouds!"
At the same time as the detection officer's urgent cry, dozens of fighters poured down from between the thick sea fog and dense cloud layer.
They were international volunteer fighters in camouflage paint receiving support from the Allied Nations, and the final aerial strength that the newborn Republic had scraped together and hidden away in the chaos.
Tu-tu-tu-tu-thud!
"Damn it! They got our six!"
An Imperial attack plane preparing for a torpedo run spewed black smoke and crashed from the surprise machine-gun burst. The Red Air Force squadrons that appeared targeting the naval battle began to bite into Imperial aircraft with suicidal determination.
A full-scale air battle broke out over the sea.
Shhhwoooosh! Kwakwang!
"Formation, scatter! Interceptors gain altitude and pin them down!"
Imperial 109 fighter squadrons immediately turned their noses to engage. A fierce dogfight of biting tails and snapping jaws in mid-air. Tracer rounds from machine guns drew red lines in the sky, and planes with broken wings buried themselves in the sea.
["This is Eagle Three! Bandit six o'clock! Damn, their movements are no joke! These aren't rookies!"]
The voices on the radio net grew urgent. The Imperial fighter tried to break out of the line of fire with a sharp turn, but the enemy plane clung to its tail tenaciously. The enemy pilots were seasoned veterans.
Tatatatang!
["Eagle Seven! Right wing hit! I'm breaking off—!"]
Air superiority began to waver. Imperial bombers had to cancel their torpedo runs to avoid interception and scatter in haste.
But the balance of this tense air battle began to tilt in a very strange way as time passed.
["...Eagle Leader. An enemy plane just crashed. It wasn't hit and just plowed into the sea on its own!"]
Puh-r-r-r— Peng!
An enemy fighter trying to climb vertically and latch onto a 109's tail suddenly belched black smoke from its nose. The propeller's RPM dropped sharply, and the aircraft stalled in mid-air.
"...Engine's dead."
Tu-tu-tu-tu-thud!
The enemy plane was turned to scrap in the barrage, wrapped in flames as it crashed into the sea.
It was neither tactical failure nor a difference in pilot skill.
The problem was logistics.
Since the Empire had blockaded the Victoria coast in preparation for the landing, the enemy's supply situation had been dire. Even if the Allied Nations had secretly smuggled in airframes and parts, high-quality aviation fuel and precision lubricants to support high-performance aero engines would have been woefully insufficient.
In the end, the enemy engines, repeating strenuous maneuvers, had begun to overheat and burn out on their own.
["Their engines are blowing out! Maintain altitude advantage and drag them into energy fighting! Force them to increase output!"]
The Imperial pilots' tactics immediately corrected upon spotting the weakness. They relentlessly pressed their own strengths and the enemy's weaknesses.
The same phenomenon was occurring at sea.
Kugugugung!
The weighty roar of naval guns making the sea surface erupt. While the Imperial Navy and the Red Fleet were engaged in a parallel course engagement.
"Admiral! Radar shows the enemy fleet's speed is dropping!"
"Optical measurement confirms abnormal black smoke rising from enemy cruiser funnels! Falling below 20 knots, no, 18 knots!"
Receiving the report in the Vittelmark's conning tower, Admiral Lütschel smiled a triumphant smile.
"They are falling from exhaustion of their own accord."
A fleet is the beloved child of maintenance and logistics. The enemy fleet had been hiding for months in the northern fjords where ice storms raged to avoid Imperial bombers.
Their hulls were covered in barnacles that ate away at their hydrodynamics, and the aged boilers forced to burn low-quality coal and heavy oil mixed with impurities ultimately couldn't endure, leaking pressure.
"Target angle port 15 degrees. Fleet course change."
In a fleet decisive battle where speed is life, this meant defeat.
"Cross the enemy's bows."
The Imperial Fleet, maintaining superior speed, began to drive into the path of the enemy fleet whose speed had bled away.
The so-called T-crossing maneuver. The most classical yet fatal tactic.
The massive broadsides of the Imperial battleships simultaneously opened their gunports toward the enemy lead ship.
"Fire."
Boom! Kwaaaaaang!
The sky turned red. Gunports belched fire in unison, and hundreds, thousands of armor-piercing shells poured down upon the enemy.
Flash!
With that blinding flash, the outcome of the naval battle was decided.
*
Woooong— Kwakwang!
Dirt poured like a waterfall outside the temporary trench line along the coast.
"Attack!!"
"Drive out the Imperial bastards!"
In the opening created as naval and air support was focused on the distant sea, the People's United Republic Army was charging without missing the gap.
'Persistent bastards.'
I pressed down on my mud-caked steel helmet and glared at the [Minimap].
Behind me, the follow-up landing convoy hadn't arrived, leaving the rear empty; ahead, enemies were charging. An ordinary unit would have been frozen in fear, burying its heads in the sand.
But I had already foreseen this situation. The unit had already formed a complete defensive line, and my subordinates in particular were specialists in this kind of heavy fighting.
The Ash Forest, Rosenheim, Soissons, Elancia. The Jäger Brigade was exactly a unit that had fought only in shitholes like these.
"Right side, two o'clock. Gunter, that's your sector. Swap the machine gun's spare barrel and open fire!"
["Understood! I'll turn them into minced meat!"]
Kwakwakwakwang!
The tearing shriek of a buzzsaw. The Imperial Army's main machine gun spewed fierce fire, erasing the red dots in the two o'clock direction like an eraser.
"Frederica! The enemy is digging into the shallow central trench. Reverse the tanks and use them as mobile pillboxes. Do not allow a breakthrough!"
["Understood! Armor, depress guns! High-explosive shells, fire at will!"]
Kwaaaang!
The tank battalion led by Frederica spat out 88mm main gun rounds. Explosions ripped through the center of the enemy column.
And on the left. The enemy vanguard that had penetrated most dangerously.
Sssssshk—! Kwakwang!
At the same time the line of fire flashed, blue-white magic shells rivaling tank cannons swept through the enemy lines.
"Hold the line! Kill every last enemy that sets foot forward!"
It was Seraphina. The infantry battalion commander herself fired magic shells, blocking the enemy's fierce assault. Tanks, machine guns, and infantry moved organically, exhibiting tremendous defensive power.
They had started their attack with high spirits, but failed to break through the Jäger Brigade's defensive line, collapsing and spilling blood in the mud before the trenches.
How long did they continue that bloody, reeking defensive battle?
Rumble rumble—
The heavy naval gunfire that had shaken the ground beneath their feet, that had come from the distant sea, ceased like a lie.
"..."
Even the gunfire raining down on the battlefield strangely abated. The flow of air changed.
Static.
["This is Combined Fleet Command. Broadcasting to all fleets."]
A radio tuned to long-range frequency. A stiff yet somehow joyful voice flowed out.
["As of this hour, the naval decisive battle has ended in our overwhelming victory. The enemy fleet is annihilated or fleeing. This fleet hereby declares complete command of the sea from this moment."]
"Victory!"
"The Navy won!"
"Long live His Imperial Majesty!"
Imperial soldiers in the trenches erupted in cheers.
Meanwhile.
'Status Analysis.'
The status of the People's United Republic infantry lying prone beyond the sand dunes, caught in my sight.
[Target: People's United Republic Infantry]
[Status: Loss of will to fight, Confusion, Panic]
[Emotion: The fleet lost...? The Air Force bombing will start again now!]
Their morale plunged through the floor in real time. On the [Minimap], the red dots all faltered backward.
The moment their momentum was broken.
I did not hesitate.
"All brigade! Deploy firepower! Strike their backs as they turn tail!"
Tatatatatat—!
Kwaaaang!
The Empire's counterattack had begun.