Starting with the smashing of Dunkirk

Chapter 22: As long as the jungler doesn't appear in a lane, he can appear in any lane.

While Minister Walton finalized the deployment of the British Straits Fleet with Lieutenant General Hastings and Major General Hood,

On the North Sea, Rear Admiral Hipper's high-speed attack fleet had been sailing westward at high speed through the thick fog all morning.

This was Lieutenant Lelouch's first time boarding a real warship, so he remained humble and low-key throughout the morning, simply wandering around, observing and learning. He absolutely refused to go to any places he wasn't allowed to go and wouldn't utter a single word.

At noon, the fleet had sailed to the ocean about 120 nautical miles west of the Denis border and entered the edge of the famous "Doger Shoal" area in the North Sea. Only then did Rear Admiral Hipper decisively order a turn.

"Hard to port, heading 210, heading straight towards Ostend on the coast of Bilikin."

A fleet consisting of 4 battlecruisers, 2 armored cruisers, 4 light cruisers, and 8 destroyers soon began to slowly turn south.

The original westward heading gradually shifted to 30° west of due south (270° is due west, 180° is due south).

Lelouch, standing beside Rear Admiral Hipper, also held a telescope, gazing at the majestic warship turning, his heart pounding with excitement.

Before this sortie, Lelouch had mistakenly believed that Rear Admiral Hipper could only deploy three battlecruisers, but he was surprised to find that there were four, including two armored cruisers. This initially made him think he was wrong, but he later learned that it was due to subtle differences between this world and actual history—

The world Lelouch lived in was, after all, somewhat harmonious. In this world, the Western countries and the Far East were completely isolated from each other, and no Western countries went to the East to colonize and cause trouble.

Therefore, the Demania in this world has no Asia-Pacific colonies, and their naval development does not need to consider long-range operations. Their farthest colony is only Tanzania in East Africa.

The resulting butterfly effect is that the Demacian navy in this timeline, when designing warships, paid relatively less attention to endurance and long-range raiding capabilities. Its warships were built for fleet battles.

This allowed its naval development to take fewer detours, and resources to be more concentrated, indirectly resulting in Hipper having slightly more warships at his disposal than Lelouch knew about Earth's history in his previous life.

Its main impact is reflected in the fields of battleships and battlecruisers:

First, in the realm of battlecruisers. Long before the advent of dreadnoughts, the Demanians of this world built their last class of armored cruisers, the Scharnhorst-class (referring to the Scharnhorst class built in 1904, which also consisted of two ships, Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, and was completely different from the World War II ships that began construction in 1936). Compared to their counterparts on Earth, these ships had slightly shorter range, but significantly improved armor and speed, while their firepower was on par.

Later, upon hearing that the Bretanians had invented the concept of a "battlecruiser," the Demacians followed suit immediately, avoiding further strategic deception. Historically, the Demacians were supposed to build a disastrous "large cruiser," the Blücher, as a prototype for battlecruisers; however, this failed attempt was completely bypassed.
The name "Blücher" still exists, but it became a sister ship to the "Von der Tann" class battlecruiser. Furthermore, because the "Blücher" was built first, this first class of battlecruisers was directly renamed the "Blücher class." Subsequent battlecruisers, benefiting from the greater experience gained in the early stages, were able to avoid some of the pitfalls.

Secondly, in the realm of battleships, because the Demacians didn't need to consider long-range expeditions, after entering the dreadnought era, apart from the first-tier "Nassau-class" battleships still encountering some minor issues—that all main guns couldn't fire simultaneously from the same side—they avoided this problem from the later "Heligoland-class" onwards, ensuring that all main guns could fire to one side.

All subsequent battleships had better salvo performance, slightly improved firepower or armor, but reduced range compared to their historical counterparts. Specific details are too numerous to elaborate on here.

Of course, due to the isolation from the Far East, not only the Demacian navy benefited, but the Britannians on the other side also benefited slightly.

For example, because Fusang in this world is also a closed-off country, it is completely different from Japan on Earth. Therefore, the people of Fusang in this world did not buy the "Kongo" from Britannia, resulting in the Britannian army having an additional "Iron Duke"-class battleship, which was built using resources that were used to build the "Kongo" in Earth's history.

However, Britannia's colonies were still scattered all over the world, including Australia and New Zealand even without the Far East, so the design of its warships remained unchanged from those on Earth.

All these subtle changes have resulted in Rear Admiral Hipper's fleet today actually consisting of four battlecruisers as its main force:

The flagship "Defflinger", and the second ship of the same class "Seydlitz" (originally "Seydlitz" was a separate class in history), plus the "Blücher" and "Von der Tann" of the "Blücher" class (as shown in the picture below).

The Moltke, the lead ship of the Moltke-class battlecruiser that should have been under Hipper's command, was blockaded in the Black Sea before the war along with its sister ship, the Goben, and lent to the Ottomans. If it had the opportunity to go to the Eastern Front later, it could have made good use of its capabilities.

The two armored cruisers, the Scharnhorst and the Gneisenau (pictured below), were originally assigned to the Asiatic Fleet before the war began. After the war, they were intercepted and destroyed by the Britannians in the Falklands waters off Argentina on their return voyage. General Spee, the commander of their Asiatic Squadron, was also killed in the battle.

However, in this era, Demania has no Asian colonies, so there is no Asian fleet. The two ships have been lying at home and are still alive and well, and General Spee is also still alive.

The next four light cruisers included two Magdeburg-class (1912) and two Kolburg-class (1910).

As for those eight destroyers, they were utterly worthless and not worth mentioning. During World War I, German destroyers only had 88mm main guns, which were no match for the 120mm guns of the Bruins. Only their torpedoes were roughly comparable.

……

Lelouch spent the whole morning figuring out the fleet's composition and the whole story.

Seeing that General Hipper had ordered the ship to turn south ahead of time, Lelouch pondered for a moment before voicing a small question: "General, is it too hasty to turn south now? Although it may save some distance and time, will it increase the risk of premature exposure? We are only about 30 nautical miles from the Dutch coast, which is not far from the observation range of the coastal lighthouse."

If civilian ships frequently travel along the coast of the Netherlands and spot our fleet, and if any of them are Britannian spies who report our movements, then the consequences would be dire.

Lelouch asked very cautiously, after all, he was not an expert in naval warfare and was genuinely seeking advice.

Seeing his humble yet inquisitive demeanor, General Hipper took a liking to the intelligent young man. Having nothing better to do, he readily introduced him:

"Of course I know that turning ahead of time will increase the risk of being seen by ships near the shore, but we have to choose between two evils. We are now sailing to the eastern edge of the waters around Dogger Sandbar. If we sail further west, the water will become much shallower. The shallowest part of Dogger Sandbar is only 13 meters deep, and the deepest part is no more than 40 meters, with an average depth of 20 meters."

This waterway is too shallow to conceal submarines. The Empire's submarines are far more numerous and powerful than the enemy's, so if a body of water cannot conceal submarines, the enemy there will become rampant. In the waters off Dogger Sandbar, there are countless enemy trawlers—in fact, Bretonnia's spies—who, taking advantage of the lack of submarines there, patrol intensively with their nets, sending telegrams whenever they see our warships.

Therefore, I had to turn ahead of time to avoid the shallow waters. As long as I stayed in the deep waters, I could arrange for friendly submarines to ambush and monitor the area along the way. If there was any danger of being discovered, we could have the lead patrol destroyer or the ambush submarine issue a warning with a low-power shortwave signal, or simply sink it.

In waters where our submarines are active, the enemy dares not send armed fishing boats or other military vessels disguised as civilian ships to conduct net-casting reconnaissance.

In addition, it's already late October, and the colder the weather, the heavier the fog becomes over the North Sea. The fog usually doesn't dissipate until after 10 a.m., and it gets dark by 4:10 p.m. This season makes it relatively easy to conceal one's whereabouts.

I also pre-arranged for many destroyers to be deployed, like a net, several every fifty nautical miles from north to south. Upon encountering the enemy, they would launch torpedoes if possible, and then immediately retreat. This way, even if the enemy discovered our forward reconnaissance ships, they wouldn't be able to estimate whether there were main fleets following behind. Having enemy activity everywhere is equivalent to having no enemy activity anywhere.

(Note: The image above is a map of the Dogger Sandbar area. The area circled in red in the middle has extremely shallow water, making it inaccessible to submarines. In other words, submarines that do enter this area would have to surface and become easy targets. This is also evident from Baidu Maps; the water in this area is exceptionally light in color, formed by the confluence of sediment deposited by the Thames and Rhine rivers over millions of years.)
Hipper's explanation left Lelouch deeply impressed. As expected of one of the top admirals in the Demacian Navy, his stealth attack skills were exceptionally solid.

Before each attack, Hipper never expected to completely conceal the fact that "I have already attacked," because he knew it was impossible to hide.

He would only release a lot of smokescreens after openly announcing that he had "made his own move," making it impossible for the enemy to determine where he was actually attacking.

It's similar to how airplanes in later times would deploy chaff when they encountered radar scanning.

Chaff cannot conceal the fact that an aircraft has intruded, but it can make you unaware of the real target's location by using a large number of decoy targets.

The most ingenious part is that all of this was not something Hipper hastily prepared, but rather something he had already prepared and intended to use as smoke bombs during the bombardment of Yarmouth.

The target has simply changed temporarily, but the previous smokescreens can be used directly without adjustment, which is why the response is so rapid, allowing for a "spontaneous trip".

My luggage was packed in advance; I just changed my train ticket at the last minute.

At this moment, the Britannians certainly knew that Hipper had disappeared, but they didn't know where he would appear.

As long as it doesn't collapse, it can exist in a quantum superposition state that is both this and that.

As long as the jungler doesn't show his face, he could appear on any lane.

Minister Walton thought Hipper was going to gank mid, so he temporarily moved Betty from top lane to mid to prepare for a counter-gank. However, Hipper actually chose to gank bottom lane instead.

-

P.S.: The match won't officially start until tomorrow.

After I started writing, I realized that there was a lot of background information and combat data on the naval battle, and the deployment of both sides took up two chapters.

However, please forgive me for writing 7,000 words for two consecutive days during the new book period, as I have been updating frequently.

The main purpose is to explain the initial world-building and the differences in background between the two worlds in this chapter.

It will be fine tomorrow.

I'm still asking for comments, updates, favorites, and votes for my new book. Thank you!

(End of this chapter)