This heretic cannot be burned, he must be hung up and whipped!

"Now! Starboard! Starboard is empty!"

A Swordfish pilot excitedly shouted over the radio, "All brothers! Follow me! Give all your gifts to that big guy!"

The opportunity was fleeting. Three Swordfish attack planes, having broken through the anti-aircraft fire, rushed into the fire gap created by the explosion from different directions without hesitation, like sharks smelling blood. They encountered almost no resistance and calmly released their torpedoes at extremely close range.

Three new white tracks once again accurately shot towards the already damaged hull of the Sinking Pioneer!

On the battlefield higher up, the leader of the Fury bomber squadron also made a quick assessment. He pulled his plane out of a beautiful dive, sending a fireball rising from the deck of the heretic battleship behind him. However, it was clear that the bomb he dropped, apart from destroying a secondary turret and causing some casualties on the deck, had done no substantial damage to the thick core armor.

"Fury, calling all units!" the leader decisively ordered over the radio, "Stop attacking the battleships! Our bombs have no effect on these iron turtles! Change targets! Prioritize attacking the enemy cruisers and destroyers! Send them all to the bottom of the sea to feed the fish! Reduce the pressure on our battleships!"

The furious aircraft group that had completed the first round of attacks in the sky immediately changed their tactics. Instead of diving towards the battleships, they began looking for targets with weak armor in the heretic escort formation.

A bomber targeted a heretic light cruiser, which was firing heavily at an English destroyer. He cut in at a sharp angle and went into a dive. Alarms wailed shrilly on the heretic cruiser, but it was too late. The pilot dropped his bomb at two thousand feet and then yanked his nose up.

The bomb roared down and hit the rear of the cruiser accurately. The violent explosion directly detonated the cruiser's depth charge storage, and a series of even more violent explosions blew the entire rear half of the cruiser to pieces. It quickly tilted and began to sink in the flames and thick smoke.

The battle entered its most frantic and intense phase. The Fury bombers, having exhausted their bombs, refused to return. The pilots, enraged by the sacrifice of their comrades and the enemy's stubborn resistance, flew over the decks of the heretic ships again and again. Coastal bombers also rushed over, and even seaplanes were about to attack them!

--------

Heretic Fleet Sinking Herald

The bridge was in shambles, a mess of broken glass and blood-stained metal, the air thick with the pungent smell of gunpowder and burnt protein.

　"BOOM!!!"

"These damn flies!"

Ever since the ship was hit by an aerial torpedo, bad news kept coming in. Those damned planes were like hyenas on the African savannah, constantly harassing and attacking! In three hours, the ship's starboard side had been hit by four torpedoes, and the rudder had been damaged.

There was no other choice but for Malawiki to blow up the damaged rudder and let friendly forces tow the ship to control the direction.

"Commander, we can't flood the port side anymore. We've already injected three thousand tons of seawater. Adding more water will reduce our speed to 21 knots."

The entire giant ship was still stubbornly tilting to the starboard side. Although the damage control team tried their best to seal most of the breaches, the influx of seawater made the movements of this steel behemoth sluggish and clumsy.

"Report to the Legion Commander!" Another piece of bad news arrived. "The Blasphemer—the Blasphemer has been confirmed sunk! It exploded after being hit by the fourth torpedo and has broken in two!"

"Report... Report!" another staff officer cried, "Our destroyer fleet... is almost finished! Those damn planes in the sky—they're like vultures! The Blackheart and Ironthorn cruisers have also sunk!"

Commander Malawiki listened silently to the devastating news. His face was expressionless, but his clenched fists betrayed the turmoil within him. He glanced at his advisor, whose face was equally grim, and then gave an order in an unquestionable, metallic, cold voice:

"Signal to the entire fleet: Disengage from combat, heading two-two-five, break out to the southwest. All ships, at maximum sustainable speed, alternately cover each other and retreat."

The advisor walked over to him, looked at the lights on the nautical chart that represented his own ships, most of which had now gone out, and forced a hint of optimism.

"We exceeded our target, sinking a Crusader battlecruiser and taking out at least seven battleships and many cruisers.

Their main fleet in the English Channel has been basically destroyed. They have no ability to pursue us. As long as we can get out of this damned sea, we will be safe. "

Malawiki did not answer, but just stared at the sea chart, trying to find a way out.

The consultant looked at Malawiki's silent back and finally couldn't help but express his confusion:

"I just don't understand, Commander. Where do all those Crusader planes come from? Torpedo planes, bombers... endlessly! According to statistics, our fleet is attacked by a new round of air strikes almost every hour! This doesn't make sense! Where do they get so many coastal airfields?"

"They crawled out of hell—I guess the Crusaders built miniature mobile fortresses specifically for taking off and landing aircraft."

Malavic finally spoke. "From the moment we chose to enter this strait, we plunged headfirst into the hell the enemy had prepared for us. Planes can take off from land, from those miniature mobile fortresses hidden in the storm.

Now, they no longer need a vast fleet to hunt us. They have wings, and we are just a bunch of slow-moving targets trapped in a puddle."

He turned and looked his advisor straight in the eye with a clarity that was almost cruel.

"I agree with the old enemy saying, 'The Navy is the only service you can lose everything in an afternoon.'

We won the raid on the port, we broke the backbone of the Crusaders, but so what?

Now it's our turn. I have a strong feeling, Counselor, a very ominous feeling. We are likely to be... left forever in the cold waters of the Atlantic by these planes."

The consultant opened his mouth, but no words came out.

Night falls.

The darkness offered no respite to the battered heretic fleet. Like ghosts in the night, the Crusader aircraft continued their harassment. Fighters dropped flares, illuminating the sea like daylight, revealing the fleet's position and forcing the exhausted ships to make evasive maneuvers.

Immediately afterwards, bombs would fall from nowhere. Although the damage they caused was not great, they repeatedly tore at the nerves of the heretic officers and soldiers, which had already been stretched to the limit.

As long as any anti-aircraft gun position dared to fire, it would be attacked by a group of planes circling in the darkness. Dozens of machine guns were constantly sweeping the deck, so that no heretic sailor dared to go on deck to operate the anti-aircraft gun.

Just when the atmosphere in the fleet was about to be completely crushed by despair, an exciting news finally came from the deep sea.

"Commander! Victory!" the communications officer excitedly rushed onto the bridge. "We've received a signal from our submarine wolf pack deployed north of the English Channel! They've successfully intercepted the Holy Roman Empire fleet that was reinforcing from the North Sea!

According to preliminary battle reports, we have sunk at least two of their cruisers and successfully forced the enemy fleet to slow down! The Crusader warships will not be able to catch up with us tonight! "

"Long live the Lord of Hell!"

A long-suppressed cheer erupted from the bridge. The advisor's face finally revealed genuine joy: "Great! Commander, did you hear that? We succeeded! We've broken a hole in the Crusaders' encirclement plan!"

However, Commander Maraduweki just listened quietly, his expression unchanged. He walked to the porthole and stared out at the bottomless darkness that swallowed up all hope.

"boom!"

On the sea, one of our badly damaged destroyers failed to evade an air attack and crashed into the stern of another cruiser. Both ships were on fire and were slowly sinking, with violent explosions emanating from time to time.

He waited until everyone's cheers died down before he slowly spoke in a voice that sounded almost dreamy:

"Interception only stopped them, not eliminated them. We are still thousands of kilometers away from our home port. Advisor, this small victory of ours merely secured a reprieve from the death penalty, which was already predetermined for us."

"The final judgment has already been made."

Red Tide: 1921: Chapter ** I hate two kinds of people: those who drive submarines, and those who don't let me drive submarines

"London Radio reminds you that it is three o'clock in the morning. May Christ be with you."

The clock struck three in the morning on London's Big Ben. The fighter planes, torpedo planes, and bombers roaring overhead from the heretic fleet disappeared into the eastern night.

The Crusader pilots were also flesh and blood. After more than a dozen hours of intense combat, their mental and physical strength were stretched to the limit, and they desperately needed precious rest. More importantly, for pilots with only a few months of experience in aircraft carrier operations, landing on the pitch-black, swaying deck of a carrier at night was as difficult and dangerous as launching a suicidal charge directly at a heretic battleship. Any slight mistake could mean the destruction of the aircraft and the death of the crew.

Neos discussed with the British Navy Minister and believed that the offensive could be slowed down first. Time was not on the heretics' side, so the pilots withdrew from above the heretic fleet.

As time slowly slipped towards 3:40 in the morning, the exhausted heretic fleet finally got a chance to catch its breath.

In the pitch-black night sky above them, only a few large Crusader seaplanes remained. These seaplanes, with their astonishing endurance of more than ten hours, circled leisurely at several thousand feet at low to medium altitudes, always maintaining a safe distance from the fleet's anti-aircraft guns—even though no heretics dared to board them now.

These seaplanes ensured that every movement and every change in speed of the heretic fleet would be converted into telegraph codes and sent back to the command center in London at the first moment.

In the invisible darkness of the deep sea, a silent game unfolded. To protect the main fleet's safe withdrawal from the English Channel and escape into the vast Atlantic Ocean, dozens of heretical submarines had already been ordered to arrive. They quietly set up a massive ambush in the key waters near the southwest and northeast exits of the channel.

In the northeast of the English Channel - from the White Cliffs of Dover in the UK to Calais in France, there is only a 34-kilometer-wide area of ​​water. Dozens of submarines are crowded here, making the fleet of the Holy Roman Empire dare not rush in.

The French support fleet in the southwest and the support fleet coming from the Strait of St. George wisely stopped pursuing after learning of this information because they had three slow-speed escort aircraft carriers.

Our own aircraft carrier has a maximum speed of 20 knots, and its protection capability is basically equivalent to that it will be severely damaged if it is hit by a torpedo and will sink if it is hit by two torpedoes. Our maneuverability is poor. It is dark, and there are dozens of submarines underwater on the opposite side.

Which fleet commander would dare to lead the main fleet with this configuration to charge into the heretic submarine ambush circle tonight?

Therefore, before new orders were issued, they could only patrol at a safe distance and continuously dispatch a large number of frigates and destroyers to search the waters near the fleet again and again to prevent submarines from stealing their boats.

But it didn't matter. The cannon fire on the sea had ceased, and the roar of engines in the sky had faded. In this temporarily quiet battlefield, the responsibility of destroying the enemy quietly fell on another force also lurking in the darkness - the Crusader Submarine Force.

----------

At the same moment when Commander Malawiki was despairing about the fate of his fleet, dozens of nautical miles away, the English T-class submarine Victory was cruising silently at periscope depth.

On the bridge, Captain Major David Sterling scanned the dark sea through a telescope. Suddenly, the northwest skyline was torn apart by a pale white light that lingered for a long time.

"Northwest, position three-one-zero! It's a flare!" the lookout shouted.

Stirling immediately turned the telescope in that direction. Under the brief but bright light of the flare, a huge and blurry black ship silhouette flashed across the distant sea horizon.

"Neos's butt—it's them!" Sterling suppressed his excitement. "Combat alert! All forces deployed! DIVE! DIVE! DIVE!"

The alarm bells instantly rang out in every corner of the submarine. The bridge crew quickly retreated to the command cabin, and with a heavy "bang", the hatch was locked tightly.

"Fill the main ballast tanks with water! Lower the front horizontal rudder fifteen degrees and the rear horizontal rudder ten degrees!" The first mate calmly repeated the order.

"The water filling valve is open!"

"Submerge fifteen degrees, copy!"

The submarine sank rapidly into the cold, dark waters with a violent tremor and a hissing sound of exhaust. In the command cabin, red emergency lights replaced the incandescent lights, casting a layer of nervous blood on everyone's face.

"Captain, depth sixty feet, course steady," the helmsman reported.

"Very good." Captain Sterling walked to the periscope, gripping the control handle with both hands, "Raise the attack periscope!"

"Raise the periscope!"

As the hydraulic rods operated, the lens barrel slowly rose. Sterling put his eye close to it and carefully rotated the lens, leaving only the top of the lens a few inches above the water.

"Sonar room, report contact!" he ordered while observing.

"Sonar detected multiple large propeller noises, bearing 3-0-5 to 3-2-5, distance... the distance is approaching rapidly! It sounds... it sounds like three large ships, and some smaller escort ships! They are injured, Captain! The sounds of their propellers are very irregular, and some even have a harsh friction sound!" The sonar operator's voice came from the listening tube with a hint of excitement.

"I saw it," Sterling said calmly, but his pupils were dilated. "Three battleships... so slow... My God, one of them is listing badly—according to intelligence, it should be the flagship, the Pioneer of the Sunken. Our air force brothers did a great job. Now, it's our turn to send them off."

He turned on the stopwatch, picked up the compass and triangle ruler and began to mark the location on the map.

The submarine has no differential engine, analytical engine, or even electronic computer, so the captain must manually calculate the data of the heretic fleet based on observations.

"Click!" He pressed the stopwatch, counted to thirty seconds silently, and skillfully wrote down a series of data on the map with his right hand. He and the skilled calculator cooperated with the captain to immediately mark the movement trajectory lines of their own and enemy fleets on the map.

Stella continued to rotate the periscope, rapidly reading out a series of data: "Target, enemy flagship! Bearing 3-1-5, identified as the Sunken Pioneer! Distance... 12,000 yards! Speed... about 20 knots! Starboard 40!"

"Lower the periscope!" He gave the order decisively, and the periscope was quickly retracted.

"Have you written down all the data?"

"Yes, Captain."

"Very good," Sterling turned and walked to the chart table, on which was fixed a sophisticated hand-cranked mechanical shooting element computer.

"Let's get started. We need a perfect shooting plan."

The captain personally cranked the computer's cranks and dials, entering all the data he had just observed—the target's position, range, speed, and side angle, as well as his own speed and course. With a crisp click, the gears within the computer began to mesh rapidly, performing the calculations.

In an era without electronic computers, this sophisticated mechanical masterpiece was the key to whether they could hit their targets.

"Torpedo room! Fill torpedo tubes No. 1 to 6 with water!" The first mate gave the order through the voice tube.

"Torpedo tubes No. 1 to No. 6 have been filled with water!" A response came from the torpedo compartment.

Inside the cramped torpedo bay, several oil-stained torpedomen were making final preparations. Following instructions from the command cabin, they used specialized wrenches to set critical parameters on each 21-inch Mk VI torpedo.

"Mine number one, set to a depth of fifteen feet!"

"Mine number two, set to a depth of fifteen feet!"

"Gyroscope angle, fifteen degrees left! Setting completed!"

One torpedoman reported loudly, while another carefully checked the propeller and rudder at the tail of the torpedo.

At this moment, a member of the Mechanicus on the ship walked into the torpedo compartment carrying an incense burner emitting green smoke from holy oil.

He slowly waved the incense burner in front of the six torpedoes and began to recite the special prayer for the submarine force:

"Hear my prayer, slumbering soul of steel. You are not iron, but the wrath of God, the judgment of the saints.

In the name of Om Messiah, the God of All Things, I instill direction in you, grant you the power of destruction, and command you to stay on course. Defend the Kingdom of God with the blood of your enemies.

Your mission is only destruction! Machine Soul, activate! "

After the prayer, he dipped his finger in holy oil and solemnly drew a miniature gear holy emblem on the warhead of each torpedo. The torpedo soldiers were already accustomed to this. They waited respectfully for the ceremony to be completed, and kept bowing to the torpedoes in the torpedo compartment.

"Report to the captain! The shooting elements have been calculated!" reported the computer soldier.

"Torpedo room report! Torpedoes one through six are ready! The Machine Spirit activation ceremony has been completed!"

"Very good!" Sterling ordered again, "Raise the periscope! Make a final confirmation!"

The periscope rose again. On the surface of the sea, the massive heretic fleet drew closer. Sterling could clearly see the massive, tilted, distorted silhouette of the Sunken Herald.

"Five thousand yards! The target hasn't changed course!" His voice was as cool as ice. "Bearing aligned! Ready—fire!"

The atmosphere in the command cabin froze to freezing point, and everyone held their breath.

"Number one, fire!"

"Bang!" With a dull loud noise, the submarine shook violently, and the first torpedo was pushed out of the launch tube by high-pressure air and rushed into the dark deep sea.

"Number two, fire!"

"boom!"