Chapter 292 Mobile Defense Circle

At 3:30 in the morning of the next day, Colonel Hesing commanded the U-21 submarine to appear in the waters west of the Dardanelles Strait.

In principle, he didn't need to arrive so early. Colonel He Xing had already investigated the time and pattern of dawn: it would dawn around six o'clock, and the dawn time would be about ten minutes earlier every day, which meant that the attack time would be around five fifty.

But Colonel Hesing believed that reaching the attack position first would be beneficial to the mission.

In Colonel Hexing's office, he drew a circle in the sea area in front of V Beach on the map with a pencil in his hand while analyzing to the deputy captain:

"French battleships are usually equipped with 305MM caliber main guns with a range of more than ten kilometers, and 138MM secondary guns with a range of eight kilometers."

"I believe that in order to provide sufficient firepower reinforcements for the landing troops, the battleships will enter the eight-kilometer range to allow the secondary guns to play a role."

“So their activity range is estimated to be in this sea area.”

The deputy captain nodded in agreement: "The French warships always seem to be in the front. It seems that the French ship Gaulos was the one that blew up the Ottoman ammunition depot!"

"Yes." Colonel Hexing smiled lightly, with a hint of sarcasm on the corner of his mouth: "They seem to be eager to show off, so they are willing to risk the artillery fire to shoot at close range."

"That's understandable," the deputy captain replied. "Their warships were outclassed by the British, so they were eager to make achievements on the battlefield. Charles must have come for this reason, right?"

Colonel Hexing looked at the deputy captain and smiled knowingly: "Charles is not that simple, Otto, he was forced to come here by the parliament."

Then Colonel Hexing brought the subject back to the point:

"If we knew the enemy would be here, we wouldn't have to wait until they arrived before approaching."

"We can get there first, then dive down and wait for them. It'll be much safer this way!"

The deputy captain had no objection to this. He just joked: "Aren't you afraid that we will be sunk by the enemy as soon as we surface?"

This is indeed very possible. Submarines of this period did not even have hydrophones. Sunk to the bottom of the water, they did not even know whether enemy warships were operating overhead.

(Note: The hydrophone was invented by a French physicist and a Russian electrical engineer in late 1915.)

If it is directly above or very close, the submarine will be broken into two by a passing battleship or a destroyer will hit it and make a big hole before it can surface to the height of the periscope.

Either way, it would be fatal to a submarine.

Colonel Hexing responded calmly, "There is reward when there is danger. That's Charles!"

…

After the submarine arrived at its destination, Colonel Hexing climbed onto the submarine's island, leaned out his upper body, and observed the sea through a telescope.

The sea surface was very calm, gray and hazy under the moonlight. Only the sea breeze blew the waves and constantly hit the submarine, causing it to rock back and forth.

In the distance, Cape Helles of the Dardanelles sticks out from one end of the continent like a sea snake, as if observing something, and V Beach is like its tongue.

Colonel He Xing observed for a while, retreated to the island and carefully looked at the map with a flashlight, then ordered the submarine to change position for observation, and finally determined that its position was about ten kilometers west of V Beach.

Colonel He Xing retreated into the island with satisfaction and closed the hatch cover. The submarine slowly dived and disappeared in the sea like a ghost, as if it had never appeared in the future.

…

After the submarine dived into the water, He Xing took a nap on his desk.

If there is any safest place in the world, it is when a submarine dives into the water. Apart from reefs, He Xing can't think of anything that can pose a threat to it.

At five twenty, the deputy captain woke He Xing up on time.

Colonel He Xing rubbed his dry eyes, took the coffee handed to him by the deputy captain, drank two sips, and then issued a series of orders:

"Engine start!"

"Keep on course and full speed ahead!"

"Ascend to periscope height!"

…

If He Xing's estimation was correct, the submarine would appear right in front of the enemy fleet after surfacing, not a bit more or less.

However, when the submarine stuck its head out of the periscope, Colonel Heshing was shocked by what he saw.

The enemy fleet actually approached five kilometers away to carry out close bombing on V Beach. The position of the battleship was obvious. It fired at V Beach in the middle of the fleet. The fire and smoke from the muzzle acted like a beacon to point out the direction for itself.

At the same time, the Ottoman soldiers on V Beach also launched a counterattack on the fleet. The shells caused towering columns of water to rise from the sea surface. The sea surface was filled with white gas, and it was impossible to tell whether it was gunpowder smoke from the shells, water vapor, or exhaust gas from warships.

Colonel He Xing felt something was wrong.

If someone else was so reckless, Colonel He Xing would think it was no problem, but this was Charles!

How could he put his fleet in a passive position right from the start? Wasn't he worried about submarine attacks at all?

After a careful look, Colonel He Xing understood.

Against the backdrop of the gray sky, Colonel Hexing discovered that there were a total of nine destroyers around the battleship, which were circling around the battleship.

"That's a very clever move." Colonel He Xing praised: "As expected of Charles!"

This mobile defense is much more useful than a lightning net.

The circling destroyers actually formed an invisible defense network. Once a submarine gets close and sticks out its periscope, it can easily be crashed by these destroyers.

Now, He Xing seems to have only two choices:

Either withdraw before being discovered by the enemy, or launch torpedoes outside the "mobile defense circle" like Charles.

However, the defense circle was at least two kilometers away, which was almost impossible to hit with a torpedo.

After thinking for a while, He Xing gave the order in a deep voice: "Maintain course, speed, and dive!"

"Maintain course, speed, and dive!"

At the same time, He Xing took out a pocket watch from his arms and recorded the time when the submarine dived.

Colonel Hexing decided to take a risk and calculated the time and speed.

If the calculation is correct, the submarine will break through the enemy's "mobile defense circle" when it surfaces and appear at a distance of about 500 meters from the target.

There were only two destroyers in the inner layer, so there was much more time and space for operations.

What Colonel He Xing did not expect was that the three destroyers in the inner layer were the most dangerous.

This was a trap that Charles had carefully laid for him:

The battleships were engaged in a fierce battle with the enemy at V Beach, which would give the enemy submarines the impression that they had an opportunity to attack.

The "mobile defense circle" set up by the destroyer is designed to force the submarine to appear in the inner circle and launch a close-range sneak attack on the battleship.

The three destroyers in the inner layer were the modified destroyers that Charles brought from France. They had already prepared depth charges and were waiting for the submarines to appear.

(From left to right in the picture above, they are Germany's U22, U20, U19, and the U21 that appears in the article)

(End of this chapter)