Re: Blood and Iron

The Channel was restless.

Grey swells rolled beneath a sky the color of hammered lead, rain threatening at the horizon.

Along its width steamed the might of Britain, columns of cruisers and destroyers fanning around the bulk of the troop transports.

The Royal Navy had done this before. For centuries it had moved men and materiel across waters that belonged to the Crown by right and tradition.

Though in 1914 they suffered setbacks at the hands of the Kaiserliche Marine, today they were confident they would succeed in their goals.

Signals flickered across the decks, semaphore arms wheeling, lamps pulsing.

Engines pounded at flank speed as troopships loaded with infantry and supply convoys steamed toward the French coast.

The Admiralty had ordered haste; France was bleeding, and if the Republic's ports collapsed under German bombardment, Britain would have no foothold left on the continent.

On the bridge of HMS Renown, Captain Arthur Kelmscott stood braced against the vibration of turbines.

His eyes scanned the murk, jaw clenched.

The Admiralty had promised German interference would be "limited." A few U-boats perhaps, some raiders. Nothing the Royal Navy could not handle.

And yet…

His first officer joined him, binoculars pressed to his eyes. "Smoke, bearing two-one-five. Heavy. No transports. Warships."

Kelmscott's gut turned. "How many?"

The man lowered the lenses, face drained of color. "Too many."

---

Far beyond the horizon, the German High Seas Fleet cut the grey with deliberate precision.

It did not look like the navy of a continental power; it looked like a weapon forged a century ahead of its time.

At its heart steamed two nuclear-powered carriers, each the length of a city block, their decks crowded with turboprop strike fighters and torpedo bombers waiting for the launch order.

Around them ran concentric rings of missile cruisers and destroyers, hulls bristling with vertical launch cells.

Unseen beneath, prowled the silent hunters: teardrop-shaped submarines whose launch tubes housed not torpedoes alone but missiles that could kill from over the horizon.

Admiral Günther Bremer stood at the plotting table of the carrier Fürst Otto, his pale eyes calm as staff relayed radar contacts.

Icons bloomed across the electronic board: British capital ships, destroyer screens, the lumbering blips of transports.

"They mean to reinforce France," his operations officer said, voice taut.

"Then we will drown them short of the coast," Bremer replied evenly.

He touched a gloved finger to the board. "Air wings, launch. Subsurface units, loose your hounds. Cruisers, ready missile locks. Let us give them a brutal reminder of what happened in 1914 when they tried to cross the English Channel by sea."

---

The sea erupted.

On the flight deck of Fürst Otto, turbines screamed as catapults hurled squadrons of strike fighters into the wind.

Sleek turboprops clawed upward, banking in formation, sunlight flashing across rocket pods and underwing missiles.

Bombers followed, their bellies heavy with torpedoes of the most lethal kind.

Below the waves, German submarines surged into attack positions.

One by one, their hatches opened, missiles ejected into the dark before igniting and streaking toward the surface.

The British never saw them until contrails blossomed over the horizon.

Kelmscott's voice thundered across the bridge. "Hard to port! Bring up the pom-poms, open fire!"

The sea lit with flame.

Dozens of anti-aircraft guns barked in furious unison, tracers clawing skyward.

But the missiles flew too fast, too low, weaving across the chop like predators.

The first slammed into a destroyer on the outer screen, tearing it open with a blossom of fire.

Another struck a transport square amidships, men spilled into the sea, swallowed before their screams carried.

"Christ almighty…" the first officer whispered.

Kelmscott forced himself to stay still, hands gripping the railing until his knuckles whitened.

"Signal Admiralty. Tell them we are under massed missile attack. And tell them, God help us… Tell them that the Germans have brought a new kind of war."

---

High above, German strike fighters dived through cloud, throttles open.

They carried no bombsights, no illusions of gentlemanly warfare.

Their pilots locked onto radar echoes, loosed guided rockets, and pulled into the clouds before the British gunners could line them up.

One squadron of spitfires clawed upward to intercept, brave and obsolete in the same moment.

The dogfight was brief, savage. British rounds chewed through the sky but found only ghosts; the Germans cut them to ribbons, turboprops out-climbing and out-turning their prey.

Down below, the Channel was chaos.

Transports burned, destroyers wheeled frantically, and the great grey hulks of battleships bellowed with their guns, hurling sixteen-inch shells at shadows on the horizon.

For a heartbeat, Kelmscott believed the old weapons might still prevail.

One German frigate took a direct hit, its hull sheared open, smoke and flame boiling skyward. The crew cheered.

Then the second wave came.

Missiles rained down, sea-skimmers exploding against armored flanks, high-altitude cruise weapons plunging like thunderbolts.

The Renown staggered under a near miss, her decks buckling, water pouring across the forecastle. Men screamed, some thrown into the sea.

Kelmscott wiped blood from his brow, his cap gone. He heard himself say, "So this is how it ends. Just fire from the sky."

---

On the bridge of Fürst Otto, Admiral Bremer clasped his hands behind his back.

Reports streamed in, destroyers sunk, transports burning, resistance collapsing.

The British had fought like lions, but they fought with claws dulled by time.

"Maintain pressure," he ordered. "No survivors to France. Sink every hull that carries men or material."

The staff obeyed without question.

The Reichsmarschall's directive was clear: no mercy, no half-measures.

To aid France was to invite death.

Bremer allowed himself a thin smile as the screen updated, red icons vanishing one by one.

The High Seas Fleet had waited decades for this moment. Now the Channel belonged to Germany.

---

At sea level the reality was carnage.

Oil slicks stretched for miles, burning where fire clung to the waves.

Men flailed in the water, their cries drowned by the crack of secondary explosions.

British destroyers fought to haul survivors aboard, only to be struck themselves, torn open in sheets of flame.

In the belly of U-142, Kapitänleutnant Schäfer watched through the periscope as a troopship rolled onto its side, screws thrashing the air.

Hundreds of men clung to the rails as it slid under.

He felt a tremor in his chest, pity, perhaps, or merely the weight of history, but it passed. Orders were orders.

"Reload tubes. Prepare next volley."

By dusk the Channel was a graveyard.

Where once columns of British steel had steamed proud, now wreckage drifted, black smoke trailing into the night.

Only a handful of ships limped westward, decks scarred, holds empty of the supplies they had carried.

On the bridge of Renown, Kelmscott stood swaying, his uniform torn, eyes hollow.

His ship lived, barely, but the fleet was gone.

He thought of Nelson, of all the admirals who had once claimed the sea as Britain's birthright.

He thought of how they would curse him, or pity him.

The radio crackled weakly. "Admiralty to Renown… report status."

Kelmscott forced himself to answer. "This is Renown. The fleet is destroyed. The Channel belongs to Germany once more…."

---

Word reached Berlin almost immediately after the battle began.

In the Reich Chancellery, Bruno read the dispatch with cold satisfaction.

The liberal order had wagered that Britain's fleet could still dictate the terms of war.

Instead, it lay shattered beneath the waves.

This was a foolish gambit to be sure.

In 1914 he had showed the world that Germania ruled the waves.

But people were stubborn.

People were foolish.

They thought if they advanced their ships, and their computational ability they could match the German Fleets of 1914.

And they had, in fact judging by t he satellite imagery. The British Fleet was perhaps slightly better equipped than it was in his past life when the war began in 1939.

But Germany's fleet was a generation ahead, maybe two.

He had not remained stagnant in the twenty years since the great war.

He had not rested on his laurels.

No, Bruno had ensured that the Kaiserliche Marine would remain uncontested across the globe.

And this opening battle on the English Channel was proof of this.

He turned to the gathered generals and admirals, his voice iron.

"Let the world understand. The age of sail ended long ago. Now the age of mercy has ended as well. If they bring fleets against us, we will burn them. If they land men against us, we will drown them. This war will not be fought for prestige or tradition. It will be fought for survival. And survival is ours alone."

The room was silent, only the ticking of the great clock marking time.

Then one by one, the officers nodded. The order was clear, the path set.

---

Across the Channel, Britain wept.

Mothers searched for sons who would not return, ports stood empty of ships, and the Admiralty whispered of disaster behind closed doors.

France, already reeling, understood at last that she would receive no salvation by sea.

The Channel was iron now. And it bore the mark of the Reich.