Capture of Gibraltar (1704)

  Dinak's assault team was making its way to the outskirts of the radar station when Dinak personally led a few members of the assault team to observe the British radar station they were about to attack.

  They hid in a very long patch of reeds outside the radar station, observing the situation at the British radar station with the light from the radar station itself and the searchlights from the sentry towers around.

  Dinak asked a naval corporal named Rudek beside him: "Rudek, are you sure they only have that many fixed sentries?"

  "Sir, I'm certain they have those ten fixed posts, but I haven't calculated the patrol interval of their roving patrols yet. But I can do that in another two minutes."

  "Dina said, 'Alright, you and they continue to observe here, while making the bombs we need. I'll go back and bring up the main force.'" Then he turned around, bent over and quickly left.

  After ten minutes, Dinarke brought other team members up, and based on Rudeike's observation results, Dinarke began to assign combat tasks.

  Dinak said, "According to Lieutenant Rudick's observations, they have eight fixed sentry posts and ten mobile patrols. The patrol interval outside the radar base is twelve minutes. Because they need to bypass a small grove on that side, we should be able to make our move without making too much noise and startling them. What we need to do is infiltrate their base during the patrol intervals. Take out their sentries, destroy their radar equipment, and we also have a technical expert here who will dismantle the key parts of the British radar and bring it back for study. The device is in their control room." He pointed to someone in the team.

  "One of our tasks is to cover him while he dismantles the device. The British troops closest to this radar station are fifteen kilometers away, and at their current response speed, it will take them fifteen minutes to arrive as reinforcements, so I require that we must resolve the battle within ten minutes. Only then can we safely withdraw. Do you understand?"

  "Understood." The team member growled.

  "Alright, I'll lead Team A to raid the base. Rudick, you take Team B and clear out the British sentry points, providing us with covering fire. Rick, you take Team C and escort our expert to dismantle the crucial radar equipment of the British. It's now 1:25 AM. Everyone synchronize your watches. The patrol team will pass by here in five minutes. We'll start our operation after they've passed. Let's get ready."

  Five minutes later, a patrol team walked by from the distance of the bushes. Several black shadows suddenly flipped out of the bushes and quickly approached the soldiers on the sentry tower under the cover of darkness where the searchlight could not reach.

  With a few whizzing sounds, the soldiers on the watchtower were shot down by Rudick's soldiers with special crossbow arrows. Because the arrowheads were coated with highly toxic substances, those soldiers didn't even have time to shout before they went to see God.

  Rudick took out the wire cutters and snipped through the barbed wire, then carefully rolled it open to both sides. Behind him, Dinak led group A in crawling under the wire, followed by Rick's group C. Rudick directed group B, dispatching a few men to climb up the British sentry tower to take over the 'duty' of the British sentries, while the rest quickly set up a mortar and several machine guns at a vantage point, establishing a firepower cover position.

  Dinak pointed to the several sentries patrolling in the middle of the radar base, and with a nod, he put on the British military uniform that had been prepared long ago, and walked towards the control room in the footsteps of the British army.

  As he walked up to the front, the British soldier in front of the control room suddenly discovered him and shouted loudly: "Halt, password."

  The German soldier said in a changed tone of English: "Still password, I'm dying of stomachache, did you bring toilet paper?"

  The British soldier didn't suspect a thing and said: "I have it on me, wait a moment." Then he went to rummage through his own pockets.

  The German soldier stepped forward, the dagger that had been hidden in his sleeve slid into his hand, and with one knife he cut off the British soldier's neck artery. He hurriedly supported him as he fell, then dragged him into the shadows. Wiped the cold sweat from his hands on his pants. If the British soldier hadn't gone to dig for toilet paper but continued to ask for the password, he would have had to throw out a flying knife.

  While he took out the British soldiers, several snipers from the fire cover group also quickly took out other sentries with the help of the searchlights. Since their guns were equipped with simple silencers, they did not alert the British in the barracks.

  Dinak glanced at his watch, four minutes had passed. He waved his hand and the German soldiers quickly and quietly ran to their posts according to the plan set earlier. The soldiers of group A were busy placing explosives on radar antennas and other buildings. While the soldiers of group C broke into the control room, shot dead the personnel on duty with a pistol, and began to cover the technical experts to dismantle the devices inside.

  After the C group came out, Dinar asked them to cover the technical experts and retreat first, while others were responsible for covering. Just as the C group personnel left, Dinar waved his hand and asked the A group to leave one after another. At this moment, a loud shout suddenly came from the direction of an English army barracks: "Who are you? Stop!" Immediately afterwards was the sound of a string of bullets being fired. A German soldier closest to the voice rolled sideways, firing a short burst while rolling, and the British soldier fell down with a response.

  Dinak heard the gunfire and was stunned for a moment, but immediately reacted and ordered his men to take cover, preparing to shoot at the British soldiers who were alarmed in their barracks.

  After the gunfire, a shrill alarm began to drift over the British radar station. The British soldiers startled by the gunfire and alarms did not have time to put on their uniforms, many just wore one leg of pants and ran out of the barracks, instantly being knocked down by accurate shooting from Dinh Duc's A team.

  Some British soldiers saw their companions being knocked to the ground and hastily climbed out of the window, but were immediately swept away by machine guns controlled by German troops in the watchtower. However, the number of British soldiers was too large, and after a while they rushed out again, occupying the sheltered terrain and exchanging fire with Dinaque's men. Seeing this, Dinaque hastily asked the blasters to detonate some explosives ahead of time.

  After a few loud explosions, the British firepower did indeed subside for a while. Dinarak was about to organize a retreat when he didn't expect these British soldiers to be seasoned veterans of many battles, otherwise they wouldn't have been sent here. After the explosion, only a small number of them suffered heavy losses because they were closer to the blast point, and the others were just startled, and as soon as they came to their senses, they opened fire again at the Germans.

  Rudick saw Dinak they were stuck in the camp, even detonating some explosives did not have a good effect. Hurriedly ordered the mortar to open fire, with three rounds of mortar shells falling behind the objects that British soldiers relied on for cover, the British soldiers began to panic.

  A British officer crouched near the barracks, waving his pistol to rally the disorganized British soldiers for a counterattack against the Germans. But the second salvo of mortar shells came down, landing just a short distance away from him. He was instantly silenced forever, and other British officers were startled, hastily seeking cover and momentarily unable to command their troops.

  The third salvo of shells fired by the mortar was smoke bombs. It fell between the British and Germans, Dina knew it was a good time to retreat, aimed at the smoke screen for a long burst, and then ordered his soldiers to quickly exit the barbed wire. As they exited, he ordered all explosives to be detonated. After a series of loud explosions, the British radar site suddenly fell silent.

  Dinak ordered his soldiers to retreat to the coast as quickly as possible, leaving some traps on the road to slow down the pursuing troops.

  After escaping to the seaside, they connected with the team members who were holding the landing position on the coast, and then the team members quickly put on the underwater breathing apparatus placed under the sea at the seaside. They rushed into the sea one after another and swam towards the submarine that was waiting for them.

  At the same time several operations against British radar stations were also in progress, and the German battle fleet had left their home ports heading for the English Channel.

  The British side did not take it seriously after receiving reports that several radar stations were attacked or destroyed by the German army, and only sent technical personnel and sappers to repair the destroyed radar stations. However, as more and more reports of radar interference came in, the British side began to feel that something was wrong.

  The Royal Air Force believed that the Germans were definitely preparing for a major attack and hastily ordered large numbers of fighters to take off to intercept any possible German aircraft. The ground-based anti-aircraft units also went on high alert.

  But the British did not expect that the Germans had indeed arrived at the English Channel, and the Germans had indeed dispatched a large number of fighter planes, only these warplanes' mission was to escort the German ocean fleet through the English Channel as soon as possible rather than preparing for an active battle with the British air force.

  As the aluminum strips of chaff gradually fell to the ground, the British radar also returned to normal. However, the British were perplexed that after waiting for a long time, except for finding some German fighter planes approaching the British coastline, the German fighter and bomber squadrons did not attack the British mainland. It wasn't until more than ten hours later that the British understood what the Germans had been doing.

  Zhou Tianlei commanded the German fleet to merge with the previously secretly active German warships and began his planned intimidation action.

  On the decks of the aircraft carriers "Rheinland" and "Zeppelin" (the latter was brought along by Zhou Tianlei, who later changed his plans, despite still being in training), under the command of the flight commander, one after another BF-109T and JU-87C took off from the deck, formed up in the air, and then flew off separately to prepare for simulated attacks and defenses against each other.

  Zhou Tianlei set up his command center on the aircraft carrier "Zeppelin", and the "Zeppelin" also became the flagship of this German fleet.

  His chief of staff, Rog, looked at the aircraft taking off from the aircraft carrier and felt very strange. He asked his superior, "Superior, excuse me, I feel that there are many things here that I don't understand."

  "What don't you understand?" asked Zhou Tianlei.

  Rogers said: "Based on the experience we took back from our Japanese allies, their aircraft carriers have twice as many planes as ours. Of course, to some extent, our aircraft carriers look more like battleships that can carry planes, with fewer planes. The air attack power we can launch against the enemy at one time is originally weaker than other countries. But what I don't understand is why General you insist on increasing the number of fighter jets and reducing the number of attack planes in this situation? If they are for air defense, our battleships and cruisers already have quite good air defense capabilities. Our ships showed good performance in this aspect during the Battle of Dunkirk last time. Due to your decision, General, our air strike capability is even lower than that of our opponents and allies."

  Zhou Tianlei said: "What you observed is correct, our air strike capability is indeed much lower than that of our allies and opponents. But you made a mistake."

  "What's wrong?" Luo Ge asked.

  "We are following the thoughts of others. It seems that whatever others do, we should also do. As long as it can defeat the enemy, both pistols and long swords are effective weapons. You need to think from this perspective. We have to develop our army, navy, air force, and three major military branches simultaneously, but due to Germany's limited power and resources, it is impossible for us to be extremely strong in all three aspects, especially with our aircraft carriers. Because of our limited strength, you should understand why I am determined to seize the French fleet. And we must insist on completing the construction of the aircraft carrier that the French have not finished yet. However, even so, the number of aircraft carriers we can possess is still far lower than that of our potential enemies, and we cannot even match the number of our allies."

  "Even if we can deploy 100 attack aircraft in one wave, and three waves of 300 aircraft, do you think they can surpass the firepower intensity of our battleships in a single sortie?"

  "What? Sir, you're saying our method of attacking the enemy is with battleships as the main force and air power as auxiliary?"

  "It's not like that. When the enemy launches an air raid on us from ahead, we send out fighter jets to launch long-range attacks on their air power, and their air power will definitely lose more than half under our air power's attack. The remaining ones break through our air defense and are greeted by our ship-borne anti-air firepower with a 'passage welcome'. Do you think they can pose any threat to us?"

  "Then our fleet moved out and our fighter squadrons seized air superiority over the enemy's fleet, by then they wouldn't have been able to avoid a fight with us even if they wanted to."

  "Sir, are you certain we will emerge victorious in this exchange of fire with the battleship?"

  "I can't tell you too much now, and even if I did, you wouldn't understand it all at once. Our exercise has begun." Zhou Tianlei said, pointing to the porthole outside.

  The simulated air raid and defense were indeed as Zhou Tianlei said. The attacking side "lost" a large number of planes but failed to break through the airspace above the aircraft carrier "Zhilak", most of the attacking planes were shot down by the first batch of fighter jets from the "Zhilak" aircraft carrier, and the remaining ones also failed to break through the dense anti-aircraft fire of the escort fleet like a net. Although standing on the deck of the "Zhilak" aircraft carrier, you can see the attacking troops flying in the distant sky, but not one plane was able to break through the interception of the "Zhilak" aircraft carrier and its fleet to reach the airspace above the "Zhilak" aircraft carrier.

  Spanish dictator Franco, upon learning that the German High Seas Fleet had deployed in the Atlantic off the Strait of Gibraltar for maneuvers, as if he had taken a tranquilizer, ordered his troops to advance on the Rock of Gibraltar, including a battalion of German paratroopers who had been disguised, under the guidance and cooperation of Spanish agents who had long been lurking in the area. Within 24 hours, the Spanish army controlled the Rock of Gibraltar, and the British garrison, seeing the scale of the Spanish forces, put up only token resistance before surrendering.