Chapter 135: The Largest-scale Bombing Of This World War
Two hours later, at 5:10 a.m.
Somewhere at an unnamed cape 15 kilometers south of Odessa Port.
Lusha Navy Major Vitaly, as usual, was sleeping soundly in the battery commander’s duty room.
Last night, he even drank more than half a bottle of vodka with fatty pork and pickled cucumbers, and passed out before finishing it.
The soldiers under him were also extremely lax. Although they were theoretically supposed to take turns on night watch to observe if any enemy warships appeared on the sea surface and whether they threatened Odessa Port, the vast majority of soldiers chose to sleep soundly at their posts.
The war had been going on for almost a year, and the Ottoman Navy had never dared to approach the vicinity of Odessa. The minefield here was only known to the Lusha Navy itself in terms of safe navigation channels; outsiders trespassing would be courting death.
Although in early summer, the area around Odessa Province also felt the impact of the war, with some land in the neighboring Bessarabia Region being occupied by Germania Army troops. But afterward, the fighting quieted down. This place was still about 200 kilometers from the front line, so after a period of tension, everyone quickly returned to normal.
In this day and age, 200 kilometers was enough to make rear-line troops slack off and give up.
……
“They’re really too lax. I shouldn’t have sent so many airships to the Odessa side; I should have dispatched some to the Nikolaev direction in advance. With such lax defenses and no reconnaissance fighters patrolling in the air, these targets are practically begging us to take them out slowly.
It’s a pity that once this batch of bombs drops, the nearby enemies will be alerted, and there won’t be such a good opportunity to slowly pre-aim and sneak attack again.”
On an airship over 150 meters long, Lieutenant Colonel Albert Kesselring observed the ground situation through the bombing sight and couldn’t help but sigh.
The Lushans’ vigilance against air raids was much lower than that of the Britannians. Rear areas generally lacked anti-air alert posts, and there were no routine reconnaissance aircraft patrols near the ports—perhaps also because it was just barely dawn, not yet time for Lusha pilots to take off.
Since that was the case, Lieutenant Colonel Kesselring didn’t hold back. He leisurely ordered all airships to divide into three groups, first sending three to hover directly above the target battery, slowly calibrating pre-aiming to make the initial calibration small bombs as accurate as possible.
Several other airships each went to find other small and medium caliber gun turrets as targets, also washing them first with small bombs—since they were idle anyway.
The airships directly facing those three 305 mm armored turrets would wait until the calibration small bombs accurately landed right above the battery before dropping the 2000 kg heavy aerial bombs.
On this flight today, most airships were still carrying 2 x 2000 kg aerial bombs plus 20 x 50 kg calibration bombs. A small half of the airships had been modified to carry 1 x 2000 kg aerial bomb and 6 x 500 kg aerial bombs.
The former was to ensure enough firepower to destroy the ground fortress, while the latter was to opportunistically hit ships parked in the port area.
Carrying only 2 x 2000 kg aerial bombs meant too few attack runs; if they missed, it would be a wasted trip. Six 500 kg aerial bombs had a higher hit probability. Moreover, warships of this era generally lacked strong horizontal protection, so a 500 kg aerial bomb could ensure penetration of all deck armor and turret armor, exploding inside the hull.
Three airships wobbled gradually slowing from 3000 meters altitude down to 1000 meters, finally hovering with fine adjustments directly above the battery, with no anomalies detected on the ground.
The clouds in the sky were also cooperative; today’s rain clouds were mostly between 2000 and 3000 meters, with high cloud layers. So the airships weren’t visible at the start of flight, and only when descending for bombing would they be spotted from the ground.
Once below 2000 meters, they could promptly observe ground targets, with aiming visibility unaffected. No wonder they say all the work is in the preparation phase; waiting a few extra days for suitable air raid weather was worth it.
Since the weather, terrain, and people were all so cooperative, Kesselring unceremoniously claimed this first wave of targets.
“Enter hover status, bomb calibration!”
50 kg small bombs were initially dropped slowly at 20 seconds per salvo—the time for bombs to reach the ground exceeded 15 seconds, so 20 seconds only left 3-4 seconds margin for observation and calibration, facilitating fine position adjustments.
“Boom boom boom!” The explosions of the first three calibration small bombs startled enemy soldiers dozing within at least one or two kilometers around.
Within dozens of seconds, a swarm of Lusha soldiers crawled out on the ground like ants after the spring thunder, looking blankly and fearfully toward the sky.
……
“Major, wake up! Enemy attack! It’s an air raid!”
Several Lusha officers rushed frantically into the commander’s duty room, dragging the just-woken and still groggy Major Vitaly out of bed.
“What’s going on?”
“Germania airships are flying right over our heads dropping bombs! They’re bombing the coastal defense gun turrets!”
Hearing this, Major Vitaly grabbed his military cap and rushed outside, accidentally kicking over the unfinished vodka bottle from last night by the bed in his haste.
It took him a full one or two minutes to reach a suitable position for anti-air observation, and in that minute and a half, the enemy had already calibrated and fine-tuned at least 5 salvos of small bombs.
The bomb impacts were also getting closer and closer to the armored turrets.
However, just as Major Vitaly picked up his telescope to look at the sky, before he could make out the airships’ condition, a violent tremor came from the distant ground.
Everyone was shaken to the ground, only then hearing the massive bomb explosions—the seismic wave propagated much faster than sound waves.
“It’s the legendary 2000 kg heavy aerial bomb! Quick! Call for reconnaissance fighters to scramble for air defense! All machine guns fire freely at the sky! Pull out the newly arrived anti-aircraft guns!”
In the chaos, officers tried to organize the headless flies of crashing soldiers for all-out air defense, but it took several full minutes before sporadic heavy machine guns began firing wildly into the sky.
And in those few minutes’ time lag, earth-shattering roars kept coming; the initial 3 airships had already dropped 6 x 2000 kg aerial bombs, precisely destroying 2 twin 305 coastal defense gun forts. Another one was also damaged in some auxiliary facilities by near misses.
Unfortunately, the ammunition depot wasn’t near these turrets, and there was no way to pinpoint underground ammunition depot coordinates via aerial reconnaissance, so the bombing never caused secondary explosions.
……
“Confirmed destruction of two twin 305 coastal defense batteries! The 3rd is also damaged but no direct hits. Several 240 mm batteries observed destroyed as well. Request instructions!”
In Lieutenant Colonel Kesselring’s airship, the observer confirmed the ground situation and loudly reported to the commander, asking for orders on whether to have reserve airships follow up with low-altitude precision bombing.
Kesselring was quite satisfied with the current results; 6 x 2000 kg bombs with 2 direct hits was extremely high accuracy for airship bombing. Without low-altitude hovering bombardment, such results would be impossible.
But as he hesitated, he suddenly heard the whistling of artillery shells nearby.
“Bang~ bang~” explosions burst successively in the air.
Kesselring was momentarily stunned, then reacted immediately: “Abandon precision bombing! Climb to altitude! Odessa Port has deployed anti-aircraft guns! Climb above 2000 meters before bombing, ensure safety first!”
Anti-aircraft guns had existed before the World War broke out, but mainly the Germania side had them, primarily for shooting down artillery observation balloons, emphasizing direct fire.
The anti-aircraft guns of that time also lacked timed fuzes; shells only exploded on direct hit. Or if flight time was too long, a backup delay fuze would detonate mid-air.
However, such fuzes generally couldn’t have their delay adjusted during combat; they were preset uniformly at the start, just to prevent shells from hitting the ground after kinetic energy depletion and causing friendly fire.
When the World War broke out in 1914, the Entente Powers basically had no anti-aircraft guns, but by 1915 they gradually started having them. By the second half of the year, anti-aircraft gun deployments expanded.
The Lushans also developed 76.2 mm anti-aircraft guns, but essentially just modifying the original 76.2 mm field guns with a 60-degree elevation mount to allow firing skyward. Shells were still the original shrapnel high-explosive.
The Franks’ newly made anti-aircraft guns this year were similar calibers, just taking Schneider 75 mm rapid-fire cannons with a high-elevation version, nothing else changed.
The Britannians pursued rate of fire more, not only making high-elevation versions of 3-inch field guns but also working on 2-pounder “pom-poms”.
At this moment, Kesselring heard the anti-aircraft gun sounds and immediately reacted, urgently ordering the airship force to climb.
3-inch short-barrel anti-aircraft guns had range to cover airspace over 2000 meters high, enough to reach all aircraft of this era. But aircraft were faster and smaller targets, with slower 3-inch firing rates, making anti-air efficiency seem low.
Airships were slow and huge targets; once in anti-aircraft gun range, they were basically done. Airships relied on higher service ceilings, climbing directly to 3000 meters where anti-aircraft guns couldn’t reach even if aimed.
All airships immediately began climbing, but during this, a few ground anti-aircraft guns still lucked into one or two hits.
One airship that had just dropped its bombs and destroyed a coastal defense gun turret was directly hit by a 76.2 mm shell, its hull breaking apart instantly.
“Jump now!” Kesselring saw his comrade airship hit from afar and broke into a cold sweat. He urged his own airship to keep climbing while silently praying inside that his comrades could bail out.
Seconds later, he finally saw a dozen black dots eject from the doomed airship’s gondola, followed by white parachute blooms.
Fortunately, that airship had already dropped all bombs and was heading home, so its course was southward, gradually moving away from Odessa Port.
These batteries in Odessa’s southern suburbs were only 20 kilometers from the Dniester River Estuary, plus the airship had flown back a few kilometers with some inertia; parachuting soldiers should land away from defended areas, perhaps drifting to the estuary lagoon region to hide temporarily, awaiting rescue by subsequent landing troops—
Kesselring knew Commander Lelouch’s follow-up plan: once the airship force succeeded in bombing and destroying the batteries, a fleet flying Ottoman flags would arrive in hours.
If the fleet could also successfully suppress the Lushans’ Black Sea Fleet, the third step landing operation would commence.
As long as the bailed-out airship crew could hide on the ground for half a day, they might be picked up by landing friendly forces.
But none of that mattered now; completing the mission was key.
Destroying the coastal defense batteries was the top immediate priority, ensuring as thorough destruction as possible.
Now 6 airships had dropped all bombs, and the rest had climbed high. During the climb, another airship was hit in the tail by anti-aircraft fire. Fortunately, the shell didn’t explode on impact but penetrated the rudder surface, flew dozens of meters, then detonated, merely heavily damaging the airship enough to limp home.
But it would probably just get the crew back safely; back at base, that airship was surely scrapped.
“Anti-aircraft gun threat is too great. Maintain 3000 meters altitude, slowly calibrate and drop bombs in rotation!” Kesselring urgently adjusted the orders, his latent talent as an air force general gradually emerging and being honed in this battle.
At nearly 3000 meters altitude, hit rate dropped drastically compared to 1000 meters. Originally, a 10-meter diameter ground target had 30% hit rate; now it fell to single digits.
Finally, supplementing with 10 super-heavy bombs from 5 airships and over 40 calibration small bombs thoroughly wrecked the last coastal defense battery, incidentally destroying some small and medium coastal defense facilities.
During the bombing, Lusha reconnaissance fighters also arrived on the battlefield successively, about 20 in total.
All fighters used rear seat machine guns to rake the high sky frantically, but with service ceilings under 2000 meters plus heavy machine gun elevation limits, they couldn’t harm airships already at 3000 meters.
Instead, airships firing machine guns downward could occasionally hit individual aircraft. In the fierce battle, 3 Lusha reconnaissance fighters were cumulatively shot down.
“All airships that have dropped bombs return home. Undropped airships assemble, maintain 3000 meters, head to Odessa Port!” Confirming all threatening coastal defense facilities handled, Kesselring decisively ordered the force to turn due north, straight to the port area to expand results with remaining bombs.
As for Nikolaev Port, no chance today; better focus on bombing Odessa Port.
After urgent tallying, 11 airships confirmed bombs expended. 2 damaged/destroyed, 1 being Kesselring’s command airship needing to stay for command, the remaining 8 all returned directly.
Kesselring led 20 airships, 19 with bombs, toward Odessa Port, arriving over the port area 20 minutes later.
By now, nearly 1 hour since the air raid began, many ships in the port area had started emergency boiler firing.
But large warships’ steam boilers took time to build pressure; most ships remained immobile.
“Port area definitely has more anti-aircraft guns, and enemy reconnaissance fighters are monitoring us. Maintain altitude! From earlier combat testing, I found Lusha anti-aircraft guns and fighter elevation machine guns seem limited to under 2600 meters max.
Airships 14 to 20, maintain 2600, 2700, 2800 meters respectively, hover aim and drop! If enemy counterfire threatens, climb immediately!”
Kesselring communicated precise orders via airship radios. Germania officers and crew’s strict discipline in executing orders finally paid off; everyone trusted the commander’s combat-observed data and prepared for another test.
The era of airships was ending soon; everyone felt enemy anti-air fire strengthening with the war.
This extreme pressure might cause minor losses, but verifying combat data and gaining reliable attack experience for later comrades made it worthwhile!
Even dropping 300-400 meters lower for bombing could boost hit rate by 20-30% over baseline.
The first batch of 6 airships each found targets, arrived overhead, and at average 2700 meters successively dropped calibration small bombs.
At this height, bombs took nearly half a minute to reach ground, but final impact speed was much higher, nearing 200 m/s.
This already exceeded most howitzers’ terminal velocity, with non-negligible penetration, though still far below cannon shells’ terminal velocity.
Bomb delay fuzes were preset to 0.3 seconds pre-combat; enough for penetration before deep internal detonation if armor was breached.
Rain-like small bombs soon blanketed a large swath of Odessa Port area.
……
“Get the ship moving! Enemies overhead dropping bombs! Close all isolation valves, ensure all steam to engine room!”
In Odessa Port area under Lieutenant Colonel Kesselring’s airships, many Lusha warship commanders were shouting these hoarse orders.
Countless sailors frantically operated machinery, diverting steam pressure normally allocated to steering gear, turret rotation, pumps by closing isolation valves.
Maximizing every bit of steam for the main engines, just to reach minimum power for getting the warship moving ASAP.
Even if unable to steer or turn turrets afterward, just charging straight ahead recklessly, it was worth it.
Unfortunately, ships that could move were a minority, often small ones not attracting much fire.
The most obvious target in the port area was Battleship No. 2 “Saint John” of the “Saint Eustathy” class.
Though just a pre-dreadnought, due to Lusha fiscal shortfalls, these two ships started in 1904/05, hit 1905 internal turmoil, stabilized only after Stolypin’s reforms, resuming construction. Both completed only in 1911.
By completion, dreadnoughts had existed 6 years. Lusha Navy brass knew finishing per original plan was pointless, so major redesign over those 6 years.
Ultimately, upon entry, “Saint Eustathy” class had main guns upgraded to identical 305 mm 40-caliber new dreadnought guns and fire control systems, but power and main gun quantity remained pre-dreadnought as foundational elements couldn’t upgrade.
In other words, a pre-dreadnought “with only 4 main guns but firepower and accuracy equal to dreadnoughts”. Together, 8 main guns equated a full dreadnought’s combat power, just slower（ as shown below）.
Shortly after war start last year, to cut Ottoman Army Caucasus front sea supply, Lushans sent two “Saint Eustathy” class to Black Sea southeast coast, bombarding Ottoman port Trabzon. On return, engaged German battlecruiser “Goeben”.
“Saint Eustathy” class 2v1 ganged “Goeben”, jointly hitting her once; “Goeben” hit back “Saint John” thrice, both sides damaged and returned for repairs.
Thus, “Saint Eustathy” class damage resistance was decent; at least took 3 new 280 mm hits and sailed home.
Now “Saint John” after over half year repairs, just about finished. To avoid occupying Nikolaev Shipyard docks, after hull fixes, towed to Odessa side, not entering drydock for further work—only to encounter bombing.
Other ships could flee; this under-repair one absolutely couldn’t. Even at 2700 meters, slow calibration would eventually hit.
Lieutenant Colonel Kesselring assigned 6 airships, concentrating 12 x 2000 kg aerial bombs on this “strongest pre-dreadnought”, still scoring 1 direct hit plus 2 near misses at 20 m and 50 m.
Near misses tore significant underwater armor, flooding surged in. The direct hit penetrated three decks, exploding in lower engine room, totally destroying steam turbines and some boilers.
Lucky it was in final repair stage, no ammo aboard, no boilers lit, nothing to secondary explode. But anyway, this ship was thoroughly wrecked, no more repairs needed.
Versus direct sinking, main difference was few sailors died, instead hundreds of repair workers killed/wounded. Plus, bombed at repair berth, at least scrap steel recoverable.
After scrapping “Saint John”, no big enough targets in Odessa Port merited airship swarm.
Remaining 13 bomb-laden airships, especially the 10 with 6 x 500 kg each, began indiscriminately bombing various small targets.
Throughout, ground anti-aircraft guns and reconnaissance fighters kept firing back.
One airship dropping at ~2600 meters nearly heavily damaged by max-range anti-aircraft shell airburst blast, luckily only gas bags scratched by fragments. It hastily dumped all bombs and climbed.
Other airships, seeing this, pulled back to at least 2800 meters for absolute safety.
Throughout, Lieutenant Colonel Kesselring stayed at 4000 meters overseeing and commanding. Amid battle, he spotted a Lusha defense flaw:
“Lusha anti-aircraft guns seem distributed in four port area positions, total only 16 guns? Defending a huge Odessa Port with just 16 guns is too weak…”
Inspiration struck; he ordered 8 airships still carrying many 50 kg calibration small bombs to target the anti-aircraft positions.
Crews instantly grasped the brilliance, climbed to over 3000 meters, positioned over anti-aircraft sites, calibrated first, then carpet-bombed salvos of over a dozen.
Each anti-aircraft company position got at least 30 small bombs; 4 companies total 16 guns—not all destroyed, but most damaged, gunners nearly all killed/wounded. Survivors only those who fled early as cowards.
“Enemy anti-aircraft threat cleared! Remaining bomb-laden airships, try dropping at 2400 meters, test enemy reconnaissance fighter intercept limits! Maximize bombing accuracy!” Kesselring smugly and decisively ordered; others strictly complied.
Bombs rained on port area, berths; lower altitude restored some accuracy.
One “Kagul” class 10,000-ton armored cruiser ultimately focused by remaining 2000 kg aerial bombs, direct hit, broke in two on the spot.
Two “Prunitei” class minelaying cruisers bathed in 500 kg aerial bomb rain.
These minelaying cruisers were thin-skinned with big fillings, war-ready, each mine compartment loaded with 400 mines!
Bomb damage inevitably caused fragments to pierce around, triggering mine secondary explosions.
400 mines detonating internally not only shredded “Prunitei” class to scrap but also sank adjacent 2 “Novik” class large destroyers and lightly damaged several “Peydonis” class.
Remaining 50 kg small bombs sank 1 “Novik” class destroyer and finished off 4 “Peydonis” class.
When Kesselring’s airship force dropped all bombs, final tally:
Destroyed 3 twin 305 mm coastal defense gun armored turrets, multiple 240 to 150 mm coastal defense secondary guns;
Destroyed 1 “pre-dreadnought pinnacle realm” battleship（ “Saint Eustathy” class “Saint John”）;
Sunk 1 10,000-ton armored cruiser（ “Kagul” class）;
Sunk 2 minelaying protected cruisers（ “Prunitei” class）;
Sunk 7 destroyers（ 3 “Novik” class, 4 “Peydonis” class）
And “Prunitei” class minelaying cruisers were Black Sea Fleet mining task mainstays, purpose-built specialized cruisers, only these two made.
Now all sunk, Lushans hard-pressed for emergency remining during campaign to reinforce defenses. This cleared many obstacles for General Spee’s subsequent naval operations.
