Reborn In 17th century India with Black Technology-Chapter 1215: WWI: Taking back the Suez (5)

Admiral Paramveer Subhash Chandra clenched his fist, trembling with anticipation. He had guarded the exit of the Suez Canal for the last two years, waiting for an opportunity to breach into the Mediterranean and teach the damned Europeans a bloody lesson. It had not been possible before, but now, with the mission on the other side a success, he finally had the chance to do exactly that.

However, as excited as he was, he was not a reckless man. The ships advanced at a slow but steady pace of five knots, neither too fast nor too slow. This was not because he lacked the desire to move quicker, but because doing so would risk losing several of his warships, potentially even dozens.

"Boom!"

"Bang!""Bang!""Bang!"

"Boom!"

The sounds of gunfire and explosions echoing from the front were precisely why he remained so cautious, for those were the unmistakable sounds of mines being detected and deliberately detonated with gunfire.

The Europeans had gone above and beyond to blanket the entire Suez Canal with mines, both floating on the surface and concealed beneath the water. Over the last four years, God knew how many they had installed. If he were to push his fleet forward rashly, it would be no different from willingly leaping into a pit of fire, and he was not insane enough to do that.

"Got one more, send the diver," A crane operator shouted out.

"Roger!"

The way to handle the mines on the surface that were visible to the naked eye was simple: shoot them until they explode. Although the mines are designed in such a way that they only trigger if they come into contact with an object of a certain mass, probably several hundred tonnes, the other way to trigger them is to completely breach their outer containers and to simply force the combustibles within to combust using gunfire.

It was crude, but it worked, not to mention safe once precautions were taken.

The mines that were underwater, on the other hand, were the ones that were tricky. They even gave the engineers in the military a toothache for a long time. These mines were completely invisible to the naked eye, and given that the canal was large, it was practically impossible to manually scour across every inch of the canal to disarm the mines, making it a big problem. Just when everyone working on the solution was about to go bald, their hair was finally saved after Vijay provided an idea.

The idea was simple.

A steel cable would be lowered beneath the water and dragged across the canal, designed to snag the tethers anchoring the mines to the seabed. Once caught, men could then move in carefully to sever the moorings, allowing the mines to float to the surface. After that, as expected, the mines would be shot until they exploded, neutralising them completely.

Thankfully, both the West and the East Bank of the Suez Canal were under the control of the Bharatiya Empire, more specifically the Suez Canal Management Company, not to mention the Kingdom of Egypt and the Kingdom of Israel, where both the Allies of the Bharatiya Empire, so the military did not have to worry about an enemy attack from deep inland.

In order to make the idea a reality, several tractors were custom-built by Gaur Industries for the purpose, where they were installed with a crane at their rear, which could hold onto the steel chain as they moved forward.

Soon, a mine floated up to the surface, with a diver emerging close behind it. After the diver swam to the shore and reached a safe distance, the soldiers travelling alongside the tractors as an escort opened fire without hesitation. In the next moment, a loud explosion echoed across the canal, and the mine was disarmed.

The pair of tractors continued to move forward, and right behind it, two more pairs followed.

Disarming the mines was complicated because not all of them were placed at the same depth. Those positioned closer to the surface were intended to target lighter vessels, such as light frigates or Clippers. Mines set at a relatively lower depth were meant for larger warships, like heavy frigates or Clippers. As for the battleships, the mines designed to destroy them were anchored at the greatest depths, and these were by far the most dangerous.

So even though the mechanical mine sweeping gear was being used, it could not cover all three layers at a time, so three different pairs of tractors were arranged, each sweeping across the water at different depths, covering the widest possible real estate.

Thanks to this dedicated team, the Bharatiya fleet commanded by Admiral Paramveer Subhash Chandra advanced to within only a few kilometres of the entrance to the Suez Canal, with the vast majority of the fleet still intact.

Subhash Chandra could not claim that they had passed through completely unscathed, because despite the use of the mine-sweeping device, there were always nooks and crannies where mines slipped through. The terrain along both banks was far from uniform. At times, the elevation was low; at other times, it rose sharply. Sweeping operations were manageable when the elevation on both coasts was low, but when the land rose higher, problems emerged. In such sections, mines anchored at greater depths were far more difficult to detect and could easily evade the sweep.

When such a situation arose, Subhash Chandra could only deploy smaller boats to manually probe the depths for hidden mines. Although most were discovered and dealt with, some inevitably slipped through, resulting in a few battleships suffering hull damage and being rendered unfit for the upcoming battle.

However, with more than ninety-three warships still remaining in the fleet and only seven ships lost in crossing the Suez, it was already a significant achievement. He was neither annoyed nor saddened by the losses.

Instead, as he stood upon the deck and peered into the distance at the faint silhouettes of battleships lining the horizon, his face brightened, and his smile slowly widened. Dark plumes of smoke rose from them, staining the sky above. From their very shape, he could tell they were not Bharatiya vessels. That could mean only one thing: they were Europeans.

"Looks like our people have done quite a number on these bastards." He laughed out loud.

But as the fleet drew nearer, the situation became clearer, and the expression on Subhash Chandra’s face gradually turned serious.

"It appears our fleet on the other side is being sandwiched between the Europeans at both the rear and the front. It seems they are attempting to break through."

He suddenly clenched his fists.

"Provide cover fire, aim at the rear."

"Aye, Admiral!!"

"Booom!"

The thunderous roar of the largest naval gun in the world, mounted exclusively on the Maharaja Rama Chandra Class Battleship, once again echoed across the eastern Mediterranean.

A several-hundred-kilogram projectile was hurled into the sky as though it weighed nothing, spinning at tremendous speed before arcing downward. Moments later, it crashed into the European ship positioned at the very rear of the fleet, the one still partially within the canal.

The projectile pierced through the hull as if it were made of paper and only stopped after it destroyed every layer it came across until it came to an eventual standstill after almost blasting through the hull at the lowermost section of the ship. Although it could not directly pierce through, which was a pity, it was still able to leave a little damage, enough to make the water gush in, in a fist-sized stream.

Of course, due to the narrow confines of the canal, only a limited number of ships could bring their guns to bear at any given time. But what the Bharatiya ships unleashed was far more than a single projectile. The first shot served merely as a ranging round, a calculated test to measure wind, distance, recoil stability, and real combat accuracy.

The moment the data was assessed, the true assault began. A coordinated barrage of salvos thundered from the battleships, one after another, their shells tearing through everything in their path with relentless force. The air trembled with each discharge, and smoke rolled thickly across the water.

Almost immediately afterwards, more than a dozen torpedoes slipped into the sea, slicing through the depths toward their targets, turning the already chaotic battlefield into a carefully orchestrated storm of steel and fire.

The torpedoes, like bloodthirsty piranhas locked onto their prey, surged forward at great speed and detonated the instant they struck the hulls of the European warships. 𝗳𝗿𝐞𝕖𝘄𝗲𝕓𝗻𝚘𝚟𝕖𝐥.𝚌𝕠𝕞

Unsurprisingly, several vessels were torn in two and soon began to sink beneath the surface.

Pierre Martin, who had only moments ago felt a flicker of hope at the arrival of Francisco de la Rovera, commander of the reinforcement fleet, was once again cast into the deepest abyss of despair.

The explosions erupting behind him were so deafening that he could not even bring himself to turn around.

From excitement to disappointment, from disappointment to despair, from despair to a fragile sliver of hope, and then plunged into an even darker hopelessness, Pierre Martin had finally reached his limit. The will to fight drained from him. His eyes grew dull and lifeless, and his psyche collapsed under the weight of it all. Anyone who looked into his gaze would not see a man, but only the hollow husk of what he once had been.

"Haha, they are here!!!!!!" Rear admiral Anurag Abhimanyu clenched his fist and punched the air in excitement after witnessing the arrival of the Bharatiya fleet from the Red Sea.

Harsha Verma had momentarily panicked because of the arrival of the reinforcements, but he now heaved a sigh of relief, "Looks like our mission is complete." He slumped onto the chair, a satisfied smile etched on his face.

The sailors and the officers alike all began to scream in excitement. The time span of their mission was short; for the Dolphin Battle Group, it was only over half a day, and for the Shark Battle Group, it was only a few days, but despite it being so brief, the amount of pressure they had to bear was immense.

Granted, they had the entire intelligence support of the Bharatiya Empire providing them with help by deviating and diverting the attention of the Europeans, throwing out feigns throughout the Aegean Sea, but one cannot deny that it was still only them, the sailors and officers aboard the warships, that had to do the actual work of operating behind enemy lines and conducting a risky operation.

Along the way, there were several unexpected factors, be it the Shark Battle Group encountering the French, or the Dolphin Battle Group not seeing the Shark Battle Group upon reaching the designated position. Yet in the end, they managed to pull through. They managed to clutch a victory.

So the celebration was only warranted.

After the battle group broke through the European fleet that had been blockading the Suez Canal, or rather what remained of it, they did not rejoin the main naval fleet advancing from the Red Sea. Instead, they steered their ships as close to the shore as possible, deliberately leaving the path to the Mediterranean wide open.

On that day, March 8th, 1704, the Naval Fleet of the Bharatiya Empire, fielding nearly 100 warships, appeared on the waters of the Mediterranean once again after 5 long years.

The warships coming out of the Suez Canal, in the eyes of Francesco Dela Rovara, who had failed to catch up with the Bharatiya fleet that was rushing into the Mediterranean, appeared like an alien species finally landing at their doorstep, ready to start a bloody massacre any moment.

His face turned white, his hands began to shake, and his heart beat; well, it was beating so fast that it was practically an engine.

"Oh Lord help us!"