Chapter 216 Difficulties

After the destroyer fleet conducted reconnaissance and confirmed repeatedly that there were no Ottoman warships in the nearby waters, the Marines quietly landed from the side of Mudros Bay on Lemue Island under the cover of night with the help of inflatable boats.

Mudros Bay is a natural good harbor with a wide harbor, deep water, and calm waves, which is suitable for docking large ships.

After taking Mudros Bay, the warships of the rapid response fleet can directly anchor in Mudros Bay and use Lemue Island as the forward base of the Greek blockade fleet.

This can not only allow the crew to rest on shore appropriately, but also facilitate the delivery of the fleet's supplies to the warships, and use Lemue Bay as a gathering point for logistical supplies.

Captain Staff Officer Hydris quietly reported to Commander Ferard: "Sir, after a busy first half of the night, 1,500 Marines have landed successfully. According to our daytime reconnaissance, the flat terrain near this bay is small and the surrounding terrain is complex, which is not suitable for all Marines to deploy formations."

In addition to the lack of vegetation near the bay, the surrounding forests are lush and surrounded by hills, which greatly limits the vision of the troops.

The entire beach was silent, so that Commander Hydris was a little flustered.

Hydris, who was observing the situation near the harbor with a telescope, said in a deep voice: "Has the reconnaissance team been sent out?"

The Ottoman troops stationed on the island could not have failed to discover the Greek fleet. After all, when the Greek fleet arrived yesterday, it did not conceal its tracks at all. The weather was clear yesterday, the waves were calm, and the visibility on the sea was extremely high.

As the island garrison of Lemue Island, the Ottoman troops must have noticed the whereabouts of the Greek fleet.

Limros Bay, where the Marines landed, is usually a temporary port for the island garrison to receive supplies. The island garrison should be very familiar with the nearby terrain.

During the entire landing process of the 1,500-man troop, the Ottoman army did not fire a single shot, and seemed to turn a blind eye to the actions of the landing troops. It was too weird.

This abnormal behavior made Commander Fedra feel a little uneasy.

He raised his hand and looked at the luminous watch on his left wrist. It was three o'clock in the morning.

Suddenly, gunshots suddenly came from the sparse woods around the harbor. The soldiers on guard around Hydra subconsciously crawled on the ground. In the dark night, their vigilant eyes kept patrolling around.

"It seems that the reconnaissance squad encountered the enemy," Hydris whispered.

He sent a total of fifty reconnaissance soldiers, divided into five squads, to search around the harbor in a fan-shaped manner, hoping that they could find out the terrain and the distribution of the enemy for the Marines.

The remaining 1,500 soldiers were exhausted after tossing and turning for half the night. They were all taking the time to rest. After all, they were needed to complete tomorrow's military operation - clearing the area around the harbor.

"Do you need soldiers to support? I'm worried that the scouts will suffer too many casualties," Hydris asked with an ugly face.

After thinking for a moment, Colonel Ferald shook his head and rejected the staff's proposal: "The enemy obviously anticipated our actions and had already completed targeted deployment. Now it's late at night, and the vision is limited, which also increases the difficulty of the command of the troops. If we rashly support the reconnaissance troops, the troops may fall into chaos."

"We can only rely on themselves," Colonel Ferald said unwillingly.

Scouts are elite soldiers selected from soldiers with extremely high combat literacy. They are the eyes of the troops and provide intelligence support for the commanders of the troops.

Although the enemy was well prepared, Hydra still believed that the scouts could successfully break away from contact with the enemy and complete the reconnaissance mission.

While the two were talking, a series of "da da da" sounds suddenly rang out in the woods around the bay.

This is the unique sound of the Maxim machine gun.

Fedra and Hedris looked at each other, and both of them looked a little ugly.

In such a narrow terrain, the enemy's island recovery troops and heavy weapons such as the Maxim defense undoubtedly put the Marines in a very unfavorable position. They might be suppressed by the enemy on the beachhead and unable to move.

Thinking this in their hearts, but unable to do anything, both of them became anxious.

Sporadic gunshots, mixed with continuous machine gun sounds, broke the tranquility of the bay.

It was not until half an hour later that several panting reconnaissance squad leaders came to Ferard to report the reconnaissance situation.

Fedra looked solemn and ordered in a deep voice: "Each team reports casualties"

"Three people were injured and two died in the first team"

"Three people died and three were injured in the second team"

"No one was injured in the third team"

"Five people were injured and no one died in the fourth team"

"Four people died and three were injured in the fourth team"

Fedra looked solemn and said to several reconnaissance squad leaders: "What about the reconnaissance situation? Is the distribution of the enemy's heavy firepower points clear?"

"The Ottomans seemed to have anticipated our actions. They were ambushed in the woods and covered by wild grass. We were suddenly attacked and suffered heavy casualties. We didn't have time to observe and record the distribution of the enemy's firepower points"

"The enemy deployed machine gun positions in the woods"

·····

After several people reported the reconnaissance situation, Fedra and Hedris looked worried.

Originally, it was thought that the Ottoman army only deployed a few hundred troops on the island, and with the strength of the Marine Corps, it could be easily taken.

But they did not expect to encounter a difficult situation at the beginning. The enemy took advantage of the geographical advantage and relied on the fierce firepower of the Maxim machine gun. In such an exposed area like the beachhead, the Marines would be very passive.

Due to the special combat environment of the Marines, those heavy weapons that are heavy and difficult to move, such as artillery and machine guns, are not equipped by the Marines at all.

Among all the weapons of the Marines, the only one that can be called a heavy weapon is the mortar.

However, the mortar has a very short range, usually only a few hundred meters, and the target is the enemy's garrison. The power of the mortar shells is also unsatisfactory.

The enemy's position is hidden in the dense woods, and the mortar gunners' vision is limited, making it impossible to effectively attack the enemy's machine gun position.

If the enemy's firepower cannot be suppressed, and the Marines lacking heavy weapons are forced to attack the enemy's hidden position, it is not impossible to capture it by relying on their own numerical advantage.

But if they do so, the number of casualties of the Marines will be very high.

The Marine Corps is the only land combat force of the Navy. The Navy's subsequent island-grabbing operations will all rely on the Marine Corps.

If the Marine Corps suffered heavy losses at the beginning, then the series of actions planned by the Navy will be seriously hindered.

Due to his confidence in the strength of the Greek Navy, Kontoriotis believed that the Greek fleet, which relied on two Greek Invincible-class battlecruisers as the main force, was not a match for the two German pre-dreadnoughts of the Ottoman Navy.

Therefore, the fleet under Kontoriotis' command aimed at the strategically important Lemue Island as the first target.

You know, after Lemue Island, there are still a large number of islands in the Aegean Sea that need to be solved by the Marine Corps.