Tyranny of Steel

Roughly four days had passed since the war between the Reich and the Japanese Empire had begun. During this time, fierce conflict had erupted on the southern shores of Borneo. However, this was not the only theater of war, and while Hans soared above the skies of Borneo like a majestic eagle, a sinister shiver of sharks lie off the coasts of Southern Korea. 

If there was one thing which the Empire of Japan was severely lacking when compared to their German rivals, it was a way to swiftly deploy large numbers of troops to the regions most affected by the war. Thus, they had relied on a mixture of dedicated transports, and civilian ships to get the job done. Naturally the Imperial Japanese Navy seized whatever they could get their hands on to transfer their soldiers from the Japanese mainland and to the battlefield. 

While the First and Second Japanese Fleets were sailing towards Borneo to engage in a massive battle with the Sixth German Carrier Strike Group, a group of U-boats were converging on the Japanese shipping convoys who were headed to the Korean peninsula. 

Reiner Schulze had been operating as a submarine sonar technician for several months now, and was among the many men within this so-called wolf pack. The Wolfpack was a german tactic from the Second World War of Berengar's past life, which used groups of submarines to attack and sink enemy convoys.

It had proven highly effective, and was the major naval strategy of the Kriegsmarine during the Battle of the Atlantic. Now, in this new world, Berengar had planned to use this very same tactic against his own enemies. 

The sonar continued to bloop for several moments as Reiner watched its display, waiting for his targets to present themselves to him. After patiently waiting for nearly five whole minutes, the Sonar revealed the presence of several Japanese ships in the water off the coast of the Yellow Sea. 

Undoubtedly, these ships were carrying troops and supplies to the Korean peninsula to help reinforce the Japanese position against the invading Joseon Army. Upon noticing roughly ten ships in total, Reiner called out to his commanding officer, alerting him that they would soon be converging on the enemy. 

"Sir, there are ten ships in total, roughly forty-five hundred meters north of our current position!"

A wicked grin emerged on the Captain's face, as if he were a shark who had just caught the scent of blood in the water. He quickly ordered the submarine to advance towards the enemy, while alerting the rest of the Wolfpack of their findings. 

A total of twenty five German U-boats began to speed off towards the Japanese convoy, who were completely unware of their presence. Among the Japanese convoy were a handful of destroyers, which were escorting the larger transport ships to their destination. These were the initial targets of the Wolfpack, who silently converged around their enemies like a shiver of sharks.  Once within range of the enemy vessels, the orders resounded on the German radios, which were encrypted by enigma machines. 

"Open Fire!"

Thus, twenty-five torpedos sped through the water and towards six destroyers. There was complete and utter silence as the German U-boat commanders gazed through their periscopes, watching as the torpedos closed the distance between their targets until finally a loud thunder echoed in the air above the ocean's surface. 

One might call it overkill, but all twenty-five torpedos had hit their marks, and in doing so, sent the six Japanese destroyers to the depths of the Davy Jones' Locker. The explosions caught the interests of the troops onboard the transports, who gazed in dread at the sight of their escort so suddenly eliminated before their very eyes. 

Nobody had seen the German U-boats, nor their torpedos, which nimbly swam through the ocean's depths, and towards their targets like silent assassins. However, it did not take long for the Japanese soldiers to realize that the predators who had so easily devoured their escort were still lurking in the waters.

Soon enough, another series of explosions occurred as the German torpedos struck the front, rear, and aft of the large transports. Three simultaneous detonations blasted the vessels apart, causing them to rapidly sink into the ocean's depths, as if a whirlpool had begun to swallow them whole. 

Those fortunate Japanese souls who had survived the three large explosions onboard their ships quickly deployed their life rafts, and jumped into the Yellow Sea, hoping that the rafts would be enough to carry them to shore. 

Reiner had a large grin on his face as he sat beneath the ocean's surface, seeing the blips on his radar disappear before his eyes. One by one, the ships of the Japanese convoy were being sunk. Each German U-boat had six torpedo tubes, and could carry twenty-four torpedos on board. 

On the shores of Southern Korea, the Imperial Japanese Army watched in horror as their reinforcements sank beneath the sea. They could not believe what they were witnessing. No German vessels within the region appeared. From their perspective, it was as if the Japanese ships had spontaneously combusted. 

Before long, all the Japanese vessels were sunk, along with their supplies, and most of the men they carried. Perhaps maybe a thousand or two of the Japanese soldiers and sailors had made their way to the life rafts in time, while the others sank with the tides. 

For the Empire of Japan, which was already severely lacking in transport ships when compared with their German Rivals, the loss of these vessels was not one they could easily replace. Not only were the ships irreplaceable on short notice, but the men who were carried on board, and had now drowned beneath the ocean's surface, would also be difficult to replace. 

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While the Japanese convoy was sunk off the coast of Southern Korea, the Royal Joseon Army had marched south into Japanese-occupied land alongside a German Panzer Division. The same tactics which were used in India to rapidly route the Bengal Army in India were now being used in Korea. 

Inside a Panther Tank was a man by the name of Manfred Krause, who was the gunner of the tank. On top of the vehicle was a squad of Joseon Infantry, who were using the panzer to ferry them into battle. The moment after Germany had declared war on Japan, the Panzer Division, along with several Korean infantry divisions, sprang forth from their southern border, and into the Japanese occupied half of the peninsula.

Resistance had completely crumbled during the initial stage of fighting, and the Imperial Japanese Army was currently retreating southward in the hopes of reinforcing their lines outside Seoul where the bulk of their army lie in wait. 

Manfred looked through his sights, and aimed the bore of his gun downrange, where he spotted a Japanese Type 4 tank aiming up at his unit from the foothills below. It took only a second for the German gunner to shoot a 7.5cm shell down towards the enemy vehicles, which struck the front armor of the tank and detonated. 

Despite this shot, the enemy's armor had successfully prevented an outright kill, and thus, Manfred began loading another shell into his gun before firing it again, this time at a weaker part of the vehicle. Though the enemy tank had fired a shot towards him, it had utterly missed, allowing Manfred's follow-up shot to pierce through the Japanese armor and kill every living being inside its interior. 

It became abundantly clear after rounding the corner, and gazing upon the wreckage of the enemy tank, that over a thousand armored vehicles lie in the foothills, waiting for the combined Joseon-German advance. As the first in line, naturally, Manfred and his crew were fired upon by several of the tanks down below. 

Perhaps it was the will of the gods, but for whatever reason a dozen shells detonated within the general vicinity of the lone Panther tank, and all this managed to accomplish was killing the Joseon Infantry who sat atop the vehicle.

However, before another volley could be fired on Manfred's location, several more Panther tanks who were lagging along behind in the convoy maneuvered alongside their comrade and opened fire on the Japanese Tanks. 

It became abundantly clear to the German Panzer Division that they were severely outnumbered by the Imperial Japanese Army. It would appear that Empress Itami Riyo had sent the majority of her armored vehicles to the Korean Peninsula in anticipation of the war with Germany.

With this exchange of fire, the first true instance of armored vs armored warfare was about to take place in this world. In the mountains of Korea, the Germans and Japanese were now determined to eliminate one another.

Whoever emerged victorious in this battle would be given an excellent advantage in this particular theatre of war. Whereas the loser would suffer severely. Even for the industry of the Reich, the loss of several hundred tanks was not easy to come back from. Thus, the fate of Korea was about to be determined by this one battle. 

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