The warm summer breeze of the Atlantic Ocean carved across the bow of the SMS Bismarck.
A nuclear-powered supercarrier from a future age, a beast of the atomic era, made reality through steel and German ingenuity.
Surrounding the monstrous vessel was an entire fleet built to support it. Guided missile cruisers, frigates, and destroyers, each acting as air defense, surface combatants, or anti-submarine warfare platforms, were all dwarfed by the leviathan that stood at their center.
And the Bismarck was not alone in her glory.
A secondary sister ship sailed nearby, it too escorted by enough men and materiel to occupy a city, and the ships required to carry them.
Alone, the German High Seas Fleet might have been the largest naval force ever mustered in history, by tonnage, at least.
But they were not alone.
The Russian Black Sea Fleet sailed alongside them, having passed safely through the Bosphorus with the permission of the Hellenic Navy, which flanked their advance.
