1855 United States Tycoon

Chapter 620, Wolves (2)

When a submarine ambushes a merchant ship, it has always faced a problem, that is, the speed of the submarine, especially the speed of the submarine, cannot keep up with the merchant ship. Generally speaking, the surface speed of submarines in this era is still much faster than that of merchant ships, but the underwater speed is quite tragic, often less than 10 knots, and at this speed, it can’t run for dozens of minutes. The power in the storage battery is exhausted. Therefore, generally speaking, after discovering a merchant ship, the submarine will first observe the direction of the merchant ship, then go around in a circle on the water to the front of the merchant ship, and then dive into the water, waiting for the merchant ship to sail by itself. Into the range of the torpedo. What, you said go straight forward, stop the solitary merchant ship like an assault ship, and then sink it like a torpedo boat? Please, this is the time of the Great War. Merchant ships are not necessarily unarmed. Generally speaking, it’s not difficult to install one or two cannons on a merchant ship, just the small submarine, which is less than a thousand tons. He swaggered across the water, accidentally bitten by the cannon on the armed merchant ship, I was afraid it would be finished immediately. In fact, Zhenhai in the German navy had such a cute silly hat, and then the submarine was sunk by a merchant ship. The captain was naturally dead, and smiled for the world. Therefore, it is more convenient for submarines to hide under the sea and use fish.

But once the merchant ship had a destroyer to escort, the situation was different. Because when the submarine finds the merchant fleet and wants to run to the front of the merchant fleet at high speed on the water, it has to worry about being spotted by the destroyer and then killed by random artillery. Moreover, even if the ambush is successful, after launching an attack, they will be attacked by destroyers, especially after the British destroyers will be equipped with active sonar soon. A single submarine ambushes a merchant fleet that is escorted by destroyers and becomes extremely dangerous.

However, the submarine side was not without a solution. In fact, Dunnitz, a later generation, invented a special set of tactics against the merchant fleet escorted by destroyers, and once beat the British merchant fleet to the head. Bloody, this set of tactics is the famous “wolf pack tactics” of later generations.

Of course, this set of tactics cannot be directly given to the Germans, and more secretive means must be used. As for how to do it, that is the business of Greystone.

…

“Captain Hafs, you are accused of violating military orders and attacking unidentified targets of enemy ships without authorization. Please come with us.” The U-11 submarine has just docked in the port of Kiel, captain Hafs The captain just got out of the submarine and jumped onto the springboard. He was about to finish all the formalities quickly. Then he went to find a bar in the city. He was so happy that he was stopped by a few military policemen. He showed his own certificate and said to him like this.

“Damn it!” Hafs stared at the ensign fiercely. “Daddy sank tens of thousands of tons of British merchant ships and caused tens of thousands of tons of materials that were supposed to be used to kill the Germans to sink to the bottom of the sea. Not only did you not give daddy to Iron Cross, instead of arresting me? Is there something wrong with your brain!”

“Captain Hafs, please calm down.” The second lieutenant of the Military Law Department lowered his head and looked at own’s toes. “You know, this order was not issued by me. I am only executing the order. I hope you will cooperate.”

“Damn it!” Captain Hafs mumbled. He also knew that this matter was actually not related to the matter of the ensign of the Military Law Department in front of him, he was indeed only executing orders. Moreover, the ensign had always been quite polite, so he didn’t want to lose his temper with him, it didn’t make sense.

“Dessler, the messy things after the boat stopped are left to you. I have to go with the military law department now.” Captain Hafs tried hard to calm himself down, turned around, and said to the owner. Said the deputy.

“Captain Hafs, besides, I was ordered to take away all the nautical records.” The second lieutenant said again.

“Ah, Dessler, go and bring them to them. Live to hell!” Captain Hafs couldn’t control his own emotions again. Yes, any sailor who has been floating in the Atlantic Ocean for three months on a small boat of several hundred tons will not be in a good mood. Especially when you feel that you have done something wrong, but you have been wronged.

…

“Captain Hafs, please tell us in detail. You ordered the sinking of the Anne.” In a small dark room, a lamp was shining directly on Captain Hafs’ face. He was completely unable to see the appearance of the few people who asked him questions. Hafs has received relevant training in order to deal with the interrogation of the Allies in the event of unfortunate capture. He knew that doing so was actually a means to increase the psychological burden on the person being interrogated. However, Captain Hafs felt that this was useless, and, anyway, he felt that he had not done anything wrong, so he did not intend to hide anything.

“I don’t know which ship you are talking about Anne.” Captain Hafs said, “For some ships, I only recorded their ship type and flag, but did not record the name of the ship.”

“So, you didn’t check the ship in accordance with the regulations?” a voice asked.

“Check the ship in accordance with the regulations? Are there pits in your head? You mean, let us surface stupidly, and then send two people on the enemy’s transport ship, check their cargo, and then register all of them, and then Sink them again? We are submarines, not battleships! If we dare to rise to the surface, those damn merchant ships-God knows if there are cannons hidden on them. I am responsible for the lives of my sailors. Only fools can float. Get out of the water and die!” Captain Hafs cursed, “If this can also be a reason to arrest me, the captain of every submarine in the empire should be arrested now. Because the guys who didn’t do this like me are all dead. NS!”

“Then, tell me about you and your ship on August 17.” Faced with the complaints of Captain Hafs, those who interrogated didn’t seem to be affected in any way.

“August 17th? It was like this that day…”

…

On August 17, a certain sea area in the northeastern Atlantic Ocean.

The weather on this day was not very good. From the morning, there was a strong wind. The sea surface was very strong. The U-11 submarine with a displacement of only 860 tons can of course only dive underwater to avoid wind and waves at this time. And this damn gale lasted more than two hours. Although measures were taken, for example, all sailors who could lie down were allowed to lie down and all sailors who could sit down were not moved to reduce the loss of oxygen. However, the air in the U-11 submarine gradually became more and more turbid, and the oxygen content in the air became less and less. All the sailors were experiencing shortness of breath, and even the captain Hafs felt dizzy—this was a sign of hypoxia.

“Float, surface.” Although the wind and waves have not significantly reduced, the submarine can no longer stay in the water nearly 100 meters deep. Otherwise, it will not take long for everyone to be suffocated.

The wind and waves on the sea were a bit smaller, but U-11 was still shaking badly. Captain Hafs asked to turn on the forced ventilation system, intending to ventilate the interior of the submarine as soon as possible, and then dive again. But it’s strange to say that after only ten minutes, the wind and waves began to decrease significantly, and Captain Hafs gave up his plan to let the submarine dive again, and exposed his body from the submarine’s control tower and lifted it up. The telescope began to search for sea targets.

The sea was empty, and there was nothing but undulating waves. At this time, the rain clouds in the sky gradually dispersed, and the noon sun shot down from the crevices of the clouds, illuminating some waves in the distance as bright as silver. Captain Hafs took a deep breath. The humid, slightly chilly air in the Atlantic made him feel extra refreshed. He raised the binoculars again, planning to look around the coastline for another week, and then handed the binoculars to the watchman Richardson and went down into the cabin. By the way, let other officers also come out to blow the air and get some fresh air.

When he turned the telescope to the four o’clock direction, he suddenly discovered that from under the sea level over there, a mast appeared, then another one, and then another…

From where these ships appeared and the direction they were sailing, Hafs immediately made this judgment: This is a British or French merchant fleet heading to America.

Hafs didn’t know how many ships the merchant fleet had. At present, he only saw a few masts. He also didn’t know whether the merchant fleet had destroyers escorted by them. The destroyers were much smaller than merchant ships. When he saw them, That distance is very close. Captain Hafs watched quietly for a while, then ordered the submarine to slow down and proceed slowly in a semi-submersible manner (that is, only the control tower was exposed and the entire body of the boat dived into the sea). This could significantly reduce the exposure of the submarine. The area of ​​the sea, plus the submarine itself is painted a grayish-blue color close to the sea, which greatly reduces the possibility of an opponent discovering the submarine from a distance. It is helpful for the submarine to observe each other’s ships at a closer distance.

At this time, in Hafs’ telescope, the hulls of those ships had gradually risen from below the sea level, and Hafs quickly saw clearly that these were all container ships. The speed is about 12 knots.

Hafs roughly calculated the speed and heading of both sides in his mind, then left the control tower, closed the watertight hatch, and went down to the cabin.

“Take the chart out!” Hafs shouted, and someone immediately spread the chart in front of Hafs.

“We are in this position, the transport fleet is in this position, and their course should be like this…” Hafs said. “We dived first, sailed in the direction of 260 at a speed of five knots for 20 minutes, and then floated. Get out of the water and turn to the direction of 030 at a speed of 15 knots, so that in about three hours and forty-five minutes, we can reach this position, and then dive, waiting for them to be delivered to the door.” Captain Hafs pointed to the sea Tu ordered, “Now, get busy now, lads, business is here!”