1855 United States Tycoon

Chapter 629, hunting ground (2)

For the PQ77 transport fleet, this is really a terrifying night, an invisible enemy constantly attacking them under the cover of night. Every tens of minutes, a transport ship was suddenly struck by a torpedo and exploded. The three destroyers tried their best and did not hear the sound of any submarine’s unique propellers. They blindly turned on the active sonar. Still didn’t find anything. Once, the active sonar seemed to have discovered something. The destroyer immediately swooped in and dropped a series of depth charges. However, this was of no use, because a few minutes later, another transport ship was hit by a torpedo. Sank.

In the beginning, when a ship was hit by a torpedo and the captain gave an order to abandon the ship, nearby ships would intentionally slow down, turn on searchlights, and search and rescue those crew members who fell into the water. However, soon, the ship that did this was attacked by Devil who was hiding in the night, and also sank in the explosion.

This is an extremely long night. Every once in a while, there will be explosions, and every once in a while, there will be ships giving orders to abandon the ship. If it sinks slowly, some lifeboats will be put down on the sea and sink quickly. , The sailors can only jump into the sea holding the lifebuoy.

In this terrible night, PQ77 lost four transport ships and nearly 30,000 tons of cargo. If it weren’t for U-92 to use up a lot of torpedoes in the previous operations, which caused the remaining torpedoes to be used up all at once, the loss of PQ77 would definitely be more than that.

…

“Your Excellency, the situation we are now facing is very severe. The rate of loss of our ships this month has far exceeded our shipbuilding speed, and even exceeded the sum of our shipbuilding speed and the United States shipbuilding speed.” Minister Churchill told Prime Minister Asquith, “If this situation continues, we will definitely lose the entire war.”

“Winston, this is indeed a huge danger, even greater than the German Army.” Prime Minister Asquith said, “Do you have any suggestions for this?”

“Your Excellency Prime Minister, I think we must fully use the escort fleet model, prohibit any merchant ships from acting alone, and group them into groups with escort ships to cross the ocean. In this month, according to our statistics, escort The loss probability of transport ships in the formation is much lower than that of ordinary transport ships. If we can form all the merchant ships and provide them with enough escort warships, then our losses will definitely be greatly reduced, at least, Dropped below our supplementary capacity.” Churchill replied.

“Then Winston, does our navy have enough destroyers?” Prime Minister Asquith asked.

“The number is far from enough. Even if our shipyard now shifts the focus of construction to the construction of destroyers, we will still have very insufficient destroyers in at least two months.” Churchill replied, “But, Prime Minister, We may have other ways to obtain destroyers. We can order destroyers from the United States, or simply lease the destroyers of the United States Navy from the United States government. In addition, we can also order more transport ships from the United States.”

“This is indeed something that can be considered.” Prime Minister Asquith thought for a while and said. Of course he knows that because the United States now buys a lot of British bonds, it is natural not to watch Britain collapse. Moreover, the British who have played with the balance of power in the European continent naturally know that in opposing the emergence of an overwhelming land power in the European continent and opposing the unification of the European continent, the interests of United States and the United Kingdom are completely the same.

“I will let someone discuss this with the people of the United States.” Prime Minister Asquith said, “You should also speed up your actions. If necessary, remove a little destroyer from the combat force and ensure the safety of shipping. .”

…

Of course it is impossible not to deal with MacDonald on the order of ships. And MacDonald has been waiting for this order. So accompanied by Scrooge himself, the special envoy sent by Britain, Sir Woodgate, visited a shipyard under McDonald’s.

“Sir, look, what is being built here is the Sherlock-class fast merchant ship we saw in the model room just now. Indeed, compared to ordinary merchant ships, its price is a bit higher, and it can transport goods at a time. It is also a little less than ordinary cargo ships, and the maintenance cost is higher than that of ordinary ships. Therefore, even considering its high-speed characteristics, the advantage of the number of transportation brought by the cruising speed of 18 knots is only economically considered. The economy of this kind of cargo ship is not too good. In fact, we initially designed it as a low-end passenger ship.” Scrooge lied, and then went on to introduce, “But Sir, in In today’s environment, I feel that there is no better ship in the world than this ship, which is more suitable for the needs of the United Kingdom. You see, this ship has a cruising speed of 18 knots, and as far as I know, the average submarine His surface speed is not as fast as his, so it will be quite difficult for the German submarine to ambush him. As a result, the probability of loss when the ship is crossing the Atlantic Ocean will be greatly reduced. Moreover, also Because of the advantages in speed, this kind of ship can transport more items per unit of time. This should also be a very important performance for the British Empire today. If a large number of such ships are put into shipping, the United Kingdom will still use it. What infinite submarine warfare should I worry about?”

Sir Woodgate heard this and nodded secretly in his heart. At the same time, in his heart, the hatred for the United States people, especially the hatred for MacDonald, increased again. Sir Woodgate knows a lot about ships. Of course, he can see that this type of ship cannot be developed from the design of low-end passenger ships. From the beginning, this ship was designed as a high-speed cargo ship. . This kind of economically not outstanding ship is clearly designed for this war, even for unrestricted submarine warfare. If there was no unrestricted submarine warfare by the Germans, this kind of ship would have no market competitiveness at all. However, the unrestricted submarine warfare of the Germans made this ship the most suitable product. Obviously, the Macdonald consortium was well prepared for the Germans to launch unrestricted submarine warfare, and even behind the Germans there were Macdonald’s black hands. After all, MacDonald’s research on submarines is also world-renowned. As a British official, he also knows that the Macdonald Consortium and the Germans have always had technological cooperation and business dealings. Until now, this has been the case. He also knew how long it would take to develop such a ship, even though MacDonald had already planned such a black British money before the war.

However, as an experienced diplomat, Woodgate did not express these emotions. He knew that this kind of thing was actually very common, and the British would not be more merciful than MacDonald when they encountered such an opportunity. Moreover, the Macdonald Consortium has subscribed for a lot of British bonds. If they want them to provide such a large order, they will also subscribe for more British bonds. This shows that the Macdonald Consortium is still standing in the UK. Those on the empire side are worthy of being old friends of the British Empire.”Mr. MacDonald.” Woodgate said, “How fast is this kind of ship built? In addition, if you order in batches, can the price be discounted? You know, the economy of this kind of ship is not good, but the price is better than The average cargo ship is much taller. This is not very reasonable.”

“Ah, Sir, I don’t think you have heard of such a sentence? We in the United States have such a sentence, called a dollar of money, a dollar of goods; ten dollars of money, five dollars of goods. Meaning. That is to say, the increase in performance and the increase in price are disproportionate. In order to achieve high speed, it is necessary to use larger, more advanced, and of course more expensive power equipment. This is a hard cost and it is difficult to reduce it. We can’t help but Making money is not. However, I suddenly had an idea, if you are willing to give this kind of ship a discount on the service life, then we can reduce the price to a level similar to that of ordinary transport ships.” Scrooge replied.

“Isn’t this cutting corners?” Woodgate said, “In this way, from an economic point of view, it becomes more and more uneconomical to buy this kind of ship.”

“No, no, no, Sir, there is a problem with your algorithm.” Scrooge shook his head to correct his erroneous view. “First of all, even such a high-speed merchant ship cannot be without loss. You really think that these ships can only Running to the design life in the war? How is this possible? In this case, the excessively long design life is a kind of extravagant waste. Moreover, if we build this kind of ship for the purpose of long-term use, then After the war is over, these ships will be difficult to handle. Isn’t it? On the contrary, if we shorten the service life, in exchange for the price drop, after the war is over, whether it is to return them to the furnace or sell them to other countries at low prices, The losses are relatively small. Therefore, I think my proposal is very reasonable. Moreover, after relaxing these requirements, the construction speed will be greatly improved. Isn’t this what you have been worried about?”

“Mr. MacDonald, there is some truth to what you said.” Woodgate said, “So, in your opinion, how much can the construction speed be increased?”

“If the requirements for life are relaxed, many parts can be purchased from more sources and cheaper parts with greater output. And companies that can provide such parts are much more than companies that can provide high-quality parts, so raw materials and so on. It will not become a bottleneck for production, and many processes can be simplified, so that the construction speed of the entire ship can be one-third faster than that of ordinary ships. If you are willing to give up the high speed, the construction time can be compressed to ordinary ships. One-half of that.” Scrooge replied.

Hearing this answer, Woodgate’s eyes lit up. He knew that the speed of construction of transport ships is of great significance to the war situation. However, he did not have the right to make a decision immediately, so he said to Scrooge: “Mr. MacDonald, this is a big deal. I need some time to contact the country. Three days later, I can give you an answer. ?”