afterglow

Chapter 636 G.55 Reincarnation! Intercepting the PQ-7 Fleet
Although it did not achieve complete success, the Battle of St. Petersburg was still a strategic success - it prevented the British and American Expeditionary Force from threatening St. Petersburg, forcing it to lie dormant temporarily.

This battle brought many lessons. Nearly three years later, this was the second large-scale armored group battle since the Battle of France, and the German army also exposed many problems.

Many units were used to fighting positional battles in the complex terrain of Spain and Italy, and advancing calmly and steadily, which led to their lack of enthusiasm in this campaign. Technical and tactical skills also declined. Some generals said that although the weapons and equipment had been significantly upgraded, their tactical qualities had not improved compared to the French campaign.

In addition, the troops lacked experience in fighting under conditions of loss of air superiority, and suffered heavy damage and delays due to air strikes, especially several armored divisions.

The German army was also quite dissatisfied with the Russian troops, believing that they had not demonstrated the expected combat effectiveness and were unworthy of the tireless guidance and training of the Military Advisory Group and the Red Eagle Army over the past two years.

"…We noticed that some of the Russian infantry divisions performed poorly. During the march, the 150th Division lost 13 howitzers and at least 400 soldiers to air attacks. When attacking the British at Babayevo, the division made a wrong detour due to poor reconnaissance and suffered heavy casualties."

"... a battalion commander left the battalion to operate a machine gun at the front, seriously neglecting his duty; the chief of staff of the division headquarters hid in an armored vehicle for fear of enemy aircraft and did not perform his duties for at least 6 hours; the division commander refused to hand over command after being injured. The division lost its combat effectiveness after capturing Babayevo, with only 35% of its infantry left."

As the battle came to an end, the General Staff began to consider the next strategy.

The German Luftwaffe did not agree to withdraw units from the air force on the Western Front and the homeland to reinforce the Eastern Front, and the combat units that were expanded later had to be used first to defend the homeland and resist the strategic bombing of Britain and the United States.

随着越来越多的灰背隼野马——P-51B出现在欧洲上空，最先进的Bf-109G6和Fw-190A5面对它们也无能为力。

The only hope was the Fw-190D, which was still in the prototype stage, that is, the version using the Jumo-213 liquid-cooled engine. However, serious resonance and oil leakage problems prevented the prototype from being put into mass production.

It can be said that the German Luftwaffe had very bad days. The appearance of the Merlin Mustang was a key watershed. From then on, British and American high-altitude fighters had an insurmountable performance advantage.

In fact, even the highly anticipated Fw-190D series could not compete with the P-51 successor model.

The only good news is that this is considered a battle on home soil, and if the downed pilots survive, they will be able to return to the skies soon.

In order to deal with the Mustang crisis, the troubled German Air Force demanded to speed up the research and development of new liquid-cooled engines and pay more attention to turbojet engines. Some people who were both pessimistic and optimistic believed that jet engines could turn the situation around.

What's interesting is that because the production capacity is more abundant than the original plane, the Luftwaffe does not intend to cling to the Bf-109, which is in large quantities. This type of fighter, which was born in the interwar period, really has little potential to be tapped, and the performance gap will become greater in the future, so they are also looking for successor models.

The performance of the Me-209 and Me-309 were not very satisfactory, but the Fiat G.55 fighter captured from Italy caught the attention of the German Air Force.

After the Italian campaign, the German army discovered the only intact fighter prototype in Fiat's factory in Turin and then transported it back to the country.

After completing the test, they were very interested in this type of Italian fighter, believing that it had a good design, solid structure, easy to operate, and great potential.

Now that the war situation is unfavorable, the Bf-109, which has exhausted its potential, should be relegated to the second line. Therefore, the German Air Force officially approved the imitation of the G.55 and required mass production as soon as possible.

However, the production of Bf-109 cannot be interrupted immediately to avoid the dilemma of a gap between the old and the new. There must be a transition process. So which company should be responsible for copying and mass-producing the G.55?
福克-沃尔夫要制造Fw-190；梅塞施密特要制造Bf-109、Bf-110；亨克尔公司要制造He-111；容克公司要制造Ju-52、Ju-87、Ju-188。

In the end, Dornier took on the task - although they had to manufacture the Do-217, the demand was not large and there was a lot of surplus production capacity.

Dornier Company continued to use the G.55 number and finalized it as the Do-55 fighter. It used a 1700 horsepower DB603 liquid-cooled engine, had a top speed of 630 km/h, was equipped with a 20 mm cannon and four 15 mm machine guns, and at the same time optimized productivity, reducing manufacturing hours to 9800 hours.

In addition to efforts in this area, the German Air Force is also trying every means to respond to the various electronic warfare tactics of the British and American Air Forces.

Blocking interference, deception interference, foil interference and other means are emerging in an endless stream, and the oscilloscope or flat-panel display screen is always filled with a large amount of meaningless white noise.

The Germans racked their brains but achieved little success. Various countermeasures had no obvious effect, and the Freya radar and Würzburg radar were almost unable to perform their due functions.

During the worst weeks, several fighter wings could only take off and fight enemy escort fighters without ground radar guidance.

The air battles on the Western Front and the homeland were already so strenuous that there was certainly no spare energy to take care of the Eastern Front.

The DSS Air Force stated that in the situation of being outnumbered, the Eastern Front would be at a long-term disadvantage in the future as it did not have air superiority over the front lines. At most, they could defend the logistics line and perform a few support missions when circumstances permitted.

Since we are unable to become stronger, we might as well change our thinking - make the other side weaker.

The naval command's proposal was soon prepared after the discussion was completed. The General Staff hoped to use two or three devastating interception operations to put hundreds of thousands of British and American expeditionary forces into a dilemma of shortage of supplies.

To this end, some relatively relaxed bomber units were sent to Norway for reinforcement, bringing the number of aircraft in the Nordic region to about 600; the four latest Type VIIE submarines were also deployed to Norway.

The surface ship forces also made intensive preparations. The Workers' Navy Command planned to send two battleships, the Max and the Engels, two heavy cruisers, the Peake and the Herbert, and 2 destroyers to form an interception fleet, waiting for the opportunity to deal a devastating blow to the British and American transport fleets.

Of course, this was also intended as a deterrent - if Britain and the United States were frightened and dared not send out fleets again, then the purpose would have been achieved.

The interception fleet then set out from several ports such as Kiel, Hamburg, and Oslo. After joining together, they headed north along the west coast of Norway and finally docked in Trondheim in the middle of the west coast.

The Royal Navy, which had been closely monitoring the movements of the German fleet, learned of the situation almost immediately and felt like they were facing a formidable enemy.

Max and Encks are out! The Germans want to destroy the Arctic route!

In the recent Battle of St. Petersburg, the Allied forces suffered more than 40,000 casualties, more than 30,000 captured, and heavy weapons and armored vehicles also suffered huge losses.

The situation was extremely serious, and hundreds of thousands of expeditionary forces were in danger. Admiral Mark Clark made several consecutive calls to Washington and London, hoping to get immediate replenishment of personnel, equipment and supplies.

But now there is the threat of the German fleet, and the German air force in the Norwegian direction has also been strengthened. Setting out as before is simply a dead end, and we must be fully prepared.

In the decision-making level of the Royal Navy, Cunningham believed that they should concentrate their forces to destroy the German fleet in one fell swoop, and Pound agreed; Tovey felt that this was too optimistic, as two sturdy battleships were not so easy to sink.

There was several days of debate within the Royal Navy over this issue.

The expeditionary force urged them every day, and Washington, seeing that the Royal Navy had not made a decision yet, also sent telegrams to urge them.

The British finally came to a consensus and decided to form an escort fleet, a containment fleet, and a strike fleet to inflict heavy damage on the enemy while protecting the transport fleet. First, the fleet accompanying the merchant ships was composed of various screen ships, including 3 minesweepers, 8 destroyers, 3 Dido-class anti-aircraft cruisers, and 6 Flower-class frigates.

The escort fleet's duty was to defend against attacks by German aircraft and submarines, and that was all it could do.

Second, the diversionary fleet cruising in the waters west of Norway was a cruiser fleet, which included two heavy cruisers from the British Home Fleet, the Cumberland and the London, one heavy cruiser from the US Atlantic Fleet, the Wichita, as well as five destroyers and two submarines.

The task of the containment fleet is to closely monitor the movements of the German fleet. If it detects that the other side is attacking, it should try to delay time to buy time to attack the fleet.

Third, in the Faroe Islands, 320 km away from the British Isles, the powerful strike fleet is a mixture of battleships and aircraft carriers, including two Glorious-class armored aircraft carriers, Victory and Indomitable, two KGV-class battleships, Duke of York and Anson, and two US South Dakota-class ships, Massachusetts and Alabama.

In addition, there are 1 heavy cruiser, 3 light cruisers, 8 destroyers and 2 oiler tankers.

Because unlike the original plane, it does not need to deal with the Italian Navy in the Mediterranean, the Royal Navy now has more forces to deploy.

It was obvious that the conservative Tovey had no say, and the Royal Navy assembled a powerful fast strike fleet to resolve the threat of the Workers' Navy's surface ship forces once and for all.

On May 5, the PQ-30 fleet, consisting of a total of 32 merchant ships, set sail from Reykjavik, Iceland.

The Arctic route opened up by Britain and the United States has only two optional destinations - Murmansk is closer and is an ice-free port; Arkhangelsk is farther away, but is frozen half of the year.

Generally speaking, a transport fleet can carry 10 to 12 tons of supplies, enough for the British and American Expeditionary Forces and air forces for two months. However, this time, in order to make up for the loss of equipment, the fleet was larger, carrying a total of 16 tons of supplies.

Historically, Britain and the United States transported a total of approximately 400 million tons of supplies through the Arctic route in three years; during the Battle of the Bulge, the three US army groups and one air force received 48.2 tons of supplies.

The Arctic Ocean is undoubtedly a daunting place. It is an icy world where many seas are frozen all year round and flowing ice blocks float on the freezing water.

Once in the water, even the strongest person can't hold on for more than a few minutes.

In winter, this place is plunged into complete darkness, and the polar night seems to be endless; in summer, there is sea fog that is sometimes thick and sometimes thin, and it is bright even at night.

During the voyage, merchant ships kept running aground or having their hulls damaged by huge ice blocks. When approaching the Norwegian waters, the weather became strange, with rain, snow, and a mixture of rain and snow.

The escort fleet's flagship, the anti-aircraft cruiser HMS Aqua, reported: "The sea has turned into frozen oatmeal and we are sailing in it."

On June 6, the PQ-5 convoy suffered its first air attack.

In the morning, 12 Do-217s and 27 He-115s attacked this huge fleet of more than merchant ships. From a bird's eye view of the sea, German pilots saw that the ships stretched for several kilometers from west to east.

Anti-aircraft cruisers, destroyers, and frigates fired fiercely at the incoming German planes. Slow torpedo bombers were constantly shot down and crashed into the sea, but a considerable number of planes still successfully dropped torpedoes.

By the afternoon, the DSS Air Force had carried out a total of three waves of air strikes.

On that day, four merchant ships were sunk, and in addition to floating ice, countless debris and the bodies of British and American crew members appeared on the sea...

【Picture】

On June 6, the German attack fleet set out from Trondheim and quickly headed north.

A British submarine lurking off the coast of Trondheim soon noticed the situation and sent a radio warning.

"German warships have left the anchorage, 2 battleships, 1 cruiser, 10 destroyers, heading northeast, speed 24 knots."

According to current information, the two sides will encounter each other in about nine hours, and the German attack fleet will slaughter the transport fleet like a hungry wolf in a sheepfold.

The strike fleet was led by Admiral Andrew Cunningham. After receiving the intelligence, he immediately ordered the fleet to speed up to the intersection point and intercept the German army.

But unfortunately, the fleet soon encountered a large piece of floating ice. Looking around, the entire sea was covered with moving ice blocks of varying sizes, which seriously slowed down the fleet's movements.

The staff officers were horrified to find that there was no way the strike fleet could reach its destination on time, and they immediately felt disheartened.

The calm Cunningham thought for a moment and ordered the fleet to be tied down to fight and delay the German attack on the fleet at all costs.

After receiving the order, the commander of the containment fleet, Commodore Arthur Clarke, gave a concise and capable instruction:
"The Royal Navy will fight every enemy. Maybe God has abandoned us, but we cannot give up. Everyone, get to your combat positions!"

At 6:7 am on June 0, a fierce naval battle broke out between the cruisers and the battleships.

Although it is midnight, it is now daytime in high latitudes. The sky is bright and distant targets can be clearly seen without flares or searchlights.

The performance disadvantage of the German battleship's fire control radar did not hinder its performance. With the help of sophisticated optical rangefinders and mechanical relay firing directors, the Engels hit the London in the third salvo at 0:51. At this time, the two sides were 28 km apart.

The battle was extremely brutal, and the Kent-class, which was known for its weak defense, could not escape the disaster this time.

【Picture】

A 406mm armor-piercing shell fired by the Max easily penetrated the Cumberland's main armor belt, which was only 1 inch thick, and blew up the engine room. The Cumberland was soon paralyzed on the sea, and then hit by four more 406mm armor-piercing shells, and was subsequently abandoned due to an uncontrollable fire.

The London soon followed suit. She was hit by a 203mm armor-piercing shell from the heavy cruiser Peake, which pierced the ammunition depot of turret A. An explosion occurred immediately, like a volcanic eruption. The London sank rapidly within three minutes, and more than officers and soldiers who had not had time to evacuate sank into the cold and deep seabed with her.

The Wichita (CA-45) was the only warship that achieved any results. As an experimental ship, she used her advanced 8-inch naval guns and Mk8 fire control radar to score six hits on the Peake, blowing off half of the Peake's chimney and completely destroying the superstructure.

The British destroyers that charged were blocked by twice as many German destroyers, and nothing was achieved...

(End of this chapter)