Iron Cross

The matter in Gibraltar was quickly settled. It was not that Churchill had a better idea, but that no one could think of a better way. Pound once asked the Navy Department to make a plan to deploy the aircraft carrier to the west of the Strait of Gibraltar and use carrier-based aircraft to destroy German forces that dare to attack. However, no matter how the deployment is carried out, the aircraft carrier in the war game will never pass the level of land-based aviation. ——A small number will have no effect. If the number is too large, one or several ships will be sunk by the enemy. Doing this kind of thing when the local fleet is not strong enough is completely futile, and in the end we have no choice but to give up.

But Churchill's focus is not on Gibraltar for the time being - even if Spain has agreed to use the channel, he believes that it will take at least 2-3 weeks for the German army to launch an offensive, and before the air power of Gibraltar is completely suppressed, the enemy will not foolishly send the battleships Or the landing force was sent here to die. He had enough time to deal with the greater threat in front of him.

The Tirpitz is the most imminent threat.

"Our reconnaissance plane didn't find the enemy?"

"The reconnaissance plane conducted careful searches in the sea area and in all possible directions, but found nothing. Of course, the reconnaissance plane did not encounter any enemy aircraft." Tovey sighed, "There are two judgments now. One is that he has already Returning to the Alta Fjord, the other is that he is about to go south into the Atlantic Ocean. What is not good for us is that the weather near Norway will be bad tomorrow and we will not be able to continue the reconnaissance."

"Does that mean we have been out of contact with it for a day and a night?"

"Yes."

"Assuming that the Tirpitz kept heading south after the battle was completed, where would it be now?"

"It should be about 300-500 nautical miles away from Iceland."

"With another day of disengagement tomorrow, they will be able to reach within 100 nautical miles of Iceland, but they may still not be detected by our fleet?"

"That's the theory."

"Will the weather conditions improve in the next two or three days?"

"No, the bad weather will last for 4-5 days, and it won't get better until at least the 13th."

Everyone was a little uneasy. The Tirpitz put too much pressure on them. If its whereabouts could not be found through aircraft searches, it would be a complete disaster once it entered the Atlantic Ocean. Although the blocking fleet has moved as quickly as possible, it is too difficult to rely on the surface fleet to block this scourge. The North Atlantic in winter has high winds, strong waves, and unpredictable weather. Anyone who has worked in the navy knows that in such an environment, it is simply a miracle to visually detect targets more than 20 nautical miles away. Those with longer detection ranges are very fragile. Radars often experience various unreliable failures when faced with severe weather challenges.

"Let the fleet keep its eyes wide open and don't let the Germans run away." Churchill did not embarrass Tovey too much, and patiently told Pound, "Let the merchant ships currently transporting in the Atlantic speed up a little, and they must leave the danger zone within a week. "

“Will fleets departing from the United States or Canada be delayed?”

Churchill hesitated and then said: "Depart as normal, but maintain daily contact and obey all our dispatches and commands. Great Britain cannot live without these supplies, especially the fuel. Without them, we cannot survive for even three months." ”

What Churchill said is all true: take crude oil as an example. Since the Indian Ocean has been blocked since late December, no oil tanker has been able to run out from the Middle East to deliver crude oil to the mainland since then. All the crude oil received in January was blocked in the Indian Ocean. It was brought over by an oil tanker that was halfway on the road. Since late January, no crude oil has arrived in the British Isles for nearly two weeks. During the war, Britain's monthly consumption of crude oil was about 1.2 million tons. Now, although it has implemented emergency conservation measures, the consumption is still close to 1 million tons. The crude oil reserves in the entire British Isles are only 3 million tons, half a month. No crude oil arriving means that 500,000 tons of fuel reserves have been consumed. If no crude oil arrives in Great Britain within 3 months, it means that the next war in the UK will not have to be fought.

Therefore, not only the proportion of oil tankers in the fleet departing from Canada and the United States has greatly increased this time, but also the fuel required by each transport ship is overloaded, so that it can return to North America without refueling after arriving at the destination—— This is one of the measures taken by the British to save fuel consumption. The Americans are still very interesting. They know that Britain is in trouble after losing its crude oil production area in the Middle East, so what they send this time is directly refined oil, without even the effort of refining it on site.

In addition to strict conservation, the United Kingdom also urgently launched a coal-to-liquids project. Although the United Kingdom has also conducted research and exploration on this technology, its technical level lags far behind that of Germany. No British chemical company would have expected that this would happen. Considering the day when coal is used to produce oil, this project must now be built from scratch. Although it is the highest priority, it cannot be built in just a few months.

Just as the British side was carefully considering dealing with the Tirpitz, the Norwegian cruiser fleet was escorting the captured transport ship slowly towards the Norwegian port. After docking, the British sailors on the transport ship would be sent to prisoner of war camps. , the garrison in Norway will immediately allocate enough manpower to transport the supplies back through other channels, and the Tirpitz formation will continue southward after a short supply period.

According to subsequent statistics, there were a total of 17 transport ships in the JW-51A fleet when it set off. Only the merchant ship that lagged behind at the beginning accidentally passed through the German blockade and arrived safely in Murmansk, delivering a message to the Red Army. A batch of tanks and aircraft, but the warships did not have the aluminum ingots and armor steel that Stalin most urgently needed. The remaining 16 transport ships, except for one merchant ship with the best luck, finally escaped the German pursuit in the dark and returned to Jan Mayen Island exhausted. , the remaining 15 transport ships were either sunk or captured by the Germans. After briefly counting the loot at the port, Kumets felt much better. In addition to the seizure of two 10,000-ton transport ships, the materials seized on board included 5,000 tons of aluminum ingots, 4,000 tons of armored steel and nearly 2,000 tons of Spam meat cans. There are more than 500 military vehicles of various types, but not a single tank or aircraft.

After seeing these gains, the Naval Command finally calmed down the unhappiness caused by the loss of three destroyers. With the efforts of Chief of Naval Staff Frick, Speer promised to use the C-class large destroyers after receiving the supplies. The number of ships built will increase by 2 more.

After a full 48-hour journey, on the night of February 9, the Tirpitz formation heading south along the Norwegian offshore coastline arrived at a place about 200 nautical miles northeast of Bergen, Norway. This position is about 200 kilometers away from the Faroe Islands. 400 nautical miles, less than 300 nautical miles from Mainland, and 600 nautical miles from Iceland.

The weather in Norwegian waters has been very bad these days. Although planes cannot take off for reconnaissance, the German Navy has deployed a large number of U-boats in the North Sea. They have sent back the news that the British Home Fleet is dispatched. Although the naval command does not know that the British How many blockade forces have been deployed, but their judgment is generally close to reality: they believe that the British side will mobilize 5-6 battleships, 6-8 cruisers, and at least 2-4 aircraft carriers to perform blockade tasks and jointly encircle and suppress Tirpitz, considering the terrifying prospect of the German fleet rushing into the Atlantic to break diplomatic relations, they believed that the British would focus on near Iceland—a judgment that coincided with the British actual deployment.

However, accurate judgment does not mean that you have mastered the opponent's action plan, let alone the enemy's next move. Therefore, for the Tirpitz, the next move must take some risks.

The cautious Kumetz asked the formation to check again. After confirming that everything was correct, he sent a telegram to Berlin in accordance with the plan: "The formation has arrived at the designated location. Everything is normal. Please give instructions."

After receiving the telegram, Redel held his breath, thought calmly for three minutes, and made the final decision: "Act according to Plan C1!"

At 0:17 on February 10, Kumetz, who received the reply, issued instructions to the ships including Hipper and Lützow: turn southwest, heading 215 degrees, speed 18 knots, and pay attention to anti-submarine warfare.