Iron Cross

"Strange, why did the British send two destroyers?"

"What else can you do? Come and see our aircraft carrier..."

"Look, tell Leipzig and Cologne to give them five minutes of leisurely observation time." Machar in the commander's tower laughed. "Tell Churchill well that we have two aircraft carriers and ask him not to send the main fleet to them." Concentrate."

Everyone burst into laughter.

They ventured so close that they were less than 7 nautical miles away from the two aircraft carriers, and the two destroyers were still taking pictures frantically in their spare time.

"Retreat!" Seeing that the German light cruiser and the destroyer had rushed to a place less than 5,000 meters away from them, the two bold destroyers first fired a round of torpedoes, and then calmly turned around and prepared to leave. , although the 150mm artillery on the German cruiser had exploded two minutes ago, the captains of the two ships believed that they could not hit themselves, and the facts proved this - the impact point was getting closer and closer to the destroyer, but it still deviated. Spend.

"Torpedo!" Just as the Loyalty was preparing to break away, the sailors suddenly screamed.

"Whoever thought of using torpedoes to deal with destroyers is crazy..." Lieutenant Commander Johns, the captain of the Loyalty, cursed while ordering the adjustment of the course, "Whether these Germans know how to fight, I have never heard of using torpedoes to deal with destroyers. of."

But soon he stopped laughing. A large number of S-boats suddenly emerged from behind the German light cruisers and destroyers chasing the Loyalty, and then rushed over in a dense manner. This batch of "German Sea Daggers" with a displacement of only 100 tons was on a Driven by the Daimler-Benz inverted V-type MB518 diesel engine with a supercharger, it not only has a range of 700 nautical miles, but also has a high speed of 42 knots. Just like the 150mm naval guns on the German cruisers just couldn't hit the maneuverable British destroyers, now it's the latter's turn to suffer. Their naval guns can hardly hit these faster elves, and the Germans But the torpedoes came one after another. What the British couldn't imagine was that these were not the G7 torpedoes most commonly used by the German Navy at all, but the G9 oxygen torpedoes that were improved after absorbing the Japanese 93 torpedo technology.

The improved G9 torpedo is faster, has a longer range, and is more powerful. It still has a range of 20 kilometers at a maximum speed of 52 knots. While it has these advantages, because it uses oxygen to assist combustion propulsion, its concealment is better than that of the G9 torpedo. The G7 type is several levels higher, and when installed on the S-boat, the power of this weapon is fully demonstrated. The Navy has conducted internal experiments. One 610mm caliber G9 among treaty cruisers and 10,000-ton ships will sink. Two G9s among battleships are basically finished. There are not many battleships in the world that can survive out of three G9s. It is estimated that there are no more than seven. Even the Tirpitz itself could not guarantee that it could survive the fourth G9.

In the eyes of British officers and soldiers, these scalp-numbing S-boats were just a group of assault knights throwing flying spears wildly, daring to get close to about 2,000 meters to launch torpedoes. What's even more terrible is that the relevant torpedo tracks can only be seen at an extremely close distance. Observing from a long distance coupled with the weather with relatively poor visibility is simply blind. Originally, Machar prepared such a large number of S-boats for night battles. Unexpectedly, he encountered a British destroyer in broad daylight. Seeing that the enemy dared to approach such a close distance and the cruiser's sniper attack was not effective, he was determined. Let the opponent try the G9 Flying Spear Formation - if it can catch even the destroyer, then it will be more confident to deal with the slower merchant ships, cruisers and battleships.

The new tactic quickly achieved success. After the 22 torpedoes fired in a row were avoided by the Loyalty, the 23rd one finally failed to dodge. After a loud "boom", the L-class destroyer, which was only 2,000 tons, immediately It was blown into two pieces and sank. The Watch on the right wing seemed to have better luck. With its flexible dodge, nearly 20 torpedoes were dodged. At the closest distance, a G9 was no more than 1 meter away from the ship's side, almost grazing the entire ship. All the British officers and soldiers were shocked into a cold sweat, but they finally managed to break away and ran away.

"It seems that the effect of equipping S-boats with G9 torpedoes is very good." Machar was in a good mood. Although G9 is much more expensive than G7 torpedoes, it is still very cost-effective to exchange for a destroyer with less than 50 torpedoes - -A torpedo is less than 50,000 marks, and a destroyer cost at least 20 million marks to be built by Germany.

Ozawa is also extremely happy: the complete set of S-boat technology has been transferred to Japan and is currently being imitated locally. In his view, in addition to U-boats, Germany's design and development capabilities on torpedo boats are also unique, and if used for the defense of multi-island waters in the South China Sea, the effect will be ideal. Apart from anything else, if the Combined Fleet had 50 S-boats available in the early stages of the Guadalcanal Campaign, those American transport ships transporting supplies to Guadalcanal would never have such a comfortable life. His mind is now filled with tactical ideas of relying on S-boats to carry out night battles and quick battles, but he does not know that this technology has been spotted by Onishi, who is in charge of the "Sakura Project", and he wholeheartedly wants to transform it into a special attack comparable to the "Sakura" arms.

"Sir, Rear Admiral Bei sent a telegram. They are still following the British cruiser formation, but their speed is slightly slower than the enemy. They cannot catch up with just a few warships."

"Forget it. If you can't catch them, you can't catch them. Let them come back."

"Wait a minute." Ozawa interjected. After taking a look at the chart, he said, "I have a suggestion. Can you consider adjusting the plan so that the Tirpitz formation further north can return to intercept and try to eliminate all these enemies? A cruiser.”

Everyone was stunned for a moment and immediately rushed over to look at the map.

"The current speed of the British cruiser formation is 32 knots and the heading is 350 degrees. The distance from the Tirpitz formation is about 130 nautical miles. 15 nautical miles behind the British army is our artillery fleet." The Japanese staff group proposed an amendment, "If the Tirpitz formation returns at full speed, relying on its speed of 25 knots to move relative to the British formation, the distance between each other can be reduced by 45-50 nautical miles per hour, and the enemy can be contacted in about 2 and a half hours. During this period , Rear Admiral Bay's formation will only be 3-4 nautical miles away from the British fleet at most. If the Tirpitz formation can entangle the enemy for 15-20 minutes, these three British cruisers will be trapped in the north-south flank of our army. And the whole army was destroyed.”

"Eat them all?"

Ozawa nodded: "There are at least 7 hours before dark. As long as the current visibility is maintained, these British warships will not be able to escape."

Machar looked at his staff and subordinates and found that they all had expressions of eagerness to try. After thinking about it, he was a little tempted, but he still asked uneasily: "Could it be a trap by the British? Deliberately leading us north - what if there is a Royal Navy battleship formation there? "

"It is possible, but it does not change the judgment of the situation." Ozawa explained, "If there is really a British battleship formation in the north, then the Tirpitz should be allowed to return - rather than letting General Kumetz face the British alone, it would be better The entire fleet stepped forward to fight."

"After the fight, we will merge in advance."

"You can regroup after dark."

Machar was convinced and quickly issued two orders: "Notify General Kumetz and ask him to immediately implement the planned route adjustment; send a telegram to Berlin to report our operational intentions and reasons for the change, and request the activation of combat plan C3." "

Just after Machar sent out a large number of telegrams, the Admiralty in London also began to commotion: the cruiser formation led by Christopher reported the discovery of the German main fleet.

"There are really two aircraft carriers?" Tovey said in surprise, "Where did the Germans come from?"

"Sir, I just received the latest telegram. The Loyalty was sunk by the Germans and the Watch successfully escaped from the battlefield. They took a lot of photos at a close range of less than 10,000 meters and will send them to the mainland overnight."

"After analysis by the Naval Intelligence Office, it is believed that one of the aircraft carriers is the Zeppelin, and the other may be an aircraft carrier converted from a large fast cruise ship. The biggest suspect is the Europa - its transformation project began at the end of 1941. Judging from the time, it is very close.”

The German army suddenly had two fleet aircraft carriers, which made Tovey frown tightly - although the Home Fleet has 7-8 aircraft carriers in use, they are all escort aircraft carriers with only about 20 aircraft. The speed is slow and the defense is weak. It cannot fulfill the responsibilities of a fleet aircraft carrier at all. This is simply because the speed of the battleship formation is not fast. This flaw cannot be seen for the time being, but if you want to fight the Germans on the vast Atlantic Ocean, you will definitely suffer a loss. The fastest It would take four days for the USS Independence to arrive, and it was only a light aircraft carrier. It would take at least a month for the USS Indomitable fleet aircraft carrier and other aircraft carriers to return to the mainland, which made him anxious.

In order to study how to deal with the German aircraft carrier, Tovey, Pound and others led the staff to conduct a long-term argument, but until lunch time, everyone still could not come up with a reasonable restraint method, and they were upset. Tovey could only announce a temporary adjournment for dinner and wait for the argument to be resumed in the afternoon.

But just when he raised his knife to attack a piece of steak, the anxious voice of the adjutant came over: "Sir, Colonel Christopher sent an urgent telegram. He encountered the German main fleet and the Tirpitz in Sea Area 41. Siege..."

With a "clang" sound, the knife fell on the dinner plate and made a crisp sound. In the next second, Admiral Tovey rushed into the command room.

The actual situation was a bit more serious than what Christopher reported in the telegram: because it had been busy fighting with Rear Admiral Bei's formation, which was chasing behind it, the cruiser formation did not notice that there were German warships blocking the road ahead, and it kept approaching until it was less than 20,000 meters away. The presence of the Tirpitz, Hipper and Lützow was only discovered at a very close distance. Faced with such a severe test, the frightened Christopher had to cast a smoke screen while trying to adjust the course and get through the gap between the two German fleets at the front and rear.

However, the British fleet's luck apparently ran out, and they were greeted by extremely fierce gunfire from the German ships.