Mediterranean hegemon

"I heard that you came up with a whole new submarine combat plan in the prisoner of war camp?"

"Who said that? We no longer have submarines!" Faced with Contini's inquiry, Dönitz's first reaction was not joy, but a vigilant question - according to the "Versailles Treaty", Germany is not allowed to retain submarines now, let alone Not to mention discussing new submarine tactics, so he was a little nervous.

"Of course I have my own information and intelligence channels, Mr. Dönitz. To be honest, I know how to appreciate your tactics better than your old-fashioned senior officials." Contini smiled, "This set of tactics is vividly called Wolf Pack Tactics: During the operation, a small number of submarines are first dispatched to the predetermined sea area to conduct safari and regional patrols at sea. When the target is discovered, it is not eager to launch an attack, but to track it and continuously inform the headquarters of the target fleet. According to the distribution of submarines, a leading wolf submarine is assigned to direct the unified actions of the wolves... The attack is usually launched at night. Each submarine in the wolf pack passes covertly through the gap or flank of the opponent's escort fleet, and uses multiple submarines to attack at the same time. Attacking the same target will increase the hit rate and achieve greater combat effects than fighting alone..."

Dönitz's face suddenly turned grim: This was the core idea in his tactics. He thought his idea was really leaked, but he didn't know that the president opposite was lying to him!

"This tactic has three key points: first, there must be a sufficient number of submarines, but without scale, even if they see prey, they cannot attack; second, there must be a complete communication, command and support system, which does not determine the success or failure of the operation. For each submarine, it depends on the command of the headquarters and the coordination of the on-site leader; third, the submarine force must have excellent capabilities - the officers and soldiers must be well-trained and able to endure loneliness, the ship must have the ability to stay in the sea for a long time, and the You must have strong enough offensive capabilities." Contini smiled, "But I think there are still some flaws in this tactic or your idea, such as..."

He stopped his mouth at the right time.

"What do you think?" Dönitz asked anxiously. He is not yet the feared marshal of the navy and the doomsday leader. He is still just a small torpedo boat captain - the future marshal of the navy and the king of submarines. There is not even a submarine in there!

"I discussed with General Sickert and decided to move your scientific research institutions, personnel and related equipment and facilities for secretly developing submarines in the Netherlands to Italy - to my joint shipyard. In addition, I also acquired the submarine Erkeng Shipyard, you must know what can be built there!”

At this time, Dönitz suddenly realized: It turned out that the news was leaked from Sickert. It is no wonder that he is an army general and does not have a strong sense of confidentiality in the navy. How did he know that Sickert was just a scapegoat?

"Your Excellency, you just said..."

"Where did I just talk? Oh, I talked about the flaws." Contini smiled, which was a deliberate move to whet his appetite. "First, you ignored the power of airplanes - in the small Mediterranean, simply The use of submarines may still be reliable. In the vast Atlantic Ocean, there are big problems with relying solely on ambushed submarines in advance - too few ambushes, the surveillance range is too large, and it is easy for ships to slip away. Too many ambushes will tie up too many troops. It should be combined with airplanes.”

"As for airplanes..." Dönitz suddenly realized. Isn't this young Italian Air Force theoretical authority in front of him? He must have a theory.

"At present, the aircraft's airborne capacity is very short, and its flight capability is not outstanding, but you have to face up to the development potential of aircraft - this is much faster than the development potential of submarines. The current speed of mainstream freighters is about 10 knots, so submarines have 12-14 knots. It is enough. In the future, mainstream cargo ships will increase their speed to 11-12 knots, and submarines will have 14-15 knots, which will be enough. But in the future, there will be aircraft with a cruising speed of 150 knots and a gap time of 6-8 hours. You can Calculate, how much sea surface can such a powerful aircraft monitor? "

Dönitz nodded. He didn't ask any questions like where the plane took off from - what is the floating airport on the sea used for?

"Second, you prefer to develop multiple, offshore, and small submarines at an early stage, and believe that the speed of forming an army is fast. My thinking is slightly different from yours. I prefer the development of ocean-going, medium and large submarines. You must know that the success of submarine operations is determined. Yes, it doesn’t depend on the number of submarines, but on the number of torpedoes!”

"But Your Excellency, the construction period of large and medium-sized submarines is long, and the unit cost is higher than that of small submarines."

"There is a crucial detention issue that should not be ignored. Although small submarines are cheap to build, their detention time is also short. They can only stay in the theater for 15-20 days or even shorter, while large submarines can fully bear the burden of 40-20 days. For a 50-day patrol mission, you might as well make an accurate calculation. To maintain the density and scale in long-distance waters, how many small submarines do you need to maintain, and how many large submarines will it cost? "

Dönitz nodded thoughtfully.

After a while, Contini took Dönitz into the chart room, turned on the light, and a huge sand table model of the Atlantic Ocean appeared in front of them. Dönitz took a breath of air-conditioning - this was clearly the work of the Naval Staff. There are some things, how could this kind of thing be in a company like United Group?

"My father is a naval colonel, so I have loved the ocean and the navy since I was a child, so I have this ship, this sand table, and this uniform." Only then did Dönitz understand why Mr. President He has the rank of colonel in the reserve forces of the Army, Navy and Air Force, which seems to be well-deserved.

Contini pointed at the British Isles with his pointer: "The third flaw is that you tend to intercept merchant ships in the waters near Great Britain, because no matter what route the merchant ships take, they must go to the port. Close-range interception helps to wait for the opportunity, but I think this is impossible for two reasons: the first is still airplanes, which pose a fatal threat to submarines, so submarines should not easily enter the range of 300 or even 500 kilometers from the coast; second, the enemy will send an escort force with destroyers, frigates, and submarine chasers as the core, which is also a huge threat to submarines. I think the most ideal interception point is here."

Dönitz looked over along the pointer and found that Contini had drawn a huge arc around the Azores - an arc about 1,000-1,200 kilometers away from the Azores.

"There are very few British aircraft here, and the sea is wide enough, so the escort fleet will be seriously weakened."

"But the Azores?"

"This point is in the hands of Portugal... Do you think if we need it, can we build it into the North Atlantic submarine command front headquarters? This is more reliable than setting it up in Berlin or Rome, right?"

"Boom", Dönitz felt that his brain was not enough, and he stammered: "Portugal is a traditional ally of Britain. It is almost impossible to seize the Azores from the mouth of the Royal Navy!"

"Mr. Dönitz, everything depends on human efforts!" Contini smiled cunningly, " I can bet with you that if the Italian and German navies join forces in the future, they will definitely find a way to take this place!"

"Am I in the wrong place? This is not the United Group, this is the Joint Operations Command?"

"What I'm talking about is the future - I won't be just the president of the United Group at that time, and you won't be just the captain of the torpedo boat, right?"

"Thank you for your encouragement!"

After discussing tactical ideas with Dönitz and gaining his approval, Contini talked about down-to-earth work: what submarines to build next and how to use existing submarines for training.

As for submarines, the United Group now has a very strong force. The Italian Navy's submarine design has three sources, namely the design of Ansaldo, the civilian plan designed and built by Otto Shipyard and Adriatic United Shipyard (Big United Shipyard); the Cavallini design and Bernardis design, the latter two are led by the Italian Navy Engineering Department, and Cavallini and Bernardis are also Italian naval officers.

These three plans had their first batch of results in 1925: the Ansaldo plan brought the Barilla class submarine; the Cavallini design plan became the Mameli class medium submarine; and the Bernardis design plan became the Fiera Mosca class and the Pisani class.

At present, Ansaldo and United Shipyard are both strategic partners of the United Group, so these plans are completely open to the United Group, and even acquisition and merger are just a matter of words; the other two submarine plans are not difficult to get from the Navy Department. When the Navy Department heard that the president wanted to toss submarines, it was very happy - finally there was a sucker willing to pay for us to play with submarines. The drawings were handed over long ago and waited for the United Group to build them. As for who would be named after the construction, the Navy did not care at all - it was still expected that the United Group would take over the Dante at the end of the year. Who dared to make the president unhappy now?

The Barilla class submarine is the first-class large ocean-going submarine of the Italian Navy, used to perform ocean-going missions, and adopts a full double-hull design: the surface displacement is 1,405 tons, and the underwater displacement is as high as 1,904 tons. The boat is 86.75 meters long, 7.8 meters wide, and has a draft of 4.78 meters. It is equipped with two 4,000-horsepower diesel engines and two 2,000-horsepower electric motors, with a maximum surface speed of 17.5 knots and a maximum underwater speed of 8.9 knots. The maximum surface endurance is 7,050 nautical miles/8.5 knots, and the underwater endurance is 110 nautical miles/3 knots. It is equipped with torpedo tubes, a 120mm 27-caliber deck gun, and four 13.mm anti-aircraft machine guns.

After the United Group intervened, the Balila class, which was originally prepared for production, was modified: Contini was very dissatisfied with the diesel engine of Franco Tosi used on it, believing that the excessive size caused the submarine to have a high displacement and shortened the range, and requested to replace it with a United Power diesel engine - the technology was transplanted from MAN, with a power of 3,750 horsepower, but the size and weight were reduced by 11%, and the unit power fuel consumption was reduced by 7%.

As a result, the data of the newly designed Balila class underwent tremendous changes: the surface displacement became 1,278 tons, the underwater displacement was 1,689 tons, the length and width were slightly reduced, the maximum surface speed was 18 knots, the maximum underwater speed was 9 knots, the surface endurance was increased by 8,000 nautical miles/9 knots, and the torpedo tubes were arranged in a 4-forward and 4-stern manner.