Iron Sonata of World War II

Compared with the great efforts made to improve the submarine's underwater maneuverability and underwater acoustic countermeasures, the Type II submarine is relatively unremarkable in terms of armament. It is not equipped with the common deck guns on early submarines, only the bow Four 550mm torpedo tubes are installed, and these tubes can carry up to four 550mm heavy torpedoes or eight powerful mines.

Due to the limitation of the length of the hull, the Type II submarine has no torpedo loading mechanism and no spare torpedoes.In other words, Type II submarines cannot reload torpedoes at sea, and the four torpedoes in the launch tube should return to the port to replenish after the mines are launched.However, for a small offshore submarine, it is normal to have no spare torpedoes.For example, the Type XXIII offshore submarine in history even had only two ready-to-launch torpedoes in the two torpedo tubes available, but it also achieved remarkable results in a limited number of sorties.Since there is no need for long-term high seas operations, the four torpedoes carried by Type II submarines are actually barely enough.

Moreover, due to the modular design idea, if it is really necessary to increase the amount of mine preparation in the future, the Type II submarine can also insert a middle cabin module with a length of about 8 meters.In this module, there are not only the torpedo reloading mechanism and four mines to be fired, but also the battery compartment under the floor.This module doubles the torpedo capacity of Type II submarines and gives them greater underwater endurance, at the cost of reduced maneuverability without power upgrades.

It is also worth mentioning that although Type II submarines can use torpedo tubes to lay mines, in order to prevent mines from occupying valuable torpedo tubes, more outboard mounting methods will be used to carry mines during actual operations.Using this method, Type II submarines could carry up to twelve mines with six outboards.The disadvantage of this mine-laying method is that before the mines are laid, the maneuverability will be significantly reduced because the external stores destroy the underwater line shape of the submarine.

In terms of the maneuverability of the submarine, compared with the previous models, the Type II submarine has both inheritance and development.The reserve buoyancy of Type II submarines with monohull structure is only 10.5%, which is at a very low level in submarines.Theoretically speaking, low reserve buoyancy will reduce the damage resistance of the submarine when it is attacked, but Helena thinks that the little guy with an underwater displacement of only 400 tons does not need to consider this. A smaller reserve buoyancy also has the advantage of diving faster .

After all, if the reserve buoyancy of large and medium-sized submarines is high enough, even if some of the ballast tanks are damaged due to attack, the submarine has a high probability of surviving; but the body of a small submarine cannot be so resistant to beating. If the water tank is damaged, no matter how high your reserve buoyancy is designed, there is a high probability that you will get a box lunch and go offline.

However, with the low reserve buoyancy and large-flow exhaust valve, with the hatch closed, the Type II submarine sailing on the surface can complete the dive within 10 seconds at the fastest, which is second only to the previous one. The 9 seconds of the plane XXIII submarine is more or less a compensation for the poor ability to resist damage.

The Type II submarine is designed to have a maximum dive depth of 180 meters, which is higher than all its predecessors in World War I, but not as good as the 220 meters of the VIIC type, the main submarine of Germany on the previous plane.This is mainly because offshore operations have relatively limited requirements for the maximum diving depth, and submarines need to pay a high price to increase their diving depth, either using steel with higher yield strength or increasing the thickness of the pressure hull.

The former not only has high requirements for smelting technology, but also has higher requirements for coils and welding techniques, which will have a negative impact on Helena’s planned production model of segmented construction and shipyard assembly; the latter will increase The structural weight of the submarine crowds out the carrying capacity of other equipment, which has a greater impact on the smaller Type II submarine.Therefore, in the Type II submarine Helena is not going to pursue the ultimate deep diving capability, but try to find a balance between performance and cost.

In addition to adjusting the ballast water, the main control method of the Type II submarine is to rely on various hydrodynamic rudder surfaces. The hydrodynamic rudder surfaces of Type II submarines mainly include a pair of non-retractable horizontal rudders at the bow and a set of cross-shaped rudders at the stern, which are relatively conventional configurations.The only more distinctive feature is the position of the cross stern, which is not placed behind the propeller like many submarines of this era, but before the propeller like most submarines of later generations.This has certain benefits for shortening the overall length of the submarine and improving the flow field of the propeller.

The main technical parameters of Type II submarines are summarized as follows:

主尺度：长度约37.2米，吃水深度约3.6米，耐压壳直径3.88米。排水量：水面排水量约380吨，水下排水量约420吨。动力：一台曼恩公司的800马力6缸中速柴油机、一台西门子公司的1250马力主电动机、一台西门子公司的60马力巡航电动机。航速：水面最大航速不低于12节，水下最大航速不低于15节，水下经济航速约4节。续航力：水面3900海里/8节，水下200海里/4节。武器系统：艏部四具550毫米鱼雷发射管，可携带4枚550毫米重型鱼雷或8枚大型水雷，另可在舷外加挂最多12枚大型水雷。

In fact, in the design of the Type II submarine, Helena did not use any technology ahead of its time.The design idea of ​​making weapons achieve high performance by squeezing the limits of contemporary industrial technology has never been Helena's priority at this stage.Fundamentally speaking, the advancement of the overall performance of the Type II submarine is firstly reflected in the leap in design ideas, and secondly reflected in the skill of system integration.If only in terms of the difficulty of the manufacturing process itself, the Type II submarine is even lower in many respects than the Type VII submarine that Germany started building in 1936 on the previous plane.

The extreme insidiousness of Helena is reflected in: through the transformation of design ideas and the integration of existing technologies, Germany can immediately greatly improve the survivability of submarines.If the anti-submarine side wants to counter the new German submarines, it must greatly improve the performance of sonar, and the improvement of sonar technology is very dependent on the progress of crystal processing technology and electronic industry technology.

Unfortunately, neither of these can be obtained by unconventional integration of existing resources, which means that no matter how many resources you invest in it, it is difficult to see the effect in a short time.Even more unfortunately, if the sonar technology of the anti-submarine side cannot make a leap in a short period of time, it will be very inefficient to simply increase the number of anti-submarine ships.After all, in the sea area that can be controlled by a single ship, if the range of sonar is shortened to half of the original, at least 4-5 ships will be needed to achieve the same effect. Considering the enhanced mobility and attack capabilities of submarines, This number has to go up.

However, since whether the activities of German submarines can be contained is related to the survival of the United Kingdom, even if the cost-effectiveness ratio is low, the United Kingdom must accept the cards played by Germany.This will create a situation that Helena loves to see: for every unit of resources and productivity that Germany invests in submarine warfare, the opponent may need to invest several times or even ten times the resources and productivity to deal with it.

This is actually an extremely unfair exchange game, but this time the exchange is for the resources and production capacity of both parties.And if this asymmetric consumption of resources and productivity cannot be effectively reversed, even if the huge amount of supplies lost due to the sinking of merchant ships in submarine warfare is not taken into account, Britain will definitely be the first party that can't bear it.

This is Helena's conspiracy. You know all my intentions. It doesn't even matter if you know the technical details of German submarines: as long as your crystal processing technology and electronic industry technology do not make a breakthrough in a short period of time, you have to Continue to play this unfair exchange of resources and production capacity with Germany.Therefore, in this kind of exchange game, Germany is basically guaranteed to make money without losing money. Even if the United Kingdom has the ability to pull the United States into the water again, the industrial capacity of the United States is not unlimited, and it is not enough to help the United Kingdom level off this unequal consumption. .

What's more, after Britain tore up the agreement with the Jews in the future, the relationship between Britain and the Jews will inevitably deteriorate sharply.At that time, whether the Jewish financial groups in the United States will provide large-scale financing for the United Kingdom or even lobby the government like the previous plane, I am afraid it is really a question worth discussing.

Chapter 1 Saar referendum

After the end of World War I, as one of the punitive measures against Germany, the Allied Powers designated the Saarland region in western Germany as an autonomous region, and stipulated that from the date of entry into force of the "Treaty of Versailles", France has the right to the coal resources in the Saarland region. The 15-year mining right, after the expiry of the French mining right, will be decided by the residents of the Saar district in a referendum on the ownership of this area.

由于《凡尔赛条约》是在1920年1月10日起正式生效的，所以法国在萨尔区的15年煤炭开采权也正好在1935年1月到期。而萨尔区居民也有权通过投票决定这一地区的命运：是回归德国，还是并入法国，或者干脆谋求独立。

Although the Saar District is only equivalent to a county in China in terms of area and population, the public opinion in the Saar District has a political weathervane to a large extent because Europe was undergoing a period of drastic reorganization of power balance in the 30s Therefore, this referendum still attracted the attention of many international political observers.

On January 1935, 1, the Saarland referendum was held under the supervision of the League of Nations.The final counting results showed that 13% of the 528005 people who participated in the voting wanted to return to Germany, while those who wanted to belong to France and those who wanted to be independent accounted for only 93.7%. A vote showed no dissent.

On the one hand, this is because the Saarland region has always been a German territory historically, and culturally speaking it is a traditional German-speaking region and a German cultural region. In terms of national sentiment, it is naturally biased towards Germany, and the predatory exploitation of local resources by France in the past 15 years has exacerbated this tendency; on the other hand, because France is now mired in the quagmire of economic crisis, It is simply impossible to provide enough jobs for the local area. On the other hand, the economic situation in Germany is much better. Not only has industrial production reached and exceeded the pre-crisis level, but unemployment has also been greatly reduced.

So such a voting result did not surprise Helena. After all, 90.8% of the voters in the Saar district in the previous plane supported returning to Germany.Since the government's anti-crisis measures are more appropriate and beneficial in this plane, Germany's economic recovery is stronger, and it is reasonable that more people are in favor of returning to Germany than in the previous plane.

After all, in an economic crisis, most people still hope that the government can protect them from unemployment, which often has a decisive impact on those groups with relatively weak ethnic tendencies.Some local ethnic minorities in the previous plane might still have concerns about Germany's extreme ethnic policy, but due to the influence of Helena in this plane, this concern does not seem to be tenable.

Although the French side recognized the result of the referendum, there were also many voices of concern in France, mainly because Germany would take advantage of this referendum victory to further demand for Alsace and Los Angeles, which had been assigned to France in the Treaty of Versailles. Similar referendums were also held in the forest area. After all, these two areas are also German-speaking or semi-German-speaking areas and are deeply influenced by German culture.If a referendum is to be held in these two regions, the French really do not have the confidence to keep these two regions in France.

In order to dispel the concerns of the French and secure the Saarland region as soon as possible, Hitler immediately assured France that Germany has no intention of changing the status quo of Alsace and Lorraine, and will not try to change Alsace through referendums in the future. Sovereignty of Slovakia and Lorraine.After receiving Hitler's guarantee, France was finally relieved on the Saarland issue. After some negotiations, France and Germany finally determined that Germany would formally resume the exercise of sovereignty over the Saarland region from March 1935, 3.

The Saarland is the first lost territory that Germany has recovered from the Allied Powers since the signing of the Treaty of Versailles. Since the news that the Saarland is about to return, just outside the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, Helena has I have seen no fewer than ten large celebrations.In Helena's memory, the last time she saw such a grand occasion was when she saw the celebration of the return of Hong Kong and Macau in China in her previous life.

It is undeniable that the return of the Saarland referendum greatly enhanced Hitler's political prestige in Germany.It also convinced most Germans that it was wise for them to combine the functions of president and general manager into the head of state in the national elections five months ago, and to hand over such supreme power to Hitler.Even in the eyes of many German nationalists, Hitler, who negotiated with France to take back the Saarland, has become a living contemporary national hero!

At the same time, Hitler, in Bavaria, also delivered an impassioned speech to the whole country.In his speech, he first enthusiastically praised the people of Saarland for "speaking powerful words with a voice dripping with blood", and then said that he was happy to see the end of this "mistake that lasted 15 years".

Although literally speaking, the "mistakes that lasted 15 years" here refer only to the Saarland issue, but Hitler's words can still hear a few hints of meaning in the ears of those who are interested.Many people, including Helena, understand that Hitler's "15-year-long mistake" here is actually pointing the finger at the entire "Versailles system", not just the Saarland issue.

……

However, when Hitler was excited about the upcoming return of the Saarland, he was almost knocked out by a naval annual budget. "What? The budget for the construction of two very long-wave radio stations actually requires 1.8 million marks! Could this be an extra zero in the cost calculation? This amount of money is enough to build a brand new battleship .” Hitler muttered to himself while looking at the annual budget submitted by the Navy.

However, even after reading the Navy's newly submitted annual construction budget over and over three times, Hitler still failed to fully digest the impact of the proposal.Because the long string of budget figures written behind the "very long wave radio station construction budget" is really beyond his psychological capacity.In the end, Hitler still did not directly question the budget submitted by the Navy. Regarding this matter, he decided to consult Helena in private.

"I know you are short of money recently, Your Excellency the Führer." Helena rolled her eyes slyly after hearing Hitler's intention to invite her, and then said with a smile: "If I said that the budget item of building a very long-wave radio station was stuffed in by me." In the navy budget, I don’t know if Schacht will hit me. But please believe me, Your Excellency, the 1.8 million marks may be the most cost-effective investment in the navy budget this year.”

Chapter 191 Very Long Wave Station

"There is a reason why these two VLW radio stations are so expensive, but most importantly, they are worth the price." Helena felt that it was necessary for Mustache to have a more intuitive impression of the strategic value of the two radio stations.So she further explained to Hitler: "Your Excellency, do you know the scale of the construction of these two radio stations?"

"Each radio station has a transmitting array consisting of a main antenna and more auxiliary antennas. These antennas are high in the air by dozens of steel structure towers with a height of more than 200 meters. The land stretches forward and backward, and the length of the main antenna alone is more than [-] kilometers, and the above is only the ground part of the transmitting base station."

Helena did not use exaggerated rhetoric to exaggerate the hugeness of the project, but the sketchy words not only did not weaken the expression effect, but also highlighted the shocking power of the data itself.Facing the huge project blueprint drawn by Helena, even Hitler, who had an unusual enthusiasm for huge projects, also showed a look of shock at this time.

"The heart of the radio base station includes high-power radio transmitters, power supply equipment, terminal equipment, etc., which are arranged in a huge core computer room together with various auxiliary equipment for cooling, control, and monitoring. The core computer room is Buried under a soil layer as deep as 90 meters, the construction area exceeds [-] square meters."

Helena ignored the ever-expanding shocked expression on Hitler's face, and continued to say in a leisurely manner: "In addition to the 90-meter-thick soil layer, the top of the core computer room also has a high-strength reinforced concrete structure with a depth of 7 meters. Protection. This level of protection is sufficient to withstand any physical attack from the enemy in the foreseeable future."

"In addition, due to the significant progress we have made in electron tube technology over the years, we have also made many revolutionary innovations in the transmitter technology of these two VLW radio stations." Helena went on to introduce: "These two radio stations will Old-fashioned arc transmitters or alternator-type transmitters will no longer be used, but high-power tube transmitters with more advanced performance will be replaced, which is one of the reasons for the sharp increase in construction costs."

"The above is the reason why two radio stations are more expensive than a battleship. And the 1.8 million mark is only the initial cost. In the future, I plan to propose to the navy to further expand its scale, improve its redundancy and anti-strike capability, and Build a complete air defense facility around it, so in this way, you will probably have to spend the cost of another battleship in the future..."

Excitedly, she finished her plan in one breath. Helena picked up the cup in front of her and was about to moisten her throat, but found that Hitler, who was sitting opposite him, was sweating coldly. He was about to collapse from the chair at this moment. .Just when Helena was hesitating whether to call the waiter outside the door to give the Führer a quick-acting heart-relief pill, Hitler finally calmed down.Mustache patted his thin chest lightly, let out a long breath, and still had an expression of terrified baby on his face.

"Okay, Miss Helena, I must admit that you scared me just now." Hitler sat up straight, waved his hand and said, "Please tell me now, these will cost the cost of a battleship, and may cost another in the future The radio station of the battleship cost, what can you do in the future! I have consulted naval experts before, but you know, Miss Helena, they usually say a lot of difficult proper nouns to me, but go around But I always miss the point.”

Helena put down her glass, thought for a while and said, "Your Excellency, have you ever heard a wolf howl in the wild? When the leader of the wolf gathers the pack of wolves in his territory to round up his prey, he will send out a low and long howl to the sky. The sound can travel great distances in the wilderness. It would be horrifying for anyone or any animal to hear it in the wild."

"Among the prey of wolves, some are much larger than a single wolf, and some will form groups to complete migration. But the scary thing about wolves is that some of them have patience and determination, and they will fight against the head wolf. Under the command of the unified action, they will spend a long time sneaking close to the prey, and then when the time is right, such as a dark night where you can't reach your fingers, launch a general attack. At that time, no matter how powerful the prey is, it will be torn apart, and no matter how large the group is, it will be destroyed. Flush away."

"Miss Helena just mentioned submarines?" Hitler said clearly: "When preparing to rebuild the submarine force, General Behnke recommended Lieutenant Colonel Karl Dönitz to me. I think you should know him. .”

Seeing that Helena nodded to show that she knew the lieutenant colonel, Moustache went on to say: "However, he is still the captain of the light cruiser 'Emden', and General Behnke is currently looking for someone for 'Emden'. New captain, as soon as the handover is completed, the navy plans to transfer Lieutenant Colonel Dönitz back to the submarine force. I heard that Lieutenant Colonel Dönitz was quite reluctant to part with the 'Emden', but he finally agreed to this Scheduling."

"Hahaha, it's not surprising." Helena laughed heartlessly when she heard about Denitz's gossip: "It's normal for the admirals to have different feelings about their initial ship. It won't be long before Lieutenant Colonel Dönitz will discover that submarines are more fragrant than barbarians like surface warships."

Although the two-dimensional words that Helena popped out of the mouth made Hitler a little confused, but he could roughly guess what Helena wanted to express, so he went on to say: "I heard that in the last world war, Denny Lieutenant Colonel Doenitz served in the submarine force. This time, because of the strong recommendation of General Behnke, I just met Lieutenant Colonel Doenitz some time ago. He briefly explained to me some of his new tactics on submarine warfare , and its ideas are very bold and very novel.”

"For Lieutenant Colonel Dönitz's new tactics, we have not had a vivid name before. Hearing Miss Helena's description today, I think the name 'Wolf Pack Tactics' is good. What does Miss Helena think?" Hitler seemed Satisfied with the new term he suddenly thought of, this can be seen from the shaking mustache on his lips.

"Your name is appropriate, Your Excellency the Führer, let's call it 'Wolf Pack Tactics'." Helena didn't expect that she just gave an example at random, and directly let Dunitz's new tactic that was still in its infancy be recognized. The same naming for the unit plane.

However, the specific name of the tactic is not important. The key task for Helena is to make Mustache deeply understand the role of the very long wave radio station and be willing to fully support this project.In fact, Germany on the last plane also started the construction of very long wave radio stations in the later period of the war, but it was too late to play a role in time.

"Your Excellency, if the wolf pack tactics really work, you need to solve three problems first." Helena said to Hitler solemnly: "The first is the collection and arrangement of information on the number, location and course of the enemy at sea. The second is the unified command and dispatch of our own submarines, and the third is how to keep the submarines concealed in the process of gathering in the combat sea area and approaching the opponent. Our answers to these three questions will be directly related to wolf pack tactics effectiveness."

"The construction of the very long wave radio station is one of the answers we handed over. Since the attenuation of the very long wave radio station in the atmosphere is very small, the communication range of these two very long wave radio stations is enough to cover the entire Atlantic Ocean. In other words, our military strength in the entire Atlantic Ocean All can accept its command, not only submarines, but also surface ships, camouflaged attack ships, camouflaged supply ships and even aircraft."

"But the above is not the most important thing. For us, the most strategic value of the very long wave radio station is that it can penetrate the sea water layer to a certain extent, which is impossible for medium and short wave radio stations or even ordinary long wave radio stations. Yes. To receive ordinary radio signals, the submarine must surface or rise to the depth of the periscope. With the very long-wave radio station, our submarine does not have to surface frequently, and it can still be submerged at a depth of no more than 30 meters. Signal received."

"So, Your Excellency the Head of State, you can completely understand the very long wave radio station as the throat of the wolf king. You can send out a low howl to the sky at any time, summoning the wolves in the territory to round up their prey. As long as you hear the wolf king's long howl, the wolves in hiding The group does not need to reveal their own position, and immediately knows where the prey is and where the hunt is located! In this way, other wolves except the wolf king can coordinate their actions in complete silence."

"Of course, very long wave communication also has some disadvantages. For example, because the very long wave transmitting base station is too large, submarines can only receive very long wave signals but cannot transmit very long wave signals. The external transmission still has to rely on medium and short waves; another example is that the information transmission speed of very long wave is very fast. Slowly, a short telegram could take an hour to send."

"However, Your Excellency the Head of State, as long as we have a very long-wave radio station and cooperate with the ocean-going submarine equipped with a closed-cycle diesel engine that we are developing, in the future, our submarine force will receive combat orders, gather in ambush sea areas, and launch attacks. It can all be done underwater. In this way, the threat of the aviation force in the enemy escort formation to our submarine operations will be so small that it can almost be ignored. Do you think it is worthwhile to spend two battleships on the long-wave radio station?"

Helena is not bragging here. Even though new detection equipment such as sonar buoys began to be equipped in the later period, the anti-submarine aircraft during World War II still had very low search efficiency for submarines in a submerged state, let alone effective attacks.

So after Helena deploys the very long-wave radio station, closed-cycle diesel engine, and active/passive sonar, the threat to submarines can basically be reduced to negligible for short and poor things like the escort aircraft carrier on the previous plane. Regardless of the degree.If the offshore anti-submarine blockade does not work, and the centralized escort system cannot effectively protect the merchant fleet, Helena would really like to see what other cards the British can play.

"I think you convinced me, Miss Helena." After Helena said this, Mustache seemed to understand why the money had to be spent gritted his teeth, "but I have one last question, VLW Radio The value is so high, won't it become the target of the enemy's concentrated attack?"

"Actually, I'm waiting for them to come! What I'm afraid of is that they won't come, Your Excellency the Führer." Helena grinned, showing her white teeth.Seeing Helena's sinister expression, Hitler couldn't help shivering.

Chapter 192 Measures

Helena stared closely into Hitler's eyes, and her tone suddenly became serious: "Your Excellency is right, for our potential enemies, the threat of VLW radio is so great, it is big enough to shake the confidence of their country. It’s the foundation of survival, isn’t it?” Seeing Hitler nodded solemnly, Helena slowly stood up and walked to the window, looking up at the clear sky outside the window, she didn’t know what she was thinking about.

After a long while, Helena finally withdrew her wandering gaze. She turned around from the window, then went to sit down opposite Hitler's desk, and said in a single word: "So in order to eliminate our VLW radio , even just to interrupt the work of these stations temporarily, the enemy will pay any price."

"Yes, at any price." Helena emphasized again, and then her speech speed returned to normal: "This is because all the efforts are so insignificant compared with the immediate crisis of national survival. This It's like when a traveler is about to starve to death in the wild, he will definitely be willing to exchange all his money for a piece of dry bread." After saying this in one breath, seeing Hitler's thoughtful expression on the opposite side, Helena didn't agree. To disturb his thinking, he just picked up his teacup again, seemingly casually using the lid to stir the tea leaves floating on the water.

"I think I understand your intentions. Is Miss Helena planning to put enormous pressure on the opponent through submarine warfare, thereby forcing the enemy to concentrate air power to attack our very long wave radio station, and finally achieve the goal of restraining the opponent's air power?" Although Now history has just entered 1935, and Julio Duhet's air power theory has not yet undergone actual combat experience, but Hitler still quickly grasped the key.

"That's right, Your Excellency the Führer." Helena nodded affirmatively.In order to destroy the very long wave radio station in the hinterland of Germany, apart from directly attacking the German mainland from the ground, air strikes are almost the only feasible means of attack.

"But how should we deal with the enemy's air force's attack on the VLW radio station?" After getting Helena's affirmation, Hitler thought for a few seconds, and then suddenly frowned, as if he suddenly remembered something, "If we If our VLW radio station is attacked, the activities of our submarines in the Atlantic Ocean will also be affected? If we rely on this to contain the opponent's air power, will we have to pay too much?"

"That's exactly what I'm going to say next, Your Excellency the Head of State." Helena said: "In the traditional concept of many people, the purpose of our submarine warfare is to hit the enemy's warships and merchant ships as much as possible. But forgive me Frankly speaking, although this concept cannot be said to be completely wrong, it is far from touching the essence of submarine warfare.”

"So in your eyes, what should be the essence of submarine warfare? Miss Helena." Hitler asked with a smile.Obviously, Helena's words successfully aroused Hitler's interest.

"The essence of submarine warfare is actually a game of unequal exchange of war resources, Your Excellency." Helena replied calmly but forcefully.

After a short pause, Helena went on to say: "The ultimate goal of all the specific methods and technologies used in submarine warfare should be to increase the unequal consumption of war resources on both sides, so as to tilt the balance of victory in our favor. .In order to achieve this strategic goal, we can use many specific methods in submarine warfare, but through abstract arrangement, we can roughly summarize these methods into three basic methods.”

"The first way is to directly destroy the enemy's war resources. For submarines, this way is mainly to sink the enemy's warships and merchant ships. We sink the enemy's merchant ships and ships at the cost of how many submarines we lose. Calculated in mathematical form, it is the battlefield exchange ratio. Of course, the battlefield exchange ratio is very important, but if we only focus on the battlefield exchange ratio, our understanding will be too narrow.”

"The second way is to reduce the efficiency of the enemy's acquisition of war resources. For submarine warfare, this way can be considered a natural extension of the first way. In order to reduce the loss of merchant ships, the opponent must adopt some unconventional methods to maintain Sea transportation. However, no matter which unconventional measures the enemy adopts, we can be sure that its transportation efficiency will be much lower than under normal conditions. If the enemy does not increase resource input in the field of transportation, its resource input from outside will inevitably be greatly reduced shrink.

At this time, of course, the enemy can also choose to increase resource investment in the transportation field to ensure sea transportation capacity as much as possible, such as increasing the number of merchant ships built or increasing the average speed of merchant ships.However, there is an upper limit to the war resources that a country can mobilize, and this upper limit is generally stable within a certain period of time.If you choose to use more war resources to maintain maritime transport capacity, then the war resources that other departments can share can only be reduced. "

"The third way is to reduce the efficiency of the enemy's use of war resources. In submarine warfare, there is a great asymmetry in the resource input of the two sides. The offensive side that launches submarine warfare often only needs to invest relatively few resources, while the defensive side Massive war resources must be invested in anti-submarine warfare in order to bring the balance of war back into balance.

Due to constraints on the total amount of war resources in various countries, this unequal resource investment will become a huge burden for the enemy, making it impossible for the enemy to free up enough war resources to invest in areas that are more threatening to us.Because the enemy is qualified to discuss the efficiency of the use of war resources only if he first ensures that his country can survive. "

"Your Excellency, I think whether the unequal exchange of war resources between the two sides can be achieved through the above three methods should be used to measure whether a technology should be adopted in submarine warfare, whether a project should be constructed, and a strategy. The only yardstick for whether it should be implemented or not." Probably infected by the mustache, Helena almost danced when she mentioned the excitement.

"Is this measure not limited to submarine warfare?" Hitler suddenly asked thoughtfully.

"That's right! In the context of total warfare, I think this criterion can be applied to all areas related to war. We should not be afraid of losses, nor should we be afraid of resource consumption. If we consume one unit of war resources, we can In exchange for the opponent's consumption of much more war resources, then unless the strength gap between the two sides is too great, we must be the last to laugh." Helena said with confidence, and how to strengthen herself and weaken potential opponents. There are still cards to play.

"Okay, now let's go back to your Excellency's question just now. If the enemy attacks our very long wave radio station with all its strength, will it bring us losses and consumption? Of course it will. After all, there is no loss or consumption in war. What about it?" At this point, Helena changed the subject and said, "But the most important question now is: Regarding the offense and defense of the very long wave radio station, which one will consume more war resources? Which one will have a greater impact on the strategic intentions of both sides? ?”

Chapter 193 Defense Advantage

"In aerial offensive and defensive operations, if we only look at the losses of fighter planes and fighters, as long as the difference in equipment and personnel quality between the two sides is not too great, the side fighting in the local area can generally take advantage of it." Helena said straight to the point: " This is because the side fighting at home has the guidance of ground information and the support of ground anti-aircraft firepower, the fighter jets have a longer time to stay in the air, and the pilots of the downed planes also have a greater chance to return to service in the army."

What Helena said was not only based on logical deduction, but also based on the actual combat data from the previous plane.In addition to the British air battle that everyone is more familiar with, the strategic bombing of Germany by the Allied forces is also a good proof of this point.Post-war data show that in combat operations against Germany, the Allied forces lost more than 17 of the four heavy bombers alone, including 4754 B-24 bombers, 2112 B-3922 bombers, Lancas Special [-].In other words, even if the loss of escort fighter jets is not included, the equipment and personnel losses of the Allied Air Forces are several times that of the Luftwaffe.

"Then now comes the question, why is the air attacker willing to go to the opponent's homeland to fight against huge losses?" Helena raised a question, but she gave the answer without waiting for Hitler's answer: "That's because From the perspective of the attacker, the value of the enemy's important military nodes destroyed through air offensive operations, plus the value of war support systems including industrial facilities, far exceeds those aircraft and personnel lost.

"So Your Excellency the Head of State, when we are building an air defense system, or even the entire industrial and military facility system, how to systematically reduce the attack efficiency of the opponent's air power and reduce the loss of our military nodes and war support systems must be taken as a very important issue. Consider it as a link, and even consider it as a link that is more important than how many enemy planes are simply killed." After showing her opinion, Helena left the room for thinking to Hitler.

Looking up from the folded fingers of his hands, Hitler asked thoughtfully: "By the way, in the reconstruction project of the national power grid, was it also for this purpose that you proposed to adopt a multi-level DC ring grid? This The engineering renovation project cost us a lot of money, and it’s not all done yet.”

"Your Excellency's guess is correct." Helena replied, and then she raised a hand and said: "But here I must declare that although this power grid reconstruction project costs a lot, the potential benefits in the future are also very large. At least as far as the project is concerned In terms of cost-effectiveness, it is much higher than hiring workers to dig a big hole today and hiring another group of workers to fill the hole tomorrow.”

The power grid renovation project that Hitler mentioned was one of the super-large infrastructure construction projects launched by Germany at the suggestion of Helena during the economic crisis of this plane. The project cost is second only to the construction of the national highway network.After the renovation project is completed, the German power transmission system will be divided into basic units consisting of circular DC transmission lines, and each unit will be interconnected through transmission and distribution lines to form a network structure.

This is actually a decentralized power transmission structure. When a node in the ring power transmission unit is damaged, as long as the faulty section is removed through the switch, the power transmission in the unit will not be affected.Even if most of the nodes in a certain unit are destroyed, the basic power supply capability can be maintained through two-way power exchange between each unit.

The construction of this brand-new power grid structure, coupled with more decentralized new power generation facilities, not only greatly improved the power supply quality of the German power system in peacetime, but also doubled the anti-strike capability of the German power system in wartime.Facing such a decentralized power grid system, it will become even more difficult for an opponent to interrupt the power supply in a specific area by concentrating air power to destroy some important nodes.

"Here I can even say without exaggeration that in future air defense operations, if we can halve the efficiency of enemy planes per sortie, the strategic value we will gain from it will be equivalent to directly shooting down half of the enemy planes. It’s even more than directly shooting down half of the enemy planes.” Helena once again said astonishingly: “As long as we can make good use of the bomber magnet of the very long wave radio station, we can achieve such an effect.”

"First of all, a target like the very long wave radio station is very unfriendly to the attacking side. Its core part is buried under a 90-meter-thick soil layer, and it is protected by high-strength concrete with a thickness of 7 meters. The inside will be indestructible." There is no exaggeration in Helena's words, the core computer room of the planned very long wave radio station has a very high protection standard, so high that even in the Cold War, it can be used to resist An earth-penetrating thermonuclear bomb with a yield of no more than 61 tons like the B-50.Although this is not comparable to the doomsday fortresses built by the United States and the Soviet Union that can resist megatons or even tens of millions of megatons of thermonuclear bombs, there is indeed no weapon that can destroy its core computer room from the outside in World War II.

"So the only way for the enemy to prevent our VLW radio from functioning is to attack its vulnerable parts exposed to the ground, namely the pylon and transmitting antenna. Since the thin antenna is almost impossible to take a direct hit, destroying the support The antenna tower is basically the only option for the enemy. But if they really want to do this, IMHO, the attack efficiency will become very low." Helena continued.

"First of all, from the air, the projected area of ​​our VLW radio tower is very small, and if we want to destroy the tower, we must throw the bomb very close to the base of the tower. The bombing accuracy requirements are very high." In Helena's memory, the Norton sight used by the Allied bombers on the previous plane was already considered the best horizontal bombing sighting device during World War II. The sight has a theoretical range of 30 meters The accuracy of bombing, but the hit rate in actual combat is far from the theoretical accuracy.Moreover, even if the theoretical accuracy can be achieved, the explosive power of ordinary heavy aerial bombs is not enough to destroy the steel structure tower at a distance of several tens.

"Secondly, even if the opponent destroys some of the antenna towers by intensively dropping a large number of aerial bombs or using specially designed super-heavy bombs, it does not mean that our radio station will fail. Our radio antenna uses multiple auxiliary wires High redundancy design, even if some towers are destroyed, there is still a considerable probability that the remaining antennas can continue to maintain the transmission capability. When the next phase of the expansion project is completed, this redundancy will be further increased. Moreover, we have two If the adversary just disables one of these stations, it is not enough to interrupt the very long wave communication between us and the submarine."

"Again, even if the opponent disables our two VLW radio stations at the same time, we have the ability to restore their operation in a relatively short period of time. Although the launch tower is as high as 200 meters, since the tower only needs to pick the transmitting antenna in the air , does not need to bear gravity, so repairing it is not much more difficult than repairing an ultra-high voltage transmission tower blown down by a storm. In addition, the structure of the tower is all prefabricated steel structures, even if the ground part of the VLW station is the most severely damaged We are confident enough to basically restore its normal operation within half a month." Helena said.

"Half a month?" Hitler murmured and repeated, and then asked Helena: "The very long wave communication was interrupted for half a month, and the enemy can use this time to do a lot of things, right?"

"Yes, Your Excellency the Führer." Helena replied: "If there is no very long-wave radio station, we can only summon the submarine through the ordinary long-wave radio station. The submarine must at least surface to the depth of the periscope to receive the ordinary long-wave signal. Increase the probability of being exposed to the opponent's aviation power. However, we have also planned some temporary means to partially restore the very long wave communication, such as fixing the hot air balloon or airship with a steel cable connected to the ground, as an alternative measure until the launch tower is repaired .”

"But it still loses communication quality, right?" Mustache asked again.

"That is indeed the case." Helena replied helplessly: "But Your Excellency, these losses are inevitable. If the enemy's air power is fighting for a long time with huge losses and casualties, our This side is unscathed, which does not conform to scientific laws, the probability of one-sided killing on the battlefield is very small."

"But the key problem is that, on the premise that the upper limit of the enemy's investment in air offensive forces is generally stable, if they do not attack our VLW radio stations, they will inevitably free up forces to attack our industrial facilities. May I ask Your Excellency the Head of State, Compared with the potential loss of industrial facilities, what is the loss of a few radio towers? Compared with the difficulty of restoring industrial equipment, what is the difficulty of repairing a few radio towers?"

"The enemy may need to pay several times our equipment loss and casualties, but it can only temporarily weaken our ability to communicate with submarines. And we can not only make full use of our homeland defense advantages to consume the opponent's air power, but also indirectly reduce industrial The potential loss of the facility, no matter how we calculate this transaction, we will not lose money."

"Besides, our industrial area is so large and there are so many cities. If the opponent's air power focuses on attacking our industrial facilities, the degree of tactical flexibility can be much higher, although we have local combat capabilities. advantage, but the opponent's air power can also choose any attack target to concentrate on breakthroughs, which virtually increases the difficulty of our defense."

"In contrast, although the very long wave radio station covers a huge area, compared with the industrial area, the area that needs our defense is still much smaller. Moreover, there are only two very long wave radio stations, and the enemy's air power cannot To achieve the suddenness of the battle, we can only rely on brute force to break into the air defense circle, which virtually deprives the opponent of the natural power to choose the attack path and target, and the advantages of our homeland defense will be further amplified."