Bismarck

Listening to the radio report, confirming that at least five fulmars had successfully infiltrated the German fighter interception line, Major General Chris breathed a sigh of relief. Then, he began to pay attention to the Prince of Ougen opposite him.

The relationship between the Royal Australian Navy and the British Empire Royal Navy is well known. As a major general in the Australian Navy, it is not surprising that Chris knows about the evil spirit. However, looking at the position of the "evil spirit" opposite, Major General Chris still couldn't help but twitch his eyelids...

"Hmm... Are the Germans coming towards us? Are they trying to seize the lead? Tell all the battleships! Rudder to right, course 65 degrees, turn back together. Tell them that we cannot let the evil spirits seize our lead, and we have to cover the battleships that follow."

Seeing Ogen's move, Major General Chris reacted quickly. Although he had considered this possibility when he first made the plan, seeing that the distance between them had been shortened to just over 20000 yards ( meters) under the T-head, Major General Chris couldn't help but feel a little overwhelmed.

As a senior officer, Major General Chris knew very well that the distance of 8 yards was exactly the distance at which the BL MK330 main gun equipped on his heavy cruiser had the least power. At this distance, the speed of his shells was only meters per second, just above the speed of sound. Even if it hit Princess Ogen, it would not be enough to cause her any serious damage.

Although, according to the Royal Navy's data, the Hipper-class heavy cruiser's 203mm main gun has the lowest power and speed at this distance. But... Prince Ou is a Demon-class heavy cruiser after all. Is the power at this distance still so low? He has no confidence in his heart.

And most importantly, the distance cannot be any closer. The theoretical maximum range of the German torpedo is 14700 meters, but that is only the theoretical range, and the position relationship between him and the German ship is second only to the T-disadvantage of anti-naval warfare in terms of the speed of the two sides approaching.

Fortunately, I turned - although the turning angle cannot be too large, otherwise the battleships behind me will completely lose their flank cover...

And just at this moment, a burst of angry voice came from his headphones - it was the sound of the Fulmar reconnaissance planes calling him according to the code name.

"Calling 'Australian Dingo'. I'm 'Haiyan'... The German fleet has turned to the northeast. They are hiding behind Prince Ou and... and two battleships are now in formation and rushing over! It's not easy to attack now..."

"What?" Major General Chris was stunned.

He actually hid behind Ougen... meaning that if the American battleships behind him wanted to come over, they could only come through him? In other words, was his attempt to spread out and attack separately discovered?

Moreover, this would bring him very close to the fleet of Rear Admiral Giffen, the commander-in-chief of the front line of this operation. Not only would it be hopeless to attack separately, but his cruisers and Giffen's battleships would be crowded in the same direction.

Now the two German Evil Spirit battleships have blocked the way out. With the Germans' frontal combat capability, they have an advantage in manpower, but if they are squeezed together, it will be very difficult, or even impossible, to launch a frontal assault.

Plus, the Ougen Prince on the flank is also a powerful heavy cruiser... If there's a torpedo attack from the side...

And...if that's the case, even if I keep my distance from Ougan carefully now, it will be meaningless - I'm too close to the battleship. If there's any mistake, there's no possibility of recovery.

Even if they have torpedoes, they can only run at a speed of 14,000 meters in low-speed mode. When dealing with warships that are faster than themselves, they are basically useless unless they can capture the enemy's front hemisphere.

"Ah... I don't know how the Japanese designed the torpedo, but it can hit 30 kilometers... Damn the Germans!"

Rear Admiral Chris, who was somewhat envious and jealous of the Japanese for the range of their torpedoes, looked at the Ogen on the opposite side firing continuously, and then looked at his own flagship Australia which was already badly damaged and was hit by another shell, and could not help but think hatefully.

But at this moment, his subordinates shouted, which attracted the attention of Chris who was already in a state of irritability:

"Sir, the German battleship is approaching again! Only 18000 yards ( meters) away..."

Chris, who had just come to his senses, felt a chill run down his back when he heard the distance of 20,000 yards.

"What? This... there was 22,000 yards just now?!"

Chris was startled, but soon he thought of something, and began to mutter to himself with a bitter smile: "Yes... yes. Their current speed is nearly 34 knots, much faster than ours, and... 80% of the Germans are sure that I dare not turn at a large angle, knowing that I must cover the flank of the battleship, so they are sure that I will either be at a disadvantage and be hit by a torpedo, or lose my position and let the battleship be hit by a torpedo... Damn it..."

Looking up at the top of the sky, the air battle seemed to be over - the German carrier-based aircraft, fighting next to their own aircraft carrier, had a very obvious home advantage. Not only did they have an absolute advantage in the ability to continue fighting, but they could also receive direct command from the aircraft carrier's radar.

Looking at the sky without any trace of Spitfire fighters, and the Fulmar being picked off by German fighter planes one after another, and listening to the hysterical cries for help in the headphones, Major General Chris knew that the situation was hopeless...

"…It's only 203: now, has the assault failed?…The battleship is only a little over nautical miles away from the Germans, and they are only traveling at knots…If they retreat like this, they will be in danger if they are attacked by the Germans…Forget it! I'll fight. Even if the mm cannon is going to kill me, it will take several more rounds. A torpedo on the bow of the cruiser may not sink…I'm going to die anyway, so I'll drive this evil spirit away first—the Germans shouldn't chase too far, and as long as I'm not attacked by both sides, I may still be able to escape…"

Having made up his mind, Major General Chris steeled himself and began to issue the final order:

"Come here, pass on my order... The entire fleet maintains echelon. Turn together! Attack Prince Ougen with all your strength... Signalman, report our situation to Major General Giffen! Also, tell them that we can't hold out for much longer, but we will still do our best to stop Prince Ougen! Major General Giffen, please make a quick decision whether to continue the attack or retreat!"

On the bridge of the Ogen Prince, seeing the five British heavy cruisers starting to charge towards him, Top, who always had a sailor-like ruthlessness, could not help but look at them solemnly...

"At this time, you choose to sacrifice yourself to hold us back and cover the battleship's retreat... Fire the torpedoes, Eugen." As if he had already seen the final outcome of the warrior, Top left the window.

Eugen immediately opened the torpedo tube...

Six white lines were ejected by high-pressure air from Prince Ogen's two triple-mounted torpedo tubes, heading towards the end of the cruiser fleet under Rear Admiral Chris...

Supplementary Notes on Chapter 646 (Part ) - Free Chapter

Those that are probably related to the main text of 646 are placed in the front first. Those who don’t understand the theory of lightning strike warfare can read the theoretical introduction at the end.

At 10:40, Eugen further compressed the distance. If the British cruisers retreated, he would turn around and use a wave of anti-navigation mines to deny the British cruisers, and then turn back to directly torpedo the American battleships.

Therefore, as long as the British cruisers retreated, they could still grab Eugen's T-Yu even if they turned back later, but at that time there was no way to stop Eugen from firing a salvo of torpedoes at the other side of the American battleship.

Then Eugen could dodge the unguided torpedoes of the Allied cruisers, and the 203 of the Allied cruisers. Although the Allied cruisers paralyzed a CA with firepower at 10:30, neither the CA nor Chris's main force would be too close to Eugen. The 203 could not hurt Eugen, and Eugen could get away with just one more turn. In the end, Eugen was hit hard, and the two BBs were severely damaged and then sunk by the cat house.

And if the American battleship did not turn and head towards Eugen, it would be at a disadvantage in front of the Cat House sisters.

Moreover, if the American battleships retreated, it would be fine if Eugen didn't come to attack, but if Eugen came to attack, they could only use the destroyers to cover them, but the destroyers would also be doomed under the attack of Mao Zhai and Eugen - under the premise that the destroyers were basically all dead and the cruisers would be sunk later, there would only be two battleships left. The Allied interception fleet, which was completely alone, would be directly sunk by a full-deck bombing by Zeppelin...

In other words, as long as Chris retreated, Giffen would die anyway. Then Major General Chris was directly court-martialed after returning to Hong Kong for dereliction of duty.

So Major General Chris must not retreat... not even a single step.

PS: By the way, let me introduce the position calculation of torpedo battle...

Torpedo warfare is something that basically relies on trigonometric calculations.

In theory, you need to open up the shooting fan (attack range), calculate the shooting interval, make good angle adjustments, and organize cross-torpedo nets... But let's not count those for now. Here we will only give a brief introduction to the simplest and most basic torpedo launch positions. (Also... this is a brief popularization, not a paper analysis. This is a brief popularization, not a paper analysis. This is a brief popularization, not a paper analysis. I repeat it three times)

Assuming that the enemy has not discovered your torpedoes, or that the distance between them and your torpedoes is not far enough to avoid them (torpedoes are fan-shaped AOE attacks, and if they are discovered too close or turn in a small range, they cannot escape the attack range of the torpedo net. You can only pray to God for your avoidance probability)

So, to simplify the calculation, we only need to calculate the trigonometric function of the torpedo speed and the enemy ship speed.

Assume that the enemy ship is moving in a straight line at a uniform speed (including only avoiding artillery fire in a small range), the distance between the enemy and us is known (or can be estimated), and the speed of the enemy fleet can also be estimated (generally based on the maximum speed and combat speed). Then, a triangle can be drawn to find the range and speed requirements of the torpedo, where the torpedo speed must be the longest hypotenuse of the triangle (unless T is superior or the reverse direction)

There is a proportional relationship between the speeds: SIN angle of encounter = enemy and our speed ratio

This can be found using a trigonometric table. In particular, when our speed is lower than the enemy's, we must ensure that the enemy and our ship's positions are within this angle in order to encounter and attack the enemy - this is effective for position judgment and lightning strike calculations.

For example, for a submarine, assuming that the merchant ship travels at 16 knots and the submarine's underwater speed is 4 knots, then the angle at which it can launch an attack is very small (0.25=SIN15 degrees), which means that basically it can only attack if the enemy is within plus or minus 15 degrees directly in front of me.

This is the kind of trouble that the British cruiser fleet in the book encountered.

Because Eugen's speed is 34 knots, while the British cruiser's is only 32 knots. The distance is also very far, 18000 meters in a straight line. And Eugen is T-advantage, which means that his cruiser cannot grab the attack angle...

Not to mention, the British torpedoes can only reach a maximum range of 14000 meters at a speed of less than 30 knots (some say 28 knots), and they are still in the second half of Eugen (Eugen is in the front half of their own T advantage)

Even though the German torpedoes were just as good as the British ones (14000 meters/30 knots), the British had absolutely no chance of a torpedo attack because of their position.

Eugen's T-excellence means that Eugen's torpedo is an anti-navigation mine (the range of the anti-navigation mine is increased because the enemy ship is heading straight into the torpedo net...)

Some people may ask: What if the enemy ship suddenly changes course?

In fact, before the torpedoes get close enough, it is basically impossible to know whether the enemy has launched a torpedo. You can only estimate it based on the situation and experience.

Supplementary Notes on Chapter 646 (Part )

Just look at the Battle of Tsushima and you will know that the consequence of the Japanese fleet's U-turn in front of the enemy was that the Russian fleet, whose artillery skills were in a mess, was able to hit the Mikasa with more than a dozen shells - and in the subsequent same-naval battle, the Russian fleet's hit rate was negligible...

This comparison itself clearly illustrates how stupid it is to make a large turn in front of the enemy's guns...

Then the result is obvious: a small turn cannot avoid the lightning fan, and before being sure that the other side has indeed discovered the torpedo, no one will turn over a large area, because whoever turns will die...

Speaking of this, we really have to mention Japan's extremely perverted 93 oxygen mine.

For example, the triangle just now is actually a diagram of the situation in the Battle of Surabaya. Japan basically launched torpedoes at a distance of 13-15 km. Although three consecutive waves of torpedoes achieved results, the problem is that at this combat distance, the Allied torpedoes with a pitiful 14000 meters/30 knots could not reach the Japanese mine warfare team.

So the question is, since the torpedo speed must be the oblique side (especially in the case of a naval battle), and there are only conventional 533 torpedoes, then in order to launch a torpedo, two requirements must be met at the same time: first, the torpedo speed must be faster than the enemy ship speed, and second, the torpedo range must be long enough (normal combat distance, the vertical right angle side is the artillery battle distance, that is, the vertical distance, like the Surabaya naval battle above)

继续以同航战下的雷击为论，日本93-1的雷速是51/2000米，44/32000米，而英美鱼雷是45/4500，40/9000-10000，28-31/12000-14000……日本人的鱼雷优势太大了。尤其是射程。（哪怕后期H2O2涡轮机鱼雷，也就44节12000，48节18000而已。）

Moreover, due to the slow speed and short range of the Allied torpedoes, the launch distance could not exceed 10 kilometers unless the T was superior or anti-naval warfare was used (it was possible that the launch could not be carried out even at 20 or 32 kilometers) - the problem was that the range of the Japanese torpedoes was at least 45 and at most 51+, and the speed of - knots meant that they could be launched at all angles...

The Japanese advantage in torpedo warfare is self-evident.

Even if the Americans could detect the Japanese mine fleet at 10-15 km in a night battle with their radar advantage, the Japanese could directly estimate the lead time based on the approximate position of the US fleet, launch torpedoes and then turn back and evacuate together.

The specific operation is to roughly estimate the enemy's distance after being bombarded (the distance can be calculated by inferring the type of enemy shells from the height of the water column after seeing the muzzle flash, and specially trained and experienced sailors can basically estimate the distance after one or two rounds of bombardment)

到43年为止，因为早期美国对海雷达无法测量炮弹散步水柱，一般夜战都在10公里内。而93最小射程（51节下）也有20KM

So at this time, the Japanese only need to pull the fishing net towards the enemy's approximate position and then turn back together, which is a wave of reverse war mines. And the reverse war mines of the mine warfare team are very terrifying...

It is impossible for destroyers from other countries to do this because their range and speed are not enough...

Moreover, the later model 93-3 has compressed the amount of explosives, allowing the range to reach a terrifying 44 knots/40KM.

ps: Damn... I accidentally added a few words!!! It's over... I will give the next chapter for free.

Chapter 647: Compensation for the Careless V

Giffen eventually withdrew.

The Allied fleet, whose cruisers had been basically lost, no longer had the capital to challenge the Cat House sisters head-on.

Bismarck, who was keeping a close eye on the enemy's American battleships, was slightly relieved when he saw that the American battleships turned around and headed south just after entering 40 kilometers.

Although she also knew that the Americans retreated because Eugen had almost completely destroyed the British cruiser fleet, she understood that the Americans were only temporarily retreating tactically, and their main force remained intact.

In the torpedo salvo just now, their last heavy cruiser was blown into two pieces on the spot, and after being attacked by guided torpedoes, the remaining four light cruisers, even those that were lucky enough not to sink on the spot, were now paralyzed on the sea and could only "move" bit by bit, no longer able to fight.

Now Eugen has turned back and is occasionally firing at these cruisers.

only……

Even though the British cruiser fleet had been crippled, their six destroyers and two battleships had basically not been lost. And their escort carriers had been providing fighter support to the American battleships until now. Although their frontal combat capability was almost enough to defeat them, they had to cover the transport ships and had no way to pursue them. They were still in a passive state when they were harassed...

Bismarck found out from the sea chart that when the enemy battleships approached, he and Tirpitz had to face the American battleships head-on. Although their battleships retreated, at that time, he and the Americans were heading in opposite directions. If the Americans had been more decisive and used the high speed of their destroyers to rush towards them, who were unable to avoid them because they were protecting the transport ships and Zeppelins, they could theoretically force him and Tirpitz to use their main and secondary guns to deal with the destroyers, and let their battleships get close enough to the running range.

The Americans didn't do this, probably because they felt the distance was too far, and they were too notorious, so they didn't think it was safe to just rely on destroyers to charge head-on...

It’s just...having such a big “tail” following behind is quite a sight.

Bismarck rolled his eyes in annoyance at the southwest direction of the American fleet.

Next to Bismarck, Lütjens frowned even more...

It would be fine if the two American battleships were watching closely, as the Bismarck and the Tirpitz next to them could still handle it. But if they attacked in a coordinated manner with the six destroyers, it would not only be the transport ships that would be in danger. Even the Zeppelin seemed a little restrained.

To deal with a target like a cutting-edge battleship covered by destroyers, a hastily dispatched attack wave consisting of a few aircraft was sent up. However, if a full-deck attack was to be organized, safety must be guaranteed for at least three hours.

For an aircraft carrier that is assembling a large fleet of aircraft in its hangar and deck, the flight deck and hangar must be filled with gasoline, torpedoes and bombs, but the Zeppelin's flight deck armor is only 20 mm thick.

Chapter 648

It had been a live target for four hours and was loaded with flammable and explosive dangerous goods. If anything went wrong, the consequences would be disastrous.

And, it's not over yet.

If an aircraft carrier wants to retract and deploy a full-deck fleet of aircraft, it must maintain high-speed straight sailing against the wind for at least ten minutes or even an hour - the transport ship can only travel at sixteen knots, and this also means that the Zeppelin, sailing at high speed, will be far away from the entire large formation.

Under the watchful eyes of the two American battleships, whether it was the safety of the aircraft carrier for four hours or the uniform linear motion when launching carrier-based aircraft, it would be a very dangerous matter...

After all, no matter how fast Zeppelin runs, he can't be as fast as a cannonball.

"You know you could be attacked at any time, so you avoid direct combat? That's not too stupid. But... if they just harass, the Zeppelin may not be able to use a full-deck attack within the firepower range of the two battleships... But if the Zeppelin cannot send out a strike group, then their next combat initiative... is a bit annoying...

Forget it... Think about it, the American battleships are not far away from us. If we don't need to prepare extra air superiority fighters, preparing about 30 attack aircraft and a squadron of escort fighters will still be a threat to their battleships. As for the rest... let's wait until night..."

Lütjens thought for a long time, but could not think of any good solution except asking Zeppelin to put together an attack aircraft group. He just told the secretary cat who was standing obediently beside him to give instructions to everyone:

"The fleet should turn due east and have Zeppelin prepare a fleet of aircraft to bomb the American battleships..."

-

In the hangar of the Zeppelin aircraft carrier, preparations for a large fleet of aircraft are in full swing.

Although the air battle at 109: was taking place right outside our home, it was a very intense and fuel-intensive time. Many BF- fighters had already consumed a considerable amount of ammunition and fuel, and even if there were still seven or eight remaining aircraft that could continue patrolling, replacement aircraft had to be arranged immediately.

After all, who knows whether the British armored aircraft carrier Indefatigable that was damaged last time will come...

In fact, the preparation work for the fleet has never stopped.

According to the already standardized operation process, under the premise of ensuring that there are patrol aircraft in the sky, the spare fighters must first be piled on the front deck, and then the bombers that have been prepared and ready to take off must be lined up on the rear deck for attack, and then they can start refueling and loading bombs on the flight deck, and finally take off. If a large fleet wants to move onto the narrow flight deck and complete this series of operations, the space is not only cramped, but also the time required is imaginable.

However, the problem is that the American battleships are watching closely and there is no time to lose.

"Damn it, can't we hurry up... Second Squadron. What's the Americans' current heading? Can you see it?"

Watching the time passing by, but the attack group's planes had only been upgraded to half, Zeppelin was now a little anxious. He grabbed the radio receiver and asked about the patrol group in the sky.

"Instructor, their battleship is sixty kilometers southeast of us... and is now turning to the east, as if it is going to outflank us from our left front and move in front of us..." Over the radio, the pilot in the sky reported the enemy situation he observed to Eugen.

"Where are their destroyers?" Zeppelin asked, plotting the enemy situation on the sea chart while listening to the pilot's report.

"Their destroyers are a separate formation, but they are still together with their battleships for the time being. Now they are turning east together..." the pilot continued to report.