Bismarck

"It's really possible... It's over... The evil spirit has come to my house, and I'm afraid something bad will happen tonight. What should I do?"

"How should I know? I am also desperate... Anyway, it all depends on how the commander commands..."

"Alright, alright, let's save some energy for flying the plane. The sun is about to set, and the distance of more than 200 nautical miles means more than an hour of night flight and landing..."

"Yeah... Night flying and night landing are the most troublesome..."

Amid the pilots' complaints and shouts, the crooked plane chased the setting sun and disappeared into the red clouds in the west under the setting sun.

However, the British aircraft group, who were so worried and complaining about the poor state of damage to their aircraft, did not notice that more than 20 kilometers to the south of them, on the sea surface where the night had already fallen, there was a faint black smoke and an equally faint white line that was also heading due west...

Tari, the commander of the battleship Tirpitz, was sitting on the back of his chair with his legs crossed and his military cap pulled up to his face. Lindemann, who was resting with his eyes closed, felt something pink and furry nudging him...

"What's wrong, Grape?" Lindemann yawned and was too lazy to open his eyes. He pulled the brim of his hat to cover his eyes tighter. He asked casually, as if he had not woken up yet.

"Um... Lindemann, I just heard the pilots' conversation. They seemed to have discovered that we were no longer in the team, and they were still discussing how their airport commander would respond..."

Tizi, who was wearing headphones, took them off and continued to curl himself up behind a picture album.

That somewhat cold and indifferent tone, a very lazy voice, coupled with her tone of not taking the other person seriously, is simply a kind of character of Lindemann, who is cynical, responsible, but sometimes full of bad intentions.

However, when Lindman heard his hamster say that the British might have been prepared, he just smiled:

"Idiot, you just realized this? They should have noticed that we had left the team a long time ago, right?"

"So...what do you think they will do?"

Although this kind of question was asked, the pink ball of fur curled up behind a picture album in the hamster nest behind the chair moved slightly, and then a strand of fur popped out - the little hamster just raised its head slightly lazily from the picture album (Ben) (Zi) it was concentrating on admiring.

"What will they do? What else can they do? Apart from sending reconnaissance planes for patrol, they will either accumulate a wave of heads to attack us, or evacuate the fleet to avoid losses. But... hehe." Lindemann grinned and changed the subject: "The problem is that according to the Japanese intelligence, there is only a small airport in the Rodrigues Islands. Even if it is a shuttle bombing, it is almost the limit to deploy 20 to 30 bombers at a time. Moreover, this kind of long-range raid is the most damaging to the engine and aircraft structure. So many planes were sent out before, and now I am afraid that nine out of ten are under maintenance. How many planes can they send out for patrol at the airport later?"

As he was talking, Lindemann was delighted. He turned around and patted the pink-haired little head twice. "Have you not noticed that since we set out until now, we haven't seen them send out any reconnaissance planes to look for us? Hehehe..."

"Don't take pictures of me." The lazy hamster got angry and reached out to grab Lindman's hand and bite it.

"You're easier to slap~" Knowing that she was going to retaliate, Lindman slapped her twice and then retracted his hand, avoiding the hamster's hairy face. Then he turned around and laughed in a way that was so annoying that it was killing people. However, his face suddenly changed within three seconds. His face, which had originally been smiling unscrupulously, suddenly turned into a grin, and even turned purple:

"Ouch. It hurts... Let go. Don't twist my waist."

"You deserve it." Tizi muttered with puffed cheeks, but her grip on Lindeman's waist loosened a little. After thinking for a while, she took out a small bottle of medicine like a magic trick, lifted the hem of the coat that she had just grabbed at the waist, unscrewed the lid, and began to gently apply it to Lindeman.

Who would have thought that the little hamster who was applying the potion to Lindemann actually looked a bit like a good wife and mother - if... when applying the potion, she had not deliberately poured the entire potion onto Lindemann's lower back, soaking his clothes and pants into a state of disgrace...

……The dividing line of Lindemann who felt he had no way to express his grievances in the indifferent looks of his subordinates……

On the night of May 8, the waning moon hung far away in the eastern sky, casting a dim light on the sea through the hazy clouds in the sky.

Several inconspicuous black dots in the night sky looked around like black bats that only move at night. And under their feet, a sneaky big hamster was gliding across the sea surface little by little.

Holding a sextant, Lindemann found the Southern Cross in the starry sky of the southern hemisphere. He extended the long side of the Southern Cross southward by about 4.5 times the approximate position of the South Pole on the sky map, and then read the approximate latitude from the sextant.

He put down the tool he was using to measure the direction, and then bent over the sea chart to calculate the battleship's position. When he finished the calculation, he threw away the pencil in his hand, rubbed his waist, and finally stood up. He shouted angrily to the corner: "It's only more than 70 nautical miles. If you take the range into consideration, the battle will start in two hours... Tirpitz. Everyone. Strengthen alert."

"Yes." The officer on the bridge responded loudly and passed on the captain's order. Only someone in the corner said something wrong, a faint "Oh..."

"Hmm?" Lindman knew who was causing trouble when he heard the voice. He turned around and saw, as expected, the grape in the corner lazily stretched out half of his head to look at Lindman, and then immersed himself in the back of the album. Lindman, who was holding his waist and grinning, felt his teeth itching.

However, within half a minute of sinking, a hamster's head popped out again, ignoring Lindemann's gnashing eyes, and said lazily as always: "Lindeman, they have about 30 or 40 planes flying towards us, about 120 kilometers away, which means there are about 20 minutes left. You are the captain, what do you do?"

After saying this, his head sank again, leaving only a strand of hair sticking out, turning left and right from time to time, as if to annoy Lindemann.

"Please be serious."

Lindemann, who was so angry that he couldn't stop, finally exploded. He didn't care about the twisted waist before. He rushed over in a few seconds, ignoring the protests of Grapes, such as "Lindemann is a big bad guy bullying people", and directly grabbed a hamster's Daimao brand fire control radar, took a pink-haired hamster out of the hamster nest and the picture, and put it on the seat of the anti-aircraft gun fire control device. And seeing the hamster's tearful and angry eyes staring at him, Lindemann snorted, and also turned his sharp-nosed face to face his own hamster, and started to stare at each other.

"Lindeman, why are you pulling my hair? It hurts."

"Be serious, the British plane will be here in half an hour."

"When did they stop being serious? It's just 40 planes. Why are you making such a fuss..."

"Hey...you stinky girl!"

The staff around them watched in cold sweat as their captain and their warship started to quarrel again. Moreover, it seemed that they had once again ignored the British planes because of the quarrel...

"Hey... here it comes again..."

"They are truly a pair of happy enemies. Perhaps they themselves don't realize it..."

"Yeah, yeah, a poop-scooper and a henpecked husband... and he seems to be enjoying it?"

"Forget it, forget it. Let them quarrel as they please. Let's prepare for war..."

The deputy captain, the chief gunner, the navigator, and the chief engineer and engineer looked at each other, shook their heads, and smiled bitterly.

…………The waning moonlight blocked by clouds is not bright…………

Under the guidance of the reconnaissance aircraft, forty aggressive and handsome warrior night fighters and Wellington bombers, equipped with radars, flares and torpedo bombs, were divided into several batches. According to the specifications of the training regulations, they moved in different directions and altitudes, forming a huge net that seemed to cover everything, and covered the direction of the lonely Tirpitz on the sea.

"…They are coming… Lindeman, listen to me this time - I just don't want to bother with these guys, you are the only one who thinks I am lazy all day long..."

"Tsk... you're just too lazy. Let's see how you deal with these guys this time."

I don't know what kind of agreement was reached after the quarrel with his own big battleship, but this time Lindemann was very generous in giving up his power - after all, even if he was unlucky to be bombed, it would hurt her more. Let's see if she is still lazy by then.

But Ti Zi didn't care at all. She snorted and shrank back into her little nest in the command room.

Don't be fooled by her lazy appearance, but forty bombers... If it was a daytime bombing, it might be a bit troublesome if they swarmed in, but she really didn't care about the night bombing.

As her radar shook twice, the jammer automatically turned on without anyone controlling it. The next second, a snowflake appeared on the British radar screen. The British pilots hurriedly switched the circuit switch of the anti-jamming mode several times, but it was still ineffective.

"Damn it! Switch the operating mode and use PPI plane scanning!" shouted the British leader.

The British radar has several scanning modes, but they cannot be used under the interference of the oscilloscope and scanning image, so we can only switch to PPI mode and find the direction of the opponent's target through the azimuth line.

However, in this mode, although the opponent's position can be measured, the radar is interfered with and cannot judge the distance at all - and if the distance cannot be grasped, the attack route will be completely uncertain.

The British leader knew what was going on and turned on the radio: "Guide, drop flares."

Without waiting for the leader's order, several planes flying at high altitude began to climb higher, obviously intending to drop flares at high altitude. However, before these shaky planes could climb to high altitude, a flash of fire appeared in the distance. Before the flare bombers, knowing that something was wrong, could change their course, the high-explosive bombs with supersonic shock waves exploded in front of them - but the next second, everything was silent again.

"They are probably within 20 kilometers ahead. Form a line as planned. Ready the Leighton searchlight."

Looking at his comrades who were falling headfirst with thick smoke trailing overhead, the British leader's eyes turned red and he roared into the microphone - these planes were bombers and night fighters, and their radars were not capable of wide-range searches, only a relatively narrow search range in front. At such a close distance, there was also the influence of electronic interference, and if they were separated, the difficulty of assembling at night would directly lead to the failure of this night attack.

On the contrary, if this fleet of aircraft is arranged in a horizontal formation and searches according to the PPI azimuth mode, as long as any team of bombers discovers the exact location of the enemy and turns on the Leighton searchlight to illuminate the target, the fleets in other directions can rush towards the target - although the success rate is still not high, it is at least better than the almost ineffective attack in the chaotic state at night.

The airport is only 120 kilometers away from here, and it is not very large. Many of the planes that attacked the German fleet during the day actually landed and resupplied here after carrying out ultra-long-range bombing at the rear airport. However, this kind of long-range air attack causes considerable damage to the aircraft, and they need to be repaired and refueled before they can be used again. Therefore, although they have discovered that the enemy has lost a battleship and can judge that the enemy is coming to bombard the airport, due to the size of the airport, in addition to the patrol planes that were released, they can only put together about 40 planes that can be dispatched until now. The remaining planes that have not been repaired have been thrown on the apron by the pilots and ground crews who hid in the bunkers. For the Allied forces, planes are not valuable. Compared with planes, the safety of these soldiers is more important.

However, despite this, all the Allied pilots knew that they were the last defenders of the airport. They had to fight to the death even though they knew they were defeated. Although everyone also knew that the target on the other side was not just a battleship, but a legendary battleship evil spirit...

The sweat on his forehead stained his eyelashes and stung his eyes, and the tension in his palms also made the joystick covered with sweat. It seemed that even his hands, which were holding the joystick tightly until veins were bulging, were slipping.

However, all the British pilots did not dare to be distracted for the moment, and stared intently at the dim sea surface, for fear of missing a target - with the speed of the aircraft and the terrifying observation ability and abnormal accuracy of the anti-aircraft guns of the enemy ship girls, as well as the current dark night sky where one could not even distinguish the height of the sea and the sky, if they were distracted for a moment, they would probably miss the target.

But... weren't they already within range? Why were they so calm?

The quiet Indian Ocean was still dark. The waning moon in the east was about to rise but had not yet risen. The moonlight was not bright to begin with. Under the cover of clouds, the sea surface was mottled, but still dim. Nothing could be seen with the naked eye. The pilots could only fly close to the sea surface according to the azimuth line of the radar PPI mode and the data of the not very accurate membrane barometer. The dim night between the clouds could not distinguish the starry sky and the reflection of the sea surface at all. Such an action was extremely dangerous. However, only by doing so could they confirm whether they could see a huge black shadow 200 meters long in front of them in this vast sea...

but……

"Damn it... damn radar... Can anyone tell me why I haven't seen that damn German ship and crew since I flew along the scan line?"

After several minutes of whistling, dozens of water lines separated by the propeller hurricane lined up in a row, like a comb across waist-length hair, and passed straight ahead. But all the British were shocked to find that although they were flying along the radar scan line, there was nothing in front of them except that the direction of the scan line was getting more and more off.

"Damn it, where are they? Where are they..."

"This... I should have flown over 20 kilometers..."

"Oh my God... Is it true that night is Satan's home ground..."

They could clearly see the PPI scan line, but they could not see the target with their own eyes. Some pilots began to get a little anxious, and kept making the sign of the cross on their chests and chanting "Amen".

"Don't make any noise... Let's circle back and have the backup guidance aircraft drop flares... Zizi... Zizi..." The British leader turned on the radio and shouted at the top of his lungs. But just as he was halfway through, he found that his radio was already full of noise. But before the irritable leader could curse the British national curse starting with F, several searchlights suddenly lit up on the originally dark sea surface, just a few feet away. And almost at the same time, there was the sound of the dense barrage of anti-aircraft guns firing.

On such a dark sea, at such a close distance, the searchlight flashed unexpectedly, and for a moment the British pilots could see nothing but a white light.

"Oh - no! What the hell is this? Why are they right next to us!"

Before the pilots could react, the dense barrage of bullets had completely covered the unprepared British aircraft fleet.

The 105mm anti-aircraft guns attacked the enemy planes at a distance, while the enemy planes at medium and short distances became food in front of the fire nets of the 50mm and 37mm anti-aircraft guns. Even the 380mm main gun was not willing to be left out, and it fired another round of high-explosive bombs at several British planes that were turning to evade in a panic in the distance.

The British planes were suddenly blinded, their radios failed, and they were in a panic. Some crashed into their own planes, some crashed into the sea due to operational errors, some pushed the wrong button or stepped on the wrong rudder, causing their own planes to lose control, and some hastily dropped their bombs and torpedoes in order to escape... For a while, the British fleet was in a state of chaos. Then they were treated like turkeys by the crazy strafing of the German anti-aircraft guns and were easily shot down. Even those who escaped by chance were already scarred and had completely lost their formation. They didn't even know where to drop their bombs and torpedoes, so there was no question of attacking.

"Tizi, I didn't realize there's one for you..."

On the bridge of the battleship Tirpitz, Lindemann, staring in amazement, looked at the little Grape, who was curled up into a pink ball of fur, with only a radar antenna swaying from side to side, hidden behind the picture album in the hamster's nest. He couldn't help but feel a little stunned.

Forty planes. Even if there are shipgirls, it will take a long time to deal with so many planes at the same time...

"Qi, do you know you are wrong?" Tizi snorted somewhat arrogantly, and the furry pink ball moved, as if turning its back to Lindeman.

"Good Grape, I was wrong. Just tell me, how did you do it?"

Lindemann, who was despised by his own warship, had a dark complexion and mixed feelings: he was depressed by being despised, but he was more curious and relieved to see his hamster win unexpectedly - this girl, not only has she grown up, but she also knows how to use her brain. He himself could not figure out how the British could fly past him like headless flies, forming a night search formation, but he did not see him, and then he was sent directly under the muzzle of the gun...

"Oh... I just reversed the phase of their radar echo waveform when I manipulated the jammer's reply jamming mode, so the direction of movement shown on their radar display is opposite to our actual heading. It's that simple~" The technical geek girl from the north said it as a matter of course, even acting like a top student teaching a poor student - who wants the bad guy Lindeman to teach her like this often? She felt at ease and even wanted to laugh.

"This..." Lindemann felt a little confused for a moment - God had mercy on him. Although he had worked as a radio operator for two years when he first joined the army during World War I, he later switched to artillery, and the radio knowledge he had learned 20 years ago had long been lost...

The officers and soldiers around them looked at each other, trying their best to hold back their laughter. Seeing this, the arrogant tech geek's pink hair radar rose higher, and she looked so proud that even her nose curled up: "I knew you didn't understand, go back and study hard. As a rear admiral captain, you are still so naive, why don't you improve your knowledge level quickly - by the way, remember to admit defeat. Don't always disturb me to rest, read books and draw in the future. And buy me more delicious and fun things (dang~)... Ouch, it hurts, you really hit me."

"Show off. What do you mean by hitting you? It was you who tilted your head back to catch the candy box. Let me tell you first, if you don't want me to take it away..."

"Hey, hey, hey! Give it to me... Lindeman, you big bad guy! Humph!"

Chapter 658: South Indian Ocean

"Target - Rodrigues Island Airport! Thirty kilometers away... Fire!"

Following the officer's instructions, the gunners skillfully turned the turret to the target and pressed the button to fire the gun. However, due to the ship's roll cycle, the gun did not fire immediately before the turret returned to a horizontal position. Instead, a buzzer warning sounded to warn all combat personnel who might be affected by the shock wave of the artillery fire to take shelter. It also warned those who had to stay at their posts to open their mouths to mitigate the vibration of the muzzle shock wave.

When the ship regained its horizontal position in the rolling cycle, the eight main guns suddenly roared one after another. The main gun barrels threw shells at the airport 30 kilometers away in the violent recoil, leaving only the huge fireball at the muzzle, the roaring shock wave, and the deafening sound of the guns...

It was such a spectacular scene, but... Tirpitz and Lindemann were both listless at the moment and were in no mood at all!

Because the airport was deserted.

Originally, even a small airport would have a runway of more than 1,000 meters, and space on both sides of the runway to park 30 to 40 aircraft. But now…a huge airport, except for the artillery positions that were targeted by guided shells at the beginning, and a bumpy runway that could be repaired at any time, and the aircraft wreckage and simple bunkers for storing supplies that had been turned into piles of scrap metal by the bombardment, and billowing smoke, there were not even a few enemies killed. And those destroyed planes and artillery, as far as Lindemann knew, were not even enough for the number of people's factories to produce in a few hours.

Originally, Lindemann even wanted to dispatch one or two hundred Marines to go ashore under the cover of artillery fire to see if they could get some fuel or something. However, now that he saw that the other party had voluntarily abandoned the airport and planes, and it was obvious that they had evacuated the pilots and stationed troops deep into the island, Lindemann knew that the other party must have already cleared the area for supplies.

Besides, there is a whole circle of shallows around Rodrigues Island. Organizing a landing attack in such a place at night is simply giving away lives! But if it is during the day... After thinking about it, Lindman continued to shake his head!

After all, it is just a lifeboat and cannot carry people. Landing is time-consuming and laborious, and it is also within the combat radius of the Mauritius airport.

But if we calculate it this way... that is to say, in addition to burning 380 to tons of precious fuel and wasting nearly high-explosive bombs and a batch of anti-aircraft shells, we only broke up a night attack group before, and now temporarily suppressed this airport...

"Tsk! This battle is such a loss..."

Lindeman shook his head and looked towards the hamster nest behind him - there was a culprit who proposed to destroy the airport. But Tizi was eating candy while reading a book, and ignored him...

As a shit scooper, I have no dignity in front of my pet rat, and I have to help clean up after she gets into trouble...

"Forget it... At least it's not a loss to suppress this airport. At least the commander and his men and the transport ships don't have to worry about air raids for the time being..."

With a bitter smile to comfort himself, Lindemann smacked his lips and shouted to his men, "Alright, stop the shelling, turn to the south-southeast, slow down to 16 knots, and we'll take a shortcut to meet up with the commander..."

---------

The next night, Lindemann finally met up with the other shipgirls. However, after reporting the battle, apart from being interested in Grape's "response echo phase inversion", the rest was still in sorrow.

After all, if the British were to clear the South Atlantic, it would be a bit difficult to get fuel here...

It was already late at night, and even in the combat command center of the Bismarck battleship, there were only a few officers on duty. But in the room of Fleet Commander Lütjens, under the dim light due to fuel saving and the control of the generator to start generating electricity, Lütjens was burying himself in a pile of nautical charts, reports and intelligence materials, and personally calculating the route and fuel consumption on a hand-cranked mechanical computer...

"…Today is May 6300th…Bismarck has 6200 tons of fuel left, Tirpitz has less than 2700 tons, Eugen has 5000 tons, and Zeppelin has less than 300 tons. Even at a cruising speed of 320 knots, Zeppelin consumes about 300-190 tons of fuel per day, Bismarck and Tirpitz both consume 200 tons per day, and Eugen consumes 2000- tons. In addition, the two merchant ships have less than tons of diesel and oil residue in total…In other words, even if we don’t consider the backup fuel for combat and bad weather, our current fuel can only last for about days at most…In addition, we will reach the westerly belt in the southern hemisphere in three days. If we want to sail past the Cape of Good Hope against the wind and waves, we will have to consume at least two days of fuel…Eh? What is this? For me?"

Wearing an apron and sleeves, Bismarck held a cup of milk made from brown sugar, red dates and oats, and gently placed it in front of Lütjens, who was obsessed with cultivating immortals and was about to achieve great success.

"Captain, I cooked this for you. It's refreshing. Drink it while it's hot."

Not caring that he had interrupted the captain's thoughts, Bismarck pulled Lütjens' sleeve and began to talk nonsense in front of him without blushing or breathing heavily - milk, red dates and oats all have the effect of calming the nerves and maintaining sleep.

"Okay, okay, I'll drink it."

Being pulled by his own cat, he could no longer watch. Lütjens could only smile, rub his eyes, and pick up the red date oatmeal milk cooked by his own cat. After testing it, he found it was not very hot. He did not care about the dining etiquette of the navy. He tilted his head back, opened his mouth, and poured a cup of milk, the red date meat that had been cut into small pieces after the core was removed, and the somewhat mushy oatmeal into his mouth.

"Hey... Captain, is this how you drink what I cooked?"

Bismarck was a little unhappy when she saw her captain drinking the midnight snack she had worked so hard to prepare. She rushed over and grabbed the empty cup of milk. She saw that there was only a little oatmeal left in it. She put the cup down, put one hand on her waist, and with her other hand, she directly held down the report that the captain was about to pick up and continue reading.

I don't know whether I was angry that the captain didn't drink the red dates, milk and oatmeal porridge I cooked, or that the captain didn't rest so late. Lütjens, who wanted to continue working, watched helplessly as the report in his hand was slapped on the table by the cat's paw. He could only look up with a doting look and start to coax the cat...

After crying, making a scene, and even threatening to hang himself, the captain was finally forced to go back to his room to rest. As the secretary of the fleet commander, Bismarck directly supervised his captain. Only after he saw his captain walk into the room, close the door, take off his coat, turn off the light, lie down on the bed in the captain's room, cover himself with a quilt, and fall asleep, did Bismarck finally feel relieved and began to tidy up the reports, telegrams, and charts in the room.