"Strange, what did the British send two destroyers for?"

"What else can you do, come and see our aircraft carriers......"

"Look, tell the Leipzig and Cologne, and give them five minutes to take it easy." Commander Tary's Masal laughed, "Tell Churchill well that we have 2 aircraft carriers, so that he will not concentrate the main fleet yet." ”

The crowd burst into laughter.

Venture all the way to a distance of less than 7 nautical miles from the two aircraft carriers, and the two destroyers are still frantically taking pictures for a long time.

"Retreat!" Seeing that the German light cruiser and the destroyer had swooped down to a place less than 5,000 meters away from them, the two daring destroyers first fired a round of torpedoes, and then turned around unhurriedly and prepared to break away, although the 150mm guns on the German cruiser had exploded two minutes earlier, the captains of both ships thought that they could not hit themselves, and the facts proved this - the landing point was getting closer and closer to the destroyer, but there was still a degree of deviation.

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

"The man who came up with the idea of using torpedoes against destroyers is also crazy......" said Rear Admiral Johns, the captain of the Loyalty, scolding as he ordered the course to be adjusted, "I have not heard of torpedoes against destroyers whether these Germans can fight or not." ”

But soon he couldn't laugh anymore, and a large number of S-boats suddenly poured out from behind the German light cruisers and destroyers pursuing the Loyalty, and then pounced in dense clusters, and these "German Sea Daggers" with a displacement of only 100 tons, driven by a Daimler-Benz inverted V MB518 diesel engine with a supercharger, not only had a range of 700 nautical miles, but also had a high speed of 42 knots. Just like the 150mm naval guns on the German cruisers just now failed to hit the flexible and flexible British destroyers, now it is the latter's turn to suffer, and it is difficult for their naval guns to hit these faster elves, while the German torpedoes are pounced one after another, and what makes the British even more unimaginable is that these are not the G7 torpedoes most commonly used by the German Navy at all, but the G9 oxygen torpedoes that were improved after absorbing the Japanese 93 torpedo technology.

The improved G9 torpedo is faster, longer, and more powerful, still having a range of 20 kilometers at a maximum speed of 52 knots. Experiments have been carried out within the Navy, a 610mm caliber G9 in the treaty-type cruiser and a 10,000-ton ship will sink, two G9s in the battleship are basically finished, and there are no more than seven battleships in the world that can survive the middle three G9s, it is estimated that there are no more than seven, and even the Tirpitts itself does not dare to guarantee that it will survive the fourth G9.

In the eyes of British officers and soldiers, these head-wrenching S-boats were a group of assault knights who frantically threw throwing spears, daring to approach to about 2,000 meters to launch torpedoes. What's worse is that the relevant torpedo tracks can only be seen at a very close range, and observation at a long distance and relatively poor visibility weather is simply blind. Originally, Machar had prepared such a large number of S-boats for night battles, but he did not expect to encounter the British destroyers in broad daylight, and seeing that the enemy dared to approach such a close distance and the cruiser sniping effect was not good, he had the intention to let the other side taste the G9 spear array - if even the destroyers could be caught, then it would be more certain to deal with slower merchant ships, cruisers, and battleships.

The new tactic quickly succeeded, and after a series of 22 torpedoes were avoided by the Loyalty, the 23rd finally failed to dodge, and after a loud "boom", the 2,000-ton L-class destroyer was immediately blown into two sections and sank. The Overwatch in the direction of the right flank seemed to have better luck, and under its nimble evasion, nearly 20 torpedoes were dodged, and at the closest distance, a G9 was no more than 1 meter from the side of the ship, almost grazing the entire ship, making all the British officers and men break out in a cold sweat, but finally managed to escape and escape.

"It seems that the S-boat with the G9 torpedo works very well." Machar was in a good mood, although the G9 was much more expensive than the G7 torpedo, it was still very cost-effective to exchange less than 50 torpedoes for a destroyer - less than 50,000 marks for a torpedo, and at least 20 million marks for a destroyer for Germany.

Ozawa is also very happy: the full set of S-boat technology has been transferred to Japan and is currently being copied locally. In his opinion, in addition to U-boats, Germany's design and development capabilities on torpedo boats are also unique, and the effect would be ideal for the defense of multi-island waters in the South China Sea. Not to mention anything else, if the Combined Fleet had 50 S-boats available in the early stage of the Kuah Island Campaign, those American transport ships that transported supplies to Kuah Island would not have such a comfortable and good life. He is now full of tactical ideas of relying on S boats to carry out night battles and quick battles, but he doesn't know that this technology has been taken by Onishi, who is in charge of the "Sakura Project", and he wholeheartedly wants to transform it into a special attack weapon comparable to that of "Sakura".

"Sir, Rear Admiral Bay has sent a telegram, they are still following behind the British cruiser formation, but they are a little slower than the enemy, and they can't catch up with a few of their warships alone."

"Forget it, if you can't catch up, you can't catch up, let them come back."

"Wait." Ozawa interjected, and after glancing at the charts, he said, "I have a suggestion, can we consider adjusting the plan to let the Tirpitz formation farther north turn back to intercept them, and try to destroy all these cruisers." ”

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

"At present, the British cruiser formation has a speed of 32 knots and a course of 350 degrees, and the distance between it and the Tirpitz formation is about 130 nautical miles, and 15 nautical miles behind the British troops is our artillery fleet." The Japanese staff proposed an amendment, "If the Tirpitz formation returns at full speed, relying on its speed of 25 knots relative to the British formation, the distance between them can be reduced by 45 to 50 nautical miles per hour, and the enemy can be met in about two and a half hours." During this period, Rear Admiral Bey's formation would only be 3-4 nautical miles away from the British fleet at most, and if the Tirpitz formation could entangle the enemy for 15-20 minutes, the three British cruisers would be caught in the north and south of our army and all troops would be annihilated. ”

"Eat them all?"

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

Marcal looked at his staff officers and subordinates, and found that all of them were eager to try, and after thinking about it, he was already a little tempted, but he still asked uneasily: "Could it be a trap of the British, deliberately leading us to the north - what if there is a Royal Navy capital ship formation there?" ”

"There is a possibility, but it does not change the judgment of the situation." Ozawa explained, "If there really is a British battleship formation to the north, it would be better to let the Tirpitz return - rather than having General Kumetz face the British alone, the whole fleet should come forward to meet them." ”

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

"Regrouping after dark."

Masal was persuaded and quickly issued two orders: "Inform General Kumetz and ask him to immediately carry out the planned course adjustments; Send a telegram to Berlin reporting our operational intentions and the reasons for the change, and requesting the activation of Operational Plan C3. ”

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

"Are there really two aircraft carriers?" Tovey was surprised, "Where did the Germans come from?" ”

"Sir, I just received the latest telegram that the Loyalty was sunk by the Germans, and the Overwatch successfully escaped from the battlefield, and they took a lot of pictures at close range of less than 10,000 meters, and they will be sent to the mainland overnight."

"After analysis, the Naval Intelligence Service believes that one of them is the USS Zeppelin, and the other may have been converted from a large fast cruise ship, and the most suspicious is the Europa, which began in late 1941 and is very close in time."

The Germans had two fleet aircraft carriers at once, which made Tovey's brows furrow tightly - although the home fleet had 7-8 aircraft carriers in use, they were all escort aircraft carriers with only about 20 aircraft, and they were slow and weak in defense, and they could not fulfill the responsibilities of fleet aircraft carriers at all, just because the speed of the battleship formation was not fast, and this defect could not be seen for the time being, but if you want to fight the Germans in the vast Atlantic, you will suffer a certain loss, and the fastest Independence will take 4 days to arrive, and it is only a light aircraft carrier, It will take at least a month for the aircraft carrier and the other aircraft carriers to return to the mainland, which makes him anxious.

In order to study how to deal with the German aircraft carriers, Tovey, Pound and others led their staff officers to conduct a long-time argument, but until lunchtime, everyone still could not come up with a reasonable restraint method, and the distraught Tovey could only announce a temporary adjournment for dinner and wait for the afternoon to re-demonstrate.

But just as he raised his knife to attack a steak, the adjutant's anxious voice came: "Sir, Colonel Christopher has sent an urgent telegram that he is under siege by the German main fleet and the Tirpitz in the sea area of No. 41......"

With a "clang", the knife fell on the plate with a crisp sound, and in the next second, Admiral Tovey had rushed into the command room with an arrow.

The actual situation was even more serious than what Christopher reported in the telegram: because it had been busy engaging the formation of Major General Bay, which was in hot pursuit, the cruiser formation did not notice that there were still German warships blocking the way, and it was not until it was close to a distance of less than 20,000 meters that it discovered the presence of the Tirpitz, Hipper, and Lützov. Faced with such a severe test, the frightened Christopher had to cast a smoke screen while trying to adjust the course and get through the gap between the two German fleets in front and behind.

However, the good fortune of the British fleet was apparently run out, and they were greeted by unusually heavy artillery fire from German ships. (To be continued.) )