Hoffman received the news at 9 a.m., eight hours later, not because Raeder was trying to snub him, but because the Navy Command had obtained prior authorization to launch a tsunami operation once the USS Zeppelin report was ready and the weather permitted.

Hoffman's desk now has a thick stack of documents on his desk, full of details of the Tsunami Plan's operations and possible countermeasures concocted by the Naval Staff, which are at odds with each other - it would be useless to assume that the British spies were now taking the documents in a big way, because there was no way to take precise and targeted responses. Of course, the plan of action of the naval command will not adopt the classification of the western front, the central line, the eastern front, and the northern sea line in the British population, but will be summarized into four major categories of plans: A, B, C, and D according to the main characteristics of individual diplomatic breaking, joint diplomatic breaking, comprehensive battle, and operation cancellation...... The number of comprehensive battle plans with the most numbers is No. 14, and the least number of Class D operations is also No. 5. All of the courses of action carried out to the extreme the refinement, complexity, comprehensiveness and logic that were characteristic of the German military system.

In order to maintain maximum secrecy and avoid interfering with the judgment of the front-line commanders, all plans of action were in the hands of only a few staff officers, and special personnel were hurriedly sent to escort them aboard the ship before sailing. In addition to the scheme, the telegram cipher table and processing method have also been replaced by a new system. Since he set off with the flagship "Count Zeppelin", the Japanese advisory group also saw the full package, and Jizaburo Ozawa, who enjoyed the treatment and command authority of the German Vice Admiral, asked Admiral Machar, the front-line commander of the "Tsunami Operation", with wide eyes, on the spot: "This is how the German Navy commands the war?" ”

Masal scratched his scalp embarrassedly: "It wasn't before, but now it's getting more and more like this." ”

"Who did you learn this? And the Army? ”

The German Army is the first in the world, and the German Navy is the fifth in the world, so there is no shame in admitting and studying with the Army, Mashal happily admitted, he explained: "This landing in North Africa, Field Marshal Rommel formulated 17 sets of plans in advance, taking into account all the details, and finally implemented it without any difference. The Führer appreciated it so much that the High Command advised us to study and then ......"

Ozawa smiled bitterly and shook his head: "Even if you learn from the successful experience of the army, Marshal Rommel only has a total of 17 plans, and you have 36 plans, will this really not be a problem?" ”

"This ......" Marcal was speechless, and turned to ask Ozawa, "then how does the Japanese Navy command?" ”

"We generally preliminarily form 1-3 sets of main plans, and then comprehensively refine them, and finally implement them in depth."

"What about unplanned situations?"

"It's up to the front-line commander to decide on an ad hoc basis." Ozawa thought for a while and then said embarrassedly, "Actually, it is up to the staff officers to make suggestions, and then the officers consider whether and how to implement them. ”

In fact, there is one thing that Ozawa did not explicitly say: Most of the fleet commanders in the Japanese Navy who served as commanders relied on staff officers to formulate battle plans, and there were very few people like Ozawa who could formulate their own battle plans without relying on staff officers.

Now it was Machar's turn to stare wide-eyed: "How many staff officers have decided on such an important matter as changing the plan?" ”

Ozawa always felt that there was something wrong with this question, but he still nodded subconsciously: "Staff officers are all professionals, the ocean is so vast, and the enemy situation is fleeting, if you rely on the headquarters or headquarters to discuss and decide, I am afraid that it will ......."

After hearing this, Machar didn't say much, but only motioned to the staff officer to take out a chart book, on which the entire sea area was divided into small squares with a dense grid, Ozawa glanced at it for a moment and then retracted his gaze: "I know that this is a positioning map used by your country's submarine forces." ”

"But this map is not static, it is numbered and redistributed every six months, and the coding is irregular, A7 and A8 are not adjacent squares, they may be separated by thousands of nautical miles, and the wolves rely on such charts for joint anti-submarine - they don't even know what they will encounter until they receive the order, only the headquarters has the full picture."

"What do you mean?"

"The Führer believes that the German Navy does not have a very clever commander or commander, nor does it have a particularly good command art, so we should not hope of a surprise victory or a turn of the tide, but we should honestly follow the plan, and instead of pinning our hopes on the flash of inspiration of the commander, it is better to accept the dispatch of the headquarters in a down-to-earth manner - this is the result of the condensation of collective wisdom."

Ozawa knew what it meant to "accept the dispatch of the headquarters" -- German military operations have always adopted a goal-oriented system, and the superiors generally only give major node control and overall goals, and how to accomplish the goals need to rely on the wisdom of commanders at all levels, so the initiative of the German troops, especially the army, is relatively strong, and the officers at the company and battalion levels who have received complete military education will not be at a loss once they lose contact with their superiors, but will seek reasonable solutions for their units according to the objectives and current strength to the greatest extent. This was evident in the war against the Soviet Union, where the Soviet troops were very stubborn in their resistance when they were surrounded, but once they were knocked out of the central command organs, the remaining troops suddenly did not know what to do. As soon as the German troops were divided and surrounded, they would immediately form small battle groups and continue to fight.

On how to better coordinate the front line and the headquarters, everyone felt that there was no perfect way to do this, and only Hoffman saw this very clearly -- due to the constraints of reconnaissance and communication capabilities, World War II could only be fought to this extent, and if it was the era in which he lived, under the premise that there were satellites at the zenith and early warning planes overhead, it would have been completely impossible to carry out such ingenious troop concealment and tactical planning as the Battle of Midway. He told the senior officers of the Supreme High Command and the General Staff of the three services about the pattern of future warfare that he understood to be the only way to enlighten the people, and although many people were skeptical, no one thought it was completely impossible -- the German political line and the pattern of war were not clearly depicted by the Führer in "Mein Kampf" in the 20s.

However, Hoffman never expected that one day these guys would put 36 plans on his desk in one go - the Tsunami plan was not so complicated when the Admiralty first came up with it, and he had been bothered with the Malta and Gibraltar issues in recent days, and he was not a naval expert, so he ignored these aspects.

"You guys are gods!" Faced with the ardent expectations of Raeder and Frick, he sighed helplessly, "Do I need to praise you for the hard work of the staff officers of the Navy Command?" When he said this, he silently thought in his heart: In the future, multi-plan and multi-arm joint operations will use the C3I system and mainframe computers to evolve and propulsion, and the Admiralty's group of staff officers who don't know the height of the sky actually want to rely on the human brain and that poor communication ability to do it now, and he doesn't know how to evaluate it. At this moment, he was very unoptimistic about the prospects of the "tsunami plan".

Raeder and Frick looked at each other, of course they could hear the sarcasm in Hoffman's mouth, but the Führer had praised Field Marshal Rommel's perfect plan not long ago, why did he pick his nose and look at the Navy's plan now? The battle hasn't started yet! Could it be that the Führer has a prejudice against the Navy? Now they don't think that the corporal doesn't understand the navy.

"Well, you guys......," Hoffman explained hatefully, "it depends on the time and the occasion." How big was Marshal Rommel's area of operations? What is his goal and control? Can this be compared to the simplicity of the Navy? If nothing else, if the message is sent on the island of Crete, I dare say that the message will be received, and in case it is not received or there are other problems, I will send a plane over to take a look at it, what if the telegraph system fails during a mission in the depths of the Atlantic? Where do you send planes to see where you are dropping off? What should I do if I can't send a plane in bad weather? ”

"So what now? Action plan cancelled? The two of them also became nervous: the operation had almost put down the belongings of all the surface ships of the German Navy, and in case of a mishap, it would be all over.

"The action cannot be canceled. This is the moment when the Royal Navy is at its weakest, and this favorable moment must be seized. Hoffman thought for a moment, "Let's follow your plan first, and report to me immediately when there is a situation that exceeds the plan, and let the Supreme High Command participate in the decision-making of the campaign, and try not to interfere with the command of the front-line commander as much as possible." ”

"Yes."

"Have all the officers from the Japanese Navy been on board?"

"On board, the aircraft carrier officers and staff officers are arranged on the Count Zeppelin, and the rest of the officers are mainly arranged on the Scharnhorst, Sedlitz and Prinz Eugen."

"Separately forming a staff group of Japanese advisers, we sent a few capable officers over to tell them all about the battlefield situation, operated independently and drew up plans as a reference for decision-making on operations. When the two sides agree, it will be implemented immediately, and if there is a disagreement, the opinions of the base camp will be sought. If even the base camp is unable to make a perfect judgment, or if it is a particularly urgent situation, the final decision will be made by the three generals Machar, Richthofen, and Ozawa in coordination. Hoffman explained, "Although the command level of the Japanese Navy is not the best, it is still better than ours, and it is completely qualified as a reference for decision-making." ”

Raeder and Frick looked at each other and immediately agreed.

"One last thing for you." Hoffman gritted his teeth and said, "It's not the end of the world if we lose, there is no victorious general in the world, Britain and the United States have lost so many ships in the Indian Ocean, it is normal for us to lose some, and the construction of new warships is about to start one after another, so that every naval officer and soldier will cherish their lives, and we will have a time to start again." (To be continued.) )