In the evening, the dusty Hoffman rushed into the naval headquarters, and without waiting for a few senior officers to salute and say hello, he threw a barrage of questions: "Where is Kumetz's fleet?" What is his formation? What about the hostile situation? What will the weather look like in the future? Can Hainan Airlines be dispatched? ”

"At 16 o'clock in the afternoon, the center of the whole fleet is roughly located in the sea area near 24 degrees 48 minutes east longitude and 71 degrees 16 minutes north latitude, that is, 45 kilometers west of the North Cape headland at the northern tip of Norway, and is currently marching northeast at a speed of about 20 knots." Raeder replied calmly, "The British are still near Bear Island, but it has become about 90 kilometers east-southeast -- the British fleet is gradually drifting outward, probably trying to break away from the attack of our air force, and the submarines report that it is completely dark, and they can't see clearly, and they dare not get too close." ”

Hoffman carefully looked at the map and listened to the enemy's briefing, and asked suspiciously: "U-354 reports that there are only 6 transport ships and 3 escort ships?" ”

"Yes, that's what the intelligence says."

"I think there should be more than that, there are few escort ships, do you believe that this fleet is only this large?"

"This ......," Raeder and Frick were speechless for a while, and after thinking about it, it seemed that something was not quite right.

"Either there is another batch behind this batch of ships, or there is a batch before them, I think it would be necessary to at least double the size again, and the escort ships are too weak to not even have a cruiser. The British did not know about the Tirpitts, they always knew about the Hipper and the Lützov, and the British were not so arrogant as to this...... Therefore, I think it is necessary to search carefully and never let it go easily. ”

"Yes!" Raeder's hanging heart finally let go - he was most afraid of the Führer's indiscriminate interference, in case the time came to lose, who would be it?

"If there are a large number of enemy ships, are you going to hit the transport ship or the escort warship first."

Raeder was still thinking, and Frick had already preemptively replied: "Of course, the transport ship will be hit first, and this is the significance of cutting off the Arctic route." ”

"I don't think so, Vice Admiral ......," Hoffman shook his head slowly, "if you start from the standpoint of the Norwegian cruiser, this consideration is correct, but if you start from the 'Tsunami' plan, we should focus on escorting warships - transport ships can't run fast, as long as the weather improves, the HNA will have a chance to catch them." ”

"But, the Army...... Eastern Front ......" Flick stole a glance at Keitel and saw that the latter shrugged helplessly.

Hoffman sighed: "Don't worry about the Eastern Front, they can withstand the test, even if a ship is unsinkable, if it falls into the hands of the Russians, it is only a hundred thousand tons of materials and hundreds of thousands of pieces of equipment, that is, half a month's output, which will not significantly change the balance of power on the Eastern Front, but the escort warships are different, how many warships and skilled sailors can the British consume?" ”

In Hoffman's eyes, the battle was off track from now on: without the Tirpitz in history, Kumetz chose to divide his limited forces into two routes, one trying to divert the enemy's escort warships, and the other preparing to intercept the transports, and the already weak fleet was forced to divide its forces again, and the result was that both sides did not do well; This time with the Tirpits, his confidence is estimated to have strengthened a lot, and he didn't choose to divide the troops, probably because he wanted to eat it directly.

A smile appeared at the corner of his mouth, it is good to deviate, if he does not deviate, how can he have any hope of winning? He had a vague feeling that the course of the great war had been changed beyond recognition, that the Battle of the Barents Sea might be the last command to be carried out based on the reference of the historical process, and that no matter whether it succeeded or failed, future wars would no longer resemble history -- he had to be careful.

While the German military top brass was struggling to catch the British fleet, Sherbrooke, who was wandering in the sea near Bear Island, was sighing, because of the sudden storm and visibility, the JW-51A fleet, which had sailed northeast after leaving Iceland and had been sailing smoothly, was actually scattered today, and the small group he was in now was only the largest of them, and the other 11 transport ships were now divided into three units, scattered around Bear Island, but fortunately, the radio equipment of each ship remained intact. He finally made contact with the other ships, and finally agreed that no matter where he was, he would meet 100 kilometers east of Bear Island early tomorrow morning and set off again. Although the U-354 could not see the fleet, it intercepted a large number of signals, and judging from the strength and direction of the signals, the British warships were nearby, and considering that they could not be alarmed, the submarine slowly sank again.

Hoffman even enjoyed dinner at the naval headquarters, and Raeder and Frick still did not understand why the Führer attached so much importance to Operation "Rainbow", and even described it as a great enemy, in their eyes, the British convoy of only cruiser class at most could not defeat the Kumetz formation, and the only thing to worry about was to let the British slip away quietly, but since the U-354 swore to ensure that the enemy fleet was nearby before the final dive, they were relieved - the slower the British went, the better, That would give Kumetz plenty of time to intercept.

Unaware of the two admirals on the other side, Hoffman asked, "Have the other warships in the 'Tsunami' plan been deployed?" Especially the Zeppelin. ”

"Except for the Gneisenau, which has not yet completed the repair project, the rest of the warships have been fully manned, completed resupply, and can depart at any time, the U-boat force has been basically deployed, a total of 58 have been dispatched, and we have also prepared some supply ships and oil tankers under the flag of neutral countries, but the number is not too much, and we can only provide emergency supplies." These preparations took Raeder's great effort, "but the situation of the Zeppelin is rather special, the warship sea trial has been completed, but the carrier-based aircraft formation has not yet been completed -- Admiral Richthofen led a Japanese advisory group on the warship only five days ago, and all the pilots and planes had just boarded the ship the afternoon before yesterday, and they were undergoing intensive training yesterday and today, and he reported that it would take at least a week to 10 days to complete the relevant adaptation training -- and this was still extremely smooth. So the whole planned T-Day hasn't been fully finalized yet, and if I can, I'm hoping for the night of February 12-13. ”

Hoffmann quickly calculated: "Let Richthofen report to me on the use of carrier-based aircraft around the 10th, and then prepare an additional 5 days of redundancy, and choose a rainy and snowy day to leave the port as much as possible, and alarm the British later." ”

At 7 a.m. on February 2, the power of the blizzard finally subsided, and Sherbrook gathered most of the ships as he wished, all the escort ships were in place, 16 of the 17 transports were regrouped, and only one ship was really far away from the formation, and after deliberation it was decided to let him go to the Soviet Union on another route alone. The JW-51A flotilla then moved on, and he had not found any trace of the German fleet at the moment, and the U-354 had temporarily lost its target - both sides were in the stage of blinding each other.

The improved weather did not bring any joy to Scherbrooke, who was very worried about the appearance of German reconnaissance planes, although the sea area he was now in was 600 kilometers away from the German airfield in Norway, but he knew that the Ju-88 could still be reached, and he hoped that it would be discovered by the reconnaissance planes later, so that the formation would be safe enough.

At 9:45, the German reconnaissance plane did not arrive, and the sirens in the bridge suddenly sounded loudly.

"What's going on?"

"The destroyer USS Tenacious, which rushed to the front, reported that their radar had detected 2 target light points at a distance of 60 nautical miles, and the situation was suspicious."

"Could it be the Russian receiving fleet?"

"Probably not, it's not yet the scheduled pick-up location, and the Russians won't go so far."

"Or a formation of cruisers under the command of Rear Admiral Burnett?" But this inference was denied by Sherbrook himself, who had been contacted by the cruiser formation just two hours earlier, and was still more than 50 nautical miles northwest of the formation -- in order to prevent a submarine raid, the Royal Navy had set a safe distance for the escorting cruiser formation, which was generally kept at about 50 nautical miles from the transport fleet.

"That can only be the enemy."

Sherbrook pondered for a moment: it is definitely not possible to retreat like this now, and it is a bit too weak to call the cruiser formation directly, and after thinking twice, he gave the order: "Let the Tenacious and the Obedience speed up and go and check the ......."

The two destroyers, who had received the order, immediately broke away from the formation and moved forward quickly at a speed of 30 knots, and Sherbrook continued to cover the convoy at a speed of 11 knots, but the alert level of the ships had been raised.

After 70 minutes, the Tenacious reported the discovery of 2 warships, which looked very similar to German destroyers, and this result was still within Sherbrooke's tolerance, and he immediately ordered the other two destroyers, the Orville and the flagship Anslow, to speed up to intercept them, and he wanted to deal with the German destroyers as soon as possible in a 4V2 way.

At this moment, the German destroyers, who were also jubilant at the discovery of the British fleet, knew not only that there was the Hipper just over 50 nautical miles away, but that there were the mighty Tirpitts and other warships farther behind, and that they could not deal with this little British trash at all—they did not know that the British were followed by a formation of cruisers.

At about 11 o'clock, the destroyer Friedrich Ekor (Z16), in order to seize the credit, after sending the telegram, despite the fact that it was at least 15,000 meters away from the British troops, could not wait to fire first with the 127mm main guns in the bow.

The British destroyers knew that their companions behind them had rushed to support, and there was a fleet of cruisers of the Royal Navy in the distance, so they were very confident, and they were quite-for-tat. (To be continued.) )