When the "Dawn" campaign was about to start in full swing, the "Peace Pearl" project gradually entered a climax......

Including Roosevelt, Admiral King and other high-ranking American officials, in essence, underestimated the destructive spirit of the Germans, how could Hoffman's appetite be restrained by a small Falklands and Argentina? While the U.S. Navy was in full swing to speed up combat readiness and promote the "Joint Elements" operation, the German fleet had already begun its own journey of stirring up trouble. Pen % fun % Pavilion www.biquge.info

"Anchor!"

Lieutenant General Bei gave an order. The curved anchor chain of the Veneto-class battleship Empire was straightened, and section by section passed through the anchor chain hole and made a sonorous sound, and after a few minutes, the boatswain shouted: "The anchor chain is out of the water!" "The windlasse wrings the anchor chain and puts it into the anchor chain compartment. The sailor washes off the silt from the anchor claws with a hose, and the anchor is lifted. The bell rang in the main engine room, and the main shaft drove the propeller to push the massive hull of the Empire forward slowly.

Watching the fleet move again, Vice Admiral Pei finally breathed a sigh of relief, this is the fifth refueling of the shelling formation since the start of the operation of the "Peace Pearl" project, and at the same time the second refueling at sea. Along the way, he had enough of these Italian short-legged battleships. With the same displacement of more than 40,000 tons, the Tirpitz has a range of almost 7,500 nautical miles/20 knots, while the Italian Veneto-class battleship has less than 4,000 nautical miles/20 knots.

Lieutenant General Bey was meritorious in the last battle, and Machar's battle report clearly wrote, not only was the rank promoted from major general to lieutenant general, but also served as the commander of the artillery formation, sat in the flagship of the formation, Tirpitz, and led four Veneto-class ships to form the firepower core of the Axis Combined Fleet. Although it sounded imposing, if he had to choose himself, he would rather be the commander of the reconnaissance formation, although there were only two battle cruisers, Strasbourg and Gneisenau, as the capital ships, but he was familiar with these two warships, and he did not always have to worry about fuel problems, so he was much more confident in command.

However, Machar rejected the request for transfer, on the one hand, he believed that Vice Admiral Pei's personality was unusually brave, and that Vice Admiral Pei did not seem to be suitable for a reconnaissance fleet that required careful, cautious, and comprehensive reconnaissance, but it was a good fit for the artillery formation; On the other hand, there were five main battleships in the firepower formation, the German Navy had only two, and the Italians had three, and if it had not been for Vice Admiral Bey for this position, Mashal would not have been able to find a more suitable lieutenant general, and the commander would have been an Italian officer. Although the Italian admirals are much more reliable than the army, how could Machar allow the command to be bypassed when the mobile formations, transport formations, and reconnaissance formations were all under the command of the German army? What if the war with the Americans was at its most intense, and the Italians ran away with a muddy brain?

Therefore, no matter from which point of view, Lieutenant General Pei had no choice but to accept this position, so he had no choice but to work in this position: everything else was executed very smoothly, except for refueling, which really made him scratch his head a little -- the sailing distance from the Falklands to Rio de Janeiro was more than 2,000 nautical miles, and the actual fuel consumption of anti-submarine navigation routes and the need to break diplomatic relations exceeded 75% of the warship's inventory, forcing him to carry out very dangerous refueling operations at sea. It's less than 600 kilometers away from Brazil's shore-based air base, so it's really fun to have a refueling start.

The "Pearl of Peace" project was never a strategic operation with a single goal, and the capture of the Falklands was only the first phase of the mission, and the second phase of Hoffman's deployment to the fleet was very ambitious - to destroy the main forces of the Brazilian Navy and destroy the Brazilian ports and air bases along the eastern coast.

Although Brazil has more than 1.5 million Axis descendants, and the separatist tendencies of several southern states and the strength of the National Socialist Party are strong, Hoffman never thought that he could occupy Brazil in its entirety with just a few divisions, and what he wanted to do was to overthrow the Brazilian regime, allow the pro-German forces in the south to successfully separate, divide Brazil as much as possible, and obstruct its military, political, and economic cooperation with the United States.

Although the area of South America is very large, Brazil, with a total area of more than half of Europe, occupies a huge share, but unlike Europe, the interior of South America is a rugged terrain or tropical rainforest, which is not suitable for human habitation. Chile and other South American ABC countries (with the initials of the three countries) have engaged in a vigorous naval arms race for decades, and although the scope and scale cannot be compared with that between Britain and Germany and later between Japan and the United States, it is equally splendid and fierce.

This arms race ended hastily because the countries were unable to sustain themselves after the great crisis of 1929, but even now, the size of the navies of the three countries is still commendable, taking Brazil as an example, although the Brazilian navy is the weakest among the three South American countries, it still has 2 old battleships, 2 old cruisers and a number of warships, these warships are just a few stronger grasshoppers in the eyes of the Axis fleet, but Machar needs to demonstrate in Brazil to suppress change, and these warships must be eliminated. Another consideration was the need to break diplomatic relations, and these old warships were all put into the South American route to escort the ship, which was a small threat to German submarines.

Machar adopted a two-pronged approach, sending capable ships to take out the daring Brazilian warships on the route, and on the other hand, pounced on Rio de Janeiro, preparing to destroy the Brazilian navy. The only thing that frustrated him was that the two American battleships, the Iowa and the West Virginia, were running too fast, and he had planned to deal with them together, otherwise it would be exponentially more difficult to deal with when these warships were combined with the American Atlantic Fleet. It's a pity that Admiral Kim's quick retreat shattered his dream.

The shelling formation, refueled, moved rapidly, and soon increased its speed to 24 knots, and the Brazilian coastline retreated rapidly. The southwest wind blew in the sky, and the waves overlapped on top of each other, like small mountains, desperately hitting the rocks on the shore, making a loud sound of the sky and the earth cracking, and the splashing water curtain was white, and in an instant it shattered on the rocks, turning into piles of snow-white foam.

At nightfall, under the cover of the thick night, the German artillery fleet led by the Tirpitz was like a ghost emerging from hell, ready to launch a fierce attack...... (To be continued.) )