"I heard that you came up with a whole new scheme of submarine warfare in the prisoner of war camp?"

"Who said that? We don't have submarines anymore! In the face of Continy's inquiry, Dönitz's first reaction was not joy, but wary rhetorical question: according to the Treaty of Versailles, Germany is now not allowed to keep submarines, let alone explore new submarine tactics, so he is a little nervous.

"Of course I have my own channels of information and intelligence, Mr. Dönitz, and to be honest, I appreciate your tactics better than your old bosses." Contini smiled, "This set of tactics is vividly called the wolf pack tactic: in the operation, a small number of submarines are sent to the sea to carry out safaris and regional patrols in the predetermined sea area, and when the target is found, it is not in a hurry to attack, but to track, and constantly tells the headquarters of the target fleet, and the headquarters assigns a wolf submarine to command the wolves to act in unison according to the distribution of submarines in the area...... Attacks are generally launched at night, and the submarines in the wolf pack pass through the gaps or flanks of the opposing convoy covertly, and use multiple submarines to attack the same target at the same time, which will increase the hit rate and achieve a greater combat effect than fighting alone......"

Dönitz's face suddenly became cold: this is the core idea in his tactics, he thought that his idea really leaked the news, how did he know that the president on the other side was tricking him!

"There are three key points in this set of tactics: first, there are a sufficient number of submarines, there is no scale, even if you see prey, you can't start it; Second, it is necessary to have a sound communications, command, and support system, and the success or failure of an operation will not depend on each submarine, but on the command of the headquarters and the coordination of the head wolf on the spot. Third, the submarine force must have excellent capabilities -- officers and men must be well-trained to endure loneliness, and warships must have the ability to stay in sea areas for a long time, and they must also have a sufficiently powerful attack capability. Contini smiled, "But I think there are still some flaws in this tactic or in your thinking, such as ......"

He duly shut his mouth.

"You say?" Dönitz asked anxiously, he was not yet the feared Admiral and the Last Captain, he was only the captain of a small torpedo boat - the future Marshal of the Navy and the king of submarines did not have a single submarine in his hands now!

"I have consulted with General Sickert, and have decided to move to Italy all your scientific research institutes, personnel, and related equipment and facilities for the secret development of submarines in the Netherlands - to my joint shipyard, and I have also acquired the Volken shipyard, you must know what can be made there!"

At this time, Dönitz suddenly realized: it turned out that the news had leaked from Sickert, so it was no wonder that he was an army general and did not have a strong sense of secrecy in the navy - how did he know that Sickert was just a substitute for the dead with a black cauldron?

"Your Excellency, ...... you just said?"

"Where did I just go? Oh, I talked about flaws. Contini smiled, this was his deliberate move to hang his appetite, "First, you ignore the power of aircraft - in the narrow Mediterranean, the use of submarines alone may be reliable, in the vast Atlantic, there is a big problem with submarines that have been ambushed in advance alone - there are fewer ambushes, the monitoring range is too large, it is easy to be slipped away by ships, too many ambushes will contain too many troops, and it should be combined with aircraft." ”

"The words of the airplane ......" Dönitz suddenly reacted, isn't this the young Italian air force theoretical authority in front of him? He must have a set of sayings.

"At present, the aircraft has a very short ability to stay in the air, and the flight ability is not outstanding, but you have to face up to the development potential of the aircraft - this is much faster than the potential of submarine development, the current mainstream freighter speed is about 10 knots, so the submarine has 12-14 knots is enough, the future mainstream freighter will speed up to 11-12 knots, and the submarine will have 14-15 knots at that time, but in the future there will be an aircraft with a cruising speed of 150 knots and an air time of 6-8 hours, you can calculate, how much sea surface can such a powerful aircraft monitor?"

Dönitz nodded, he didn't ask the question of where the plane took off from - what is the purpose of a floating airfield at sea?

"Second, you tend to develop multiple, offshore, and small submarines in the early stage, thinking that the speed of military formation is fast, my thinking is a little different from yours, I am more inclined to develop ocean-going, medium and large submarines, you must know very well that the victory of submarine combat does not depend on the number of submarines, but on the number of torpedoes!"

"But Your Excellency, large and medium-sized submarines have a long construction period, and in terms of unit cost, they are higher than small submarines."

"There is a crucial detention problem that should not be ignored, although the small submarine is cheap, but the detention time is also short, it can only stay in the war zone for 15-20 days, or even shorter, and the large submarine can fully undertake 40-50 days of patrol tasks, you might as well make an accurate calculation, to maintain the density and scale in the long-distance sea area, how many small submarines do you need to maintain, and how many do you need to replace a large submarine?"

Dönitz nodded thoughtfully.

Less leaning, Contini took Dönitz into the chart room, turned on the electric light, and a huge Atlantic Ocean sand table model appeared in front of the two, Dönitz gasped - this is obviously a commodity only available to the Navy Staff, how could this kind of thing be in a company like the United Group?

"My father was a naval colonel, so I have loved the sea and the navy since I was a child, so I have this ship, this sand table, and this uniform." Only then did Dönitz understand why His Excellency the President had the rank of colonel in the reserve of the Army, Navy and Air Force, which seemed to be really worthy of his reputation.

Contini pointed out the British Isles with a whip: "The third flaw is that you tend to intercept merchant ships in the waters near Great Britain, because no matter what route the merchant ships take, they have to go to the port, and close interception will help to keep the rabbit in wait, but I think this is impossible, for two reasons: the first point is that planes, which pose a lethal threat to submarines, so a range of 300 or even 500 kilometers from the coast should not be easily set foot by submarines; Second, the enemy will send escort forces with destroyers, frigates, and submarine hunters as the core, which is also a huge threat to submarines. I think the ideal point of interception is here. ”

Dönitz followed the whip and saw that Contini had drawn a huge arc around the Azores – about 1,000-1,200 kilometers from the Azores.

"There will be very few British planes here, and the sea area is wide enough that the escort fleet will be seriously weakened."

"But the Azores?"

"This point is in the hands of Portugal...... Do you think it can be made into a submarine command headquarters in the North Atlantic, if we need it? Isn't that more reliable than being based in Berlin or Rome? ”

"Boom", Dönitz felt that his brain was not enough, and he stammered: "Portugal is a traditional ally of Britain, and it is almost impossible to capture the Azores in the mouth of the Royal Navy!" ”

"Mr. Dönitz, everything is man-made!" Contini smiled slyly, "I can bet you that in the future, if the Italian and German navies join forces, there will be a way to take this place!" ”

"Am I in the wrong place? This is not the Joint Group, this is the Joint Operations Command? ”

"I'm talking to you about the future—I'm not just the president of the Coalition then, and you're not just the captain of a torpedo boat, are I?"

"Thank you for your encouragement!"

After discussing the tactical ideas with Dönitz and gaining the approval of the other party, Contini talked about the down-to-earth work: what submarines to build next, and how to use existing submarines for training.

With regard to submarines, the United Group now has a strong force, and the Italian Navy has a total of three sources for submarine design, namely the Ansaldo company design, the Otto shipyard and the Adriatic United Shipyard (Grand Union Shipyard) designed and built by the civilian program; The latter two were led by the Italian Naval Engineering Department, and Cavallini and Bernatis were themselves Italian naval officers.

The first results of these three programs came in 1925: the Ansaldo program, which brought the Balila-class submarines; The Kavarrini design was changed to the Mameli-class medium submarine; And the Bernatis design scheme became the Fieira Mosca class and the Pisani class.

At present, Ansaldo and United Shipyard are both strategic partners of United Group, so these plans are completely open to United Group, and even mergers and acquisitions are a matter of one sentence; The other two submarine plans are not difficult to get from the Admiralty, and when I heard that the president was going to toss the submarine, the Admiralty was very happy - finally there was a big man who was willing to pay for us to play with submarines, and he had already obediently presented the drawings and waited for the United Group to build them, and as for whose name it was hung up in the future, the Navy did not care at all - and hoped that the United Group would take over the Dante at the end of the year, how dare he make the President unhappy now?

The Balilla-class submarine is the first large ocean-going submarine of the Italian Navy, designed for ocean-going missions, with a full double-hull design: a surface displacement of 1,405 tons and an underwater displacement of up to 1,904 tons. The boat is 86.75 meters long, 7.8 meters wide and has a draft of 4.78 meters. It is equipped with two 4000 horsepower diesel engines and two 2000 horsepower electric motors, with a maximum surface speed of 17.5 knots and a maximum underwater speed of 8.9 knots. The maximum surface range is 7050 nautical miles/8.5 knots, and the underwater range is 110 nautical miles/3 knots. Armed with 6 533mm torpedo tubes, anti-aircraft machine guns.

After the intervention of the United Group, the Balilla class, which was supposed to go into production, was modified: Contini was very dissatisfied with the Franco Tosi diesel engine used on it, believing that the excessive size caused the submarine to have a high displacement and a shorter range, and asked for a switch to a United Power diesel engine, which was transplanted from MAN and produced 3,750 hp, but the volume and weight were reduced by 11%, and the fuel consumption per unit power was reduced by 7%.

Since then, the data of the newly designed Balila class has changed dramatically: the surface displacement has become 1,278 tons, the underwater displacement has been 1,689 tons, the length and width have been slightly reduced, the maximum surface speed is 18 knots, the maximum underwater speed is 9 knots, the surface endurance has been increased by 8,000 nautical miles/9 knots, and the torpedo tube arrangement of the bow 4 stern 4 has been changed.