What is the highest level of guerrilla warfare? Some people may be reminded of the famous four-character mantra that the enemy retreats and I advance. Pen @ fun @ pavilion wWw. ｂｉｑUｇE。 ｉｎｆｏ

But the German Navy has now achieved a different level - to go where it wants to go, to fight the battles it wants!

Lütjens led the fleet into the Atlantic Ocean when the weather was fine, and unlike submarines, the surface ships of the German Navy were more than twice as efficient.

Using the intelligence provided by the submarine forces, and using the carrier-based aircraft of the only aircraft carrier, the German Navy's surface ship forces were soon able to locate the British transport ships and quickly send them to the bottom of the sea.

Although General Charles led the Royal Navy of LinkedIn to follow him every time, he was never able to find a way to crack this rogue trick of Germany.

On 1 December, the German Navy's submarine forces attacked the CK-4 transport convoy and took out four British transport ships.

On December 2, the next day, the CK-4 flotilla fleet was overtaken by the German Navy's partisan fleet, which sank more than half of the transports in one fell swoop.

In just two days of December, the British maritime transport fleet lost 63 transports, large and small, with a tonnage of hundreds of thousands.

If this course of events continues, the British transport fleet will lose at least 1,000 transports in December - a loss that Britain simply cannot afford.

Even in real history, the loss of thousands of transport ships a month cannot be compensated by the production capacity of the United States and the United Kingdom. What's more, the United States did not enter the war, and the British production capacity collapsed now?

Now several transport ships are sinking in the Atlantic every day, and to replenish these losses there is actually a gap that no one has ever calculated - seafarers!

Everyone felt that the production capacity of the British and American shipbuilding industry was terrifying, and some even used dumplings to describe the speed at which the United States built ships: it was as simple as pouring dumplings into a pot.

However, although the speed of building ships can reach an unbelievable level by relying on huge production capacity, the speed of cultivating excellent crews cannot keep up with the speed of shipbuilding.

Historically, the United States once used extreme speed to build a freeship in a little more than four days, which can be called a miracle in the history of actual shipbuilding.

This is still the speed at which a single ship is being built, and in the middle and late stages of World War II, several Liberty ships were launched every day. Maintaining such a production rate requires a large number of crew members to fill the gaps.

If you think about it, if it takes about 5 days to train a captain - it's just like a joke.

In other words, in fact, Germany annihilated American and British transport ships at the expected rate, and no matter how terrible American production capacity was, it could not compensate for its own losses.

In fact, a large part of the reason why the United States was notoriously terrible in the course of World War II was that Germany and Japan never had the opportunity to annihilate the living forces of the United States as a system.

The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor only killed a few thousand American soldiers, and the German submarines fought desperately and were unable to annihilate the American and British crews on a large scale.

Therefore, when most of the crew members were retained, the terrifying production capacity of the United States played a decisive role in the middle and late stages.

Now, however, the situation was different - the Germans destroyed a large number of British ships, because of the speed and the time to sink the opposing ships, so the effects of the losses of the British sailors began to be felt.

On December 3, the British Royal Navy finally ushered in the good news, that is, the battleship Prince of Wales, which had been dragged to a safe area, was finally put into service ahead of schedule.

Having gathered almost all the forces, the Royal Navy finally launched the battleship Prince of Wales in advance at such a critical moment, and was able to fight for the motherland.

"God bless Britain!" Charles looked at the new body of the battleship in front of him, and his mood recovered somewhat.

He was impassioned from his podium in order to restore the British Royal Navy's former self-confidence, and although the enemy was still raging, victory would be the British Empire.

In Charles's view, it was because he had forgotten the spirit of Nelson that the British Navy had declined to what it is now. If he wants to revitalize the Royal Navy, he has to start by revitalizing his spirits.

"Hopefully, General Phillips will bring back some good news this time." Watching the military band playing hard under the podium, Charles muttered quietly while clapping along.

"You know, we're in a worse situation than we seem." Standing next to Charles was his deputy.

The deputy who spoke was not in a good mood because he had just learned something about the battleship Prince of Wales.

With a sad face, he whispered to his commander: "Sir, I just got the news that the Germans attacked the CK-4, and I heard that the fleet suffered heavy losses, 4 destroyers were sunk, and less than half of the ships escaped into the protected area of the home fleet. ”

"What does Phillips eat? Didn't he read my telegrams and concentrate on protecting the CK-4 fleet? With a helpless smile on his face, Charles coldly squeezed out a question from between his teeth.

The adjutant smiled bitterly and said: "The Germans sent bombers...... By the time General Phillips arrived, the Germans had already left. ”

It's this kind of battle again, and it's like this again. The old fleet of the British Royal Navy seems to be a late hero, unable to catch up with the thief who steals his wheat, and can only starve to death in the winter with less and less food......

"Hopefully, the commissioning of the battleship Prince of Wales will allow us to improve some of the passive situation at this stage." Charles didn't have a good idea, and if he had, he wouldn't be so passive now.

So he could only comfort others as well as himself, pinning all his hopes on the faster battleship Prince of Wales.

Together with the faster battleship King George V, the British Royal Navy has finally managed to put together two high-speed battleships, and now in the face of the German Navy, it can be reluctantly tried.

Using the cover of aircraft carriers such as the Ark Royal and the Dreadnought, the two battleships caught up with the German fleet and entangled.

Then, after the two sides had engaged, wait until the slower-sailing capital ships arrived to turn the tide of the naval battle - at least on paper, the British Royal Navy had a chance of victory.

"General, although the battleship Prince of Wales has been launched, it will take at least 2 months to officially enter service......" The adjutant heard Charles's words and had to remind his commander.

And after the reminder, he added a more realistic question: "Also, the general." It seems that we have more than 1,000 sailors and sailors to worry about. ”

At the mention of this, Charles is like a deflated balloon: he now seems to have reached an incredible stage where there are battleships but there is no one to drive them......

How ironic! The British Empire, which made its fortune on the navy and was the world's first maritime hegemon a few months ago! There will be a shortage of sailors!

"Hell, can't we even recruit some qualified sailors?" Charles was in a very bad mood, and by this time the celebratory music had stopped and he had already stepped off the high stage of the celebratory speech.

His adjutant followed him half a step away, and cautiously spoke about the information he had: "Sir...... On the transport fleet's side, the requirements for recruiting sailors have been expanded to 52 years old. ”

It's 1940, and the 52-year-old was still a young man around 1916. And most of these lads lived through that World War I.

Many of these men had served as sailors in the First World War and had good experience working at sea themselves - and they are now valuable assets.

These men were recruited primarily to replenish the various transport ships that had been sunk by the German Navy. In the beginning, sailors with seafaring experience were recruited.

As a result, in recent times, former sailors who were willing to continue to serve the British government and join the convoy were immediately appointed captains.

Because the losses are so great, the captain has become a scarce resource. The training of ordinary crew members is like child's play, and the requirement is just "no seasickness".

"What? Are they all recruited to be 42 years old? Charles didn't believe in this kind of thing, because it was under the jurisdiction of the transportation department, and he, the commander of the navy, didn't care too much about it.

It's a pity that now, he has to care about this aspect. His adjutant shrugged his shoulders and corrected, "You heard me wrong, it's 52 years old, sir!" ”

"......" glanced at his adjutant, and Charles couldn't find any words to continue talking about for a while. In the end, he didn't speak, just walked into the distance without saying a word.

In the harbor, the cheers of the battleship Prince of Wales can still be faintly heard, but the sound of the German Navy's battleships shelling British ships on the distant sea cannot be heard here.

At this time, Phillips was on the bridge of his flagship, the battleship King George V, looking at the convoy of transports in the distance, and he was so annoyed that he wanted to smash the telescope in his hand.

Yesterday evening, he came with great difficulty, but he could only helplessly watch the ships of the CK-4 transport fleet in front of him break down and hide in Tibet.

Combined with the bits and pieces of losses, in two days he knew that more than sixty ships had been sunk by the Germans - which was obviously not a good sign, or simply terrible.

"Keep the fleet on course! Check the shipping schedule and don't make any more trouble! "Phillips was a very good naval commander, but he found himself in a state of inadequacy when facing the German fleet.