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November 9, 1941.

The North Atlantic Ocean enters its coldest and most manic season of the year, with thick fog during the day, howling winds at night, and polar glaciers squeezing and colliding in the white waves. Even with such a majestic body as the Titanic, it still surrenders in front of this sea. It was nearly noon in the Rackwilfjord in southern Norway, carrying out the "Rhine Exercise" plan, and the battleships "Bismarck," "Tirpitz," the "Zeppelin," the "Prince Eugen," and the "Lützov" heavy cruisers, who had just set sail from the Polish port of Danzig and arrived here, were quietly waiting for the order to sail.

Hitler personally saw off the fleet, but it did not bring good luck, and the engine of the "Zeppelin" aircraft carrier failed not long after driving, so the fleet had to stop here and wait for the ship to be repaired.

In fact, as early as the end of 40, the plan for the "Rhine exercises" was proposed, but it was postponed because the battle cruisers "Scharnhorst" and "Gnesenau" were injured due to mechanical problems and air raids, respectively. Later, the Mediterranean and Spain distracted Hitler, and it was only recently that the United States accelerated its troop transfer to Europe that Hitler asked for a resumption of the program. The belated arrival of the "Rhine exercises" was also a blessing in disguise for the German Navy, because they were finally able to concentrate their strongest combat forces.

According to the plan, the fleet would bypass Britain off the coast of Iceland, and then join up with the "Scharnhorst" and "Gneisenau", which had departed from France, and together they would strike the most violent blow to the British and American fleets in the Atlantic, and if given the opportunity, also strike at the British and American fleets in Gibraltar, and finally return to France.

"Hell, it's only been November and it's so cold, and it looks like this winter is going to be terrible." A German naval engineering ship with the name "Rost" written on it, headed for the fjord at a fast speed. Inside the bridge, Old Hakan was wrapped in a thick military coat and cursed the bad weather. Compared to Kimura Masafuku's use of the Andaman Fjord to evade aerial searches, the German Navy was the one who used the fjords at a high level. , jagged along the entire Norwegian coastline, German submarines and warships hidden in the depths of the fjord, hiding from reconnaissance and waiting to sail.

After returning from China, he was received by Hitler, who also appointed him head of the naval shipbuilding program to build more much-needed warships for Germany. Thanks to his efforts, the construction of U-boats was significantly accelerated, the "Mediterranean Fleet" program was launched, and he also planned to extend the technology to destroyers and cruisers, and hoped to bring the shipbuilding facilities of France, Italy, Greece, Yugoslavia and even the Soviet Union under unified management. According to his estimates, if the shipbuilding capacity in the appellate area can be pooled and scientifically utilized, Germany will be able to build a powerful navy comparable to China in four years at most. However, this good wish was disillusioned by the continuous bombing of the German coast by Britain and the United States, and a phone call from the Führer completely shattered it.

"Marshal, Admiral Gunther." Once the ship docked, Hakan saw Raeder and Admiral Gunther Ruetyans. The latter is currently the most experienced captain in the German Navy, with experience in many naval raids. "Captain Hakan!" At the sight of him, Lutyans immediately saluted. This is a kind of respect, although Hakan has long been decommissioned, but the legend of the "unsinkable Setritz" has become a symbol of the German Navy.

"The equipment has already been brought, and it will be fixed in just one night." Looking at the majestic fleet on the sea, Hakan's eyes were moist, but he was worried: "Marshal, this weather is too bad, the waves will make it impossible for warships to aim, why can't you wait any longer?" The aircraft carrier "Peter Strassel" will be completed in another year, two battleships of the H39 type will be delivered by the end of 43 and the beginning of 44, as well as new cruisers and destroyers. 2 years! Just wait another 2 years, we will have 6 battleships (Hakan sees Shane as a battleship) and 3 aircraft carriers, and if we can wait 4 years, we will have 8 battleships, 8 aircraft carriers and 10 heavy cruisers. ”

"Hakan, the Führer is not willing to wait any longer." Raeder interrupted him with a wave of his hand.

It's not that he doesn't want to hear it, it's that it's too late to say anything. Hitler had promised him that there would be no war before 1944, so the German Navy's shipbuilding program was all based on this timetable. If he had known that the war would have been five years earlier, he would have learned from China and filled all the domestic dockyards in 1936. "The enemy's sea power is strengthening, and the pace of the U.S. troop build-up is already unbearable for the Führer, so we must contain the rampant Atlantic shipping lanes with one attack. Winter does affect operations, but the meteorological conditions are equal. And I think that the worse the weather, the more it will limit their aviation power. Ruetjens explains why he chose to play in the winter.

Old Hakan nodded, the East Asian war proved that aircraft carriers have replaced battleships as the new hegemon at sea. But because of Goering's opposition, the German Navy did not have its first aircraft carrier until last year, and the flying squadrons on the carriers are still subordinate to the Air Force, not to the actual naval aviation! This complex relationship makes the road to Germany's aircraft carrier particularly difficult. Fortunately, Germany was in the most difficult sea in the world, especially in the high sea conditions in winter, which would make it difficult for British and American carrier-based aircraft to be dispatched, weaken their aviation combat capabilities, and give full play to the advantages of the German navy with thicker armor and better artillery fire. But he still felt that the main fleet should not carry out a sabotage: "You can let Dönitz's submarines do these things." ”

"He? Hum! Speaking of Dönitz, Vice Admiral Lütjans snorted coldly: "In addition to going to the Führer every day to report the results of the war, building time-consuming and labor-intensive rat bunkers (referring to the many submarine bases built by Germany on the Atlantic coast), and asking the Führer to terminate the construction of surface warships, what else did he do for the Navy?" ”

Lütjens's words were a fairly representative surname in the German Navy. It's not that Dönitz is not a good soldier, in fact, Dönitz has a good reputation in the navy, and the reason why everyone doesn't like him is because he has been using the record of submarines to lobby Hitler to cancel the construction of many capital ships, including 2 H39 battleships and the aircraft carrier "Peter Strassel", and use steel and scarce resources for more submarines. If it weren't for cheap supplies from the USSR, he would have almost succeeded. But in the eyes of naval figures like Raeder and Lütjans, the surface fleet was the only correct path to sea power.

"Hurry up, Scharnhorst and Gneisenau are about to set sail, and we don't have much time." Raeder interrupted the argument.

Hakan stopped talking nonsense and immediately took someone to replace the damaged engine parts of the "Zeppelin". At four o'clock in the morning the next day, after the restoration work was completed, Lütjans said goodbye to the two men and led the fleet to Bergen, but just as they were leaving the Kattegat Strait, they were spotted by an American Shark-class submarine on a surveillance mission. Fearing radio exposure, Captain Wesley waited for the German fleet to leave and sent a telegram to the Allied Atlantic Naval Command in Portsmouth.

Half an hour later, the door to the Royal Navy conference room in Whitehall was slammed open.

"They're out!" The staff officer excitedly waved the telegram.

As a matter of fact, as early as October, after the Luftwaffe intensified its reconnaissance on Greenland and Mayen, Admiral John Tovey, commander of the British Continental Formation, keenly judged that this rare situation must be a precursor to the preparation of large German warships into the Atlantic, and immediately stepped up reconnaissance off the coast of Norway and Iceland, deploying more than 40 submarines and 27 destroyers.

As everyone knows, the reason why Churchill and Britain can continue to fight is not because of the Royal Air Force or China and the United States, but because they have a world-class navy that has been tested for a long time. Although it has suffered heavy losses and has lost more than half of its losses since the start of the war, it still has a deterrent force including 8 battleships and 4 aircraft carriers. As long as there was such a force, Churchill would not have been afraid of Hitler at all, because the weak German navy would not have been able to reach the British Isles at all. As for the Luftwaffe, the British were able to beat them to the brink in even the toughest air battles in the English Channel, not to mention that now the American Army Aviation had joined in. If the war of attrition in the air continued, whether it was the reserve of pilots or the manufacturing capacity, Hitler would have ended sooner.

So several capital ships of the German Navy have always been a thorn in Churchill's side! Their existence, not to mention containing the British home fleet, also made it impossible for Britain and the United States to concentrate all their naval forces to recapture Malta. But now, they're out! An opportunity to completely annihilate the main forces of the German Navy was at hand.

"Destroy them! Sink them! Churchill immediately gave orders over the phone, hysterically.

Admiral Pound and Admiral John Tovey also knew that if this German capital ship group broke through into the Atlantic, it would bring great disaster to the maritime transportation of the Atlantic! Therefore, it was decided to start the mobilization of troops at any cost.

Britain and the United States have three major combat forces in the Atlantic at the moment, namely the British Home Fleet, which has the battleship "George V", the battleship "Prince of Wales", the battleship "Duke of York", the battleship "Resolve", the battleship "Warrior", the battleship "Rodney", the aircraft carrier "Glorious", the aircraft carrier "Ark Royal", the aircraft carrier "Dreadful", as well as 1 Borg-class escort aircraft carrier and 11 light and heavy cruisers. Several of them, the lead ships of the Mediterranean Fleet, were wounded during Operation "Catapult" and the Italian attack on Alexandria and returned home for repairs, and have been stationed on the mainland and Gibraltar since Malta was cut off.

The second combat force was the United States Task Force 2 based in Gibraltar, and Commander Fletcher owned the aircraft carriers USS Vespa, USS Hornet, USS New Mexico, USS Mississippi, USS Nevada, USS Oklahoma and 23 destroyers. The latter two battleships were wounded in the Battle of Wake Island earlier this year and were sent back to the East Coast for repairs and refits, and were immediately redeployed here in view of the critical situation in the Atlantic.

The third combat force is the U.S. Task Force 4 stationed in Bermuda, and its commander, Kinkade, has the aircraft carrier "Raider", two Borg-class escort carriers, the battleships "North Carolina", the battleship "Washington", the battleship "West Virginia", the battleship "Tennessee", as well as 8 light and heavy cruisers and 20 destroyers. Among them, the "Tennessee" also participated in the Battle of Wake Island, and the "West Virginia" was just transferred to the Atlantic Ocean at the beginning of last month.

In addition to the above three forces, there are two Borg-class escort aircraft carriers, two battleships, and a number of destroyers that are undergoing sea trials on the east coast of the United States, and the former French Navy battleship "Jean Bar" purchased by the United States is also nearing completion. The fact that they can still have such a strong combat force after suffering heavy losses in a row shows how strong the foundation of the two major naval powers is.

In the eyes of outsiders, with such a powerful combat force, it must have been easy to destroy the German fleet, but this is not the case, on the contrary, it has encountered great trouble.

The first is the speed of the battleship! To sum it up in one sentence, it is "you can't catch up if you can catch up, and you can't catch up if you can catch up." ”

According to intelligence, the speed of the two "Bismarck" and the two "Scharnhorst" exceeded 30 knots, while the British, because the "Hood" was sunk, and none of the battleships could catch up with each other at this time. Even if the three King George V-class battleships could barely pursue at a speed of 29 knots, a mistake in decision-making before the battle left them with only ten 356-mm naval guns, while the other 15-inch battleships were all slow-moving turtles.

The United States is not good either, and the cutting-edge North Carolina class is only 28 knots, which is also unable to catch up.

If you can't catch up, you can't catch up, anyway, you can use numbers to encircle and suppress, not to mention that Britain and the United States have 11 aircraft carriers. Marshal Pound thought so and called Halsey, the commander-in-chief of the Atlantic of the US Navy, who was retired in England. When the hot-tempered "brute bull" heard that the "German **" had come out, he jumped up with joy and immediately called Fletcher and Kincaid, demanding that all warships be dispatched, and also shouting that they would take command in person. But Fletcher and Kincaid poured cold water on him, because the American aircraft carrier could not enter the winter manic Atlantic.

"What!" When Churchill received a reply from the U.S. military, his face turned angry. Even the mild-tempered Marshal Pound initially thought that the U.S. military was deliberately passive and sabotage, so he called King and scolded his fleet as "porcelain". Jin En had a hard time, and even Yang Qiu felt that he was wronged when he learned about it later. You know, the North Atlantic in winter is no joke, with average winds of more than 130 km/h and waves of seven or eight meters high. The remaining three U.S. fleet-type aircraft carriers, because they were not designed with the harsh environment of the North Atlantic in mind, are all wooden decks, open bows and hangars, which are completely unable to maintain take-off and landing in such harsh sea conditions. The only two Lexingtons that could be entered had already been sunk, and the Essex-class with the closed bow would not be delivered until the end of '42.

Even the German Navy's "Zeppelin", which deals with the North Sea every day, actually has a very bad wave-proof design, and because it cannot overcome the bad sea conditions, the number of carrier-based aircraft is pitiful.

Of course, if you really want to fight hard, the US aircraft carrier can also learn from the German army to rush in and fight. But the problem is that the United States has only three fleet aircraft carriers left at the moment, and it also has to take into account the direction of the Mediterranean Sea and Egypt, and if there is another accident, I am afraid that the US Navy can only act as a "garrison fleet" by the end of 42 years. After listening to Kim's explanation, Pound knew that he had wronged him, but fortunately the Royal Navy still had three heavy aircraft carriers of its own.

The design of British ships during World War II was absolutely second to none, because of the bad seas of the North Atlantic and the complex sea conditions of colonies all over the world, even Yang Qiu has always asked to learn British shipbuilding technology and design. British aircraft carriers adhere to this design idea, so they are all heavy aircraft carriers with closed bows and hangars and armored decks, although this will lead to a small number of aircraft, but the safety surname and take-off and landing surname can definitely lead the world.

Although King was worried about the loss and did not let his aircraft carrier rush in desperately, he still asked Fletcher and Kincaid to send all their capital ships to participate in the encirclement and suppression, and asked the two to place the aircraft carrier in a safer sea area between Newfoundland and the United Kingdom to ensure that they could rush in to support if necessary. In the end, he firmly rejected Halsey's request to lead the fleet, leaving Fletcher and Kincaid in charge of the encirclement.

On the morning of 11 November, US reconnaissance planes were the first to confirm that the battlecruisers "Scharnhorst," "Gneisenau," and "Leipzig," which had been hiding in France, had disappeared.

In the afternoon, the British Royal Navy and Air Force, which had dispatched all their aerial reconnaissance forces, finally discovered the target off the coast of Bergen, Norway, and the Spitfire fighter piloted by the pilot, Lieutenant Secklin, took clear photos. When the intelligence officer developed the photo and saw the 2 battleships, 2 heavy cruisers and 1 aircraft carrier on it, he shook his fist fiercely.

"Found them!" …… (To be continued.) )