Trondheim, Norway. Pen? Interesting? Pavilion wWw. ｂiquge。 ｉｎfo

The Norwegian coast is beautiful in summer, and the headquarters of the German Northern Fleet is located on a hillside outside Trondheim, overlooking the harbour through a window.

At dusk, the surface of the steel battleships in the fjord was painted with a layer of gold, and almost all the capital ships of the German Northern Fleet were gathered in this bay, among which the two "Scharnhorst-class" battleships were the most conspicuous. Equipped with 12 410 mm guns and a standard displacement of 55,000 tons, these two super battleships gathered all the dreams of the Teutonic nation for maritime supremacy, and were also the pinnacle of the giant ship cannons of this era. With a full load displacement of nearly 70,000 tons, these two super battleships represent the highest level of German shipbuilding: balanced coordination, heavy armor protection, excellent watertight compartment design, excellent survivability, sophisticated artillery manufacturing technology and state-of-the-art fire control system. The tenacity, precision, ferocity, and cruelty of the Germans are all manifested in the body of this terrifying steel dragon.

It is a little regrettable that due to the inopportune time, the construction of the remaining three subsequent warships of the "Scharnhorst class" was cancelled. The war at sea has entered the age of aviation, and in fact, the main force of this fleet is the four "Graf? Zeppelin-class "aircraft carriers."

"Marshal Booker commanded the coalition forces to capture the Saratov ......"

"General Lendulik led an expeditionary force through Australia and captured the port of Darwin in one fell swoop......"

"General Rommel occupies Perth, and the US-Australian coalition is retreating......"

……

The news in the newspapers was almost all about the army, the new commander of the Northern Fleet, Gunther? Admiral Lukins read the newsletters without much happiness on his face. Compared with the continuous good news from the army, the German Navy is really feeling a little "aggrieved" at present.

The Northern Fleet, the main force of the German Navy, suffered heavy losses in the Battle of the Danish Strait, and the base camp had no choice but to abandon Iceland and withdraw the remnants of the island to Norway. Admiral Krankket was removed as commander of the Northern Fleet as a scapegoat and transferred to Danzig as commander of the garrison of the East Prussian fortress.

With the Austro-Hungarian and Italian navies devoting their main forces to the Pacific theater, the German navy was the only one left in the Atlantic to maneuver with the powerful American and British fleets. Faced with an opponent far superior to his own, the commander-in-chief of the German Navy, Raeder, reminded him of the powerlessness of the High Seas Fleet in the face of Jellicoe at the beginning of the last war.

Now the entire German Navy had to shrink its defenses as much as possible, except for Wilhelm? Admiral Marshall commanded the Far Eastern Fleet in the western Pacific for almost a year. The German Navy did little to do anything.

Although the Axis powers had begun to adjust their strategy and shift the focus of industrial production to the navy, the German navy was temporarily unable to compete with the American and British fleets until the new aircraft carriers were commissioned. All Admiral Lukins and his Northern Fleet could do was cut off as much as possible from the sea lanes for British and American aid to Soviet Russia.

As it stands, I'm afraid the Russians won't be able to hold out for long.

The German Navy had four York-class aircraft carriers of a standard displacement of 35000 tons before the war. In addition, two newly built "Graf? The "Zeppelin-class" aircraft carrier has been launched and is undergoing outfitting. After the outbreak of the war, the Reichstag quickly passed the Naval Enlargement Act, which urgently increased the construction budget for five "Scharnhorst-class" super battleships and six "Zeppelin-class" aircraft carriers.

As the war progressed, aircraft carriers played a decisive role in naval battles, replacing battleships. In the 1941 German naval construction plan, the Reichstag approved the construction budget for six new aircraft carriers to start construction in 1942 and 1943, and approved the plan to convert the remaining three "Scharnhorst-class" battleships, which had completed 40 percent of the hull construction, into aircraft carriers.

However, the construction of the navy takes time, and it cannot be completed in a short period of time like the army. Except in the initial period of the war. The German-Austrian navy dominated the Atlantic for a period of time after inflicting heavy losses on the British Royal Navy, and then with the entry of the United States into the war and the recovery of the Royal Navy's strength, especially after the Austro-Hungarian Navy devoted most of its main forces to the Far East, the British and American navies regained the initiative.

The German Navy in the Atlantic Ocean again continued to play the role of a "saboteur".

In fact, in addition to the Northern European routes, the German side is also unable to take advantage of maritime transport in the Atlantic, and Germany's supply of industrial raw materials is more dependent on the Black Sea and the Mediterranean direction than that of the United Kingdom. Since the Austro-Hungarian navy had always firmly controlled the absolute sea supremacy of these two seas, Germany's supplies were not troubled. It's just sea transport to and from South America. It is necessary to make a detour through the Indian Ocean and then through South Africa.

The Austro-Hungarian Navy was less concerned with naval supremacy in the North Atlantic, and was more concerned with the safety of the shipping lanes between South Africa and South America than holding on to the Strait of Gibraltar. More than half of their energy is in the Far East, the remaining half is in South Africa, and in the Atlantic, there are hardly any decent sea forces, except for submarine forces.

This situation made the German Navy extremely hateful. But this is the case, and the difference in geographical location has caused the naval strategies of the two countries to be almost completely opposed. The first objective of the German navy was to defeat the British navy and break the cage they had created, while the Austro-Hungarian navy had no such intention, and their aim was to firmly control the Mediterranean, followed by the Arabian Sea and the East African routes, and as for the Far East, it was only to obey political necessity.

Marshal Raeder was also very annoyed by the Austro-Hungarian Navy's unwillingness to cooperate, but there was nothing he could do. From a global strategic point of view, the Austro-Hungarian navy's battle plan was more in line with the political needs of the Axis powers, but because of the limitations of the German navy, the advantages achieved by the Second German Reich in the Far East were somewhat inconsistent with their strong military strength, and they even had to promise more benefits to the Italians.

The strength of the German navy was not yet able to break through the blockade of Britain and the United States.

In peacetime, the construction of the "Zeppelin-class" aircraft carrier takes almost three years, and even if the construction schedule is accelerated during the war, the construction of such a fleet aircraft carrier with a standard displacement of 27500 tons will take almost two years. In the second half of 1943, six additional aircraft carriers were to be commissioned after the start of the war, and the strength of the German Navy's surface ship forces would be greatly increased again. At the same time, however, the United States will serve 12 "Essex-class" aircraft carriers this year, while British shipyards will be bombed by Germany and will have many difficulties, so they will also add two more "Revenge-class" fleet aircraft carriers, and at the same time, 12 escort aircraft carriers converted from merchant ships will join the Royal Navy sequence.

As more and more escort carriers join the convoy of convoys, the activities of submarine forces are increasingly restricted and the dangers they face are increasing. Admiral Dönitz's myth of "submarine victory" went bankrupt, and the German Navy continued to shift its attention to the construction of surface ship forces.

Even the front-line fleet commanders were not optimistic that the German navy would be able to break through the blockade of the US and British navies, but they did contain more than half of the US and British navies, so that the Austrian and Italian navies and even the navy could run amok in the Indian Ocean and even the western Pacific, and there was no strength to resist their attack. (To be continued.) )