Imperial Navy Submarine Base in Kotor, Cataro Bay.

Egun. Colonel Lerch was ordered to go to the submarine command, where the commander of the submarine forces, Vice Admiral Tiri, was waiting for him. He sits behind an extraordinarily large desk, with floor-to-ceiling windows on the side that offer just the right amount of panoramic views of the bay. Vice Admiral Tiri was only in his forties and belonged to the young generals of the Navy. In fact, throughout the Imperial Navy, the commanders of the submarine forces were quite young. During the tenure of Emperor Friedrich as Commander-in-Chief of the Navy, the submarine forces were greatly developed, and so far they had 86 submarines, and they also achieved a record that was not inferior to that of the German submarine forces.

The establishment of the Reich submarine force was somewhat different from that of the German Navy, with four wing headquarters under the Boat Command, with a total of eight submarine groups, each with three squadrons and four submarines each. The number of the submarine is also different from that of Germany, for example, boat 0624 means that this boat is boat No. 4 belonging to the 2nd Squadron of the 6th Submarine Group, and the model of the submarine is not visible from the number.

Except for some simple special missions, the Imperial submarine forces rarely send single boats to carry out combat missions, but will send at least one squadron, so that the combat effect is much higher than that of single boat operations.

Generally speaking, the submarine group under the command of the submarine wing command is not fixed, but 2-4 submarine groups are allocated according to operational needs, and during the Italian campaign, Lerch even commanded 5 submarine groups to operate on the front line in the western Mediterranean. The emperor attached great importance to the submarine forces, and during his tenure as commander-in-chief of the navy, the specifications of the submarine forces command were raised to the same status as the commander of the main fleet, that is, the commander should be vice admiral, and the wing commander was the same as the commander of the detachment of surface ship forces, with the rank of rear admiral.

However, the commanders of the submarine forces were too young, such as Lyersy who had been promoted to colonel before he was thirty years old, which already caused great discontent within the Imperial Navy. If you are promoted to rear admiral according to the establishment, you will have to blow up the pot.

"Egon are you here? Have a seat! Lieutenant General Tiri greeted him casually, and then picked up a copy of Wen Jiàn from the table, "There is going to be a big operation soon, this is the details of the battle plan, you take a look at it first." ”

Lerch took a battle plan of more than twenty pages from the commander's hand, and then read it quickly from the couch, "Oh, the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th battlefleets, two submarine wings, blockade the French coast. The 1st and 2nd Marine Corps, landed in southern France. What a big plan, how many people will the army send? This includes only the naval part. ”

"The first batch was the 8th Army, 230,000 people. The 10th and 12th armies would attack first from the Franco-Italian border. Lieutenant General Tiri had a cold and spoke in a thick nasal voice, "The focus of the campaign is on the Franco-German border, and if the offensive in the north does not go well, then more troops will be transferred to the southern front." ”

"Oh, it's all or nothing!" "It doesn't seem like it's going to be easy to crush France in one fell swoop. ”

"There is no way, the emperor wants to do his best to deal with France before the arrival of the Americans." "Although the current shape looks good, the Emperor does not seem to be optimistic about the situation after the Americans enter the war, so he is anxious to deal with France, even if it is to spare the Eastern Front first." ”

"Vice Admiral Pachner's removal of a British fleet in Tobruk seems to be a good sign." Thiri said in a slightly hoarse tone: "The task of the submarine force is very heavy, and it is necessary to blockade at least four important ports on the south coast of France, especially the Toulon military port, where more than half of the main forces of the French fleet are concentrated. You take 4 submarine groups, and the main task is to lay mines in the fairways of Toulon and the ports of Lyon, blocking the enemy's way out. ”

"Well, I understand." Lerch closed the battle plan and put it back on the commander's desk. "When does it start?"

"Tonight, the landing campaign will begin in five days, and the task of the Navy is to blockade Gibraltar and the French coast, as well as to ensure the safety of the convoy and, possibly, to support the other side, which is quite a difficult task." Lieutenant General Tiri said, "The success or failure of the blockade of the enemy depends greatly on the outcome of our early mine-laying operations. ”

The task was indeed urgent, and after Lerch came out of the headquarters, he hurried to supervise the replenishment process of the submarine force. Military trucks loaded with boxes of mines drove up the submarine's supply dock, and about 36 submarines needed to be fully equipped with mines. The Austro-Hungarian Navy had only 3 types of 32 submarines in service before the war, all of which were relatively small in size, and the earliest Type I submarine was based on the U-3 submarine built by the German Germania Shipyard, with a displacement of about 500 tons, powered by two 600-horsepower diesel engines, with a surface speed of 14.6 knots, and equipped with four torpedo tubes. A total of 4 submarines of this type are equipped. Subsequently, eight Type II submarines with a displacement of 720 tons were built on the basis of the German U-17 submarine, and at this time the Isleya shipyard already had the ability to independently design and build submarines, and the performance of the Type II submarines had been greatly improved compared with the German U-3 submarines.

Subsequently, Islaia Shipyard independently designed and built the Type III submarine, which reached a tonnage of 780 tons (water) / 960 tons (underwater) and increased the power system to 1,800 horsepower. The Type III submarine built by the Austro-Hungarian Navy was actually the most advanced submarine in the world before the Great War, and the U-23 submarine that Germany began to build was largely beneficial to the exchange of naval technology between Germany and Austria.

20 Type III submarines were built and commissioned before the war, and 8 more were built after the war, after which they were replaced by improved Type IV submarines with a surface displacement of 840 tons.

In the middle of 1916, in order to meet the needs of ocean-going operations, the Imperial Navy began to develop V-type submarines with a displacement of more than 1000 tons. However, so far, only three V-type submarines with a cruising range of more than 9,000 nautical miles have been built, and they have not yet been officially incorporated into the submarine force.

In fact, in the Mediterranean, the main force of submarine operations has always been Type III or Type IV submarines.

Due to the special shallow sea topography in the Mediterranean, the activities of submarines with excessive displacement are greatly restricted, and the Type IV submarines currently equipped by the Austro-Hungarian Navy can fully meet the operational needs, and if it were not for the need to support the actions of the German Navy in the Atlantic, the Austro-Hungarian Navy does not particularly need to develop and equip large ocean-going submarines.

Sailors and workers were busy on the docks, and many submarines had to unload the torpedoes that had already been loaded into the submarine and replace them with mines, which could carry 32 mines at a time for Type III submarines and 40 mines for Type IV submarines with a larger displacement.

"Are you all ready?" At dusk, Colonel Lerch slowly approached the 0811 boat in a small dinghy, and the captain, Captain Fischer, stood on the deck with 37 crew members to welcome the arrival of the wing commander, but as a command boat, Lerch also brought a staff officer and a communications officer, and the space on the 0811 would be even more crowded.

"Ready, sir!" Fischer replied, "You can set sail at any time." ”

Lerci turned his gaze to the green, rocky exit channel of Cataro Bay, where several periscopes could be seen emerging from below, dragging a white trail to escape the surveillance of enemy spies.

It was the submarine of the 7th brigade, "Well, we will start sailing at half past seven!" Lerch said to Captain Fischer.

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