It was an incomparably terrible night for the PQ77 transport fleet, and an invisible enemy was constantly attacking them under the cover of night. Every few tens of minutes, a transport ship will be suddenly fished. There was an explosion in a lightning strike, and the three destroyers tried their best to hear the sound of any of the submarine's unique propellers, and they blindly turned on the active sonar, but still found nothing. At one point, the active sonar seemed to have spotted something, and the destroyer immediately pounced and dropped a barrage of depth charges, however, it was useless, because a few dozen minutes later, another transport ship was fished. Lightning struck and sank.

In the beginning, when a boat is fished. After the thunderbolt hits and the captain gives the order to abandon ship, the nearby ships will deliberately slow down, turn on the searchlights, and search and rescue the crew members who have fallen into the water. Soon, however, the ship was attacked by demons hiding in the night, and was also sunk in the explosion.

It was an incomparably long night, every once in a while, there were explosions, every once in a while, a ship gave an order to abandon ship, and if it sank slowly, a lifeboat was lowered to the surface, and if it sank quickly, the sailors had to jump into the sea with a lifebuoy.

In this horrific night, PQ77 lost four transport ships and nearly 30,000 tons of cargo. If it weren't for the fact that U-92 had used up quite a few fish in previous operations. Thunder, which has now used up the remaining fish all at once. Lei, PQ77's loss is definitely more than that.

……

"Your Excellency Prime Minister, the situation we are facing now is very serious. The rate of loss of our ships this month has far exceeded the speed of our shipbuilding, and even more than the speed of our shipbuilding and the combined speed of American shipbuilding. Admiral Winston Churchill told Prime Minister Asquith, "If this continues, we will lose the whole war." ”

"Winston, this is indeed a great danger, even greater than that of the German Army." Prime Minister Asquith said, "Do you have any advice on this?" ”

"Your Excellency, Prime Minister, I think that we must fully use the model of convoy convoys, prohibiting any merchant ships from acting alone, and crossing the ocean in groups and with escort ships. During this month, according to our statistics, the probability of loss of transport ships in the escort formation is much lower than that of ordinary transport ships. If we can fully assemble all the merchant ships and provide them with enough escort ships, then our losses will certainly be greatly reduced, at least, to less than our replenishment capacity. Churchill replied.

"So Winston, do we have enough destroyers in our navy?" Prime Minister Asquith asked.

"The number is far from enough, and even if our shipyards now shift the focus of construction to the construction of destroyers, at least for two months, we still have very few destroyers in our hands." Churchill replied, "But, Your Excellency, we may have other ways of acquiring destroyers." We can order destroyers from the United States, or simply lease destroyers from the US Navy to the US government. It is also possible to order more transport ships from the Americans. ”

"It's really something to think about." Prime Minister Asquith thought for a moment and said so. Of course, he knew that because the United States had bought a lot of British bonds now, he naturally couldn't watch Britain collapse. Moreover, the British, who have played the balance of power on the European continent, naturally know that the interests of the United States and Britain are completely identical in opposing the emergence of an overwhelming land power on the European continent and opposing the reunification of the European continent.

"I'll have people discuss this with the Americans." Prime Minister Asquith said, "You also have to speed up your movements, and if necessary, remove a few destroyers from the combat forces, and ensure the safety of shipping." ”

……

It is certainly impossible not to deal with MacDonald about ordering ships. And MacDonald has been waiting for this order for a long time. Accompanied by Scrooge himself, the British envoy Sir Woodgate visited one of MacDonald's shipyards.

"Look, sir, what is being built here is the kind of Sherlock-class fast merchant ship we just saw in the model room. Indeed, compared with the general merchant ship, its price is a little higher, the goods that can be transported at one time are a little less than that of ordinary cargo ships, and the maintenance cost is also higher than that of ordinary ships, therefore, even taking into account its high-speed characteristics, the advantage of the number of transportation brought by the cruising speed of eighteen knots, only from the economic point of view, the economy of this cargo ship can not be considered too good. In fact, we originally designed it as a low-to-mid-range passenger ship. Scrooge told a lie and then continued, "But sir, in the present circumstances, I don't think there is a better ship in the world, more suitable for the needs of England." You see, the cruising speed of such a ship is 18 knots, and as far as I know, the surface speed of ordinary submarines is not as fast as his, so it will be quite difficult for the German submarines to ambush him. In this way, the chances of losing the ship as it crosses the Atlantic are greatly reduced. Moreover, because of the advantage of speed, this type of ship can transport more items per unit of time. This should also be a very important performance for the British Empire today. If a large number of these ships are put into shipping, then what does Britain have to worry about unlimited submarine warfare? ”

When Sir Woodgaard heard this, he nodded secretly in his heart, and at the same time in his heart, the hatred of the Americans, especially MacDonald, increased again. Sir Woodgaard had a good understanding of ships and everything, and he could certainly see that such a ship could not have been developed from a low-end passenger ship change in design, and that it had been designed as a high-speed cargo ship from the beginning. The reason why this kind of ship, which is not outstanding in economy, is clearly designed for this war, and even for unrestricted submarine warfare. Without the unrestricted submarine warfare of the Germans, such ships would simply not be competitive in the market. However, the unrestricted submarine warfare of the Germans turned this type of ship into the most suitable product. Obviously, the MacDonald consortium had long been prepared for the Germans to launch an unrestricted submarine war, and even the Germans had MacDonald's black hand behind them, after all, MacDonald's research on submarines was also world-renowned. As a British official, he also knew that the MacDonald consortium and the Germans had always had technical cooperation and business dealings. Until now, it has been so. He also knew that it would take time to develop such a ship, but he was afraid that MacDonald had been planning such black British money before the war.

But as an experienced diplomat, Woodgaard did not express these feelings, knowing that such things were actually common, and that the British themselves would not be more merciful than MacDonald when they encountered such an opportunity. Moreover, the MacDonald consortium has subscribed to a lot of British bonds, and if they want to provide such a large order, then they will also subscribe for more British bonds, which shows that in the big picture, the Macdonald consortium is still on the side of the British Empire, and it is worthy of being an old friend of the British Empire.

"Mr. MacDonald." "How quickly can such ships be built?" In addition, if you order in bulk, can you get a little more discount on the price? As you know, the economy of this kind of ship is not good, and the price is much higher than that of ordinary cargo ships. That doesn't make sense. ”

"Ah, sir, I don't think you've heard of such a phrase, have you? We in the United States have such a saying, called a dollar of money, a dollar of goods; Ten dollars for money, five dollars for goods. This means that the increase in performance and the increase in price are disproportionate. In order to achieve high speeds, it is necessary to use larger, more advanced and, of course, more expensive power equipment. It's a hard cost, and it's hard to bring it down. We also can't help but make money not. However, it occurred to me that if you were willing to give this kind of ship a discount on its useful life, then we could reduce the price to a similar level as a regular transport ship. Scrooge replied.

"Isn't that just cutting corners?" "In doing so, it becomes more and more uneconomically uneconomical to buy such a boat." ”

"No, no, sir, there's something wrong with your algorithm." Scrooge shook his head to correct his erroneous opinion, "First of all, even such a high-speed merchant ship cannot be without losses. Do you really think that these ships will be able to run in the war until their design life? How is this possible? In this case, an excessively long design life or something would have been a waste of luxury. Moreover, if we build such ships for long-term use, then they will not be easy to deal with after the end of the war. Isn't it? On the contrary, if we compress the service life in exchange for a decrease in price, when the war is over, whether we return them to the furnace or sell them to other countries at a low price, the loss is relatively small. So, I think my proposal makes a lot of sense. And when these requirements are relaxed, the speed of construction will also be greatly increased, and isn't this something you've been worried about? ”

"Mr. MacDonald, there's some truth to what you're saying." "So, in your opinion, how much faster can you build?" ”

"If the longevity requirements are relaxed, many parts can be purchased from more sources and in larger quantities. And there are many more companies that can provide such components than those that can provide high-quality components, so raw materials will not become a bottleneck in production, and many processes can also be simplified, so that the construction speed of the whole ship can be one-third faster than that of ordinary ships, and if you are willing to give up high speed, the construction time can also be compressed to one-half of that of ordinary ships. Scrooge replied.

Woodgad's eyes lit up when he heard this answer, and he knew that the speed at which transport ships could be built was of great significance to a war situation. However, he did not have the power to make a decision immediately, so he said to Scrooge: "Mr. MacDonald, this is a big deal, and I need a little time to contact the country." After three days, can I give you an answer? ”