After taking out Cunningham's mobile fleet outside the Strait of Gibraltar, Hannah left two cruisers behind to cooperate with the submarine force to blockade the South Atlantic, and then she led the rest of her capital ships westward to join Lynn Han, who was breaking up in the Atlantic. In the past, the German Navy did not dare to send a few cruisers to carry out such a blockade mission, but now that the British mobile fleet has been almost completely wiped out and the ports along the French coast have been obtained, the freedom of action of the German Navy has been greatly increased.

Before Hannah's main fleet and Linhan's detachment could rendezvous, they stopped a British fleet that was being pursued by Linhan's detachment.

It was a large fleet of forty merchant ships, escorted by one aircraft carrier and one battleship Arkansas, plus six destroyers. After learning that the German capital ships had crossed the Faro-Iceland waterway into the Atlantic, the British group sailing in the Atlantic changed course and prepared to make a detour from the southern British ports to avoid the German raiders.

However, the movement of this group was discovered by German submarines scattered in the Atlantic. Changing course, although they temporarily avoided the attack fleet led by Lin Han, they were blocked by the main fleet led by Hannah. The battle took place on 3 August, and after a fierce battle, the battleship Arkansas and another escort carrier and several destroyers were lightly sunk, and the remnants of the merchant ships scattered and fled, and then were pursued like rabbits by German ships. 、

In the process of pursuit, this ship group encountered the detachment led by Lin Han who went south, and it can be said that the house was in the middle of the night's rain, and only seven of the forty merchant ships finally returned to the British Isles, and the rest were sunk by naval guns, and some were captured by the Germans. A small number of lands were attacked by German submarines, and the tonnage of merchant ships lost in two days exceeded 300,000 tons.

The loss of this merchant fleet was broadcast to Britain by Germany on the "Deutsche Welle" program the next night, which immediately caused a great panic in Britain. In addition to carrying a large amount of arms imported from the United States, this cargo ship also contained minerals and other military supplies urgently needed by the British, and the losses were extremely huge.

And even more, since this formidable German fleet was now blocked in the Atlantic. Impact on maritime shipping in the British Isles. It was as if a 10-wheeled truck had been crammed into a two-way street, and sea shipping outside Britain was almost completely cut off.

In June, when France surrendered, panic abounded in the British Isles, but in the past July, because the Luftwaffe had no intention of actively bombing Britain, and there was no sign of the German Navy gathering ships to prepare for the landing on the eastern coast of the English Channel, British civilians had the illusion that "we are safe".

Historically, during World War II, Britain was forced to use a wartime system to plan rationing of domestic supplies. Although there is a shortage of materials on the market, in fact, the lives of civilians are far from "hungry and cold". Interestingly, after the war, people compared the nutritional intake of British civilians in different periods in the ten years before and after the war, but the British average nutritional intake during World War II was the best - the specific reason is that the food supply of civilians in Britain at that time was controlled by the state, rationed supply, and dietary standards were controlled by dietitians. In the case of shortage of materials in the market. If you don't eat, you can only go hungry, and picky eaters have no choice. It can be seen that the food supply in Britain at that time was far from exhausting.

Dönitz's Seawolf though brought huge losses to the British shipping industry. But the British shipbuilding industry has a production capacity of close to six million tons a year, while the United States has a capacity of eight million tons. Historically, in 1940 and 1941, the British lost about 2 million tons of tonnage, reaching a peak of 6.96 million tons in 1942, 2.2 million tons in 1943, and after 1944. With the rapid development of anti-submarine technology and the decline of Germany's national power, the losses plummeted to less than 500,000 tons.

This plane is different, the German shipbreaker added surface warships, and under the threat of surface warships, British merchant ships faced two embarrassments. When organizing a group escort operation. Therefore, the losses from submarine attacks can be greatly reduced, but once they are intercepted by the surface breaking fleet, it is often a one-pot consequence. Separately, it is the favorite prey of the German sea wolves.

Under such circumstances, every time a German surface ship rushed into the Atlantic to break diplomatic relations, the loss of the British shipping industry was to turn upwards at a geometric rate. After the departure of the Shane sisters from the port of Oslo on 20 July, the British shipping industry lost more than 700,000 tons of cargo ship tonnage throughout the month of July. Only a few days by the beginning of August, the tonnage of the ships lost was a terrifying 350,000 tons.

This is an extremely frightening figure, and at this rate, it will be very difficult to compensate for this huge loss of shipbuilding capacity in the United Kingdom and the United States combined. What is even more disturbing is that about one-third of the lost cargo ships were directly captured by the Germans. The intangible losses brought about by the direct "financing of the enemy" with the goods carried by the ship are several times the losses caused by the direct sinking.

After the end of the French campaign, due to the annihilation of the expeditionary force, the British army lacked heavy equipment and had to import a large amount of it to the United States. The orders placed in May and the equipment shipped in July happened to reach the ship's regiment, but they were stopped by the German Navy. Most of the munitions in the regiment were either sunk or captured by the enemy.

On the night of August 4, on the battleship Scharnhorst, Lin Han and Hannah were very happy when they looked at the list of captures that had gathered from each ship.

The list included a large number of spare parts for a total of 120 P39 Flying Snake fighters, and this ship alone was enough to arm an air division. Sixty 105-mm howitzers, forty 155-mm heavy cannon howitzers, and eighty M2 tanks, and this batch of army munitions is enough for an artillery division and half an armored division.

In addition, there are a large number of crude non-ferrous metal ores and fuel oil, in addition to several ships of American flour, canned food, frozen beef, etc., which can be described as a great harvest, not to mention the value of the captured freighters themselves.

Hannah said with a little regret: "It's a pity that these American equipment and my country's armament system are not too common." ”

The staff officer of the company said to Hannah: "The problem is not very big, we took this into account when we rearmament back then. Army use, newly developed 155-mm grenade. At that time, the design was based on the specifications and sizes of the French Schneider M1929 shells, and like theirs, the two shells were completely interoperable. And Schneider 1928 and the American M1 are in the same vein, the bloodline is very close, and the specifications of the shells are not much different, after shooting those shells. This batch of artillery can be directly fired at our shells after a little return to the factory for transformation. ”

When Germany rearmament, Hannah and Hitler eliminated the caliber of 150 mm from active service in the German army early, taking into account the factor of "capture" after the French campaign. Schneider, the main heavy gun of the French Army, is 155 mm, and the American M1 is a "relative" relationship with similar blood and imitation of each other. The development of the new 155-mm heavy cannon was based on the versatility of artillery shells captured after a great victory in the French campaign.

Lin Han on the side stretched out a hand to contact Hannah, so as to put forward his opinion in a heart-to-heart way: "P39 Flying Snake, this is a low-altitude fighter, which has been highly evaluated by the Soviet Red Army in history, and is very suitable for the battlefield on the Eastern Front. However, on the Western Front and in Asia, the table is very bad. Britain and the United States themselves have low evaluations. In Lin Han's opinion, the P39 Flying Snake fights, and its cockpit canopy can be modified to be handed over to attack aircraft units, and can also be used to support the Italians. (Note: The design of the P39 Flying Snake is very different, the canopy does not open upwards, but can be opened on both sides like a car door, which is very dangerous when skydiving.) If the pilot is not careful, he will be cut in half by the wing, which can be called a "pit dad". And its engine is mounted in the belly of the fuselage instead of the nose. It's a nightmare for ground crew. The specific situation, everyone go to Baidu by themselves, and "P39 Flying Snake" will not write much)

When it came to Italy, Lin Han shook his head vigorously and wanted to laugh. After the end of the French campaign, Mussolini tried to stir up trouble in Africa many times, but the pressure from Germany had to give up. At that time, Hitler, played by Hannah Jr., expressed his distrust of the Italian army's combat effectiveness to Mussolini in a meeting with Mussolini. At that time, little Hannah persuaded Mussolini, who wanted to restore the glory of the Roman Empire, to send troops to Greece on the border to "test the waters".

As a result, in July, the Italian army launched an attack on Florina, Vauvusa, and Ioannina on three fronts. Advance 50~60 km to the south. The Greek army took advantage of the favorable terrain in the mountains to resist stubbornly, and the battle has not been won or lost until now. Although the Italians were superior in terms of aircraft, tanks, and artillery, the Italians did not look good on the battlefield, and they were barely able to maintain the balance of power despite their superiority.

In their hearts, Lin Han and Hannah hoped that the Italians would fight a longer war of aggression against Greece. It is easy to divide the hearts of the Italians, and save this noodle with a low eye and can't help but want to do it in North Africa, so that the oil fields of Libya will be very dangerous.

After a few minutes of distraction on what to do with the captured American equipment, Hannah turned her attention back to the British.

Hannah ordered Raeder:

"The position of the last three British warships, are they still shrunk in the Irish Sea?"

In yesterday's battle, the German Navy sank the battleship Neckense, which was escorting the group, and now the British Navy had only three more battleships left.

July to August is an extremely important two months for Germany. The German Navy poured out of the nest this time, which was to take the initiative to seek war.

Before the war, the German Naval Staff set three campaign objectives: the destruction of diplomatic relations and the annihilation of the Cunningham fleet, and these two campaign objectives were achieved. And the third campaign goal is to "hit the door".

For a long time, the British have relied on the world's first navy, and have always had self-confidence in the local coastal defense for hundreds of years. The German navy's idea was to launch an attack from the other side of British territory, near the Atlantic, on the way back, and the best target for attack was the British battleships placed here.

After the German Navy seized the Faroe Islands after the Third Battle of the Norwegian Sea and established a land-based airfield on the main island of Tórs, Scapa Bay, where the British Navy monitored an important base in the North Atlantic, was already within the radius of German aircraft attack, with the result that the base was now almost an airport, and with the exception of smaller ships, the larger ships would hardly anchor there.

In order to evade the air raids of German land-based aircraft, the three remaining capital battleships of the British Navy are now berthed at ports on the Atlantic side, and their main tasks are to escort the Atlantic ship group.

Raeder knew what Hannah wanted to ask, and replied to her: "According to the latest information, the Nevada is still in Liverpool and has not been dispatched, and the intelligence of the Oklahoma the day before yesterday is in Bristol Bay." The whereabouts of the Owymin are unknown. ”

"The British aren't stupid!"

Lin Han sighed. According to the operational policy formulated by the German Navy, it originally wanted to take advantage of the characteristics of aircraft carriers as mobile airfields at sea after dismantling the Cunningham fleet, and cooperate with the ship's ability to seek the enemy, take advantage of the darkness to avoid the British troops, and then quietly approach the port where the warships are stationed to launch a sneak attack. However, the British, who knew how to use aircraft carriers to attack the French fleet, obviously also understood the operational characteristics of aircraft carriers and had long been prepared for this.

Raeder added: "I can only pin my hopes on the "Blackfish". It's August, and the sea is already warm and good for action, so hopefully this time it will be a good one. ”

The Blackfish, which Raeder was referring to during the Chinese Civil War, is an underwater delivery device similar to a human-operated torpedo that can send hundreds of kilograms of explosives to the underside of the target for blasting. When it first appeared during the Chinese Civil War, he successfully blew up the cruiser Dinghai to the bottom of the river.

Special operations are the most popular means used by traversers, and Lin Han and Li Huamei also love to use special operations to solve problems. But Hannah, on the other hand, doesn't like to pin her qiē on this kind of combat style with a lot of randomness. As the water temperature in the Atlantic Ocean rises, the German Navy has also developed a special operation plan to attack British seaports using small submarines or small underwater maneuvers such as Blackfish.

Due to the wrong "position" of the British capital ship, Hannah finally regretfully abandoned the battle plan of destroying the British warships in the port with the help of carrier-based aircraft, and finally only used the night to shell some of the port facilities on the British side near the Atlantic, so as to put a few more straws on the British camel that was about to be overwhelmed by the burden.

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