At 6:11 a.m. on 1 December, the British high-speed fleet was under siege by the German assault fleet, and was in a state of collapse.

In the face of the all-night attack of the German capital ships, the cruiser formation of the Royal Navy paid a heavy price in order to save the heavily damaged Counterattack.

Before the war, there were six heavy cruisers and thirteen light cruisers in the high-speed fleet, but by dawn, only ten cruisers remained in the entire fleet that could still float on the water, and a full nine cruisers had been torn apart and sunk by the opponent in the confrontation with the battleships last night.

Of the ten cruisers that survived, only half were in good condition, two heavy cruisers and three light cruisers, and had a chance to escape from the battlefield at great speed. The remaining one heavy patrol and four light cruisers were all in a half-dead and half-crippled state.

The fate of the cruisers and battleships on the front of the "hard anal" was undoubtedly evident in last night's battle.

The captain of the Counterattack, who realized that he had made a big mistake, only then woke up like a dream and forced the five cruisers in good condition to flee from the battlefield, while he himself was "broken" with five seriously injured friendly ships.

At this time, after galloping all night, the main fleet of the Royal Navy, more than 70 kilometers away, was risking to forcibly release all its aircraft from the aircraft carrier to prepare for air support. Hannah, who had scanned the situation, also ordered the two Zeppelin-class aircraft carriers that were cruising 40 kilometers northeast of the British high-speed fleet to release carrier-based fighters to intercept them.

The battlefield between the two sides is close to 65 degrees north latitude, and the sun does not rise above sea level until about 6:55 a.m. in the Norwegian Sea in December. The German ships that flew in the dark, like the British, lit up the lights on the aircraft carriers. Release the aircraft in such a way that the entire ship is lit up to illuminate the sea. Because of the unscientific existence of the soul of the ship, the Germans knew that there were no British submarines near their ships, and they would not be afraid of a sneak attack by British submarines when they flew the planes.

Unlike the British aircraft carriers, which first released attack aircraft and then slower fighters, the German aircraft carriers released the HE112E carrier-based fighters first.

Major Fafnier was the first to take off from the deck of an aircraft, and the aircraft carrier Zeppelin, which he was in, had entered the dockyard for the last renovation before the start of the war, and the beveled deck was added to the pre-reserved position, which greatly improved the combat efficiency of take-off and landing.

Unlike the British combat mission, the task of the German aircraft carrier was first and foremost to intercept the British carrier-based aircraft that were about to come to the rescue.

In standard combat condition. The USS Zeppelin has twenty-six carrier-based fighters (two of which are in reserve). The aircraft carrier Seydlitz, due to its modification of the Zegrin, has three more aircraft and thirty fighters. In the previous two months of fighting, because of the accident. Both ships lost one fighter each.

When the British main fleet, which was more than 100 kilometers away, took off all the carrier-based aircraft that could be dispatched. The German side also released all the fighters that could take off in batches. And then there were attack aircraft loaded with torpedoes and bombs.

In total, fifty-four HW112Es were released to intercept the British's attack aircraft group.

Because the earth is spherical, the sea is still dark, and it flies into the air above a kilometer. But he could already see half of the sun's head peeking through a small corner of the eastern horizon.

In the sky, where the sky is still not very bright, it is not easy to find the British group of aircraft taking off from the opposite side with the naked eye, but under the premise of "human radar", this is not a problem.

The German fleet was also equipped with four radars "in one more move" to carry out the attack mission, but due to various factors such as bad weather and battle damage, only one of the four radars in the fleet is currently working normally. Although Germany attaches great importance to the development of radar because of the factor of traversers, it is subject to the limitations of current technology, and the only radar that can work is still not as effective as Lin Han's "human radar" in guiding the combat of take-off fighters.

At the same time, the German assault ships, which were preparing to launch a fourth attack on the disabled British fleet, were changing their formation and turning into a circular anti-aircraft formation. On the scene, the distance between them and the battered and crippled British fleet was about twenty-five kilometers. The six remaining British ships were already dry bones in the grave, and it was too late to kill them later. The biggest advantage of the German navy, which has a human radar, is that it has the advantage of one-way transparency on the battlefield in this naval battle, and it has the initiative and priority in the battle.

On the HE112E fighter with the number "117" painted on the fuselage with the striking Chinese character "鶸", Major Fafnier turned on the transistor radio on the plane. Both the Air Force and the Navy love this Iris very much. Siemens radio produced by Tifa and Siemens. Compared with the bulky and old tube radio that needs to be pre-executed before use, the transistor radio is only one-fifth of its weight, and does not need to be powered on to warm up, it can be used directly when the switch is turned on, and the power consumption is also very saving, which is the most popular auxiliary equipment for pilots.

Before takeoff, the fighter units of the German aircraft carriers were informed that they would intercept the British fighters that were flying in the direction of the fleet, guided by the ship's radar. Similar tactics of radar-guided aviation operations, which they have fought many times in the past days, are no strangers to Colonel Fafnier.

"Today, I must shoot down a few more planes, get more crashes, and get more bonuses, so that when I return to Kiel, I can have the money to go to the port bar to spend money!"

Major Fafnier turned on the switch on the communication radio and smiled inwardly to encourage himself. Because of the secret tricks of some evil fellow who claimed to be a god, poor Major Fafnier's monthly salary was put into his wife's account by the whole army, so he was always troubled by the shyness of his pocket, and could only earn some pocket money for himself by shooting down enemy planes.

Almost at the same time, more than a hundred kilometers away, on a gladiator fighter waiting to take off on the aircraft carrier Glory, Captain Douglas also turned on the same model of Siemens communication radio.

Captain Douglas said to Siemens Radio cordially in his heart:

"Fortunately, our captain didn't let go last month, otherwise I would have almost lost you."

This transistor radio was exported to England by the Germans before the war.

Two years ago, Germany overcame the difficulty of mass production of transistors. Electronics, mainly transistors, became Germany's most important export. Because of its small size, light weight, good sound quality, and low power consumption, it has been welcomed all over the world as soon as it was listed, and the old vacuum tube radio and radio have almost been pushed to a dead end.

In order to better deal with the British tube industry, Germany deliberately dumped transistor products at lower prices in Britain, and even German-made crystal tube radios were purchased in large quantities by the British navy and army.

After the Anglo-German war, the supply of transistors from Germany was cut off, and soon the British front-line troops, especially the aviation units, were cut off. After the transistor stations in the stock were massively depleted with the loss of aircraft in air combat. There was an embarrassment that there was no radio available.

It is not that Britain cannot produce relatively poor tube radios, but in the past two years, the British tube industry has been almost cornered by German transistors, and even military communication equipment has purchased a large number of high-quality products from Germany. So much so that the domestic tube industry was almost starved to death. The consequence of this was that before the start of the war in 1939. The capacity of the tube industry in the UK has been greatly reduced.

At that time, the British people of insight were not unaware of the danger of this kind of communication equipment technology being monopolized by Germany. It's just that their solution is to put all their money into developing Britain's own transistor technology.

Their ideas can't be wrong, from a long-term perspective, the crystal tube is the development direction of electronic technology. But technological progress is a step-by-step process. It can only be grown by eating one bite at a time. In order to light up the "science and technology tree" of mass production transistors, Hannah has spent nearly ten years of hard work in the preparation of theoretical knowledge, and the investment of time, money, and manpower is astronomical. Without the upgrading and progress of the entire industrial chain, it is impossible to produce output in two years of investment. What's more, the German side kept the manufacturing process of transistors strictly secret, and even the theory of its manufacture was tightly sealed.

In the past two years, the British have invested a lot of research funds in the research of transistors, although they have made some achievements, but there are still several years of "distance" from the mass production of transistors, but because of this, the upgrading of the existing electron tube technology has been delayed, and the gains in a short period of time are not worth the losses, and the war broke out in this interval.

The transistor radio on Captain Douglas's landline was also imported from Germany before the war, and British pilots applauded it after it was used. Unlike the Royal Air Force, which was battling planes over France and the Luftwaffe and constantly losing pilots and airborne transistor radios, naval aviation still retained a large number of transistor radios imported before the war because of the lack of war.

Due to the lack of production capacity of the tube stations in the rear and the unpopularity of the pilots, the Royal Air Force, which was fighting the Germans in the air over France, turned the idea to the navy in order to replace the missing transistor stations.

Although the naval aviation is a father and mother in the Royal Navy, it still has its own dignity, from top to top, it will not let go of the transistor radio in his hand, so Captain Douglas will send such a joy in his heart when he turns on the on-board transistor radio before the attack.

The performance of the gladiator fighter is already backward, and if it is replaced by a bulky vacuum tube radio, the performance will only be worse after adding twenty or thirty kilograms of weight.

"The performance of the aircraft is the life of the pilot, and whoever dares to steal my radio station will want my life."

Captain Douglas vomited in his heart, and as the air traffic control on the aircraft carrier issued the command to allow take-off, after seeing the air traffic control personnel waving small flags and making take-off gestures, he flew off the deck with the backward gladiator fighter and chased the Swordfish attack plane that had taken off earlier.

"Near the battlefield a hundred kilometers away, there must be a German aircraft carrier."

Before taking off the plane, this was already a definite opinion in the minds of the main fleet. It's just that the high-speed fleet can't wait. After learning of the heavy losses of the high-speed fleet, the commander of the Phillips fleet was now a little at a loss, and was in a state of disregard for headaches and foot pains. Now his eyes only want to rely on the carrier-based aircraft that have taken off from his own side, and severely damage those German battleships that have been exposed in advance, so as to make up for his previous mistakes.

At 6:25 a.m., all the carrier-based aircraft on the three British aircraft carriers had been released, and the distance between the main fleet and the German attack fleet was still more than 100 kilometers away.

A torpedo-mounted Swordfish attack aircraft. The maximum flight speed was less than 160 kilometers per hour, and the gladiator fighters escorting it could only maintain this speed. From the position of its take-off to the position of the German fleet, even if it did not get lost, it would take more than forty minutes to fly at the fastest to find the opponent.

At 6:55, when the sun peeked out from the sea level in the east, and two thousand meters in the air, the cockpit was already baptized by the golden sunlight, feeling the heat of the sun, Captain Douglass instinctively turned his head to look behind him. At the same time, he reported to his teammates on the communicator: "Watch behind you. Prevent the Germans from sneaking up from behind. ”

This is one of the "lessons of blood" that naval aviation transmitted back from the Royal Air Force during the Chinese intervention war in 1935. At that time, the mysterious Chinese Air Force, with the support of the "radar technology" provided by the Germans, mastered the advantage of one-way transparency in the air combat battlefield. In air battles, it is often cut into the battlefield from behind the Royal Air Force. Take advantage of it. British pilots who left a deep psychological shadow. Nowadays, when flying, I always look behind me from time to time.

Almost as Douglas turned his head and gave the command, there was a sudden cacophony in the Brawler's communication system. It was the screams of the pilots of the fighter unit behind the Highness.

"112 has appeared, damn it, it's six o'clock!"

"Hell, how did they show up so accurately!"

On the battleship Nelson, 70 kilometers away, the commander of the fleet also heard the exclamations of the pilots sent to support the navy through the German Siemens communicator imported from the ship. That feeling of exclamation and panic made the captains of the fleet who had participated in China's intervention war recall once again the extremely bad memories of being in China four years ago.

At this time, over the Norwegian Sea, a HE112E fighter is singing while fighting.

"You (me) are a little bird!"

"But I can't always fly high! (Fly out of my wife's palm)"

On the "117" fighter plane, Major Fafnier hummed his own modified "Song of the Catfish". This song was written for him by the Saphiroslav god Lin Han after news of domestic violence broke, and it is said that Fafnir beat the "fierce bird of the air" while singing this song. The song is very popular among his comrades who know him, and he often jokes about it with Fafnier (of course, he changed the lines of the song when Fafnier hums it now), while easily biting his tail from behind, blowing up the first gladiator fighter, and then easily catching up with another gladiator who was about to react, and continuing to fire. By his side, fifteen HE112 aircraft were doing something similar to him.

And behind them, sixteen HE112s are rushing eight hundred meters away, about to launch a second wave of attacks. As for the third wave of interceptor fighters, they were flying head-on two kilometers directly in front of the British group.

It was a well-planned ambush, with the one-way transparency advantage of the battlefield and the absolute superiority of fighter performance German naval aviation, which turned this air battle into a carnage from the very beginning, and there will be no suspense about the outcome of the battle.

After biting his tail from behind and blowing up the second gladiator, Colonel Fafnier did not continue to pursue the rest of the gladiator fighters who had reacted, but instead turned his attention to the slower Swordfish attack aircraft in the British fleet, ready to pick up soft persimmons to pinch. The British escort fighters were obsolete three years ago, and with the fact that they had lost the lead again, they had no advantage in numbers, and now they were completely slaughtered by German fighters.

"In front of my fierce birds in the air, you are all cattle!"

Humming the song of the cattle, Major Fafnir happily brushed the fall. He decided that he would have to get at least five results in today's air battle, so that he could ask the captain or fleet commander for more downfall bonuses, so that he would have private money to treat guests to drink flowers and wine when he returned to Kiel Harbor.

In the communicator, he laughed loudly as he pursued, and his spirits were excited: "Just like when I was in Shanghai a few years ago, it was another happy duck massacre!" ”

Before the sun rose over the horizon on 1 December, the air battle, which took place at an altitude of more than 3,000 meters, ended in a crushing defeat for British naval aviation. Encountering an ambush by a German fighter group against a British aircraft group, a large number of escort fighters were lost in the first place, and the Swordfish attack planes sent were forced by German fighters to either abandon their airborne torpedoes. In the end, only a few lucky ones escaped the interception of the German fighters and flew over the German fleet, but because the torpedoes they were carrying before that had already been abandoned in the flight, the only thing they could do was to risk being shot down and sweep a few harmless bullets on the deck of the German warship, and then be shot down by the ship's Bofors anti-aircraft guns like a wild duck.

After the failure of air support, the fate of the six warships in the British high-speed fleet that was heavily damaged was quickly decided. The five British cruisers that were forced to withdraw early by the captain of the Counterattack were not easy to escape.

The planes flown by the German aircraft carriers were divided into three groups, aimed at three different targets.

The fighter unit concentrated on dealing with the attack aircraft group that took off from the British aircraft carrier.

Dive bombers and torpedo aircraft, attack aircraft. The soldiers are divided into two ways. Along the way, he helped the surface fleet "replenish the guns" of the badly wounded and dying British ships, while another group of attack aircraft concentrated on the five cruisers that had escaped by night.

The five British cruisers that had fled earlier fled in the direction of the main fleet. At seven-ten-point, when visibility at sea was restored to a suitable position for torpedo and dive bombers to enter the battle. Sixty-four torpedo planes and dive bombers from the Zeeglin and Seydlitz flew over the cruiser.

The British cruisers at this time and the main fleet were not even forty kilometers away. When the German fighters finished their attack and retreated. They could even see the light smoke coming out of each other's warship chimneys.

Sixty-four planes, surrounded by two heavy cruisers and three light cruisers, were bombing with dives and torpedo attacks. More than ten minutes later, when the German fighters finished dropping their bombs, released their torpedoes, and strafed their bullets, they slapped their butts and left. The five cruisers that escaped ahead of schedule were all covered in smoke and their hulls were shattered, and none of them were intact.

In the end, of the five cruisers, of the two heavy cruisers, only the lucky heavy cruiser Exeter returned to Scapa Bay with a serious injury, and its friendly ship, the heavy cruiser York, although it was able to manage the damage well at that time to keep the warship from sinking immediately, but because of the serious injuries, it was aggravated by a storm in the process of returning home, and finally sank at sea about 300 kilometers away from Scapa Bay.

The remaining three light cruisers each received two to five 500-kilogram armor-piercing bomb shells, two were sunk and one was seriously damaged, and only one light cruiser, the Birmingham, returned to Scapa Bay with a lot of scars.

From the beginning of the battle at two o'clock in the morning on December 1 to the end of the morning at half past seven in the morning, the German assault fleet almost completely annihilated the high-speed fleet of the British Royal Navy, and three battle cruisers, six heavy cruisers, and thirteen light cruisers participated in the battle, and in the end only one heavy cruiser and one light cruiser survived, which can almost be called completely annihilated.

But the Germans, who had won an unprecedented victory, did not stop there.

On the same day, after receiving all the released carrier-based aircraft, the German attack fleet took advantage of its high speed to leave the battlefield and avoid the approaching British main fleet.

Commander Phillips, who suffered a crushing defeat, was never able to adjust his mentality, and still refused to give up and was hung behind him to chase the German fleet, not knowing that his gambler's mentality would only lead his fleet to the depths of hell.

Relying on the advantage of speed and the cover of late night, by 2 December, the distance between the German raid ships and the main fleet of the British Navy had been extended to as much as 160 kilometers.

Taking advantage of the weakness of the Royal Navy's only three aircraft carriers, which had been largely depleted, the German assault fleet turned around and killed another at seven o'clock in the morning of 2 December.

This time, they targeted the aircraft carriers in the main fleet, and more than 120 planes took off from the two aircraft carriers, and launched two waves of offensives one after another on the same day, sinking the aircraft carriers Glory and Brave at the cost of six planes being shot down and more than 10 planes being wounded, and severely damaging the Athletic God, once again achieving a great victory.

At this time, the German attack fleet had won successive victories in successive battles, and the self-sustaining power of the warships and the physical strength of the crews had reached the limit. After the war, the German ships did not entangle with the British fleet again, and after relying on the advantage of speed to get rid of the Royal Navy, which had been cut and blooded, they began their return journey at full speed, and finally returned to the German port of Kiel through the Danish Strait on December 7. (To be continued......)