A round of red sun slowly rises from the junction of the sea and sky in the east, and the glow of the sun shines brightly.

German Admiral Coren stood on the towering bridge and watched happily at the rising sun in the east; Cushioned by the clouds, the dazzling light has softened and allowed him to enjoy a spectacular view of the North Atlantic at sunrise.

Looking around, more than 30 merchant ships of various sizes were slowly sailing westward at a speed of 10 knots; The stern of the ship stirs up a rippling white wake, which stands out against the blue sea.

Like the two heavy cruisers, four destroyers, and four anti-submarine frigates escorting the ship, the chimneys of these merchant ships are only faint wisps of green smoke.

Long before the last war, the diesel engine, which directly converts the internal energy of the fuel into mechanical energy, has been widely popular: compared with the traditional steam power, the diesel engine has an incomparable advantage in fuel consumption, and can greatly increase the endurance of the ship with the same fuel load.

Although the weight disadvantage of diesel engines over steam power at high power and the reduction of steam turbine consumption by the continuously improved cruising turbine made the German Navy warships pursuing combat performance finally choose traditional steam power, this mature revolutionary technology did not fade away, but found its rightful home on civilian merchant ships.

As Germany gained access to the oil fields of the Middle East and Baku, diesel engines became the mainstay of German merchant ships with their extremely low fuel consumption, and in a sense, these cargo merchant ships played a role in the current German-American war.

Even more important than those well-crafted naval warships!

The blades are flying, the machinery is neighing, and in the bright morning sun, a war eagle sprayed with an iron cross logo leisurely streaks across the clear blue sky.

However, this aircraft is not an AR-196 seaplane with two large pontoons with landing gear.

Rather, it was the Do-22 torpedo machine, which was widely carried on fleet aircraft carriers.

When carrying a 450 mm aviation torpedo, this type of fighter needs a long taxi distance of 150 meters to take off normally; Even a 25-meter seaplane catapult equipped on a battleship would never have been able to send it into the air!

Colonel Cologne's gaze swept over the fleet, and finally stopped on one of the tall freeboard ships.

In terms of ship size, it is no different from an ordinary 10,000-ton fast merchant ship, and the 7:1 aspect ratio is slightly slim.

But it's still not uncommon.

However, its superstructure is very different from that of ordinary merchant ships.

The 140-metre-long deck is flat, and the barrage and catapults are visible from the aerial net; The command bridge that rises above starboard and a rotating anti-aircraft detection radar show its undoubted identity as an aircraft carrier, the core arm of the navy.

Half a year ago, in response to the threat that the US Navy could pose to the German Atlantic routes.

Qingying specifically asked the Navy to build a low-end aircraft carrier dedicated to escort ships according to the construction standards of merchant ships; After some urgent formulation of the plan, the first batch of 6 "Emden"

The class of escort aircraft carriers was handed over to the Navy two months earlier in February 1938.

This type of aircraft carrier is converted from a first-class cruise ship under construction, and the standard displacement after service is 8,200 tons; Driven by 4 diesel engines totaling 9000 hp, the top speed is 19.

5 knots, with a cruising range of up to 1 when loading 1 thousand tons of diesel.

60,000 nautical miles / 12 knots.

And the most valuable thing is its carrying capacity, its hangar can squeeze 31 carrier-based aircraft with folded wings, even in terms of quantity, this type of aircraft carrier is worth the entire aviation capacity of 10 battleships and heavy cruisers combined.

When this ship named "Nymph"

from the first day the escort aircraft carrier joined the fleet.

Colonel Cologne, who was on patrol on the Hanover, felt the unprecedented increase in the safety of the fleet.

The 11 fighters, 10 bombers, and 10 torpedo planes on board took turns to cover the more than 300 kilometers of sea around the fleet. Compared with the original situation in the fleet, where there were only six seaplanes carried by two heavy cruisers, the blind spot in the air reconnaissance has undoubtedly been greatly filled.

In addition to encountering bad weather that is really impossible to fly the fighter plane.

The Nymph provided a tight daytime reconnaissance for the fleet, and the results were undoubtedly very gratifying.

In the past few days, six US submarines have been forced to dive under gunfire and bomb attacks from their own carrier-based aircraft, and their positions when they dived were more than 100 nautical miles away from their own fleet!

Although the German anti-submarine pilots were still somewhat unaccustomed to the new anti-submarine method of dropping sonar buoys and then dropping depth charges based on radio feedback, they did not sink the US submarine in the two battles in which they were attacked.

But the underwater safety of the fleet has been ensured like never before.

Judging from the distance between the two sides and the relative speed of the submarine when it was diving, these US submarines have lost the opportunity to attack this fleet forever.

On the Atlantic route of more than 3,000 nautical miles.

Its own cargo fleet was unimpeded, and 200,000 tons of munitions and supplies and nearly 4,000 officers and seamen did not suffer any losses.

There are still three days to go.

The fleet would be able to reach the eastern Caribbean, which was still a few days away from its target port in eastern Mexico, but the fact that it was completely within the Luftwaffe's radius of activity almost meant the safety of the fleet.

Facing the warm sea breeze blowing in his face, Coren quietly watched as one fighter plane after another leaped into the air from the deck of the Nymph, his eyes full of relief and joy.

In order to solve the problem of insufficient flight ability of low-end aircraft carriers due to short decks, this type of aircraft carrier is equipped with the latest steam catapult produced by the William Royal Institute, under the effect of this equipment, even a fully loaded torpedo plane can calmly rise into the air on this short deck.

In the next step, the German Navy is preparing to install this equipment on regular aircraft carriers, although its take-off speed is inevitably slower than normal taxiing, but once the flight deck of the unarmored part is blown up, the catapult can still make the aircraft carrier with a greatly shortened runway length have considerable attack aircraft flying ability.

However, Cologne's good mood did not last long, and after less than an hour, he suddenly saw a group of signal flags hoisted by the aircraft carrier Nymph not far away, and the flags flying on the ropes continued to increase.

A few minutes later, a staff officer flew up to the bridge and reported to him loudly: "Colonel, the reconnaissance plane has spotted the American fleet at a distance of 105 nautical miles in 32 directions, and it has been preliminarily determined that it is 2 large cruisers and 2 light cruisers; At present, the enemy is heading south-southeast at a speed of 15 knots! ”

"The American surface fleet actually appeared?"

Coren was shocked when he heard the news, and many thoughts instantly turned in his heart.

In view of the obvious differences between the warships of the Allied and U.S. navies in the shape of the bridge and the layout of the turrets, Cologne did not think that his own pilots would be worse than the difference in the identification of camps, not to mention that the German Navy did not have a light cruiser at all, and every naval pilot was very clear about this.

The credibility of the current reconnaissance intelligence is at least 80%, even if the pilots may have zài deviations in the judgment of the lineup, but the appearance of the enemy situation is a fact that can be determined!

"Signal the Nymph to immediately begin preparing the attack swarm; At the same time, the radar closely monitors the surrounding sea and air, and once it finds that an unknown aircraft is approaching, it will immediately release a fighter jet to intercept it! ”

Coren calmly responded.

With the advantage of aviation density, he discovered the incoming enemy forces at the first time, but the other party has not yet detected his traces, which is enough to understand from the course report of the enemy ship given by the pilot.

Next, he only needs to intercept the opponent's aerial reconnaissance, which is enough to ensure the absolute safety of the fleet under the enemy's guns.

Coren has absolute confidence in the latter point.

The other side without an aircraft carrier can only send seaplanes to conduct reconnaissance, and this kind of aircraft, which must be equipped with two huge empty barrels on the landing gear to meet the needs of surface landing, is much inferior to regular aircraft in terms of overall aerodynamic structure, and the direct consequence of this is that the speed, climb, and maneuverability are miserable.

In the face of this kind of enemy, your regular carrier-based fighters are fully capable of launching unparalleled stunts, and it is as easy to deal with them as chopping melons and vegetables!

While ensuring his own safety, Coren also has the ambition to further destroy the enemy ships: the opponent does not have any air umbrella, and his nearly 20 attack planes can launch attacks without any scruples.

This type of escort aircraft carrier was designed with anti-ship needs in mind, and the bombs and torpedoes on the ship were readily available, which was enough to inflict heavy damage on the incoming US warships, or even sink the opponent.

What's more, the escort fleet under his command is also a powerful force, and it will not be difficult to wait until the aircraft carrier attack is over to clean up the remnants of the enemy.

Soon, the situation on the battlefield became clear due to the great air superiority of the German fleet.

Two TA-152 fighters flew across the air and easily smashed the American seaplane into a pile of burning floats: with twice the speed and climb advantage, the German pilot could beat each other to the point of grandpa with his eyes closed.

Having dealt with their opponents, they hovered over the U.S. fleet, always reporting the position of the other side; In less than an hour, the first batch of 9 bombers appeared in the field of vision of the American fleet, and the anti-aircraft fire on several warships was obviously powerless to stop the impending deadly attack of the German pilots!

(To be continued) ps: Thank you for the monthly pass support of the heroes who passed by, bbklc, and the strange old monsters, and the rewards of Golden Crab and zhouyu1976~~~