"Dear Admiral Jericho, thank you for your trust and support in de Havilland. After months of hard work, we have designed and produced a top-notch torpedo attack aircraft for the British Empire's Grand Fleet, and with his appearance, the gunboats that once ruled the oceans for hundreds of years will become history, and this aircraft with an empty weight of less than 3 tons and a maximum landing weight of no more than 4 tons will take their place. Mr. de Havilland, who was in charge of receiving the special delegation of the Navy, said with great pride.

"We gave it the number de.h10. This is a torpedo machine improved from the bomber, and its biggest feature is that the range has been greatly improved compared with the previous aircraft, and its maximum internal oil reaches 215 gallons (some data actually say 196 gallons, but considering that the source of 215 gallons is Jane's magazine, and its aircraft has a variety of models, so the data of 215 gallons is temporarily used. It is equipped with two 12-cylinder liquid-cooled engines with a 400 hp. The maximum speed is 128 mph. The combat radius can reach about 400km. And this aircraft has a crew of 3...... One driver, one is responsible for releasing torpedoes and navigation, while the other can act as a machine gunner, which fully meets the requirements of the Navy. For this, we gave it a resounding name: Sailfish. ”。 …。

"Sailfish? The fastest torpedo in the sea, and also a deadly long snout. Aptly named, 128 miles is definitely high, faster than most fighter jets. And the torpedo hanging from the belly was also deadly. Very good. Jericho on the side looked at the behemoth with a wingspan of 65 feet and a length of more than 39 feet, and said with great satisfaction.

"What's your maximum production right now? How long will it take to supply enough Sailfish torpedo attack aircraft to equip 4 flying squadrons? Jericho asked with concern.

"This aircraft is actually an Air Force bomber. Under Secretary Churchill's care, we have received enough appropriations and engines, so in return for the support of the Navy, we can give priority to the Navy with a number of these aircraft, and we can just take the Air Force planes and modify them, and he will be able to do all the tasks you want to do, whether it's reconnaissance. Bombing or lightning strikes will do. De Havilland whispered. It turned out that de Havilland had specially improved a batch of Sailfish bombers intended for the Army into torpedo planes, and then supplied them to the Navy, of course, there would have been some behind-the-scenes dealings in doing such a thing. What Churchill did and how much benefit he gave, Jericho didn't care and couldn't do it. Now, he just needs to think about how to use these planes..........

The presence of aircraft does not mean that combat effectiveness can be formed. Don't say that it is compared with those torpedo machines that killed all sides in the 2nd World War in the later generations. Even if it's quite a long way off, it's still quite a long way off. Not to mention how to navigate a formation when it goes out, how to search for the enemy, how to guide the attack, how to form a torpedo when throwing, and what to do if the torpedo that is thrown down fails due to vibration? Don't underestimate throwing torpedoes. This is a technical job, how high the speed, how high the height to drop the torpedo are all particular, too high speed or too high altitude is very likely to cause torpedo damage, even if the torpedo is more solid. In case the torpedo is thrown into the water, the depth of entry into the water must also be considered, in case the torpedo is thrown into the water and the depth is too deep, it will not be possible to row directly from the bottom of the boat, or if the depth is too shallow and the main armor belt will collide.

How to use these aircraft effectively is definitely a rather difficult problem. Jericho and others don't understand this aspect, so they can only leave it to professionals to deal with. However, for this professional aviation lightning strike team, Jericho still attaches great importance to it. Give them the utmost convenience and confidentiality as much as possible. It was a hidden arrow, and Jericho thought if the German navy came close to the British mainland. Cooperate with land-based aviation once. The British have been shaded several times, and they can't be said if they don't get back to the field! …………。

As a result, the Royal Navy's first land-based aviation lightning strike group officially began to serve, and four groups were deployed at coastal airfields in southern Britain, and their daily task was to go out to find a target ship that had been towed to the sea by the Royal Navy, and then simulate a torpedo attack on these target ships. Many of the pilots had served in the Royal Air Force, some of them even well-paid veterans, who thought they could do just as much at sea with their skills, but soon discovered that there was a big gap between them at sea and on land.

Not to mention how to search for targets and navigate, these old birds are difficult. At that time, there was no full-fledged radio navigation, and it was mainly based on maps and ground markings. But there is nothing in the sea in the ocean. The topography is not at all, so it is completely dependent on the map and the looming islands in the distance. At the beginning, let's not talk about searching for enemies, the small team may not be able to find the way back, and the unlucky buddy will land directly at sea...... Decisively losing the plane, the lucky ones will choose to land on a farmland on land, and then wait for the truck to pull the plane back. In the current era of backward technology, there is no equipment to rely on, and the only thing that can be relied on is experience ..........

After a few months of training, it was finally guaranteed to fly back, and all that remained was search and guidance, and usually a large number of planes used to look for opponents were obviously unreliable, which was both laborious and inefficient. The best way is naturally to send reconnaissance planes to reconnoiter around, and then call friends and friends to go on the board after discovering the opponent, radio has been there for a long time, and it can be thrown on the plane when it comes to World War I, plus the Sailfish attack plane is three people, if you don't have a torpedo, you can just vacate one person to be responsible for controlling the radio.

There is no problem on the hardware device, but then the same problem arises, how to tell the exact location of the friendly enemy ship behind? Sometimes the reconnaissance plane can't even figure out its own location, so how can it tell others? It seems that we still need help from both land-based and sea-based. In the end, the British came up with a rather troublesome problem, that is, to deploy some ships equipped with radio lateral equipment in some fixed sea areas, and when they received the signal sent by the reconnaissance plane, the two ships simultaneously carried out a lateral direction to this target point, and then sent out the information, so that the two sides could determine a point, and this point should be the point of the aircraft. Not on the ship, there are also radio guidance and sideways devices on land, in short, regardless of the actual situation, let's build it and talk about it..........

When the torpedo attack fleet basically had the ability to search for enemy ships at a distance of about 150 km from the shore, the remaining lightning drills were put on the agenda. Every day, a flock of skua-like planes can be seen repeatedly firing torpedoes at target ships in a fixed sea area. Lightning strikes are to be formed in formation, and a single torpedo poses a very small threat to the battleship, and only when a group of aircraft forms a formation at the same time and then launches torpedoes together to form a network of firepower can finally threaten the opponent's battleship.

Because the aircraft has a limited load capacity. In World War II, those torpedoes that were more than 700kg at every turn obviously could not be installed on the current torpedo machine, and they could only use 500+kg to reduce the range of ordinary torpedoes, which means that the dynamic range of torpedoes is extremely short, and the effective range is even lower than 800 meters. It's okay during training, if it's an engagement, in the chaos of the battlefield, maybe it will be directly photographed by someone's anti-aircraft fire, or after throwing the torpedo, because of the sudden weight reduction, the maneuverability of the aircraft changes, and the pilot is not suitable and then directly crashes into it! In short, lightning strikes at this time are extremely dangerous.

Although in the face of immature technology, no examples, everything has to be explored by itself, and various dangers and accidents emerge one after another, but with the strong support of the Admiralty, this naval lightning strike team is still growing rapidly. Finally, after an assessment, Jericho believed that such a unit could be used as an important bargaining chip in naval warfare, so the naval land-based lightning strike team named Lightning officially declared its combat effectiveness. Of course, the specific effect depends on the actual combat performance in the future. …………。

The Royal Navy spent months preparing for this force. A large number of planes flew back and forth in the air every day, and sometimes there were torpedoes, and it was almost impossible to avoid everyone's eyes and ears. So soon after the British began training this air force, the Germans had already detected a hint of ominous omen in it. And when it was confirmed that the British planes could carry torpedoes was sent to Scheer's desk, the commander of the high seas fleet, who was ambitious and ready to fight the British, hesitated a little.

The movement of torpedo boats at sea at a speed of 30 knots could pose a certain threat to the battleship...... If a group of planes flying at a speed of about 100 knots or still moving in the air and can throw torpedoes attack in a group, the threat of a bunch of battleships will be great. The Germans have never done research on this, why? The reason is very simple, on the one hand, there are not so many aircraft, on the other hand, there is no strong enough engine, the maximum horsepower engine in Germany is less than 300 horsepower, but the British Empire has a super engine of 500 horsepower, and the German Navy does not have the conditions even if it wants to engage in torpedo machines!

But even if you don't have this ability. Even if I don't know whether this thing made by the British is easy to use, but with the sensitivity cultivated by years of fighting, Scheer realized that this kind of thing has at least a strong potential threat, as the saying goes, not afraid of 10,000 only in case, Scheer thought of what if the British really "succeeded" the German Navy? Don't end up making a fuss and before you can get into battle with the British High Seas Fleet, you will be sunk by torpedo planes first. It's not playable!. …。

"It seems that the air defense capability needs to be strengthened." I thought about it for a long time. Scheer decided to add a few more seaplane carriers and see if they could get planes to take off from the battleship, of course, this was still a long way from practicality, and the only air defense force that the Germans could rely on at present was the anti-aircraft fire of the seaplanes and the battleships themselves. So in addition to the 88mm anti-aircraft guns, the Germans decided to continue to add some 37mm guns and imitation large-caliber machine guns as anti-aircraft weapons.

Note: The historical de.h10 is not called a sailfish, here is a title made up by the author.

Thanks to the book friend zhouyu1976 and hukaikaka for the tip~~, and the book friend Haixiong Brother for the monthly pass support ~~~~