The sea breeze was blowing, the waves were rolling, and the U-19 submarine was almost completely submerged, leaving only half of the conning tower still looming on the surface of the sea. In order to achieve the highest level of concealment, the German submarines were painted in the same dark blue as the ocean, and it is difficult to spot these deadly wolves that blend in with the blue sea without a closer look.

Schultz holds a telescope and looks into the distance. Between the wisps of flying white clouds, a faint cloud of black soot has appeared. For every hunting submarine captain, it's a wonderful thing to see this scene on the vast sea: it means that the target is about to appear in front of him, and the reward for sinking them is handsome.

After determining the exact location of the soot, Schultz went back into the conning tower and locked the waterproof hatch tightly. Climbing down the ladder, he quickly returned to the inner cabin he was familiar with. With the splash of water, the whole submarine began to dive further, and after a short time, it was completely submerged and quietly dived with the power provided by its battery unit. Due to the difference in altitude of the observer, the sight range of the submarine is undoubtedly much smaller than that of any surface ship; For this reason, submarine commanders usually estimate the distance to the target based on the concentration of soot, and then start diving at a safe distance and sneak underwater to the ideal position for their ambush. If you want to wait for the target ship to be observed before diving, then the waves caused by the submarine sailing have already been noticed by the other side's lookout who is observing the situation from the towering mast!

The lights dimmed and the clocks ticked. In order to avoid the splash stirred up by the periscope, reveal their whereabouts. Instead of risking his observation of the sea, Scholz chose to put away the periscope and wait quietly in a closed submarine. For every officer and soldier who served on a submarine, this kind of patience has long been commonplace; They are like assassins dormant in the dark night, exchanging hours or even days of forbearance for the brilliance of that moment of explosion.

"Stop, raise the periscope!"

As the second hand of his pocket watch quietly passed the 40th circle, Schultz gave his first order after a long silence. After a while, the light in the periscope suddenly brightened, from a dead silence of deep blue. It becomes a pleasing scene with a sky dome, clouds, sunlight and waves. Schultz gripped the joystick. With a slight force of both hands, the periscope that surfaced quietly rotated. A gray-white ship shadow suddenly appeared in the periscope's field of vision. Although the target was still far away from himself, Schultz still recognized the identity of the other party at a glance. This must be a freighter!

The periscope continued to turn. Another dark gray merchant ship caught Schultz's eye; Black smoke rose from its chimney even thicker than the previous ship. It was probably the coal mist produced by the ship that attracted the U-19 to the sea. Seeing this, Schultz couldn't help but look forward to his future hunting trip. At the moment his submarine is only in the outermost part of the Gulf of Aden. Effortlessly, he found the traces of two merchant ships, and if he went deeper into the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, which was only 30 kilometers wide, how many more Allied merchant ships would line up and automatically send to his torpedo launches?

"Put away the periscope, course 132, speed 5, 20 minutes later raise the periscope again, the bow torpedo tube ready!" After a period of observation, he had roughly determined the speed, course, and bearing of the opponent through various scale instruments on the guò periscope, and made a preliminary maneuver to occupy the torpedo firing position. With this series of orders, the atmosphere inside the submarine suddenly became tense and lively, and the crew realized that a real battle unlike anything else was about to be staged in the Arabian Sea.

In this different atmosphere, time seems to pass a little faster; The two propellers in the tail of the submarine stopped, and the long periscope once again sneaked out of the sea. This time, Schultz was able to get a closer look at his prey. Painted grayish-white, merchant ships with a taller freeboard than any current surface gunboat; On the deck were a large number of crates, untold to be loaded with minerals, food, industrial materials, or other war materials. And on the bow of this standard-type merchant ship with a self-weight of more than 2,000 tons, it is not surprising that the British flag is fluttering. At present, the British Empire is in the twilight of its life, but it still maintains one of the largest merchant fleets in the world: its total number of ships and the tonnage of the book account for more than a third of all shipping in the world!

"Target No. 1 has a distance of 4200, a bearing of 229, a speed of 9, and a course of 75!" When the periscope's crosshair locked onto the target for some time, the torpedo chief next to him landed and reported four sets of numbers that were crucial for lightning strikes. Schultz glanced down at his pocket watch, reported the current time of 11 minutes and 37 seconds to the sailors in charge of the mapping calculations, and then forced himself to firmly engrave it in his heart. Turning the periscope clockwise, I found the ship with the smoke billowing again. At a cursory glance, the tonnage of this merchant ship, which was much larger, was at least twice that of the previous one; Even among the largest shipping companies today, it can play a mainstay role.

According to the previous process, the various numbers of the second merchant ship were also observed; Combined with the current time, Dengshi encompasses its four-dimensional properties. In order to get a better position for torpedo firing, Schultz once again ordered the submarine to turn around, stopped the engine at the final ambush site, and quietly waited for the prey to come.

From the previous encounter with the German raid ship, the crew of the U-19 learned of the latest orders issued by the German Admiralty to the submarine force. Now Scholz was ready to faithfully carry out this order, attacking directly with torpedoes. Although firing a deadly torpedo at a target is not an easy task, it requires a strong mental model for calculus in your mind; However, compared with surfacing to force a stop, it undoubtedly greatly improves the concealment and aggressiveness of the submarine. At the submarine school, Schultz learned about this; If the other party hides a few cannons on the merchant ship, then the submarine that stupidly surfaces to prepare to catch alive can only end up being broken and sunk in the sand!

Thanks to the German army's rigorous and meticulous officer training system, Scholz, who had undergone a lot of training in peacetime, did not make mistakes in his torpedo attack debut, but performed calculations according to various regulations like the pocket watch in his hand. The periscope resurfaced, confirming the location of the enemy merchant ship for the last time. When he silently counted to the 167th in his mind, Schultz suddenly ordered in a loud voice: "Bow torpedo salvo!" The motor on the right axis is started, and one-third of the power is operated! ”

"Phew! Phew! As the German torpedo men struggled to pull the mechanism, two torpedoes up to 5.5 meters long were fired out of the bow almost simultaneously, and the high-temperature and high-pressure gas generated by the combustion chamber was pushed into the propeller, driving the torpedo to sneak rapidly under the water at a speed of more than 35 knots at a fixed depth of 3 meters. At a distance of less than 1,200 meters, Schultz had plenty of confidence in the torpedo hit; He now needs to hurry up and make an underwater turn in order to get the other two 450mm torpedo tubes in the stern of the boat aimed at the second target.

A minute later, two thunderous explosions were heard on the sea, and the German sailors in the submarine cheered loudly and high-fived each other. Schultz raised his periscope and looked forward, only to see that the gray-white merchant ship had risen hundreds of meters high with monstrous flames and billowing smoke, and the entire hull had irretrievably capped. Even Britain's most elite ultra-dreadnought could hardly withstand an underwater attack by two 450-mm torpedoes (see the historic sinking of the Daring by a mine with a charge of only 180 pounds of cotton wool), let alone a 2,000-ton high-freeboard freighter. In less than five minutes, the merchant ship covered in fire disappeared into the sea, and only the thick black fog in the sky that had not yet had time to dissipate was still proving that it had existed!

Oil stains are dotted, and debris floats and floats. A few Commonwealth sailors are stumbling in the sea with large wooden objects such as door panels and round tables. They still haven't recovered from the nightmarish disaster, and their ship is driving so well, why did such a terrifying explosion suddenly occur? It's even more ridiculous than taking the moon off and kicking it as a ball! After a long soak in the warm waters near the equator, the Commonwealth sailors remembered their situation; For a while, the cry for help from another merchant ship echoed over the entire sea area.

Seeing this, the large-tonnage merchant ship behind began to slow down and sail in the direction of the person who fell into the water. Although the sudden explosion was a bit strange, because it was located in the western part of the Indian Ocean, thousands of miles away from the center of the European war, no one thought that the merchant ship had been attacked by a German submarine. Even the white track of the torpedo that had crossed the water before was completely ignored by the British sailors, who had no vigilance at all. The only explanation they could think of was a sudden and unexpected explosion in the boiler room. The sailors on the merchant ships in the rear, lamenting the misfortune of the poor worms, began to throw rubber boats and lifebuoys into the water; No one noticed that a reflective periscope quietly stretched out in the sea more than a thousand meters away. (To be continued......)

PS: Thank you book friends for reassuring two copies, sdkfz182's monthly pass support and zhouyu1976's tip~~~

Tomorrow the author will go to Inner Mongolia and will be back in about half a month. If there is a net on the site, I will try to keep it updated