The biggest defect of the early wire-guided torpedo is that the submarine cannot dive or sail after shooting it out, otherwise it will not be able to accurately guide the torpedo, and because the sonar resolution ability is relatively poor after all, and there is no ability to distinguish between friend and foe, most of them still need to stretch out the periscope. Therefore, in a way, the period between the launch of the wire-guided torpedo and the time it hits the enemy ship, the submarine is motionless and exposed, which is more like a target than a target.

What's worse is that the wire-guided torpedo can only be fired one at a time, and the next one can only be launched after the first one hits the enemy ship, and the guide line can be cut off, otherwise multiple guide wires are easy to twist together, so generally speaking, a drop-shaped submarine only has 1-2 launch tubes that will be loaded with wire-guided torpedoes, while other launch tubes still use ordinary torpedoes, but this method that is not a method inevitably affects the use of wire-guided torpedoes.

Although there is an Achilles' heel that will greatly increase the loss rate of submarines, if the enemy's capital ship is used as the target of attack as in this naval battle in the North Sea, it is still cost-effective on the whole, because the cost of one capital ship is at least equivalent to twenty or thirty drop-shaped submarines, and even if a dozen or so are replaced by one of them, it will still be profitable. Judging from the results of naval battles in the North Sea, the probability of a submarine using a wire-guided torpedo hitting the target is even lower than the probability of being killed by the enemy first, and if it is in a broken engagement, this point is too bad, because even with a 1:1 exchange ratio, if you just knock out some escort destroyers that are not as expensive as drop-shaped submarines. Dönitz was just as distressed, especially since the training of the crews of the teardrop-shaped submariners took much longer than that of destroyers

In this case, the acoustic self-guided torpedo with the ability of "fire and forget" is extremely superior, and the submarine only needs to shoot the torpedo out after discovering the prey to turn around and evacuate, and the safety is extremely good. Compared with the old direct-sailing torpedoes, which are also shot out and do not have to be bothered with, the hit rate of acoustic self-guided torpedoes is much higher, and the farther away it is, the more obvious it is, and there may even be a gap of more than ten times, which is equivalent to a submarine can be used as several or even a dozen submarines. For the German submarine forces, which are currently suffering from a lot of vitality. It is of immeasurable significance.

Although the slower speed of acoustic homing torpedoes is a major drawback, electrodynamic torpedoes are completely untracked, which is even stronger than hydrogen peroxide torpedoes, so the enemy must wait until the torpedo is close to find out. It was hard enough to survive then.

The massive use of acoustic self-guided torpedoes created unprecedented difficulties for the Allied transport fleet and escort fleet. The allies managed to recover after a few months, and the number of merchant ships began to decline again. Roosevelt and Churchill were anxious.

And Wegener's fleet went north to cut off the main shipping route between the United States and Britain, which made the two heads of state sit on pins and needles. What was particularly frustrating to them was that the location of Wegener's fleet was beyond the reach of the land-based fighters of the United States and Britain. As a result, more than 200 carrier-based fighters on the five aircraft carriers of Wegener's fleet easily controlled air supremacy over a vast sea area of more than 100,000 square kilometers.

Under such circumstances, although the United States and Britain have long-range bombers with sufficient range, it is certainly not worth the loss to bomb the Wegener fleet without fighter escort, and as for sending the fleet to challenge the Wegener fleet with two super battleships and five aircraft carriers, that is a decision that only a brain-dead person can make

The U.S. Navy initially tried to learn from the Germans to use swarm submarines against the Grand Fleet, but the old boat-shaped submarines were too poorly concealed, and with the German HNA planes extending the absolute alert radius to more than 300 kilometers and the AWACS aircraft, it was impossible for the American submarines, which were as slow as a snail and had a pitifully short range to attack, to be able to attack at a distance. After a worthless loss of a dozen submarines, the US Navy wisely abandoned this option

Although all the usual methods were ineffective, Roosevelt could not ignore the blockage of North Atlantic shipping, because once Britain was weaned after the floods, it would not be long before there would be another national famine, and the already shocking civilian death toll would once again set a new historical record, and Churchill would probably be difficult to resist no matter how tough his personality was. Moreover, if the sea supply line cannot be opened as soon as possible, the hundreds of thousands of US troops stationed in the British Isles will also face huge difficulties, especially the US and British planes that have now numbered more than 30,000

In desperation, Roosevelt sent a total of more than 1,000 B-24 strategic bombers from the mainland, Iceland and Britain to the heart of the North Atlantic without fighter escort to forcibly launch an attack on Wegener's fleet.

Generally speaking, the bomber will only wait for the fighter to die, but this is not absolute, each B-24 equipped with 10 12.7mm aviation machine guns is not an easy target for any fighter, fortunately, there are large-caliber anti-aircraft guns to break up the formation of American bombers, breaking the powerful fire defense circle that is almost difficult to break through, otherwise it is difficult for German carrier-based aircraft to get close.

What made the German fighter pilots vomit blood even more was that the B-24 was so strong that the 20mm caliber cannon could not necessarily shoot it down with several shuttles, and even some of them could still continue to fly wakily after being bombarded with thousands of holes

Although the sturdiness of the bomber was only a matter of a little more ammunition for the fighters, this combined with the overwhelming numerical superiority of the B-24 resulted in a result that left the Germans utterly speechless, and their fighters were all sorted, using up all the ammunition, and only a fraction of the total number of incoming enemy planes were destroyed. And even if the speed of the fighters has some advantages, after returning to replenish the supplies, they will only have time to intercept it again, and the enemy's aircraft group has already rushed to the vicinity of the fleet

Fortunately, the Wegener fleet still has powerful anti-aircraft artillery, especially the rod anti-aircraft shells manufactured by Chinese science and technology that were introduced at the beginning have shown an excellent lethal effect on this kind of big and hard guy, otherwise, the Wegener fleet will really capsize in the gutter this time (to be continued......