At first, the situation was good, escorted by the latest modification of the Mustang fighter, the P-51B, a terrifying number of B-24 and B-17 strategic bombers, effectively damaged the German occupation zone in Western Europe, and even the Ruhr area, the most important industrial belt in Germany itself, suffered considerable losses as a result

Although the Luftwaffe and air defense forces shot down more than 20,000 Allied planes (including more than 7,000 strategic bombers) and captured more than 70,000 enemy troops in the first nine months of 1943 at the cost of losing more than 12,000 aircraft, more than 3,000 anti-aircraft guns, permanent attrition of more than 20,000 (not counting the armies of the client countries) and more than 10,000 civilian deaths (excluding the occupied territories), the Allies still had a slight advantage when considering the losses of German industry, and if you consider that the total industrial volume of the Allies far exceeded that of the Axis camp, the cheaper would be even greater.

However, with the massive use of acoustic homing torpedoes by German submarines in the Breaking Engagement, the Allied transport fleet was once again devastated, and by the end of 1943 someone had figured out how to use noise against it, the German submarine forces had almost recovered from the losses suffered in the Battle of the North Sea, and even if the acoustic homing torpedoes failed, the use of direct-sailing torpedoes would be enough to pose a great threat to Allied transport fleets and escort ships

After Dönitz took office, the German Navy further increased its resources for submarines, and the number under construction increased by more than 50% compared with before. Can the restoration of the number of submarines not be fast?

At the same time as Dönitz's ascension, Wegener, who had partnered with Raeder to defeat him, also returned to the navy with Goering's support, and was authorized by the mustache to rebuild the German High Seas Fleet, which had the first-class strength of Shijie in World War I, with the original Far East Fleet as the backbone. This excites Wegener, who is bent on reviving the German Navy, but with almost all of his local shipbuilding capacity occupied by Dönitz's favorite submarine force, Wegener has to rack his brains to find another way.

Wegener's first thought was to use the shipbuilding capacity of allies, vassals and occupied territories, in fact, due to the heavy damage suffered after the defeat, Germany's shipbuilding and shipbuilding industry is no longer too strong in Europe, especially in terms of surface ships, France and Italy are not inferior to Germany in terms of production capacity and jishu, and even small countries such as the Netherlands and Spain. In the construction of auxiliary ships jishu was also not inferior to Germany. Even countries such as Sweden can build their own heavy cruisers

Therefore, if these capacities can be used well, even Germany itself is far from comparable, but there is a problem here that cannot be ignored. That's security. Since anti-Nazi shili is everywhere. Plus the pervasiveness of allied spies. Even in the territory of the allies such as Italy, Two Teeth, and the three Nordic countries, there was no guarantee that the ships would not be destroyed and interfered with during the construction process, let alone those German-occupied lands and enslaved vassals. However, in Wegener's view, the problem is not completely unsolvable

Wegener argued. The construction period of capital ships is too long, so there are more opportunities for destruction, and once the destruction is successful, it will cause huge losses, so it really cannot be built in those countries. But auxiliary ships such as destroyers, which were more scarce in the German Navy, could do just that.

In Wegener's view, a destroyer can be completed in only 3-4 months with modular shipbuilding, and the chance of destruction by hostile personnel is much smaller if it is built quickly. Moreover, under the modular construction method, each production link is relatively independent, and it is easier to supervise, once a link is destroyed, it is easy to find out what the problem is, and these anti-German elements can be quickly found out, and the cost of crime will be much higher.

And more importantly, light ships such as destroyers are not very valuable in themselves, and even if they are damaged, the losses will not be great, and at the same time they do not require strict secrecy like teardrop-shaped submarines; As for the problem of worker motivation, it can also be partially solved by using graded wages and performance bonuses

Eventually, with Goering's help and persuasion, the mustache agreed to Wegener's plan, which was to make full use of the idle capacity of the shipyards of the occupied territories, allies, and vassals to build the auxiliary ships and various merchant ships needed for the High Seas Fleet. As Wigener expected, although most of the construction of these ships was damaged and disturbed to a certain extent, the average construction rate still reached more than half the local construction rate, and the overall production rate exceeded that of the local one. As a result, for the first time, Germany's total warship production capacity surpassed that of Britain, which made the mustache very excited, and the German Navy's military spending increased a lot. In addition, many resistance elements and allied spies were caught in the meantime, which consolidated Germany's control over the vassal states and occupied areas to a certain extent

Auxiliary ships alone are obviously not enough, and the current eight capital ships of the German High Seas Fleet are still a little too few in Wegener's opinion, especially when you think of the terrible shipbuilding capacity of the United States. Moreover, the last time he was bullied by the Americans with strategic bombers, Wegener has so far been haunted, and in addition to urging the shipyard to desperately build a new air defense destroyer modeled after the Japanese Crescent-class destroyer, he is more eager for a new aircraft carrier than ever.

At this time, the Japanese Navy was completed and put into service in July and September 1943 because of the six latest Yamashiro-class heavy aircraft carriers, and the total number of aircraft carriers reached 10 again, and the two new Yamato-class giant aircraft carriers were also launched for initial testing, and are expected to be completed and put into service in the first half of the next year. However, no matter how strong the Japanese navy is, it does not dare to attack the mainland of the United States, which is estimated to have tens of thousands of land-based aircraft, and the islands in the Pacific Ocean have been almost occupied by Japan, so so many aircraft carriers have become redundant, and a large amount of precious resources will be consumed in vain.

For this reason, the Japanese government has decided not to build Yamato-class giant aircraft carriers in the future, and the number of Yamashiro-class heavy aircraft carriers to be built in the next batch has also been reduced to two, and major improvements have been made, so the construction speed is estimated to slow down a lot. Part of the shipbuilding capacity freed up by this will be changed to the construction of cruisers and destroyers to balance the poor allocation of the Japanese Navy's current capital ships, especially aircraft carriers, which are too large, and the other part will be converted to the construction of civilian ships to enhance Japan's maritime capacity, which is much weaker than that of the United States and Britain. (To be continued......)