In less than five weeks, France surrendered!

The Third Reich accomplished what its predecessors had failed to achieve in four years, and such a great victory made Germany itself rejoice. Guided by the German propaganda machine, this joy was soon induced into a frenzied cult of Hitler and the Nazi Party.

In the streets and alleys of Berlin, people rushed to tell each other excitedly, young people fanatically waved scarlet Nazi "swastika flags", and children who did not know the world blinked their big eyes full of innocence, looking at the phalanx infantry who were receiving cheers with admiration.

At this moment, the German people were immersed in their own joy, and the suffering of others was too far away for them to see, nor to be desired......

"Simply incredible! The French turned out to be so vulnerable! ”

In the main control room of the Star Castle, Zhao Jian and his colleagues were arranged at the reconnaissance station of Venus, and watched the whole process of the entire French battle. Regarding the defeat of the Anglo-French coalition, many people around Zhao Jian felt that the reason should be that the Germans were too powerful, and the French were too cowardly. Until the end of the war, the French army still had millions of troops and nine giant soldiers, and no matter how long it was, it would not hold out for such a little time.

Others feel that the French government is also forced to do so. The war was extremely unfavorable to them from the beginning, first the remaining fleet suffered heavy losses and lost the most important control of the universe, and then suffered the harvest of the new tactics of the German army, and the fleet of the allies was paddling again.

Such an aggrieved battle was fought on his own land. It seems that the French feel that victory is hopeless and want to reduce their losses is not very difficult to understand.

In short, after the battle, Zhao Jian compiled the details of the entire battle into a record, and then packaged it and sent it to Datang China. Regardless of whether Datang wants to join the "anti-fascist camp" in the future, there is certainly no harm in studying this new tactic.

At this time, Zhao Jian suddenly thought of the French fleet that was still left in the Shattered Star Zone, if he guessed correctly. The British army, which had just annihilated the remnants of the French fleet, should be the last elite of the French navy next! Zhao Jian pondered for a while and asked Hongling on the side.

"Xiaoling, do you think we want to be good people again?"

"Young Master, we should ...... Not a bad guy, right? ”

After a slight hesitation, Hongling obviously did not have Zhao Jian's spirit of "self-blackening", and her sentence "not a bad person" also indirectly helped the other party make a decision.

Zhao Jian is ready to give the French fleet a wake-up call!

"Thor, send a letter to the French fleet at once, informing them of the matter of Venus, and telling them to be careful of the British. The other party may have already done bad things towards them. ”

"Admiral, can they believe it, if we say so?"

"I don't care if they believe it or not, anyway, I delivered it in advance. It's better to have something to do than not to have one. Just like Hongling just said, we shouldn't be bad guys! ”

According to Zhao's request, Thor once again contacted the French army as "Mr. ZT" and relayed the news of the defeat of France and the British army's rebellion to the other party.

When the telegraph operator in the communications room on the Richelieu saw the telegram, he was able to come back to his senses for 10 minutes, and then grabbed the telegram and ran madly to find the commander of the fleet. When both the commander and Richelieu, who happened to be in the office, read the telegram. Everyone's faces were covered with dark clouds.

"Commander, can you confirm the authenticity?"

"Not yet, but my instincts tell me...... It's true. ”

After nearly a month of tormented waiting, the people of the French fleet were no matter how natural they were. It is also time to see some clues from the flickering words and expressions of the allies. Therefore, they actually had some premonitions about the "Anglo-French rebellion" mentioned in this telegram, but they instinctively did not want to believe the fact that France surrendered to Germany so quickly.

The commander hesitated for a moment. Colonel Mazen, the captain of the Richelieu, was also called. Keeping in mind that there was no big mistake, the French fleet decided to take the British into its own precautions first, and only a few hours later. It was this decision of the commander that saved the fate of the last French fleet.

…… Stand-in part......

The construction of the "Richelieu" began in 1935, but the relatively weak shipbuilding industry in France made its construction speed incomparable with that of Britain and the United States, and by June 1940 only 95% of the construction progress had been completed. At this time, the Germans bypassed the Maginot Line and swept through northern France, and in order to avoid falling into German hands, the "Richelieu" left Brest on June 15 and arrived in Dakar, the capital of Senegal, on June 18. During World War II, it joined the Allied forces in a heroic fight.

In September 1939, Germany launched an attack on Poland and World War II broke out. The war came much sooner than the French expected, and before the battle at sea had begun, the French were defeated from land. In the first half of 1940, the German army bypassed the Maginot Line and swept through northern France, and by June 1940, Paris had fallen, and the French defense had completely collapsed. With the signing of the peace treaty between the French puppet regime and Nazi Germany, France became a client state under German control, and the French navy experienced unprecedented chaos. The capital ships left the ports of mainland France, and some surrendered directly to the British, but many more battleships took refuge in the ports of the French colonies of North Africa and were in a wait-and-see mode. Among them, the old battleships "Lorraine" and "Courbet" were visiting in England and were detained immediately after the surrender of France; The fast battleships "Dunkirk" and "Strasbourg" and two old battleships were moored in the port of Oran, Algeria; "Jean-Bar", which only completed the hull works, was also towed to Casablanca, Morocco.

The Richelieu was also faced with the choice of surrender or fighting. In order to prevent the battleship from falling into German hands, the crew of the "Richelieu" decided to break free from the puppet regime. On 15 June, the Richelieu, which had not yet been finalized, left Brest with all the ammunition and spare parts it could collect, and arrived in Dakar, the French colony of Senegal, on 18 June.

After the fall of France, the number of French battleships in a wait-and-see state reached 6, while the German Navy had only 3 battleships built at that time. Although these French battleships did not declare allegiance to the puppet regime, their attitude was mostly wavering, and if they ended up in German hands, they would be a serious threat to the British fleet. In order to eliminate these potential adversaries, the British developed a plan of action called "catapults", a combination of political persuasion and force settlement to disarm these overseas French fleets. On July 3, 1940, Britain took action against French ships anchored in ports in North Africa without declaring war. Four French battleships anchored in the Algerian port of Oran were the first to be attacked, and under the shelling of the British fleet led by the battlecruiser "Hood", three of the four French battleships sank or ran aground, and only the "Dunkirk" escaped.

On 8 July, bad luck befell the Richelieu, and the British fleet with the aircraft carrier Athletic as the core attacked Dakar. The "Richelieu", as the primary target of the strike, was attacked by the "Swordfish" torpedo planes that took off from the "Athletic". But the 450-mm torpedoes dropped by the "Swordfish" had little effect.

After the first unsuccessful attack, on September 23, 1940, the British Royal Navy sent three battleships, HMS Barham, HMS Royal Oak and HMS Resolve, to Dakar again, with the aim of destroying the most powerful French battleship. The "Richelieu", which was at anchor, fought back with its main guns, and the coastal batteries in Dakar also shelled the British fleet. In with these 3 ships 3. In the exchange of fire of the 20,000-ton British battleship equipped with 15-inch guns, the "Richelieu" was damaged again, but fortunately the armor was thick and did not hurt the bones. During the battle, the British battleship "Resolve" was damaged. Forced by the strong fire of the coastal batteries, the British fleet had to withdraw from the battle in order to avoid greater losses.

The British attack stiffened the relationship between the French overseas fleet and the Allies. Throughout 1941, the "Richelieu" anchored in Dakar, not announcing its accession to the Axis sequence, but at the same time not compromising with the British. In 1942, during the Allied operation "Torch" in North Africa, the "Richelieu" remained neutral, that is, it did not participate in the landing operation and did not strike at the Allied landing force. Under the mediation of the United States, at the end of 1942, the Free French and the crew of the "Richelieu" finally reached a settlement: the United States nominally bought the "Richelieu", and after the United States underwent refurbishment, it was put into the Pacific theater to fight against Japan, and then returned to the French government after the war.

On January 16, 1943, the Richelieu arrived in New York to carry out a major overhaul of the ship's equipment. The originally equipped seaplane catapult and seaplane hangar were dismantled, and the French 37-mm anti-aircraft gun with 13. The 2-mm anti-aircraft machine gun was replaced with an Allied 40-mm "Bofors" medium-caliber anti-aircraft gun and a 20-mm "Erikon" small-caliber rapid-fire gun; But the 100-mm large-caliber anti-aircraft gun, the 152-mm secondary gun and the 380-mm main gun were retained.

Since the US Navy did not have battleships equipped with 380 mm guns, it finally had to make a special batch of 380 mm caliber ammunition for the "Richelieu". During the refurbishment, the "Richelieu" was also modernized, and newly developed air and sea search radars developed by the United States were installed. After receiving modernization, the "Richelieu" has a new look.

In October 1943, the "Richelieu" was refitted and placed under the command of the British Far East Fleet, operating in Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean. The main task of the "Richelieu" was to rely on its high speed and anti-aircraft guns to provide short-range air protection for the aircraft carrier, and at the same time to use 380 mm naval guns to bombard the Japanese fortifications on the island. Due to the high speed of 30 knots, the "Richelieu" was able to follow the actions of the aircraft carriers in the fleet, providing the last layer of air defense barrier for the aircraft carriers with a large number of small and medium-caliber anti-aircraft guns on board, while the old British battleships with a speed of about 23 knots could only be used as fire support ships. (To be continued......)

PS: It is expected to be completed in 2 hours, but everyone who wants to wait until tomorrow will see it.