Where is the water colder than the North Atlantic? The answer is the Arctic Ocean. The water is colder, and the sea conditions are even worse, and any equipment that gets here seems to be frozen into ice. It's an ocean of ice and a cold world.

Leaning against the mast and the stowed periscope, Prien looked out at the icy sea and smoked quietly. Even though it's already May, the waters near the North Pole still don't feel a trace of warmth. He didn't want to die in that environment, and he missed the North Atlantic more than the myth that made him a myth.

In the distance, large ice floes floated by, and in the distance, huge icebergs could even be seen moving with the currents. Pooley's aides were using binoculars to keep an eye on the situation, and two sailors in trench coats stood next to the 88-millimeter cannon mounted in front of the submarine, talking softly.

When the Atlantic Ocean was no longer full of freighters bound for Britain, and when the invincible British Empire Navy was no longer in Canada to challenge the German Navy, many German submarines began to do nothing. They could no longer sink British transports in the hundreds or thousands of tons, nor could they risk challenging the British convoys.

As a result, the days of drinking and eating meat in the past became cramped, and the already gloomy life of the submarine officers and men became even more gloomy. After ten days of wandering in the Atlantic Ocean without finding a single target, the route between Iceland and Canada was full of patrolling anti-submarine ships and planes - it was not a good hunting ground, and the German submarine forces could only use this conclusion to comfort the souls lying at the bottom of the sea after burying five submarines and hundreds of submarine officers there.

The route between the United States and Canada and Iceland was too dangerous, most of the area was within range of roadbed aircraft, and there were so many long-range patrol planes from the United States that they flew so frequently that they almost covered the sky. Germany's high seas fleet moved south because it didn't want to compete with rivals' roadbed fighters, and Germany's submarine forces cut back on the blockade of Iceland.

After all, hundreds of ocean-going submarines are a resource for war and a lethal weapon. After summing up the combat experience, Dönitz immediately cast a net and sent his wolf pack troops, this time not to Iceland for hunting, but to Soviet waters to hunt down the Soviet fleet that threatened the Norwegian coast there.

Prien still remembers what Dönitz had said to him ten days earlier when he ordered him to go to the North Sea: "Prien, there is no way to continue the battle in the Atlantic, and it is not cost-effective for us to waste our personnel, equipment, and precious diesel, and not to complete only a small number of harassment missions." ”

"So I now order you to go to the Arctic Circle theater of operations, use Norway as a base, and attack Soviet ships. It's a haven for submarine warfare, and you'll continue to shine in the North Atlantic. ”

The main fleet of the Soviet Union, consisting of 4 Soviet-class battleships, 17 cruisers and 53 destroyers, was indeed an attractive piece of fat, and many German submarine captains wanted to take a bite of it. And this is indeed a new hunting ground, full of backwardness and primitiveness that can be developed.

Hordes of Soviet transports had no anti-submarine experience, and they followed their own routes to deliver supplies from the United States to the western front. There was a lot of ammunition and medicines, a whole boatload of soldiers and their weapons, and even aid trucks and motorcycles.

When there are only sheep on the grassland, it is really an intoxicating and tranquil picture, but one day a group of hungry wolves break into this picture, so immediately the painting style is transformed from an idyllic landscape into a hellish sea of blood.

After German submarines sank more than 300 Soviet transports of various types in one fell swoop near the long northern coastline of the Soviet Union, these Soviet ships finally learned how to behave. They no longer dared to approach the northwestern seas of the USSR, and most of the ships unloaded their cargo halfway through and returned to the safer Far East.

Prien has already sunk a whole 20 transports of various types here, the large ones are about 2,000 tons, and the small ones may be only 300 tons. He went on a rampage like a pirate, sinking small boats with 88mm cannons and saving torpedoes to deal with them.

In order to gain as many achievements as possible, submarines will rob specific targets in most cases. It's a dangerous activity, because you can't tell if it's an armed anti-submarine ship disguised as a transport ship. The only difference between the two is whether the ship was temporarily equipped with two large-caliber guns.

The British side is more technologically advanced, and some large transport ships of more than 8,000 tons have been equipped with catapults, on which aircraft can drop depth charges. When a submarine attacked, they ejected the plane and drove the submarine away. The plane crash-landed on the surface and then the pilot was rescued by the transport ship - the cost of a crashed plane is negligible compared to the loss of a large transport ship.

Of course, the Soviet transports did not have time to add artillery to counterattack, so the commanders of the German submarines became even more unscrupulous. After all, good days are counted with their fingers, and after the best days, they will be greeted by opponents who have learned countless times smarter.

As a result, scenes that had been commonplace in the Atlantic Ocean six months ago, but now disappeared appeared in the waters off the coast of the Soviet Union. The submarine suddenly rushed out of the side of the Soviets, pointed at the opponent with the muzzle of the black hole, and ordered the opponent to lay down his weapons with the horn, and then the German sailors with guns rushed to the opponent's class A and robbed all kinds of food.

The U-171 submarine robbed a grain ship and summoned three other wolf submarines nearby to divide up its spoils. Because of this robbery, they stayed at sea for another 14 days, and obtained more sinking records.

The biggest beneficiary of the robbery was the U-92 submarine, whose captain was Glar, who had no idea he could become a real rich man overnight. He captured a Soviet transport ship, which was supposed to go to Canada, which was an important link in the Soviet Union's introduction of British technical cooperation.

Well, to tell you the truth, there were a whole 200 tons of gold in this Soviet transport ship, as well as precious metals worth 50 million market value, and the Germans even found in it the training programs of both sides during the Soviet-German cooperation and the list of personnel.

The submarine made a splash when it arrived in Norway all the way home with the booty. They then traveled to Wilhelmshaven, where they were received by the Imperial Führer, Accardo, and Admiral Raeder, who generously promised to distribute 20 tons of gold to the officers and men of the U-92 submarine, and the remaining 20 tons of gold as a reward to all the Navy's submarine forces.

Of course, this is now a thing of the past, and the Arctic Ocean is now full of dangers. The Soviets dispatched a navy they could find to deal with the German submarine crisis, escorting their own transports and laying mines in some areas to interfere with the movements of German submarines.

Now even Prien, the ace commander of submarine warfare, did not dare to risk plundering Soviet merchant ships and transports, because just a week earlier, the happy German submarine forces had lost a submarine for nothing. The German submarine surfaced to rob a battered-looking "transport", which turned out to be an "armed cruiser" converted before the First World War - although there were only four old 152mm cannons, it was definitely more than enough to deal with the 88mm guns on a submarine. The German submarine was sunk and the 40 surviving crew members were sent to the Siberian labor camp.

Thinking of this, Prion held the cigarette between his fingers and exhaled a thick puff of smoke, he didn't know if it was the water vapor coming out of the cigarette or the smoke of the cigarette. In fact, the conditions here are even worse than those days when the British mainland was blocked, there are no aircraft to provide the approximate location of the target, and the wolves have to rely more on their own non-stop movement for action.

Moreover, more transport ships in the Soviet Union were small ships of more than 1,000 to 2,000 tons, and naturally there was no pleasure in sinking a giant ship of 5,000 tons or even 6,000 tons with two torpedoes. Sometimes German submarines had to abandon some of their targets, which were too small to be worth wasting torpedoes.

"Captain, there seems to be a target on the port side!" the first mate lowered the high-powered navy telescope and softly reminded Prion to find the target.

Prien immediately shoved the cigarette back into his mouth, grabbed the binoculars hanging from his chest with both hands, and looked into the distance on the port side of the submarine. Sure enough, there was a big ship there, and it really looked like it was quite small.

"Prepare for battle! Check the valve and the hatch twist bar, and start diving!" Prion put down the binoculars in his hand and immediately gave the battle order, and the sailors standing on the first class hurriedly opened the hatch under their feet and got into the interior of the submarine. By the time they closed their hatches and tightened the closing torsion bar, the waves had risen and the entire hull of the submarine had sunk into the sea.

"Big guy! It looks like a warship. The first mate opened the hatch at his feet, and in about a minute, the bridge where they were was was about to dive into the sea, and they had to return to the boat as soon as possible.

"Indeed, it is estimated that it should be a cruiser. Prion nodded, in fact, he felt that the other party should be bigger, maybe it was a battleship. The waves rolled and in a short time, most of the bodies of the German submarines had disappeared from the sea.

Soon the submarine sank into the water, and Prien once again confirmed the direction of the target with a periscope. The battleship did not change its course, and was indeed heading towards where they were, and it seemed that the opponent had not yet discovered a German submarine here, and as for why it was not, only God knows. R1148