1855 United States Tycoon

When Major Hafs’ submarine launched an attack, the other nine submarines were also in position and launched an attack. The explosions began to sound continuously. In just ten minutes, there were as many as six transport ships. Being hit. The main reason for such a high hit rate is that the cover of the night allows these submarines to travel very close to the ship before launching torpedoes, which naturally makes the hit rate greatly ascending.

Major Hafs was very satisfied with the record of the ambush formation, but he was not very satisfied with the record of the U-92 he directly commanded. At such a close range, the two torpedoes were completely empty. This It's really shameful. At this time, the Beifeng has already driven out of the U-92's fish shooting range. Of course, if U-92 is willing to turn around, it can still launch another round of attacks towards the Beifeng, but there are other things at this time. The ship entered the U-92's shooting range. U-92 didn't need much adjustment, just wait a little while before attacking that ship.

Under such circumstances, Hafs will naturally not continue to chase the North Wind. He quietly stared at the cargo ship that was less than a few hundred meters away, and estimated in his mind the intersection of the torpedo and the ship. , And then issued an order to shoot.

This time, Hafs’ shooting was quite successful. He shot it out; one of the two torpedoes accurately hit the transport ship, and the torpedo hit the keel, and the huge explosion broke directly. The keel of this transport ship.

This kind of blow is the most deadly for a ship. When the keel is broken, the ship will be torn apart by itself and the weight of the cargo, and it may sink to the bottom of the sea in just a few minutes.

But Hafs can't take care of this now, because he found a destroyer rushing towards U-92 at extreme speed.

"Found it?" Hafs was taken aback. According to reason, it should be difficult for the British destroyers to find own. Hafs immediately wanted to get into the cabin and ordered the submarine to dive in an emergency. But at this time he discovered that the destroyer had turned on its searchlight to search the sea, and the direction the searchlight was pointing at was not on the U-92 side, but in the opposite direction. Obviously, the destroyer did not find U-92, it just happened to be here.

"Turn to 20, No. 5 and No. 6 torpedo. Prepare." Hafs decided to attack the destroyer first to see if he could kill it. If you can't, you can only dive quickly, and then try to hide behind the cargo ship that has been tilted by thunder but has not sunk yet.

Targets like destroyers are generally difficult to fight. First, the destroyer is too small, so the length of the waterline is also small, and the difficulty of hitting it is naturally greater. Second, the destroyer is too fast and too flexible. When the speed is too fast, when the torpedo is launched at it, the amount of advancement to be left is very large, and the destroyer is very flexible and turns very fast. Once it finds the torpedo, it only needs to change its direction slightly, fish. Lei is definitely going to fail.

But tonight, Hafs’ luck seemed to be particularly good. U-92 shot a torpedo and hit the bow of the destroyer, blasting the entire bow, including half of the hull. , And the destroyer was sailing at a high speed of more than 20 knots. The sea water immediately plunged in from the huge breach. In only a minute or so, the destroyer disappeared from the sea.

During this time, several other submarines also opened fire. Almost every once in a while, the explosion sound of the cargo ship being hit by a torpedo was heard. By the time it dawned, almost all the torpedoes were used up. The ambush formations withdrew from the battle. At this time, there were only three transport ships still floating on the sea, and a full twenty ships were lost! Even the destroyer escorting lost half, leaving only three, but the German submarine that launched the attack retreated without loss.

The Northwind is one of the three remaining transport ships. After dawn, it rescued more than a hundred sailors from other ships from the sea, and then proceeded towards Britain. However, they never encountered German submarine attacks on the road afterwards, and arrived in the UK safely and smoothly.

...

This successful ambush confirmed the effectiveness of wolf pack tactics. Major Hafs received a telegram on the third day after the attack, asking him to drive back to Germany in a cow submarine. After returning to China, he was immediately promoted and was promoted to a colonel beyond the first level. He also served in the operational staff of the German Imperial Navy Submarine Operations Center. He also served as the tactical instructor of the "Submarine Commander Training Class".

His name and achievements were also printed on various newspapers in Germany. Become an idol worshipped by countless Germans. And his tactics were quickly promoted. Although the British have since taken countermeasures such as flare flares once they are attacked, the effects of these methods are actually quite limited. One is flares. The illuminated area is actually quite limited. More often, they not only fail to illuminate the area where the submarine is located, but also expose themselves, allowing the Germans to better aim.

And the Germans painted the submarine deep blue-black, so that even with the flares, the low submarine is still not very conspicuous. Of course, the flares still have a certain effect. Once, a submarine was illuminated by the flares during an attack. At that time, the submarine was aiming at the Northwind transport ship, and there was a British destroyer not far away. As a result, this The destroyer rammed into it directly, knocking the hapless submarine into two pieces, thus saving the life of the North Wind. However, in this attack, the Germans sank 14 British cargo ships.

The British also discovered the frequent telegraph exchanges between German submarines, so they guessed to a large extent the secrets of the organization of German submarine operations, so they stipulated that once the dense telegraph exchanges at sea were discovered, they would immediately let the transport ship The team turned to avoid the German ambush. This trick really worked a little at first, but later, the Germans also discovered this. As a result, they randomly send some meaningless telegrams every once in a while, making it impossible for the British to judge whether those telegrams are. It was really guiding the interception. As a result, of course, German submarines continued to successfully intercept the British fleet on the ocean.

In the two months after the Germans began to use the "wolf pack tactics", the loss rate of British freighters each time they crossed the ocean reached a staggering 15%. In other words, if a cargo ship is used to run over The Atlantic route, generally speaking, can only run back and forth less than four times before being sunk. This sinking speed far exceeds the speed of British shipbuilding, and even the shipbuilding speed of United States is far too late.

Only those fast merchant ships ordered from United States still maintain a small loss ratio because they run faster than submarines. Even if the German submarines can ambush them, generally speaking, they only have one chance to attack.

"In order to save Britain, we need more, more, and more fast merchant ships!" This has become the consensus of the British government and military. So Sir Woodgate found McDonald again, because now only McDonald can produce fast merchant ships at super high speed.

"We need more, but cheaper, fast merchant ships. We hope these ships can cruise at 18 knots and have a maximum speed of 20 knots or more even when fully loaded." Sir Woodgate told Scrooge.

"But Sir, you know, this is not an ordinary indicator. To achieve such a speed, our price cannot be too low." Compared with Sir Woodgate, Scrooge is not at all anxious.

"You can reduce costs in other places." Sir Woodgate said, "For example, durability, as long as they last for two or three years is enough. So in some non-important places, if you can use low-end goods, use low-end goods. For example, steel plate or something, I don’t think it is necessary to use high-grade shipbuilding steel plate, it is not good, wrought iron can be used. There are many parts of the anti-rust treatment can also be simpler, anyway, it can be used for two years Enough. The Germans will definitely not last for two years. These boats can be used for two years. If so, Mr. MacDonald, can you see if the prices of these boats can go down a little bit?"

"However, Sir, if you do this, the inevitable result is that the efficiency of these ships will be very low. After two years, there is almost no possibility to continue to use them except for the reheating. And the average ship is only used for two years. It should be called a new ship.” Scrooge replied, “If we build such a ship, we will smash our brand. In the future, when people mention the ship built by McDonald, they will say:'Ah, I know , The tatters that can only be used as scrap in two years. "This has too much influence on MacDonald's reputation. How can we find such a ship?" Scrooge kept shook his head with an attitude. It seems very resolute, "And Sir, you also understand that even if you have paid so much to cut corners of this kind of ship to reduce its service life by more than 80%, the production cost will not drop to 2% of the original. Ten, in fact, it is only a little more than 10% drop at most. Is it worth it?"

Normally, it is certainly not worth it. But for now, the British cannot help but do it, because if they don't, they will be finished immediately. Although in the long run, it is very unworthy to buy such rags, but if you do not do this, Britain will collapse in the war, and once Britain is defeated, there will be no long-term.

"Yes, we only need these ships to have a two-year lifespan. Mr. McDonald. Besides, can the construction speed of these ships increase?" Sir Woodgate continued to ask.

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