The weakness of the British fleet, the old navy Lütjens, could see it all at once - this fatal weakness is the coordination of speed and fleet!

At this time, there were as many as 4 British transport fleets to be protected on the Atlantic Ocean, and more than seven or eight were included in smaller sizes.

With so many transport fleets, only transport ships inside may require more than 200 ships. Including the escort ships, even 300 ships cannot be stopped.

Such a large-scale transportation fleet, the coordination of one of them is already a headache, let alone how many of them gathered together in one go?

I believe that at this time, the entire fleet is still coordinating and unified command cannot be achieved at all. It will become a serious problem to barely gather together to sail.

How could such a fleet that was temporarily pieced together, and how could it be dispatched like an arm, and how could it have a high speed?

Therefore, in Lütjens's view, such a huge naval transport fleet could have a speed of seven or eight knots, even if the British seafarers and sailors were well-trained.

There is another small disadvantage in equipment, that is, such a large fleet has been gathered on the sea surface, but it has severe insufficient air defense power.

Most ships are unarmed, and the anti-aircraft guns equipped with surrounding destroyers are also very average.

In the Atlantic Ocean in 1940, British warships prepared to fight against air may be able to count with one hand.

A month ago, no one would have believed that German warships would appear on the Atlantic Ocean. Of course, there were few warships, let alone planes.

It is precisely because of this that Lütjens and Hines are confident that their carrier-based aircraft will find hundreds of British ships.

If this were placed in the Pacific Ocean and in the middle and late stages of the war, just the warship's own anti-aircraft artillery would have caused more than 20 carrier-based aircraft to be depressed.

The speed is extremely slow and there is not much air defense firepower. It stretches through the sea for tens of kilometers... such a fleet is really suitable for the attack of carrier-based aircraft.

"Is there any news coming back to the reconnaissance plane that took off earlier?" Thinking of this, Hines couldn't wait.

He turned sideways and asked his men: "No one in ten aircraft and five formations has found the position of the British fleet?"

There is no dedicated carrier-based reconnaissance aircraft on the aircraft carrier Zeppelin, and it is a guest appearance using fighter jets. Even so, the fleet cannot send 10 precious fighter jets to reconnaissance at once.

In fact, it was really a fighter jet that took off from the USS Zeppelin aircraft carrier, and there were only four two-aircraft formations to take the guest appearance in reconnaissance.

The remaining six planes were just seaplanes that took off from the warships. The warships such as Prince Eugen, Tirbitz, Gneisenau and Schánhorst all took off their own seaplanes to help with the reconnaissance.

Even so, it is not easy to find the other person's fleet in the vast sea.

The last time, Britain was in the Denmark Strait, but due to time difference, it was not found that Germany was rushing into the Atlantic Ocean.

It can be said that finding the opponent's fleet at sea is really a key factor in determining the outcome of a sea battle.

The current German naval fleet has no experience in this area, so they can only try and explore little by little with their rigorous attitude.

The good news is that they have the approximate location of the other side's fleet, and just received a message from a German submarine, indicating the exact location of a transport fleet on the other side.

Using a compass and drawing tools, he measured it on the chart table, and then used a pencil to cross it. Lütjens probably guessed the other party's assembly point, so he could send his own reconnaissance plane more targetedly.

The four fw-190t fighter jets with the fastest speed were just sent, which flew in this direction.

"How are you preparing? We're in a hurry... Maybe we'll encounter other annoying things." Seeing Hines come back, Lütjens asked according to the chart.

Hines, who had just returned from the deck, threw his hat on a corner of the chart table and replied: "The 25 ju-87c bombers are all ready."

Lütjens seemed a little dissatisfied when he heard that there were only 25 aircraft in the attack fleet. You should know that these aircraft had checked at the port when they set sail, and they were all in use.

Unfortunately, the aircraft in World War II had many failures, and being able to maintain such attendance was already a manifestation of the professional level of German ground staff.

"One aircraft has a fault in oil pipe, another engine is under maintenance, and another is in debugging. It is estimated that it can catch up with the next batch of attack tasks." Heines knew about his own affairs, and he explained.

Lütjens had to accept the fact that he could dispatch less planes.

In the first wave of attack, the German carrier-based aircraft troops will do their best, 25 attack aircraft will be covered by 6 fighter jets and carry out a surprise attack.

"All attack aircraft carry torpedoes instead of bombs to attack, increasing the attack effect." Heines himself made some changes to the attack mission.

In view of the fact that British transport ships cannot install a large number of anti-aircraft artillery, Hines decided to use torpedoes to attack them all.

First of all, the torpedo will kill surface ships more than aviation bombs. This choice can maximize the attack power and sink more British transport ships.

Secondly, Hines was sure that the opponent's air defense firepower was limited and there was no need to use dive bombers to interfere with the opponent's air defense artillery, and to fight for the torpedo aircraft to drop bombs.

With these two reasons, Hines radically selected all his attack weapons as torpedoes without a bomb.

In this way, if his luck is good, his 25 attack aircraft may sink about 20 British transport ships!

"There won't be any problem with torpedoes, right?" Lütjens asked with some concern after hearing Hines' choice.

Recently, the Navy has been plagued by the instability of torpedo fuses. Many commanders of the naval submarine force are responding to a problem, whether it is magnetic fuses or collision fuses, there are serious defects that cannot be detonated.

There are many ways to improve, such as the magnetic fuze torpedo has been deactivated, and the collision fuze has also been set to a more reasonable depth of use.

After a series of improvement measures, Hines believed that the torpedo in his hand could be considered a relatively reliable attack weapon: "Don't worry, I don't think there is any problem!"

"Report!" An officer walked over excitedly and handed over a report record: "Long live the head of state! The reconnaissance plane discovered the enemy fleet, which was quite large!"

"Position!" Lütjens, who returned to a military salute, was most concerned about the exact position of the enemy fleet. Now that the enemy has found it, he feels his heartbeat is accelerating.

"It's here!" The officer pointed on the chart, not far from the cross that Lütjens hit.

I think so. If the distance is too different from inference, the reconnaissance plane will not be able to discover the target.

Hundreds of ships look extremely large, but they are still very small on the Atlantic Ocean. If you want to find such a fleet, the error cannot be even dozens of kilometers.

"Hynes! Deliver the attack aircraft group! The fleet improves combat readiness! Enter the first-level combat state! Start attack!" He straightened up from the chart table, and Lütjens issued an attack order.

"Woo... Woo!" A harsh battle alarm sounded in all the battleship cabins. The crew members looked at the red light that kept flashing above their heads and prepared for their own battle.

The towering bow cut the cold waves, and on the deck of the USS Zeppelin, a Ju-87c Navy Stuka propeller began to rotate.

Soon, another Stuka behind it also activated the engine. Under the guidance of ground crew members, one Stuka attack aircraft after another aimed the nose at the slender runway.

As the takeoff commander's command flag was swung down vigorously, the first Stuka, with a long torpedo on its abdomen, rushed to the end of the runway.

There, the heavy fuselage sank slightly towards the sea as the landing gear broke off the deck. Then the plane was pulled up steadily by the pilot and flew towards the gray sky.

It seems that from the time when I have memories, the sky above the Atlantic Ocean is gray. Although it should be considered clear, it is always a certain distance from the azure.

In this gray sky, the second Stuka, who rushed into the sky, formed a small two-plane formation with the first aircraft.

Immediately afterwards, the third and fourth aircraft joined the formation, and more aircraft were ready to take off on the deck.

Soon, all 25 Stukas were lifted into the sky. The next one to take off was the fw-190t fighter jets responsible for protecting these Stukas.

The reason for taking off the fighter jets later was because of the differences in ranges. The short legs of German fighter jets forced the officers in charge of the operation to arrange the takeoff order as reasonably as possible.

In comparison, Japan's Zero fighter is indeed a magical weapon. It can take off first with good performance, hovering in the air for half an hour, and wait for the attack aircraft troops to take off and fly to the target together...

Unfortunately, just as Japanese planes are envious of the excellent dive performance of German planes, German planes are indeed far from reaching Japanese peers in terms of range.

"Now, all we have is left to wait." Looking at Feiyuan's fighter plane, Hines sighed.
Chapter completed!