It stands to reason that 31 submarines are swaying around, and they cannot have a chance to escape, but in order to sink 4 warships, especially 2 Minotaur-class cruises, Deng Jieqian has paid too much, and most of the submarines are in poor condition.

It's not that it's injured, it's that most of the torpedoes are not in a state of loading, in order to kill the last four destroyers, 15 submarines, and launch the torpedoes that they can launch, and the rest, the submarines with 9 torpedo launch capabilities, only 6 are left, in fact, when dealing with 4 destroyers before, those 10 submarines still have considerable capabilities, but the distance between 10 submarines and the group is at least 2 kilometers away.

At that time, the destroyers were crazy to find submarines, and they had left the main fleet, and the 10 submarines chose to launch from 1 kilometer away in order to ambush the destroyers, and the whole war progressed too fast, so fast that they had finished attacking several submarines of the destroyers, and there was no way to take care of this side, and the British fleet was not stupid, and the places where the destroyers were silent must be quite dangerous places, and they would not approach that place.

Qin-class submarines have made considerable improvements in many places, for example, 2 torpedo tubes, although such torpedo tubes may explode because of attacks, and eventually damage the submarine, but for the submarine, its own protection capacity is equal to zero, a depth charge, if it explodes at close range of the submarine, can damage the submarine, sometimes the shell is lost, coupled with the pressure of the water, will make the submarine never float, a little bit of the harm caused by loading, It's not at all comparable to the increase in attack power brought by the double-pack.

However, after the twin torpedoes were launched, these submarines were left with only 2 torpedo tubes in the back, compared to the front, which was somewhat unreliable, the attack power of the submarine, basically, was facing forward, and the radar and sighting system did not reach a certain level, and even before the torpedo guidance capability reached a certain level, the tail launch tube could play a limited role, unless it was attacked by a destroyer and could not escape, it would choose to reluctantly use the tail.

This is only a first-aid measure in the most dangerous situation, even an excellent captain like Deng Jieqian can't do the hit rate of firing with the torpedo tube in the tail, let alone other captains, besides, it is now a state of pursuit, and you can't hover and wait for the other party to send it to the door, and the tail launch tube is useless.

Now, as far as the launch tubes at the front end are concerned, 15 of the 21 submarines have fired all the torpedoes, and they have only a very weak effect, if they are replaced by German submarines, they can immediately surface, and for unarmed merchant ships, just a small cannon located on the deck is enough to deal with those merchant ships.

It's a pity that the Qin-class doesn't have this cannon, and in order to ensure the secrets of the Qin-class, under normal circumstances, they are not allowed to surface, which requires waiting, a Qin-class reserve bomb is as high as 64, and this is just 12 pieces, and there is still a considerable amount of time before the launch is completed, but there is still a torpedo on the submarine to be loaded, it takes time, at least about 15-20 minutes, the torpedo is a big guy, in a submarine like this, a slightly narrow place, it is not easy to complete the loading, Even if it's Qin-level, it's the same.

That is to say, at present, there are only 7 submarines that pose a threat to the ship group, and the number of torpedoes that can be fired at full capacity is only 63.

In principle, 63 torpedoes can sink 63 merchant ships, but in actual combat, torpedoes are far from there, and with such a high hit rate, these merchant ships that have been dispersed cannot be killed by these submarines one by one.

In fact, in the second half, the pursuit and killing operations were completed by 7 submarines, and the remaining 15 completed the loading work in the high-speed pursuit, and before the loading was completed, they could only watch dryly, as for the 10 submarines under Deng Jieqian's command, except for 3 used to deal with those warships that had not yet sunk and were the first, the remaining 7 chose to outflank them in a roundabout way.

The merchant ships of the Entente were unusually experienced, they avoided most of the dangerous areas, no one went in the direction of 10 submarines, and chose not to use the direction as much as possible, which caused great trouble to the pursuing fleet.

No matter how much trouble there is, it is only temporary, and the merchant ships without the slightest armament, after encountering the battleship, the result is doomed, the fastest speed of the merchant ship is only 16 knots, and even because of the long voyage, it is not able to reach the highest speed, and in the case of hasty escape, it will often detour, and the 7 submarines will be separated, aiming at the target they are pursuing to attack.

In the radio command, Deng Jieqian had already discovered that the number of submarines that could reach these merchant ships was only seven, and in this case, any torpedo was quite precious, and after contacting the reconnaissance plane and making sure that there were no hostile forces around, he ordered to fight as close as possible.

With the strength of the Flying Fish Torpedo, one can seriously damage a warship, not to mention a merchant ship, although most of the merchant ships are not small, but one is enough to hit hard, and two are almost about to sink, at most 3.

The smallest position is 150 meters away from the merchant ship, not that it can't be closer, if it is closer, there is no way to set the depth and guide the torpedo, 150 meters, in a few seconds, you can hit the merchant ship, you can't say that it must hit the vital point, if you want to hit the air, it is really not easy.

7 submarines, just like 7 scythes of death, one by one sent the merchant ships into a ruined environment, in the 15 minutes when the patrol was killed, the submarine began a crazy hunt, 15 minutes, the 17 merchant ships sunk, on average each merchant ship in about 3 torpedoes, and more than a dozen missed, in this case, the front end of the 7 submarines have been launched, fortunately, 15 minutes, let the attack patrol 15 submarines, complete the loading.

17 ships were heavily damaged, plus the 5 ships that were heavily damaged before, only 22 ships of the entire ship group were intact, when Deng Jieqian took the remaining submarines, after loading, most of the escort fleet was sent to the bottom of the sea, and when they caught up, the remaining 20 ships had run far enough, even if Deng Jieqian tried his best, he only left about 10 ships, and the remaining ships basically fled to farther places, even if the submarine had a faster speed than most merchant ships, it was too late to pursue. Even if a submarine has a faster speed than a merchant ship, it is impossible to keep chasing it. About 45 nautical miles, Deng Jieqian looked ahead, the merchant ships that were getting closer and closer, and finally chose to collect the troops, not that he was unwilling to catch up with these merchant ships, he had been chasing for too long, 2 and a half hours, the sky had gradually sunken, with the relative speed between the merchant ships and submarines, it might take a few hours, in the middle of the night, there were too many accidents, in case of collision with the opponent's escort fleet, maybe it would cause damage, today's results are amazing enough, there is no need to continue.

The order to return was finally sent to each submarine through radio waves, and the submarines that had maintained a state of pursuit quickly gathered, and another day passed, although the results of this day were not as great as the first day, but on the battleship, it was much stronger, and it was enough to say that the two Minotaur class patrols were enough to write a heavy stroke on their exploits.

At this time, I don't know that the merchant ships that have escaped are still running frantically, as if someone is chasing behind them, and there are even two that ran aground because of the speed being too fast and fleeing in a hurry, after experiencing life and death, most of the merchant ships began a long escape road, as for going to the destination, what are you kidding, in such a dangerous situation, how to go to the destination, they are basically U-turn.

Herbert was on the reconnaissance plane, and watched the entire combat process almost the whole way, but at this moment, it is in the process of returning, the reconnaissance plane is not an airship, it is impossible to stay on the surface of the sea for a long time, this is also the only weakness of the reconnaissance plane that Herbert saw, at most 4 hours, it must return, and even when observing in a certain area, it is impossible to hover, and it must maintain a certain speed, otherwise it will fall.

In terms of flight concept, the airplane is a heavier than air, relying on the speed and buoyancy generated by the wings to be able to fly in the air, while the airship is lighter than the air, even if it does not rely on speed, it can hover in the air, which causes the difference in the use of airplanes and airships. Even Herbert did not realize at this moment that with the advent of the aircraft age, he chose aircraft as a procurement object, more for the Navy.

The navy needs reconnaissance, whether it is to find the location of the opponent's main warship, or to break the relationship, it needs reconnaissance, and in the ocean fleet, a reconnaissance fleet is often set up, consisting of the fastest destroyers and light cruisers, to detect the position of the opponent's fleet.

It's not that I haven't thought about using airships, the key airships are not much faster than destroyers, and there are many restrictions, and now, the emergence of reconnaissance planes has perfectly solved all this, hundreds of kilometers at a speed, much higher than that of warships, can reconnoiter large areas of sea in a short time, and it is simply a natural weapon for finding opponents.

In addition to thinking about reconnaissance aircraft, Herbert is also thinking about submarines, why are China's Qin-class submarines so powerful, why can those submarine destroyers be easily discovered, but they can't find Qin-class submarines, and those torpedoes, they are all hit to the side, those ships have not evaded, what kind of magic is used? (To be continued.) )