Krank's fleet was almost completely annihilated, but sadly, in less than half an hour before it was annihilated, not a single battleship sent the news to the German headquarters, only two air cruisers were equipped with long-range communication stations, the Nuremberg turned off all radio equipment to avoid pursuit, and the Königsberg's long-wave radio station was destroyed by shrapnel in addition to a malfunction at a critical moment. In later generations, many German naval experts complained about Cranc, because his cowardice and cowardice led to a series of losses later, but the British would tell the world that even if Frank sent a telegram, it would be useless,

Because at that time the Germans did not know at all that the British Royal Navy had dispatched 2 fleet aircraft carriers. Moreover, the German Navy could not determine the type of ship attacking itself until it was beaten. Kranke left the battlefield as soon as possible, and the Königsberg was destroyed, so was it 3 heavy cruisers, 2 heavy cruisers and 1 battleship? Whatever it is, it makes no difference! As long as the Germans don't go, most of them still have to kneel.

Taking a step back, what if the Königsberg had sent this telegram even if it had gone out of its shit luck? How to write on telegram? Is it said that a heavy cruiser or a battleship was found? If it is the former, the fleet composed of two aviation cruisers is enough to pack up 3 heavy cruisers, and if it is the latter, the aircraft carrier formation of the German Navy will not have time to dispatch, after all, the aviation cruisers are deployed in the northern regions of France, and the aircraft carriers are deployed in the central region of the west coast of France, and before the weather clears, the land-based aviation has no choice, and the two aviation cruisers have already entered the strike range of the British aircraft carriers at this time, and it is too late to leave!

Of course. At this time, Langsdorf did not know that the British carrier-based aircraft were ready to go, and he still sailed to the Atlantic according to the predetermined plan, and the auxiliary work of the German Navy was not bad. As soon as the sky cleared, the Germans began to send reconnaissance planes to conduct routine patrols in the nearby waters. If I have to say what mistakes Cunningham made in this campaign. Then you are a little close to the French coastline, although the Germans' radar is not good for Britain now, but is it really okay for your large fleet to block people's doorsteps? When Cunningham used the Great Powers to put a prey in the middle of the scope, he was actually within the effective range of the Germans! Life and death are just in a moment!

The two remaining heavy cruisers immediately ejected water reconnaissance aircraft with their own radars to carry out reconnaissance missions. Six seaplanes spread out a fan, searching the area. At the same time, the radio department began to retrieve the signals it needed from the complicated radio waves in the air, and the German fleet should not be prepared for it, and it was very likely that they would continue to keep in touch with the headquarters, at this distance. As long as the other party sends a report, and guarantees a long time, then the British can lock the direction and distance of the other party!

With a two-pronged approach, the British quickly discovered the location of Langsdorf's fleet, the radar of the seaplane captured two huge reflectors at an altitude of 3000 meters, and after comparing the data, they were able to determine that these were two large battleships, and there were not many frigates next to them, so it could not be an aircraft carrier or a battleship, the most likely was an aviation cruiser! What a tasty goal for those two. Nutritious and able to eat in one bite, accompanied by an encrypted telegram, the British finally sounded the horn of the attack!

Cunningham tailor-made the attack for the two German cruisers. The opponent's defenselessness and according to previous experience, the aviation cruiser should be carrying a BF109TF fighter, which is not as good as the FW190TF, so the air defense capability is relatively poor, although there are two targets, but Cunningham believes that 20 Spitfires can completely suppress the opponent. At the same time, the defense of the aviation cruiser was also relatively poor, and 500kg of aerial bombs was enough to hit the target hard, and then it was enough to mend the knife with a torpedo.

25 dive bombers and 15 torpedo planes were quite capable of dealing with the adversary. This wave of attacks is nothing at all for two heavy aircraft carriers of more than 30 tons that can release more than 50 carrier-based aircraft at most. This was done precisely because the British needed to leave enough air defense forces behind. A full 100 Spitfires on deck and in hangars will be the key to fending off German land-based aviation power. Cunningham was very restrained, and regardless of the outcome of the first wave of attacks, he immediately withdrew after the fight. Since you are a thief, you must have the consciousness of being a thief! Grab a handful and go!

So, without Langsdorf noticing, the first wave of British attacks has been launched, a full 60 planes flew towards the target, and in order to ensure concealment, the British chose a low-altitude assault, at this time the distance between the two sides is only 200 kilometers, and the height of the first half of the fleet will be 4500 meters. And then it will gradually drop to 2000 meters or even lower, such a low-altitude penetration greatly compresses the warning time of German radar. By the time the Germans found out that something was wrong, the distance between the two sides might have been close to about 70 to 80 kilometers, which was really nothing for a Spitfire fighter with a cruising speed of about 500! I'm afraid that the two aviation cruisers have not yet released their fighters, and the Spitfire has already flown over each other!

I have to say that if you purely talk about quality, the pilots of the British Royal Air Force and Navy are definitely a top stick, and the training time is naturally needless to say, and the actual combat experience is rich enough. This is especially true of the carrier-based aircraft unit, which controls the speed and altitude very well, and by the last stretch of the road, the bomber unit even dropped the altitude to less than 200 meters! When the Germans' radar finally found the target, the bomber unit was only 40 kilometers away from the target! This sudden blow cannot be saved even if Millega is reincarnated!

"Release the fighters with catapults, and the fleet is ready for air combat!" Langsdorf has the ability, but he is very unlucky in this plane, there is nothing wrong with his disposal, but every time he is caught in an almost irreparable situation, during the Iran War, the encounter in the night battle is like this, and this time is even more desperate than the last time! 60 planes are directly pasted, what else can two aviation cruisers do?

The air cruisers Szczecin and Stuttgart began to turn at great speed, taking a zigzag course under the cover of the destroyers to avoid the attack, and in the fierce shaking and maneuvering, the catapults located at the front of the flight deck ejected the fighters with difficulty. But by now, everything is late, and it is easy to release 6 BF109 fighters. Two of them were strongly watched by six Spitfires as soon as they took off, and two were shot down during the climb. And the other 2 Spitfires in the face of a squadron did not have any idea at all! Although the German pilots interpreted the meaning of the four words of fighting to the end with their will and blood, they had no practical effect at all, and less than 10 minutes after the start of the battle, all the Spitfires began to sweep the deck with 20mm machine guns!

Dozens of 20mm guns from a dozen Spitfires frantically rained down the port side of the Szczecin. Serpents swept over the anti-aircraft gun emplacements, which were protected by only one iron plate, and after a flash of fire and explosions, the entire deck of the anti-aircraft guns was covered in flames and blood, and the bomblets dropped by the two Spitfires made the Szczecin's air defense even worse. Like a matador, the Spitfire exhausted the Szczecin and bled out in one dive attack. And the dive bombers in the back are like cattle killers, and the 1,000-pound bombs are as deadly as the spears of warriors!

In the first round of attack, six dive bombers successfully dropped three 1,000-pound bombs on the deck of the Szczecin! One bomb directly blew the forward elevator to pieces, the raging flames poured into the hangar, igniting the various aircraft stored in it, and the other two bombs were thrown into the boiler compartment with one shot, destroying nearly half of the boilers, and one bomb smashed on the bridge on the side of the flight deck, and with a violent explosion, the bridge of the Szczecin collapsed directly by two-thirds! More than half of the senior officers on the battleship were killed! There was no need for a second wave of bombing at all, and 5 torpedo planes came up to easily and happily deal with the battleship that had already been heavily damaged. 2 torpedoes hit almost the same area. A large hole more than 20 meters wide was torn in the side of the battleship, and the tilt angle of the Szczecin quickly reached 25 degrees, and then quickly sank.

The Stuttgart did very well under the command of Langsdorf. Under the cover of two destroyers, this aviation cruiser successively shot down 5 aircraft of various types and damaged several others, and it is obviously commendable to achieve such a result when the opponent has absolute superiority. But this did not serve the final fate of the Stuttgart, and the RAF gave the aviation cruiser enough courtesy! More than 40 planes of various kinds surrounded the poor warship. Even the bombers who had dropped their bombs were strafing with their machine guns, and after several bombers had swept away the Stuttgart's two-string anti-aircraft gun positions with rockets, the remaining bombers dropped five bombs and four torpedoes onto the battleship.

With a series of explosions, the aviation cruiser finally broke in half and sank to the bottom of the sea. Later, the British, who were still unsatisfied, sank a destroyer before leaving. And at this time. With only one hour to go before the attack, the reconnaissance unit of the German land-based aviation had just taken off. The pilots of the attack aircraft unit are having breakfast!

Cunningham was pleased with the current situation. It's like a weasel that has stolen a chicken. Having sunk two aviation cruisers, Cunningham had no regrets about the battle. Resolutely recycle the fleet and prepare to pull the call. Cunningham was definitely a very cautious general by nature, and he did not relax his vigilance at all when the situation was good and he was left to run, and the two aircraft carriers still released as many as 30 Spitfires to serve as the fleet's air defense alert mission, and after recovering the attack aircraft group, more than 20 Spitfires were placed at the rear of the flight deck just in case. The destroyers also scattered, scanning the sky over and over again with radar.

But God didn't seem to intend for the British to end up like this. Cunningham seems to have forgotten one point, that is, in this sea area, which is already the doorstep of the German High Seas Fleet, the threat not only comes from the air and the sea, but this sea area is also an important passage for the underwater wolves of the Allied Navy to swim back, just when the Cunningham fleet began to run back, they met a submarine unexpectedly! The submarine, numbered U59, took a moment to spare, firing torpedoes at a distance of less than 1500 meters from one of the escorting British heavy cruisers! And this time, for the first time, the Germans used an electric audio torpedo. This torpedo, which could be tracked according to the sound of the battleship's engine, was a German mass killer, and brought a bloody storm on its first appearance.

Electric torpedoes do not produce a noticeable wake, although the British spotted a hidden arrow fired by the Assassins at the last minute. The heavy cruiser immediately evaded and signaled to the flagship that it was under attack by a submarine. Under the excellent command of the captain, this 15,000-ton giant beast successfully dodged 3 of the torpedoes, and it also dodged the fourth torpedo, but who knows, the last torpedo drew an arc on the sea surface and then killed back! This torpedo, which the British did not expect, ended up being a talisman for the heavy cruiser! The torpedo successfully crashed into the stern of the battleship, completely blowing a propeller and a rudder into pieces, and causing serious flooding in the stern, and the tail tilt of the battleship was 8 degrees!

Although he failed to sink his opponent, the U59 submarine obviously did not dare to stay here for any longer, so he immediately put away his periscope and dived to avoid a possible depth charge. At this time, Cunningham looked at the warship that was burning in the stern of the ship, and was struggling to follow the fleet's movements, he hesitated, whether to abandon the battleship, or take it away? At this time, they are still a certain distance from the air defense circle of the British Royal Air Force, and in the current situation that the British Royal Air Force itself is difficult to protect, even if there is support, it may be a drop in the bucket. In the face of the frenzied retaliation of the Germans, (after all, having lost 3 aviation cruisers at once, it is impossible for Count Spee, who suffered such a big loss, to be indifferent.) Cunningham was not sure that he would return home safely with a battered battleship.

"Abandon ship, transfer all personnel to the destroyer, and we'll head back at full speed." Although the loss of a heavy cruiser cast a shadow over the otherwise perfect ending, the record of exchanging 1 heavy cruiser for 3 aviation cruisers of the opponent is still a big victory! There are so many perfect things in the world. Cunningham soothed himself. "By the way, it is said that the torpedoes of the Germans will automatically look for targets? It's important to gather the material and prepare it for the report. "Cunningham now does not dare to underestimate the technical level of the Germans, who have been very sensitive to all new technologies since the Germans showed their prowess.

Thanks to the book friend zhouyu1976, the 1st Guards Tank Brigade, the constellation soaring in the universe, the reward from heaven ~~~, and the monthly pass support of the book friend 150716084339025~~~. (To be continued.) )