In the command module of U571, everyone was listening intently to the movement captured by sonar.

"What the hell is going on on on the water?" The deputy captain frowned, looking puzzled, "There have been explosions one after another since just now, but it doesn't look like two fleets are fighting......"

If the two fleets were to fight, the sound of the shells would never explode every dozen or twenty seconds. The strangest thing is that the sound of the explosion can be clearly heard even if it is not through the sonar, and it is conservatively estimated that the charge of the warhead of the explosion is more than 500 kilograms, which is almost the amount of the armor-piercing shell of the battleship's main gun.

The co-captain turned his head to look at the captain and saw that the latter was also confused.

At this time, the sonar soldier shouted: "I heard the propeller sound of the battleship closest to us change, it is slowing down." ”

"Did you get hit?" The captain asked.

"I'm afraid so." The sonar man nodded, "I can hear some noises, which are characteristic of battered battleships. ”

"But what exactly hit the British battleship?"

"I think it's a bomb, sir."

The captain pondered that an air force attack should not have such a long interval between hits, but the evasive maneuver described by the sonar man felt a lot like avoiding a dive bomber's attack.

"No matter," said the captain of the U571, shaking his head, "we are still attacking the enemy fleet as we originally intended. At the same time, it is recorded in the logbook that at 2300 hours (I was negligent in the previous chapter, I used a twelve-hour timekeeping method, which is not right, and the army generally uses a twenty-four-hour timekeeping method for accuracy), and an unknown friendly army launched an attack on the enemy fleet and hit a battleship. Okay, weapons officer, torpedo tube condition? ”

"All can be fired, and the control wires are in normal contact."

"Very good, the torpedo tubes are filled with water! We're going to add some fuel to the enemy ship that's slowing down. ”

**

Sicily, German telegraph listening post.

"Major, received a Royal Navy type of cipher code."

"With a new password?"

"No, it's still the old one, the legible part of the message mentions the words "water in" and "hit", and the code name of the battleship that was hit seems to be ATT......"

The stationmaster of the listening station picked up the Royal Navy ship message code comparison table on his desk, flipped through it, frowned, and muttered softly: "There is no ...... on it."

"Maybe a battleship that appeared in the Mediterranean for the first time?"

After the decoder's voice fell, the major thought for a moment, flipped through the recent summary file from the table, and after turning several pages, he smacked his lips slightly: "If this is the case, then this may be the code name of the Prince of Wales." ”

"The Prince of Wales was shot into the water?"

"I don't know." The Major shook his head, "Judging that this is not our duty, we can only send the telegram we received from the British army to the headquarters." ”

**

In Potsdam, Lin Youde, who had finished a day's discussion with his wives, was taking a bath with his two youngest daughters in the large bath, when the fox suddenly rushed into the bathhouse.

"Hey!" Lin Youde glared at the fox, "The two little guys are here, don't mess around!" ”

"It's really too much, is it in your eyes that people are the kind of women who only think about X messy things all day long?"

"Are you just good?"

"Huh! What a grievance! Little Sophie, Daddy has wronged her! ”

"I think Dad is right......" Sophie looked at the fox coldly.

Then the fox fakes falling on the tiled floor next to the bath in the posture of a play on stage, and then assumes the standard pose of a tragic heroine: her body is half lying on the ground, one hand is on the ground, and the other hand is stretched up diagonally.

"Ahh How defiled is my name so defiled today......"

"Sophie, if you like it, it's called a performative personality." Lin Youde pointed to the fox and explained to Sophie, who nodded again and again.

And Xiaolu jumped out of the bath, ran to the fox, learned the fox's movements, and screamed together.

"It looks like my little sister will also be a performative personality in the future." Sophie frowned slightly and said, "It's troublesome to think about it." ”

"Okay, let's not play," the fox sat up and picked up Xiaolu by the way, and then she picked up soap and towels nearby to help Xiaolu wash her body, and said to Lin Youde, "The telegraph monitoring department reported that a British battleship seems to have been heavily damaged in the sea south of Sicily, and they haven't figured out which battleship it is, because the ship has a code name that they have never seen before. ”

"Since it's a code name that I've never seen before, how do you know that the battleship was heavily damaged?"

"Because the telegram mentions that it was the battleship that was hit. We don't know how well we can decipher the cipher code that Britain just changed three months ago, and we only know that a battleship has entered the water. ”

Lin Youde pursed his lips.

"Gather the nearby submarine forces and let them try their best to sink the battleships that have entered the water."

As soon as Lin Youde finished speaking, the phone embedded in the wall next to the bath rang, and the fox who was helping Xiaolu with soap directly picked up Xiaolu and came to the phone to pick up the phone elegantly.

"I am, um, what? The guided weapon used hit the Prince of Wales? Are you sure? Are there any photos? Okay, I see. The fox hung up the phone and turned his head to look at Lin Youde, "It seems that the hit seems to be the Prince of Wales, which was done by the prototype of the 603 real yàn unit with radar-guided weapons, there are no photos to prove the hit, they just heard the radio call of the British army, and then judged that it was the Prince of Wales who was hit." ”

"Prototype of a radar-guided weapon?" Lin Youde frowned, the German army's weapons development plans are now very complex, many plans have gone through countless versions, Lin Youde fought in North Africa all year last year, and he doesn't know much about the progress of these development plans, "They have been able to hit enemy ships?" ”

"I remember, my dear, you told me that even the first generation of radar-guided weapons in the true sense of the word, which was born more than ten years later, is it very unreliable, right?" The fox also looked like he couldn't let go, "My dear, you have never missed your judgment on the development of science and technology, and I think it shouldn't be wrong in this regard......"

"Of course," said Lin Youde after pondering for a moment, "let the commander of tonight's operation come to Potsdam at once, and I want to know the details." ”

**

The next night, Major Oliver Technology, the deputy commander of the 603 Technical Practical Force, who had rushed back from Sicily, came to Lin Youde.

"You may be seated, Major." Lin Youde pointed to the sofa in the office.

After Oliver sat down in a very restrained posture, his eyes looked strangely at the two chairs in front of Lin Youde's desk.

"Usually my wife, Ms. Viola, and my daughter, Ysera, work with me, and the two chairs opposite are their seats." Lin Youde explained with a smile.

"Yes, that's right...... So, when the two of you went out to fight, the operation of the empire was really managed by the eldest princess? ”

"It's more appropriate to call the eldest lady, there is no longer a zài in the empire, so naturally there is no eldest princess." Lin Youde corrected, "Understand, there will be no eldest princess in the republic." ”

"Yes, sir."

Lin Youde nodded with satisfaction, and then changed his words: "Then Major, what happened that night?" Did our guided weapons really get the first hit? ”

"Well, yes, we got our first guided weapon hit."

Lin Youde frowned slightly, he could see that the major hesitated just now, so he asked, "Is this really the case?" Major, I have called you here to hear your true account of the situation on the ground, and your judgment, and not to ask you to repeat what your boss has written in the report, which I will naturally read when the report is submitted to me, and there is no need for you to come back from Sicily to sue me. Now, to answer my question, major, did our guided weapons really hit that night? ”

Major Oliver was silent for a few seconds before he replied seriously, "Mr. Lin, I don't know if this was a successful guided attack, or if it was pure luck and hit the target. At that time, the scene was very chaotic, and the British and American fleets had long mastered the methods of dealing with the attacks of our guided weapons, and they knew very well that as long as visual contact was cut off, our guided weapons would be useless. ”

"Do the weapons you used last night need visual contact as well?" Lin Youde looked a little shocked.

"Yes, Mr. Lin," Oliver nodded, "I know that theoretically the best way to guide is to use the radar alone, but the weapon system we have not yet does this, we have to visually confirm the approximate orientation of the target, and then manipulate the radar wave transmitter to illuminate the target, so that the weapon will follow the echo to the target." ”

"So the British also released smoke last night?"

"Yes," Oliver nodded, "and visibility at night was already poor, and I had no idea which ship I was targeting, I just chose the one that looked the most outlined." ”

In this era, it was quite difficult to identify targets in the air, so the navies of all countries in World War II had corresponding air identification mark systems. Both Germany and Japan used military emblems, and in the later period, Japan had no choice but to adopt the practice of camouflage + air identification marks. Britain and the United States have used camouflage and specific identification marks from the very beginning, and the huge numbers on the decks of American aircraft carriers are one of the identification marks.

Not only that, but the Americans once used a kind of camouflage for the Iowa class, and after applying this camouflage, the Iowa looked like a battleship with a twin main turret in the air -- the new battleships of the US army were all triple main guns, and most of the twin turrets were old ships.

In fact, in the late stage of another time and space, everyone is painted with air camouflage + specific recognition, because they all know that the Air Force is powerful. Only Italy pursues war hairstyles and cannot be messed up, so the Italian battleships still use very conspicuous red and white anti-air identification strips until they are defeated, and the coverage area is very large, as if they are afraid that this identification strip will not be conspicuous.

What's more, the identification strip of the Italian Navy is different for each battleship, and the angle of inclination, the spacing of the red bars, etc., have their own characteristics, and even play with irregular spacing, which is worthy of being a country that pursues fashion......

On the other hand, if you can't see the livery of the warship, then it will be more difficult to identify the battleship in the air than ever before, so Oliver said that he didn't see the ship he was shining at all, and Lin Youde didn't find it strange at all.

"I understand," Lin Youde bit his lip, "so the reliability of our guided weapons is still the same, right?" ”

"Not really, at least this time we can fire from a safe distance." Oliver said with a wry smile, "In the previous Fritz series, in order to see the signal light at the tail of the bomb clearly, we had to risk directing the bomb at an altitude of 1,000 to 2,000 meters above the enemy ship. ”

Lin Youde also smiled bitterly, and he said to Oliver, "Thank you for your hard work, Major. ”

After a short pause, Lin Youde cleared his throat and said with a straight face: "Major, I have forgotten everything you said to me here today." After this door, you have to insist that under your guidance, the guided weapon hit the target accurately, do you understand what I mean? ”

"Yes," the major took a deep breath, "I understand that this is part of a propaganda offensive and I will cooperate." ”

"Good." Lin Youde smiled, "Correspondingly, you will get the honor you deserve, I think you are wearing a knight's iron cross now, right?" I think I can add some decoration to it. ”

Lin Youde's words made the major look down at the ankh at his collar.

"Thank you, sir." When he looked up, he smiled and thanked Lin Youde.