Bismarck

The secretary lowered his head and carefully chose his words as he answered, fearing that he would be accidentally used as a punching bag by the furious prime minister.

Although Churchill did not attack the poor secretary, he still exploded. With a bang, the ashtray on the bedside was smashed to pieces on the ground, and then the whole prime minister's residence could hear Churchill's furious scolding...

Off the coast of Newcastle, three large warships are sailing in formation.

The two large warships ahead had thick gun barrels that spewed out balls of fire from time to time, sending trails of light toward the city on the shore that was engulfed in flames. Not far behind them, the Zeppelin aircraft carrier, whose flight deck was neatly lined with various aircraft, was finding its position and adjusting its course.

The full-force bombardment of a battleship is terrifying. Without any interference, the amount of ammunition she dumped is enough to match two or three aircraft carriers! The stationary target shipyard was directly enveloped in a sea of ​​fire - not to mention that there was a heavy cruiser following.

As for Zeppelin, basically the air cover after daybreak depends on her.

Because three months ago in the Battle of Dunkirk, Tirpitz's gunnery chief and Hipper's captain Heyer felt that their gunnery skills were far inferior to that of a woman, so they both started desperate training with their men for three months, and their gunnery skills improved greatly.

In addition, the target being bombarded was a fixed shore target, so there was no need to say much about the bombardment of Tirpitz, which had a ship girl (as long as it was not an operational error, Tirpitz would help correct the bombardment parameters). Even the Hipper, which had no ship girl, had an insanely accurate bombardment this time!

In just over half an hour, the entire Newcastle port and shipyard facilities were thoroughly plowed over by three hundred 380 high-explosive bombs and four hundred 203 high-explosive bombs.

Although there were several British artillery batteries nearby, and although these artillery batteries were also fighting back desperately, because this area was a prosperous plain, there were not many places to set up artillery batteries, and the locations were not ideal. Moreover, due to the decline of Britain's national strength, the artillery batteries were basically all artillery from the First World War, and even the range and performance were discounted. For Tirpitz's perception, these artillery batteries were almost negligible. Even Hipper, who followed Tirpitz all the way, was lucky enough not to be injured.

"Captain, the main slipways, workshops and dock facilities of the three shipyards have been basically blown to the ground. Although the docks are not easy to attack, the ships parked in the docks and the surrounding facilities have also been basically blown up!" Bismarck reported to Lütjens on the bridge of the Zeppelin. "The plan was a complete success!"

"Very good! This way Newcastle's shipbuilding industry will be out of use for quite a long time!" Lütjens smiled with satisfaction as he listened to Bismarck's "live broadcast". He knew that it would be difficult to cause a devastating blow to the British warships by relying solely on daytime air strikes, so he immediately began to formulate the next sneak attack plan.

As expected, under the bombardment of Tirpitz's large guns, the warships that were damaged during the day were completely destroyed - there was no value in repairing them at all.

"Yeah!" Bismarck was also very happy. The plan was proposed by the captain, and the bombardment was achieved by his sister. How could he not be happy when the two most important people did it?

This night raid was proposed by Lütjens the day before. Considering that the destroyer only had half of its fuel left, it could run for a week at 16 knots, four or five days at 20 knots, and only two days at 25 knots. It was even questionable whether it could run for a day at full speed. However, the three large battleships had sufficient fuel. So Lütjens planned to have the three large battleships conduct a night raid at a speed of more than 25 knots in the middle of the North Sea (to take care of the Hipper, which had no ship mother to maintain its power facilities, and the power facilities of the German large battleships were more prone to failure), and let the destroyers follow behind at 20 knots, and wait until the night raid was over, so that they could reunite in the morning.

According to estimates, the night was eight hours long, and during this time, three large warships could travel 8 nautical miles in seven hours (plus one hour of bombardment), and destroyers could travel 7 nautical miles in eight hours. Therefore, if everything went well, by the time the work was over at sunrise, the distance between the destroyers and the large warships would only be 180 to 8 nautical miles.

At least so far, everything has gone smoothly, and the main bombardment mission - destroying Newcastle's shipbuilding industry - has been basically completed.

Lütjens could imagine the British Prime Minister's fury the next day when he heard the news. Just thinking about it made him look forward to it.

Seeing that the sky was already slightly bright, Lütjens asked his secretary ship: "What time is it now?"

"It's four o'clock."

"The bombardment is almost over. Let's prepare to retreat. Judging from the time, reinforcements from the British Home Fleet should be arriving soon."

"Yes! Okay! I'll go and pass the message right away!"

Soon, Tirpitz and Hipper, who received the order, began to turn and retreat to the open sea, and Bismarck also contacted Top in the rear through the radio. The eight destroyers under his command were rushing towards this side 30 nautical miles away.

If everything goes well, the two sides will be able to meet up in about half an hour when it gets light. Once they meet up, they can immediately start leaving.

Chapter 207: Battle of Newcastle (I)

However, plans never keep up with changes, and unexpected situations soon emerged - they never expected that the British would be able to gather an air force to counterattack in such a short time.

A sea of ​​machines appeared in Zeppelin's perception...

"Bismarck!"

At this time, Bismarck was pouring coffee for her admiral. She had just put the spout of the pot against the mouth of the cup, and was almost startled by Zeppelin's sudden shout of "WIFI", and the dark coffee suddenly shook out.

"What's going on?" Bismarck replied unhappily, "I was pouring coffee for the captain, and you made my skirt dirty..."

But Zeppelin had no time to argue with her. She quickly explained, "Don't talk about anything else! Notify Commander Lutjens immediately! The radar detected a large group of aircraft flying towards us at 60 degrees east by north of the sea, 150 kilometers away! At least more than a hundred!"

"what?!"

"what?!"

Bismarck and Tirpitz screamed at the same time.

After hearing Zeppelin's report on the enemy, Bismarck was really frightened: "Zeppelin, what did you say? More than a hundred enemy planes? Off the coast? 60 degrees east by north?! How is this possible?"

"Yes! And I'm sure they are not friendly forces! Our air force has no attack plan at this time! In addition, Top's destroyer is right next to their course! Tell the commander immediately! I request an emergency take-off of fighter jets!!"

"Oh my God," Bismarck said, and then quickly said, "Okay! Wait!"

Knowing that the matter was serious, Bismarck hurriedly ran into the headquarters with a cup of coffee. As soon as he entered the door, he reported to Lutjens: "Captain, it's bad! Zeppelin discovered a large-scale British aircraft group in the open sea! 60 degrees east by northeast, 150 kilometers away! She estimated that the scale is more than !! "

"What?!" Lutjens, who was sitting in the command chair, stood up instantly: "60 degrees east by north?!"

"Yes! She requested emergency take-off of fighters. Top's destroyer is on the edge of the British fleet's course..."

Everyone's eyes were focused on Bismarck's secretary who suddenly broke in. After hearing what she said, the atmosphere immediately became tense.

One hundred planes...what a terrifying number!

Oh my God... With the destroyer's pitiful anti-aircraft firepower, no one dares to imagine what the consequences will be.

Bangtai's eyebrows have become the shape of the Chinese character "川".

"Oh no, the destroyers - give me orders immediately! Fighters take off immediately to reinforce Top! Also inform Top of the situation and ask him to steam-pressurize the destroyers and speed up to approach us! Also, make preparations for air defense..." Lutjens gritted his teeth and gave the order without thinking. "Also, tell all ships to stop worrying about fuel consumption!! Sail at full speed!! After joining Top, break out directly to the southwest!"

"Yes!" Bismarck gave the order immediately.

Leaving behind, Lutjens gritted his teeth, staring at the chart plotter and record board in front of him, thinking about the problem. He paced back and forth uneasily for a few steps, and then came to the window again.

"Damn it, where did these British people come from in the deep sea..." Lütjens was puzzled. The Air Force said that they had found no problems until dusk the day before. Scapa Flow was 250 nautical miles away. If the old warships of the Home Fleet were not dispatched before dusk, they would not be able to get here.

"Could it be the God of Sports and Glory?" Bangtai guessed.

"No, it can't be them!" Lütjens shook his head firmly. He was very familiar with the performance of the Ares and the Glorious. The number of planes of these two combined was less than that of the Zeppelin. How could there be more than a hundred planes?

"Could it be the Royal Ark and the Fury..." Bontai said again, and then he denied himself, "The Royal Ark and the Fury are still chasing Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, they can't come here!"

Shane, Gnai... Damn it! After Shane and his men ran back to Norway yesterday afternoon, the British fleet chasing them must have come here!

Lütjens immediately thought of the key point.

"Now, we are in trouble."

Yes, it's troublesome. In this case, they might face four aircraft carriers...

The engine noise outside the window became louder and louder, and then there was a whistling sound. The exhausted pilots still forced themselves to board the fighter planes under the command. One after another, the carrier-based aircraft were taking off against the dawning sky in the east, and gradually formed a formation in the air.

However, the scene should have been full of hope, but the piercing alarm sounded particularly ominous. Lutjans knew that they would be facing a life-and-death battle in a while. The only thing he could do now was to grit his teeth and analyze the enemy situation and strive for his own chance to escape.

"If this is the British fleet that was in the Faroe Islands before, they must have been traveling at more than 30 knots to get here. Plus, they must have been running at high speed the night before when they were chasing Shane... Could it be that they are fighting at their doorstep so they don't care about fuel consumption and wear and tear at all?!" Lütjens analyzed the British's thoughts.

He found that it seemed that the battle was going too smoothly before, or he underestimated the British... The reason why the local fleet was not found until dusk yesterday must be that they also deliberately used the eight hours of night to travel, only in this way could they avoid the detection radius of the Norwegian reconnaissance aircraft...

Judging from this, there will probably be planes from land airports attacking as well...

This guy Tovey is really good at hiding things, Lütjens sighed.

"Now I don't know whether the Royal Ark and Rage, as well as Glory and Arena, will be divided into two formations or together - if they are together..."

Far out to sea, in a vast open sea, on the British Royal Navy's HMS Illuminati aircraft carrier, Tovey was looking at the Hood, Warspite, Ark Royal and Wrath beside him, as well as a total of ten destroyers and several light cruisers with sufficient fuel that were withdrawn from Scapa Flow, and was staring at the direction of Newcastle on the nautical chart with a sneer on his face.

"Lütjens, even if you guessed how I got here, what can you do? Today I'm going to settle Iceland's account with you!" Tovey stood up viciously.

"Order! All ships advance at full speed! Also call the Royal Air Force and ask them to coordinate with the Zeppelin fleet according to the predetermined plan I gave them!!"

ps: There will be another update in the evening, please give me a monthly ticket, please give me a monthly ticket

Chapter 208: Battle of Newcastle (Part 2)

In the command bridge of the Zeppelin, Bonte, Zeppelin, Flensburg, Bismarck and others were discussing the enemy situation and the deployment plan of the fighter units with several aviation staff members of the carrier-based aircraft units around the chart table.

"The current distance is less than 140 kilometers, which means it will fly over our heads in about half an hour, right?" Bismarck made a simple estimate in his mind and asked Zeppelin and Flensburg.

"If we consider that we are relatively close to the British fleet, we will encounter them in less than 20 minutes. However, the most dangerous one now is not us, but Top." Bangtai said solemnly, "Top is ahead of us. No matter how they run, the destroyer can't outrun the planes! Moreover, the British fleet is too large. The ammunition they carry can ensure that there are enough troops to attack us after destroying Top."

"Catch us all in one fell swoop?" Bismarck said, looking at his captain.

"Catch them all in one swoop? It's a new word, but that's probably what it means." Lütjens nodded.

"And the air defense capabilities of those destroyers are not enough! Their 127mm main guns are not optimized for air defense, and their anti-aircraft efficiency is very low. From the statistics of the Battle of Dunkirk, although the 127 main guns have VT fuses, the guns themselves are not suitable for anti-aircraft shooting..." Zeppelin paused and continued. "The range and power of the 20mm quadruple anti-aircraft guns are limited. The main anti-aircraft force is still the 37mm anti-aircraft guns, but each destroyer has only four 37mm anti-aircraft guns. This firepower is definitely not enough to intercept hundreds of air raids!"

"Not to mention the destroyers, even we ourselves are in danger. In order to rush the service and training, several 105 anti-aircraft guns were not installed in time. Now the Zeppelin only has a bunch of 37 anti-aircraft guns! We can only rely on the Tirpitz and Hipper..." Flensburg said gritting his teeth.

"The top priority now is to ensure the safety of the Zeppelin and Tirpitz, and then the destroyers. If that doesn't work, abandon the destroyer fleet, recall all the fighters, and defend the Zeppelin with all your strength!" Lütjens pondered for a moment, and said with a serious face. It was not because he wanted to save Zeppelin that he was on the Zeppelin. Any commander would make such a decision under such circumstances - but no one wants to face this situation unless it is absolutely necessary.

"I object! Giving up on them will not change the situation!" Zeppelin said immediately. "The British are large enough to bomb us all. Even if all the destroyers are sunk, they will not attract all the firepower. What we can do is take the initiative to attack!"

Zeppelin glanced at Flensburg, who nodded in understanding.

"Our Freya radar has an IFF (Identification Friend or Foe) function. We can only send some fighters to a relatively long distance to serve as an interception line, and let the air defense guides sent by our Air Force on the destroyer guide the interception. In addition, the destroyer itself is also a line of defense... We can only rely on multi-layer interception in this way to try to intercept as many British planes as possible..."

The multi-layer interception formation was experimented with not long ago, and the effect was good, but that was the coordination between the air forces. Now no one can say for sure about the multi-layer interception coordination between the sea and the air.

"Wait a minute, there is one more thing I want to remind you..." Zeppelin said, "The characteristic of air power is that it is strong in attack but weak in defense. If we rely solely on fighter jets to defend, there is no way that one of our aircraft carriers can outlast the successive attacks of their task force of at least three aircraft carriers!"

"On the other hand, the British still have planes at the land-based airport to carry out air strikes! We certainly cannot abandon the ships that were damaged in the air strikes!" Zeppelin looked at everyone in the command cabin with a resolute look, and everyone listened with a serious expression. "So, I think that after we bring the spare fighters onto the deck, our dive bombers must be ready to attack them at any time! Only in this way can we have a chance to break through!"

The best defense is offense! Bismarck heard the meaning of this old saying from Zeppelin's words.

"But where are their aircraft carriers?" Bonte asked, "They know we will attack Newcastle at night, but we don't know where they are..."

"There is only one way! We must survive this wave of air raids and follow their returning planes!" Zeppelin made a few strokes on the nautical chart and drew a rough guess about the enemy and our own situation.

"The favorable situation now is the wind direction. We are facing the headwind, so we can take off and land planes while we are moving. However, their planes are coming from the direction of 60 degrees east by north, and their speed is not faster than ours. Therefore, if they want to catch us, they can only be parallel to our breakout route... If they want to take off and land planes, the British aircraft carrier must change its course, which will delay it for a longer time... Then there will be two situations."

"Which two?" Bangtai asked without waiting for Qi Penglin to speak, and everyone's eyes were on her.

"Either their surface fleet will be delayed along with the aircraft carrier, or their surface fleet will break away from the aircraft carrier and come after us. But no matter which one it is, as long as we can damage their aircraft carrier, our chances of breaking through will increase greatly!"

Bangtai was silent.

Flensburg was silent.

The other staff officers were also silent.

After a long silence, Bangtai raised his head and asked, "How many planes can we dispatch now?"

"There are now forty fighters and thirty-three dive bombers! Twenty-four fighters have just been launched, twelve fighters are on standby on the deck, and almost all dive bombers and four fighters are on standby in the hangar! All the planes are loaded with fuel and ammunition!" Zeppelin reported.

"Where are the Air Force's reconnaissance planes?"

"According to the combat agreement before going to sea, the Air Force will help us conduct reconnaissance in the North Sea. But... it's too early now. Even if everything goes well, it will take at least an hour and a half. It may take two or three hours before the reconnaissance information can be reported..." said Zeppelin.

"Forget it. As for the reconnaissance planes, we don't need several planes if we follow them. Three or four will be enough. I'll go find some volunteers to do some reconnaissance later."

Facing a powerful enemy, Flensburg actually grinned in a manly and nonchalant manner: "We only have this one chance! Thirty-three dive bombers, exactly ten squadrons plus three lead planes! If you want to attack, I will lead the team myself!"

Lütjens was about to dissuade him, but Flensburg smiled and said, "If we fail, we'll all be finished together, so it's not a loss!"

"Then it's up to you." Lütjens said nothing more and patted his shoulder hard.

"I will handle it!"

In the bridge command post, everyone else also had a determined expression on their face, looking expectantly at their captain.

Bangtai, who also had a resolute look on his face, just glanced at everyone and said, "I agree with this deployment, too!"

"let's start!"

"Yes!"

ps: The second update is here! Please give me monthly tickets and rewards!

Chapter 209: Battle of Newcastle (Part 3)

After the initial shock and chaos in the command post on the bridge, calm was quickly restored. Everyone stayed at their posts, handling the matters at hand in an orderly manner - although the breathing and heartbeats of some recruits seemed to be much faster than usual in the perception of the ship girls, and their expressions were also much more serious.

An atmosphere of soldiers fighting for dignity and glory quietly formed and spread around them.

"They are a little nervous." Zeppelin was silent for a while and said to Bismarck in his mind.

"Don't worry. Humans will get nervous when they encounter such a situation. After all, not everyone can take life and death lightly." Bismarck stood beside his captain with peace of mind, watching him and Bonte discuss tactics calmly as always, without any anxiety or distraction from other things, so he added, "Especially the new recruits."

Bismarck should actually be very familiar with this kind of environment, because in the Narvik breakout four months ago and the Iceland naval battle three months ago, they encountered situations just like the one in front of them - no, it should be more dangerous than the one in front of them, and the atmosphere in her bridge was also like this at that time.

The scene at that time seemed to emerge before my eyes, with those figures fighting bravely in the artillery fire.

"You do understand." Zeppelin chuckled.

"Because it also happened on my ship during the Battle of Iceland. But don't worry, generally when this kind of atmosphere appears, human fighting spirit will increase exponentially, so the possibility of winning is very high." Bismarck smiled.

"I don't think I will lose." Zeppelin's words were as confident as ever. "By the way, tell Lütjens that my preparations are complete. Without further ado, give the order to take off!"

"So soon? Okay, I get it!"

Bismarck stepped forward, interrupting the conversation between Lütjens and Bonte, and quickly said, "Captain, Zeppelin reports that all combat aircraft are ready and can take off!"

"Very good, I understand." Lütjens nodded to show that he understood. "Go tell Zeppelin that all the pilots are on board and she will be in full control of the dispatch!"