Chapter 559 Sunset 3

"Sir, a Mosquito has been spotted!"

On the battleship Hindenburg, the flagship of the German High Seas Fleet, General Gunther Lütjens listened to the staff officer's report expressionlessly.

"Commander, the British fleet will be here soon!" Lieutenant General Erich Bey said loudly.

This Mosquito must be the eye of the British air raid fleet, searching for the German fleet. Since it appeared in the sky near the Hindenburg, it means that it has found its target.

Taking the helmet from an adjutant and putting it on his head, General Gunther Lütjens asked: "Has the British aircraft carrier formation not been found yet?"

Erich Bei replied: "Not yet... At present, the Bergen base and our five aircraft carriers have sent aircraft to search, and there are 11 submarines searching in the North Atlantic between Iceland and Scotland."

"British aircraft carriers will definitely appear!" General Gunther Lütjens pondered for a while, "Send a telegram to General Richthofen at the Bergen base and ask him to recall all P.108S immediately. I require all P.108S to install Hs293V3 bombs within 1 and a half hours and be ready to attack at any time!"

Without waiting for Erich Bei to answer, General Gunther Lütjens turned to the communications staff: "Inform the Navy Headquarters and request to launch a diversionary air strike."

Now the location of the British-German confrontation is not only the North Atlantic and the Norwegian Sea, but also the English Channel, the North Sea and other places. If the German Navy and Naval Aviation can launch air strikes in other directions, they can tie up a considerable part of the British air force and prevent them from rushing north to help.

"Sir... enemy planes are coming!"

The shouting alarmed the officers in the command tower. Everyone turned their heads and saw that the British planes that covered the sky had appeared under the white clouds in the distance, and the 96 Fokker Zero fighters on their side had already been entangled with the enemy.

"Let all Fokker Zeros take off..."

"Sir... Vulture 057 (Fw-200C) reported that a large number of enemy planes were found over the F5 sea area west of the Faroe Islands, flying towards us."

"F5 sea area? It should be British carrier-based aircraft!"

"Their aircraft carrier must be west of the F5 sea area!"

Hearing that a British fleet appeared over the F5 sea area west of the Faroe Islands, the fleet staff in the command tower of the "Hindenburg" immediately thought of the British aircraft carrier. Everyone was ready to fight. Now the British battleships were no longer worth mentioning in front of the new German "Hindenburg" and "Bismarck" classes. The only ones that were still a bit threatening were the several Glorious-class fleet carriers.

If they could be sunk, the British Royal Navy would no longer be a military force that could threaten Germany's hegemony in the Atlantic!

"Sir, we received another report from Vulture 057. The radar detected an unidentified fleet in the S6 sea area."

"S6 sea area? It's almost 350 nautical miles away from the Faroe Islands." Lieutenant General Erich Bei quickly found the location of the S6 sea area on the nautical chart.

400 nautical miles is about 650 kilometers. Generally speaking, the combat radius of an aircraft is 35%-40% of its maximum range. If it wants to bomb an enemy ship 650 kilometers away, the aircraft must have a maximum range of at least 1,800 kilometers, and it must be safer to exceed 2,000 kilometers.

"Can the Fokker 100 reach us?" General Gunther Lütjens asked with a frown.

"No, the maximum range of the Fokker 100 is only 1,600 kilometers." Erich Bey thought, "If we want to attack, the fleet must sail westward at 25 knots for 3 hours."

"That won't work. We are under air attack." General Gunther Lütjens immediately rejected Erich Bey's proposal. "If we go too far west, the Fw-190 taking off from Bergen will not be able to reach us... Let the Bergen base send out the P.108S bomber."

...

"Sir, it's the German Fw-200."

On the battleship King George V, Sir Cunningham received a report of the discovery of a German reconnaissance plane.

"Where is the German aircraft carrier?"

"It is still east of the Faroe Islands, at least 370 nautical miles (less than 700 kilometers) from our current position, and it should not be able to reach us."

"We continue to head east and keep a distance of 500 nautical miles from the German aircraft carrier."

Cunningham is very clear about the value of the four Illustrious-class ships in his hands. As long as they still exist, the Royal Navy will be a very deterrent maritime force in the Atlantic. If the United States can fight side by side with Britain in the Atlantic in the near future, these four Illustrious-class ships can be loaded with carrier-based aircraft by deck mooring, and their combat effectiveness can be at least doubled!

However, Cunningham cannot let these four Illustrious-class ships hide far away, because they still need to recover the F4F and SBD that flew back from the Shetland Islands in 6-7 hours.

So now Cunningham can only place his aircraft carrier 500 nautical miles away from the German aircraft carrier, and this position is about 1,500 kilometers away from Bergen. It is completely within the strike range of P.108S.

…

"Captain, I'm being bitten by a Mustang, it's firing at me!"

"Pull up, quickly pull up, lure it to chase!"

Novotny shouted orders to his wingman, the squadron he led was now engaged in a fight with the same number of P51 fighters.

Novotny is already very familiar with the performance of the P51. This American-made fighter has better performance than the Fokker Zero at low altitudes below 3,000 meters. Although the Fokker Zero is more flexible than the P51, the latter has a sturdy body, powerful firepower, and very excellent dive performance. Once caught by the Fokker Zero, it can usually escape by using its dive performance.

However, the Fokker Zero also has a life-saving trick, which is to increase the altitude. This trick would definitely be a death sentence against the Spitfire, but it is very effective against the P51 with poor high-altitude performance (there will be no weakness when the Merlin 60 engine is installed). It takes 11 minutes for the current P51 to climb 6,000 meters, while the Fokker Zero only takes 6 minutes and 30 seconds. So when the Fokker Zero is caught by the P51, the most effective way to get out is to increase the altitude.

Fortunately, the sea area where the battle took place today is nearly 500 kilometers away from the north of Scotland, and the British short-legged Spitfires cannot reach it. Otherwise, if the Spitfires and P51s cooperated, the German Fokker Zeros would be in trouble.

However, these P51s without Spitfires are still very difficult opponents. Even if the German pilots flying the Fokker Zeros are much better than the British pilots flying the P51s, it is difficult to quickly get rid of them. Because the P51 is too strong, its empty weight exceeds 3 tons, while the empty weight of the Fokker Zero is less than 2 tons (the Japanese Zero is lighter, less than 1.8 tons). This 1 ton of weight makes the P51 body much stronger than the Foley Zero. The firepower combination of the Fokker Zero's 2 20-meter cannons + 2 7.62mm machine guns is slightly weak, and it suffers a lot in the process of fighting against the P51.

Due to the entanglement of the P51, most of the Fokker Zeros in the covering fleet had no way to get away to deal with the British 65 Beaufort torpedo bombers and 65 Boston attack planes (A-20) and 20 Mosquito bombers.

While the P51 and Fokker Zero were fighting fiercely, British bombers and attack planes began to rush from high, medium and low altitudes to the dense anti-aircraft firepower network surrounding the German aircraft carriers. Hundreds of anti-aircraft guns continuously spewed out flames, and 4 battleships and 1 armored ship closely protected the 5 aircraft carriers, acting as "meat shields" to attract torpedoes and bombs.

"Boom..."

A ball of fire rose again from the port side of the Hindenburg battleship, and a large column of water then spread out into countless water droplets, falling on the deck of the Hindenburg, almost covering a quadruple-mounted Bofors 40mm anti-aircraft gun. The gun crew members were soaked as if they were salvaged from the sea, and shivered in the cold wind on the Norwegian Sea in March.

"Commander, it's a near miss..."

"Don't worry, the Hindenburg is strong enough!"

Near misses are a big threat to merchant ships and destroyers without heavy armor protection. There are near miss tactics in the German naval aviation's anti-communition operations. But for a giant ship like a battleship with solid waterline armor, near misses are useless.

However, when General Gunther Lütjens spoke, his brows couldn't help but frown. Because in his fleet there is an aircraft carrier "Potsdam" with little armor.

Since the Potsdam was rebuilt from an older cruise ship, unlike the Europa and Bremen, which have a powerful power system comparable to that of a battleship (with 100,000 horsepower), it can add four to five thousand tons of waterline armor and anti-torpedo armor during the reconstruction.

In addition, the British Boston attack aircraft (A-20) and Mosquito bomber's attack method of medium and high altitude penetration and horizontal bombing also made Gunther Lütjens think of the P.108Sg bomber and Hs293V3 bomb. Like the British and American surface ships, German surface ships focus on air defense at medium and low altitudes. Therefore, many of the British Beaufort torpedo bombers have been shot down, and the torpedoes that were barely dropped cannot pose a threat because the distance of the drop is too far. However, few Boston attack aircraft and Mosquito bombers that penetrated from more than 4,000 meters were shot down.

It seems that we need to consider equipping the German aircraft carrier with a few real high-altitude aircraft...Wire-controlled glide bombs are very easy to imitate!

At this moment, Fleet Chief of Staff Erich Bey suddenly shouted: "Commander, Potsdam reports that the starboard side was hit by two near misses, 5 compartments are flooded, the deck is tilted 3 degrees, and water is being added!"