Transmigrated as the Crown Prince

After losing more than a dozen transport ships in succession, the fleet finally came to a slow stop.

"..." He stopped, but Hubert was in trouble.

What to do next? Rushing in without knowing the size of the minefield ahead is simply seeking death.

Their fleet does not have specialized minesweepers. The destroyers can also work part-time to clear mines, but they are not professional after all and are far less efficient than minesweepers. By the time the destroyer cleared the mines, I didn't know it was the year of the monkey or the moon of the horse.

Contact the mainland to dispatch a minesweeper team? It doesn't seem realistic either.

The only way left was to take a detour, go back and bypass this minefield.

But it is not easy to make such a huge formation retreat collectively; a collision may occur if you are not careful.

After hesitating for a long time, Hubert decided to take a detour. Just as he was about to give the order for the boats in the last row to start reversing, he suddenly heard huge explosions coming from all directions.

"What's going on?! Did it hit a thunder again?!"

News from the outer destroyers. "German submarine! We were attacked by wolves!!"

"!!" Hubert's vision went dark, and he suddenly realized that he had fallen into the trap of the German wolves. Now that the entire fleet was stationary, it was simply a perfect target! Without any time to hesitate, he ordered loudly. "Everyone move forward at full speed!" Going forward means death, and retreating means death; now he can only try to compete with the size of this minefield.

At this time, the outer destroyers were almost wiped out. In normal times, destroyers might be able to dodge torpedoes launched by submarines, but now they are as stationary as other cargo ships. Even if an incoming torpedo is discovered, it is impossible to accelerate to the point of avoiding it in a short time. All we can do is watch the torpedo penetrate into the bottom of the ship and explode violently.

During World War II, torpedoes were roughly divided into two types, trigger-fuse torpedoes and magnetic-fuse torpedoes.

Not much to say about the trigger fuse. The magnetic fuse is a magnetic sensor installed on the torpedo. When it approaches the target, it senses the magnetic field of the steel hull and triggers an explosion. Because seawater cannot be compressed, the ultra-high pressure generated by the torpedo explosion will be directly transmitted to the enemy ship's hull without attenuation at a distance of several meters or even more than ten meters. In addition, magnetic induction torpedoes usually penetrate the bottom of the ship and explode, directly shaking the keel and main structure of the enemy ship. They are more destructive than torpedoes that directly collide with the side and explode.

Unfortunately, the performance of German torpedoes in the original time and space was quite poor. The most "useless" time should be in October 1939. At that time, British Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill (who had not yet been elected Prime Minister) boarded the battleship "Nelson" and went to Scapa Naval Base escorted by more than a dozen destroyers. The German submarine "U-56" discovered it halfway. The "U-56" submarine launched three torpedoes without hesitation, all of which hit the "Nelson". However, the torpedoes did not explode. The British battleship was safe and sound, and Churchill was naturally unscathed. Lossless.

Afterwards, the top brass of the German Navy were deeply worried about this matter. They believed that if the torpedo exploded, it might rewrite the history of World War II. Dönitz, commander of the German U-boat force, unabashedly called the attack "a major military mistake!"

Another time, the German Navy submarine "U-39" encountered the British aircraft carrier "Ark Royal" during a mission. It immediately entered the attack position and launched three torpedoes. Surprisingly, all the torpedoes exploded in advance, which not only did not cause any damage to the target, but also exposed the location of the submarine, which was sunk by the British destroyer that rushed over with depth charges.

However, Germany is not alone in its torpedo problem. Other countries are not immune to it either.

In 1942, the British naval battleship "Trineda" encountered a German destroyer. A burst of artillery fire left it riddled with holes and flames. It was unable to fight back. The British captain ordered to fire torpedoes to destroy the German destroyer. Exploded and sunk. After the torpedo was launched, British sailors came to the deck one after another, intending to witness the sinking of the German ship with their own eyes. But a strange scene happened. I saw the torpedo making a circle on the sea and rushing towards me. After a loud noise, the British "Trineda" was hit and seriously injured, and then sank to the bottom of the sea.

The United States on the other side of the Atlantic is not inferior, or even better.

During World War II, the dud rate of American MK14 torpedoes was as high as 70%, creating a miraculous case that is unique in the history of human war.

Once, the U.S. submarine "Black Trevally" fired 15 torpedoes while attacking a 10,000-ton Japanese oil tanker, but did not sink the ship. Data shows that these 15 torpedoes achieved at least 12 hits, with a hit rate of no less than 80%. However, only 2 of the hit torpedoes exploded, and the dud rate exceeded 83%. Any captain would probably "explode" when faced with this situation. So some people joke that the greatest reliability of the American MK14 is that it can guarantee that it will not explode. This can be regarded as a "hidden attribute that defies heaven". It is worth mentioning that even though MK14 had various problems, it achieved a record of approximately 4 million tons in World War II.

The torpedo problems of Britain and the United States, although they had adverse effects, did not lead to their defeat; unlike Germany, torpedo failures caused Germany to lose the opportunity to severely damage the British fleet and merchant ships, and ultimately lost the war.

After the war, Marshal Dönitz wrote in his memoirs: "In the years when the situation was favorable for submarine warfare, a large number of enemy ships failed to be sunk due to defects in torpedo performance... At that time, Britain had not yet Finding a way to deal with submarines was a golden opportunity for submarine warfare, but because of the torpedo problem, this opportunity was missed."

Of course, Yannick would not repeat the same mistakes and began to improve the torpedo problem early on.

Although the German magnetic fuses were very unreliable, he knew that Italian technicians installed aviation magnetic fuses on torpedoes. This kind of fuse was widely used throughout the war and the effect was very good. So they asked for this technology, and the German technicians improved it and used it on their own torpedoes.

Nowadays, the failure rate of the German Navy's magnetic fuses has been greatly reduced, the problem of fixed depth has also been solved, and it can be used in actual combat.

"Launch torpedo No. 3 and No. 4!" Captain Johannes of the U-124 submarine ordered loudly as he clung to the periscope and stared at the turning destroyer in the distance.

These destroyers are the only ones in this fleet that can threaten their submarines. The captains of these submarines did not expect that just a few dozen mines could stop the fleet, and even the destroyers on guard were stopped. Of course, this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity could not be missed, and the first round of torpedoes killed them. Ten destroyers.

By the time the other party reacted, the submarine had already launched a second round of torpedoes, hitting several more destroyers.