Iron Cross

Chapter 885 Accident (14)

In the underground command post of the Prime Minister's residence on Downing Street, a bunch of people sat there in a state of despair, not knowing what to say to each other, and the air was so dull that it was almost frozen.

Originally, everyone was in a good mood these days, even until noon that day, because there were always some good news in the chaotic war situation:

The first good news was that a preliminary solution was found to the German anti-radar bombs - shutting down the machine early, so that the loss of radar stations could be reduced to 15-20%. In addition, the non-stop maintenance at night in the past two days, the southern radar network barely recovered to more than 70%. More importantly, the Germans stopped using anti-radar bombs to attack that day because the 1,000 hailstones were used up.

The second good news was the successful development of a new generation of jet aircraft - the "Vampire" fighter. This jet is equipped with the De Havilland "Gremlins" turbojet engine, adopts a very distinctive double-tail-beam aerodynamic layout, inherits the traditional wooden cockpit of the Mosquito bomber, and the four 20mm Hispano cannons and the engine are installed in the central nacelle. The two tail beams are on the left and right, and the three are connected in series by a small swept-back trapezoidal mid-wing.

The reason for adopting this design is that the long duct of early jets will cause serious loss of jet thrust, so they all adopt a stubby design - the same is true for Ta183. The thrust of this Gremlins engine can reach nearly 17 kilonewtons, which is comparable to the 18 kilonewton thrust of the latest mass-produced BMW004H engine (Me-262) in Germany. Compared with the 20 kilonewton thrust of the newly finalized HeS-011F engine used on the Ta-183, the gap is not too big, and Rolls-Royce also has a 22 kilonewton Nian engine that is close to being successfully developed.

Germany's R&D speed is faster than that of the UK. In addition to the DB016 engine with a thrust of 27 kilonewtons, which is close to success, the BMW018 engine with a thrust of 34 kilonewtons is also under development. From the perspective of the overall R&D progress, Germany's leading advantage in the field of jet engines is 9-12 months, and its leading advantage in the field of jet practical application is 12-18 months. Of course, the technical paths of Britain and Germany are completely different. Britain uses centrifugal engines, while Germany uses axial flow engines. Both can be called leading explorers in their respective fields, far ahead of other countries.

The British Cabinet is extremely dissatisfied with the US's reluctance to allocate Meteor jets. When the British mainland repeatedly encountered the high-profile tactics of the German jet group, it was urgently needed to introduce jets to counter it. The Air Force even proposed: Even if they were outnumbered and all shot down, it would be better than watching the enemy flying around but being powerless.

According to the information obtained by the British delegation to the United States, the US military has already mass-produced 200 Meteor jets, and there are 50 British Air Force pilots in training, which can be used in critical moments. However, the United States has obviously manufactured them, but either excuses insufficient quantity, personnel training, or transportation difficulties, anyway, various reasons are used to refuse to allocate them. Marshal Diehl suggested that even 50 aircraft would boost morale, but he did not expect the Joint Chiefs of Staff to directly reject it as the time was not ripe.

Admiral Porter, Chief of the Air Force General Staff, was so anxious that he proposed that since strategic air transport was not safe, it would be okay to use submarines to transport three Meteor parts from the United States? The US side could not refuse this request, but only hummed and groaned without saying anything. When pressed, they said that they were mobilizing submarines to prepare for shipment, but it was delayed until the 26th and it was not shipped, which made the Royal Air Force feel desperate.

At this time, the Vampire Jet appeared, as if everyone saw hope again.

When the Meteor aircraft project was delivered to the United States, Gloucester, the company in charge of the development, was actually unwilling to hand it over. It had no choice but to give it up due to the government's administrative order (the R&D cost of Meteor was supported by the government). In contrast, De Havilland was much more cunning. It used the excuse that the test flight was unsuccessful to suppress the Vampire project (also a government project). Some senior officials of the Royal Air Force were willing to keep a hand and pretended not to know about it, not to report it, and the money was given in the name of researching the subsequent modification of the Mosquito. Some of Gloucester's researchers who did not go to the United States were also accepted by De Havilland. The two companies invested in research together, so the project has remained in Britain.

In terms of technical indicators, the speed of the Vampire reached a similar level as the Me-262, and the range was even longer (nearly 1,400 kilometers). Other performances had their own advantages, but because it only used one engine and had a large number of wooden components, the manufacturing cost after mass production was much lower than that of the Me-262, and it was basically comparable to the Ta-183. Now that it was reported by Porter as good news, Churchill pretended not to know the trick and ordered it to be given the highest priority to accelerate manufacturing.

The third piece of good news was about the rocket. British technicians successfully collected various parts by cleaning up the wreckage, and even dug out a complete unexploded rocket from the Thames according to the advice of enthusiastic citizens. It was not known whether the rocket was flooded or plunged into the mud. In short, it did not explode. Except for some parts corroded by fuel, the rest were well preserved. Before reporting to Churchill, the three military leaders, Brooke, Pound and Porter, reached an offensive and defensive alliance in private in view of the humiliation they suffered on the Meteor jet: they would only report the first half of the collection and arrangement of the rocket wreckage to the Prime Minister, and would never tell the cabinet and the Americans that they had a complete rocket product. Even if it was wreckage, they would ask the Americans to exchange it for something!

The fourth good news came from Spruance, saying that everything went well after the fleet set off from South Africa. Not only did it not encounter any German submarines, it also successfully avoided German reconnaissance planes in southern Madagascar and entered the Indian Ocean. The specific location of the fleet is currently left. Niwan Island (formerly French, now part of Germany) is 2,300 kilometers east-southeast and is expected to enter the heart of the Indian Ocean in another week. The TF44 fleet decided to first remove the nail in the British Indian Ocean Islands (now occupied by Japan), and then break in forcefully. After studying the charts, Pound and Fraser believed that as long as they broke through the Indian Ocean Islands and the Maldives, there would be no force behind them that could stop the fleet.

At noon, the last piece of good news was received: Cunningham sent a telegram saying that he had discovered the German fleet and was preparing to attack it. After studying the comparison of forces, Pound, Fraser and others believed that our side had more aircraft this time and the pilot experience was not bad, so they should have a slight advantage in the fight. Fraser even optimistically expected to be able to sink at least two of the opponent's ships and sink his own. The result was the loss of one ship.

But unexpectedly, the battle situation took a turn for the worse a few hours later. The Germans launched an attack as if they were idle. TF46 first lost one aircraft carrier, and then an attack wave of nearly 200 aircraft was destroyed in half without even touching the sides of the opponent's fleet. The remaining half were forced to retreat. This moment made everyone anxious, but there was no way to rescue them locally.

Pound, who was desperately ill and sought medical treatment, hoped that the Royal Air Force could dispatch strategic bombers to help, but Portal refused after careful consideration: firstly, because the large aircraft of the Royal Air Force were hiding in the north of England to avoid German bombing, and it was a single flight. It is more than 2,000 kilometers, and it often takes 5 hours to fly there. By the time we get there, it is already dark; secondly, practice has proved that strategic bombers are purely anti-aircraft guns to fight mosquitoes against the fleet, which is of no use at all.

This was not an excuse, and Pound and Frazier accepted it. Then the bad news kept coming, first the Ticonderoga abandoned the ship, then the British and American fleets split up, then Cunningham suffered a second round of hits, the Hornet was severely damaged, and the George V was hit by a mine. Up to this time, cabinet officials and military leaders were still hoping that Cunningham could bring the fleet back. It didn't matter even if the aircraft carrier was lost, as long as the two George V-class ships and 20,000 experienced Royal Navy officers and soldiers could be saved, then After a few months of waiting for the new local warships to be formed, the Royal Navy will still be able to fight - at least on paper it will be stronger than Italy.

In the evening, the confidential secretary sent a telegram. Looking at his sad expression, everyone knew the news was bad, but no one expected that it was a farewell telegram from Cunningham.

Marshal Pound burst into tears while holding the telegram and shouted in despair: "It's over... It's over... The Royal Navy is over... Great Britain is over!"

Frazier stumbled to the corridor, covered his face and wept bitterly.

Portal and Marshal Brooke held each other's arms and cried. Although the army and air force usually disliked the navy and often argued over resources and equipment, at this critical moment, they thought that the Royal Navy, which had supported the British Empire for 300 years of world domination, was being destroyed. After one day of lighting, everyone felt sad.

Churchill trembled with his hands and cursed angrily: "Cunningham, this idiot, who the hell asked him to cover the Americans..."

Pound stood up angrily, slapped the table and retorted: "Winston, you bastard, who the hell made you agree to form a joint British and American fleet? When the Royal Navy was king and hegemony, Americans didn't know which bathtub they were in. Woolen cloth!"

Churchill wanted to fight back, but when he saw the angry looks everyone was looking at, he knew that public anger was hard to get, so he could only relax: "Okay, okay, I'm an idiot, I'm a fool, what do you think I should do now?"

"Find a way to continue contacting the warships, and at least try to save the officers and soldiers as much as possible..." Brooke sighed, "If you don't want to surrender, just prepare for homeland defense, and forget about the rest."

"Surrender?" The two words were like a heavy blow, which stunned both Aden and Attlee. Although they had wavered about the peace talks, they were still stunned when they heard the word "surrender", and they stayed there and said no. Speak up.

"No! We can't surrender! We still have 3 million troops, tens of thousands of planes, and several warships. We must persist! Persevere to the end!" Churchill shouted like a madman, "Surfer now and we will be subjugated slaves." It’s better to die than to be a subjugated slave! The British Empire will fight to the last man!”

"Woo..." In the end, even he couldn't help crying.

Chapter 892/1109
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