Chapter 1,132 A Less Successful Exercise 1
Chapter 1132 Less successful exercise 1
Outside Cuxhaven. The prince and his party sat on the German royal yacht Hohenzollern and headed to the exercise waters. It was depressing enough to say that if you look purely at the assets held by the family, Bavaria has surpassed the German royal family. Even far more than Krupp and many other big German capitalists and bankers. In terms of wealth controlled by the family, the Wittelsbach family is not only number one in Germany, but also among the top three in Europe as a whole! As for whether it can be compared with family consortiums such as Rockefeller and Boston, this is still unclear.
However, it is really embarrassing that such a powerful, wealthy and prominent family does not have a high-end yacht of its own. It feels very shameless to outsiders. The prince's grandfather is old and seldom comes out, so there is no need for it. The prince's father is interested in this, but after taking over as the king of Bavaria, he has been troubled by many things. Now Bavaria has too many things that he needs to deal with. In addition to the extra In addition to the numerous factories, the relationship between Bavaria and the Kaiser and the Austrian Emperor has also become very delicate. As for the prince? In the eyes of this later time traveler, if you have the money to build a yacht, you might as well build a few more submarines...
(Historically, the assets of the German royal family seemed to be only among the top ten in Germany. Krupp’s assets were ranked higher than those of the Kaiser. Of course, the Kaiser theoretically owned the entire Germany.)
In the outer sea, two target ships were sailing slowly under the tugboat. If you simply hit a fixed target, it will naturally be unconvincing, so the prince decided to increase the difficulty. The two target boats passed in front of the yacht at a speed of about 8 knots. At this moment, the sound of engines coming from the southwest sky attracted the attention of everyone present.
The first batch of more than 20 bombers and torpedo planes entered the scene. In fact, the torpedo planes of this era were actually bombers that could carry fish... Before large-angle dive bombing matures, and before the aircraft's results reach a certain level, bombers can only dive at small angles, or simply bomb horizontally. If we make an analogy, it is the same as the Japanese Navy torpedo planes carrying 800KG special armor-piercing bombs for horizontal bombing in Pearl Harbor. Well, that's it!
To be honest, the prince has "rehearsed" this exercise several times, not to mention that although the target of this attack is moving, it cannot be avoided. The first to enter was the torpedo plane formation. Under the command of Second Lieutenant Rudel, the four torpedo planes quickly lowered their altitude after discovering the target, and soon dropped from 500 meters to 150 meters. Finally, they approached the target almost close to the sea level. The plane split into two groups again, and Lieutenant Rudel and his companions attacked for the first time,
Looking at the target that was gradually becoming clearer in the distance, Rudel asked the shooter in the back seat to make final preparations. When the two sides met only 500 meters away, the shooter in the back seat aimed at the bow of the ship and pulled the handle! A 350MM torpedo drew an arc in the air and then fell into the water. The fixed depth of the torpedo was set at 3 meters underwater. Thank God, after reaching the designated depth, the torpedo's engine was turned on, and the gyroscope and propeller were also disabled. Shocked, a straight white line quickly approached the target from below the sea surface!
"?!I go,
what's the situation? ! Rudel was sure that he saw the torpedo hit the side of the target ship with his own eyes, and then sank to the bottom of the sea. "Damn it, isn't there something wrong with the fuse?" "The torpedo fuze will have problems from time to time, and the probability is about 20%. The other torpedo attack aircraft next to it missed the target. The torpedo passed through the side of the hull and sailed into the distance.
"This attack doesn't seem to be very successful." Prince Heinrich said while touching his chin.
"The aircraft carrier will not only dispatch two aircraft at a time." The prince said disapprovingly. Even if the target is a target ship traveling at low speed, you can't expect the torpedo hit rate to be more than 50% without interference. This is all tolerable. After all, if an aircraft carrier attacks a battleship, it must have at least two-digit attack aircraft.
Fortunately, the two torpedo planes that attacked in the second wave performed well. The fourth torpedo entered the water safely, there was no problem with the fuze, and it accurately hit the target ship. With a loud noise, the 3,000-ton target ship was blown into two pieces. At this time, the senior German naval officers who were watching had a smile on their faces.
However, before the prince could breathe a sigh of relief, something went wrong again during the bomb attack on target ship No. 2. Because this time, the target ship found by the German Navy seemed to be smaller, 500 tons smaller than the 3,000-ton target ship used for torpedo attack! That is, the displacement of a World War II destroyer, the length is only 80 meters, and the width is just over 14 meters... Coupled with the sailing speed of 10 knots, this caused some trouble for the pilots of the Swordfish Wing!
"Come on, why is the target this time so small? Aren't we dealing with battleships? Have any of you ever seen a battleship with the same specifications as a torpedo boat!" Tou Dan, who was in the back seat, cursed with one hand.
"Okay, stop complaining, I'll lower the altitude to 150 meters. Just do your best." The pilot in the front seat said also depressed.
The first bomb drew an arc in the air and fell into the water, then the second, third... The fifth shot…. After the first group of planes dropped their bombs, they decisively took a piece of zero and went back...
"Well, the effect of air-to-sea attacks is really bad. If you look at this hit rate, it's only a 20% hit rate at most. And this is against a target that has no counterattack capability and a speed of no more than 10 knots." Scheer on the side could not stand it anymore.
"If we dispatch 20 bombers at a time, then there is a 20% probability that 4 will hit the target, and a plane can only carry one 300KG bomb. Although the bomb charge is a bit high, the killing effect is still very high. Average." Admiral von Bohr continued.
Fortunately, the subsequent two attacks were pretty good. The sixth and seventh bombers accurately dropped bombs on the target ship. 150KG of explosives is no joke. The second hit bomb was a complete waste. Just one bomb blew this guy with the size of a destroyer into pieces! So far, although the performance this time was not satisfactory, the result was pretty good. At least the two target ships were not towed back.
"This exercise left a deep impression on me. At least it let us know that it is feasible to attack warships from the air. I will report everything to the Kaiser. Considering this efficiency, I think it is enough to use ordinary ships for the other two aircraft carriers." Okay, don’t use high-speed ships. The number of carrier-based aircraft can also be appropriately reduced," Prince Heinrich said.
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