Chapter 565 Difficulties
Unfortunately, the scene of the destroyers turning their guns to scare the cargo ships was photographed and sent to the newspaper. The media, not afraid of trouble, immediately reported the incident with exaggeration, causing an uproar among the people.
The army supported by taxpayers actually pointed their guns at taxpayers?
Is this a rebellion? !
Several shipping associations in the United States immediately announced that all ships under their jurisdiction would stop operating and go on strike to prevent the ships from being sunk by their own army; and other industries also saw a wave of strikes and protests.
"This group of idiots! Are they crazy?!" President Roosevelt looked at the article in the newspaper and felt that the blood vessels on his temples were throbbing violently. Looking at the name of the newspaper, Roosevelt's brows tightened immediately. "These hateful Jewish guys!" He had long known that the Jews in the United States and the Jews in Europe were flirting with each other, and from time to time they did things that made things difficult for the United States. Just like this newspaper, it was also published by these Jewish newspapers.
Sometimes Roosevelt really envied the German crown prince's dictatorship. If the Jews in Germany dared to be so presumptuous, they would have had all their property confiscated and their families dragged into concentration camps to do hard labor. Unfortunately, he was the president of a democratic country, so he could only think about such things.
He immediately convened a meeting of the Navy Department and severely reprimanded a group of senior officials. "They didn't even find a German submarine, but they took their anger out on the people? What are they doing? Do they really want to fire or something?" Fortunately, these guys still had a little bit of reason and didn't really fire, otherwise the United States would have been in chaos without Germany attacking.
A series of officials from top to bottom were dismissed and kicked out of the army. The commander-in-chief of the navy personally apologized in the media and repeatedly guaranteed that such a situation would never happen again. The matter was finally settled.
But the threat of German submarines has not been lifted. "General Ernest, what's going on with German submarines? Why haven't they sunk even one yet?!" In just two days, the tonnage of ships sunk by German submarines has exceeded 100,000 tons. If this continues, the US sea transport line will collapse soon.
Ernest was also troubled by this matter. The destroyer, as the submarine nemesis, couldn't catch the elusive German submarines. "Maybe the German submarines used some new stealth technology."
Roosevelt waved his hand impatiently, interrupting his explanation. "I don't care what new means and new technologies they used, I just want one result, that is, to sink those damn submarines! Send them all to the bottom of the sea!"
"We are stepping up the development of more advanced sonar and radar, but all of this takes time." Ernest said helplessly. "For now, the only way is to increase the number of patrol ships." The North Atlantic coastline of the United States is more than 2,000 kilometers. Even if one patrol ship is deployed every two kilometers, it will take a thousand ships, which is not a small number. And Ernest thinks that the gap of two kilometers is too large, and he wishes he could deploy one every 500 meters to form a copper wall!
Roosevelt pondered for a while, and suddenly an idea came to him. "Can we learn from the combat experience of the Q-ship in the last war? Lure the German submarines into the trap?"
In the last war, the German submarine forces launched a series of attacks on the merchant ships of the Allies, seriously threatening the "maritime lifeline" on which Britain depended for survival. The two sides launched a desperate struggle to protect and destroy the sea transportation line.
In the early days of the war, the captain of the German submarine strictly abided by the rules of engagement. He first intercepted the merchant ship with warning shots. If it was found to be an enemy ship, he would wait for the crew and passengers to leave in the lifeboat before sinking the merchant ship. When submarines face small and medium-sized merchant ships, in order to save torpedoes, they usually surface and sink the merchant ships with deck guns.
This practice made the German submarines lose their biggest combat advantage of concealment.
The British quickly took advantage of this loophole and developed a unique anti-submarine equipment-the Q-ship.
The Q-ship is an anti-submarine ship disguised as a merchant ship. Its mission is to deceive, trap and sink German submarines. In appearance, the Q-ship is no different from an ordinary merchant ship, but it is secretly equipped with anti-submarine weapons such as artillery, torpedoes, and depth charges. This camouflaged anti-submarine ship is named Q-ship because it is based in Queenstown, Ireland. It is also called "bait ship" and "mysterious ship".
Q-ships are generally converted from cargo ships with a displacement of 1,000 to 5,000 tons. The purpose is to ensure that when discovered by German submarines, their captains will determine that the Q-ship is not only a valuable target, but will also choose deck guns instead of torpedoes when choosing attack methods.
In order to deceive the opponent, Q-ships usually pile up large wooden boxes and wooden boards on the deck to cover the weapons on the ship, and camouflage the hull with canvas. Sometimes Q-ships will change their paint at night, and even temporarily change the superstructure of the hull at sea. There is also a group of well-trained "actors" on the Q-ship. After discovering the German submarine, the crew will run around on the deck in a panic, and some crew members will even put down lifeboats to "escape". After being bombarded, the crew would light dry seaweed to release thick smoke and use modified pipes to discharge large amounts of steam to create the illusion that the hull was directly hit by a shell, luring the submarine to approach.
On June 23, 1915, the Q-ship achieved its first victory. The Q-ship "Taranaki", which was converted from a tugboat, cooperated with the British C-24 submarine. The former lured the German U-40 submarine to approach and surface, while the latter hid behind it and fired a torpedo to sink the German submarine.
On July 24, 1915, the German U-36 submarine encountered the Q ship "Prince Charles" in the waters north of the Hebrides. The U-36 submarine approached the "Prince Charles" and ordered it to stop. When the U-36 submarine was 600 meters away from the "Prince Charles", the latter suddenly raised the British naval flag and fired, and the U-36 submarine sank after being hit by multiple shells. This was the first independent victory achieved by the Q ship.
As of January 1917, 9 U-boats were sunk by Q ships, while the British army only lost 2 Q ships. However, as Germany launched "unrestricted submarine warfare", the number of submarine attacks on merchant ships without warning increased significantly, mostly using torpedo attacks. The change in the German army's rules of engagement greatly reduced the combat effectiveness of the Q ship. From February 1917 to the end of World War I, only 3 German submarines were sunk by Q ships, and as many as 23 Q ships were sunk.
As a temporary anti-submarine means, although the direct results of the Q-ship were limited, it bought time for the development of effective anti-submarine techniques and tactics. The existence of the Q-ship forced German submarines to spend a lot of time identifying targets, which invisibly prevented many merchant ships from being attacked. In order to ensure their own safety, German submarines prefer to use a limited number of torpedoes to attack, which also reduces the number of attacks they can launch, objectively improving the safety of Britain's sea transportation lines.
Ernest shook his head. "I'm afraid it's useless, Mr. President. Today, German submarines are carrying out "unrestricted submarine warfare". They all attack underwater with torpedoes. So far, there is no record of German submarines surfacing to attack with deck guns." He only knew about the German U-boats, and didn't know that the German army had already put into service a new super submarine, which had cancelled the deck guns and could not surface to attack.
Roosevelt sighed depressedly, and just as he was about to say something, his secretary hurried in. "Mr. President, something big has happened in the Panama Canal!"