On December 9, at 9:10 pm, 133 nautical miles west of Iceland.

The Allies' Atlantic Combined Fleet, the 2nd Advance Team, and the flagship USS Shropshire heavy cruiser.

The bow of the ship crashed into the North Atlantic winds and waves. Tens of thousands of tons of heavy cruisers moved forward at a high speed of 25 knots. Behind it are the sister ships of Shropshire, the same London-class Sussex, the Kent-class heavy cruisers Cumberland, Cornwall, two Soviet heavy cruisers Maxim, the Gorky and Molotov, as well as the British light cruisers Glasgow and six British destroyers.

The 13 ships lined up a single column and searched for the wind and waves of the North Atlantic Ocean. The radars on each ship were all turned on, searching the surrounding waters over and over again. All sonar soldiers also raised their ears and carefully monitored any noise from the water.

As an advance of the main fleet, confronting cruisers and destroyers of Germany, Italy and France is not their main task. Their current main task is to find out whether there are lurking lightning ships and submarines on the battlefield. If there is any, drive them away quickly, so as not to be sneaked by spear torpedoes when the main ship confronts.

"Sir!"

The shouts of Colonel Charles Lee, the captain of the Cumberland and the chief of staff of the team, rang in the ears of Major General Burnett, the commander of the team.

"The radar discovered the target with a distance of 35,000 yards, more than 10 ships, and an azimuth of 128 degrees. From the radar signal analysis, 7 of them were large ships."

Major General Burnett ordered: "Call two 'walruses' and see if they can throw flares on the heads of enemy ship formations."

The "Warcester" seaplane is the standard on the large ships of the Royal Navy of the United Kingdom. It is an old, slow and easy to be shot down. However, Britain, which became scarce due to the long-term blockade of the Germans, did not have enough financial resources to develop alternative models and could only use the old "Warcester".

In fact, scarcity is replacing Germany as the number one enemy of the British Empire. In the local area, there is now nothing but pessimism. What the people lack most is food. In the coming winter, they will become hungry and cold people. At the same time, many British people are beginning to lack work because more and more factories have to close down due to lack of raw materials.

Due to the lack of raw materials, the production of British weapons and equipment has dropped sharply since the spring of 1942, and the quality is much worse than before (this is due to the lack of non-ferrous metals that have caused the decline in material quality). What's worse is the extreme lack of fuel. Due to the blockade and the consumption of the Irish battle, Britain's oil reserves are almost exhausted, so most of the ships of the local fleet have to travel to Canada, where fuel supply is sufficient, and now they have almost become the Canadian Navy!

At the same time, Churchill authorities, who were a little ill and rushed to seek medical treatment, turned their hope of obtaining fuel to coal. Since the second half of 1941, the British government has begun to build a relatively simple "hydrocracking" synthetic oil factory.

However, the synthetic oil produced in this method is of poor quality and cannot supply the mechanized forces of the Royal Air Force and the Army. So it is currently only used for some Royal Navy ships left in the local area, but even the amount of this inferior fuel is still too small to meet the demand at all. As a result, the ships left in the local area have been parked in ports for most of the time and their morale has continued to decline, almost becoming the German high seas fleet in 1918... No, it is not that the Royal Navy is about to become the German Navy in 1918, but that the entire Britain is about to become Germany in 1918.

If this effort to open up the Arctic Circle transportation line failed, Major General Burnett was a little worried that the revolutionary storm would sweep the British Isles!

"Commander, the flare is dropped!" Colonel Charles Lee's shouts interrupted Major General Burnett's thoughts again. He quickly raised the telescope in the direction of Colonel Lee's finger. A huge hull covered by white light immediately appeared in the camera, as if... a Bismarck-class battleship!

"A battleship!" Major General Burnett gasped, put down his telescope and looked at Colonel Lee, "It looks like Bismarck-class!"

The air inside the bridge of the Shropshire heavy cruiser suddenly became tense. If you encountered a Bismarck-class battleship, then this 10,000-ton heavy cruiser would be dangerous.

"Boom boom boom..." The continuous sound of shelling came. It was the Bismarck-class anti-aircraft gun that was firing, and it was shooting very accurately. A "Warcelona" plane turned into a fireball, and the other one fled quickly. Now no planes dropped flares.

"Reported to the Soviet Union, we found that the enemy ship formation was more than 10, and there were 7 large ships, one of which was suspected to be a Bismarck-class battleship!" Because we could no longer observe and did not dare to send the formation to the muzzle of the enemy battleship, Major General Burnett had to report the uncertain situation to the Soviet Union.

...

"Commander, political commissar... Comrade, the 2nd Advance Team may have discovered the German battleship formation, which may have 7 battleships, including 1 Bismarck-class!"

7 battleships, including 1 Bismarck!

Because of Lieutenant General Fraser's report, the already tense atmosphere inside the Soviet bridge suddenly reached the ignition point. Even Comrade Burganing, who had always been calm and calm, sucked his pipe and had fine beads of sweat on his forehead.

"If the German Barbarossa class and French Dunkirk class are considered new warships/war patrols, then they should have 16 warships/war patrols." Ingersoll frowned and analyzed, "In addition to this warship/war patrol formation, there should be 1-2 formations."

Germany now has 2 Hindenburg class, 2 Bismarck class, 2 Barbarossa class and 1 Gneisenau (it is often regarded as Barbarossa class), the Italians have 4 Venetto class, the French have 3 Richelieu class and 2 Dunkirk class. There are 16 ships in total, but France's Richelieu is not able to participate in the war now, so Ingersoldo counts one.

Since the last "blasting gun" incident, Richelieu has been staying in the shipyard. He first used it to test the main gun to find the cause of the blast (later it was found that the problem was on the shell), and then removed a main turret (the one that exploded the barrel) and installed a 3-connected 406mm main turret for testing. This was the main gun prepared by the French for their new generation of battleship "Alsace".

After the end of the Mediterranean Battle, the French restarted the "1938 Naval Plan" and began to continue to build two Xiafei-class aircraft carriers and four USS Althus battleships.

Among them, the No. 1 ship of Xiafei, Xiafei, had completed 28% before June 1940, and the project was still continuing after the signing of the peace agreement in France (the No. 2 had not laid a keel). At present, the aircraft carrier with a standard displacement of 20,000 tons and can carry 40 carrier-based aircraft has been put into service, but it has not joined the European Combined Fleet. This is not because the French are reluctant to contribute their only aircraft carrier (the Bainya was detained by the UK and joined the Free French Navy), but because they need this only aircraft carrier to test the twin-engine carrier-based bomber br.810 bomber.

If successful, one of the many sub-models of the br.690 series of the br.810 carrier-based bomber is probably the first practical carrier-based twin-engine bomber, which is considered a very important model. Therefore, Folk Company, which has rich experience in carrier-based aircraft construction, also participated in this project.

The progress of the "Alsace" class battleship was much slower than that of the "Xiafei" class aircraft carrier. The design was not completed before June 1940, and it took another year to learn from the experience and lessons of the "Riceliu" class to complete all the design work. In early 1942, the "Alsace" class ships 1, 2 (Normandy) and 3 (Frondier) of the "Alsace" class started construction one after another, and were planned to be completed in early 1945.

The 3-connected 406mm main gun tested on Richelieu is the main gun that will be used by the "Alsace" class. According to the design, the "Alsace" class will have 3 3-connected 406mm turrets, and its firepower is very strong!

By the way, because France started construction of the "Alsace" class, Italian leader Mussolini was not to be outdone and immediately came up with the plan for the "Duke of Alexander" (Duke of Alexander and Mussolini himself) class battleships that had been prepared long ago. This class of battleships is actually the up-41 battleship designed by Italian Anchard for the Soviet Union, with a standard displacement of 42,700 tons. It also has three 3-unit 406mm main turrets, and there are also three ships, namely the Duke of Alexander, the Roman Emperor and the Duke of Cairo. According to the plan, these three up-41 battleships will also be completed in early 1945.

However, these 406mm super battleships are still on the ship platform, which cannot threaten the Atlantic Combined Fleet of Britain, the United States and the Soviet Union.

"Even if they have 16 battleships/war patrols, our advantage is on our side tonight!" U.S. Admiral Ingersol said to Burganing, "You can let the 2nd Advance Team avoid this enemy ship formation and continue to search for the battlefield. Then concentrate the forces of the 1st and 2nd Teams to eliminate these seven Nazi and fascist battleships!"

...

"Marson, the heavy patrol team seems to have attracted the enemy's main force! The enemy's advance formation bypassed the heavy patrol team, and their main formation is moving closer to the heavy patrol team."

At 9:30, 10 nautical miles south of the European Combined Fleet Recruitment Team, the Marshal Lütjens also obtained the latest battlefield situation sent by the BV-138 reconnaissance aircraft.

"Okay!" Marshal Lütjens smiled and nodded, "Order the heavy patrol team to turn north and keep the speed at 20 knots. Teams 1, 2 and 3 follow us, and we follow the heavy patrol team.

Now, prepare for a Jutland-style final battle!” (To be continued.)
Chapter completed!