Chapter 377 Traps

United Kingdom, London, Admiralty.

Minister of the Navy Churchill just sent the Prime Minister's Office back, and the current situation is becoming more and more unfavorable for Britain. Sure enough, Russia made peace with Germany, which made Germany no longer have to worry about fighting on two fronts. It is foreseeable that the Germans will soon launch a large-scale offensive on the Western Front. Whether the British and French allied forces can withstand the German attack will be directly related to whether they can persist in this war.

Under such circumstances, not only the French are frantically arming more troops. At the same time, the United Kingdom is also trying to grow the expeditionary force, trying to withstand future German attacks.

The British Navy, however, has not recovered from the heavy losses. Although the 'Queen Elizabeth-class' battleship has already entered service, the 'Revenge-class' battleship will soon enter service. This restored the strength of the British Navy compared to before.

However, Churchill was not at all optimistic about the future decisive battle at sea. Because he knows very well that even if the British Navy has ten more battleships equipped with 381mm main guns, it may not be the opponent of the German Navy. Therefore, he can only pin his hopes on the battleships that will be built later. It's just that Germany obviously won't give them that much time. The German navy is frantically strangling Britain's sea transportation lines. All British merchant ships were either sunk or captured directly. This makes Britain, which is extremely dependent on maritime trade, almost trapped to death. If it weren't for the fact that American merchant ships have been transporting various supplies to the United Kingdom, they might not be able to persist long ago.

As if to further intensify the attack on Britain, the German Navy's submarines and breaching fleet even launched attacks on British fishing boats. This directly caused a sharp decline in the seafood that the United Kingdom could obtain from the ocean.

Britain is a country with highly developed industry, and its domestic food production is not high. Most of the food they consume comes from abroad. As an island country, seafood is also an important food on the table of the British. After the sea transportation line was cut off, in order to avoid famine, the British government called on fishermen to increase the amount of fishing to ensure the domestic food supply.

But it is a pity that when more and more fishing boats were sunk by the Germans, those fishermen did not dare to go to sea again. Even if you go out to sea, you just circle around the sea. In that case, how many fish can you catch? This also makes the possibility of famine in Britain greatly increased.

Prime Minister Asquith summoned the ministers of the British cabinet and asked them to discuss countermeasures.

"No, we can't let the Germans continue to be so rampant. Otherwise, our cutting-edge warships have not been built, and Britain has been dragged down. By then, Britain will lose in this war. The colonial system that the British Empire has maintained for hundreds of years will collapse." Churchill murmured.

If the German navy can be defeated in one fell swoop and the current crisis can be resolved, that would be the best. But it is a pity that the current Royal Navy does not have such strength at all.

"The German fleet is very strong, especially when there are battlecruisers equipped with 380mm main guns, even if we send the 'Queen Elizabeth-class' battleships to fight, we may not be able to get a cheap one. .Since there is no way to deal with the German fleet, we must find a way to deal with their submarines. If the German submarines can be eliminated, our threat will be much smaller!" Churchill thought.

Among the losses caused by the German navy to British merchant ships, the broken fleet did not account for the largest share. Those seemingly inconspicuous submarines became the main force to cut off the British sea transportation line.

Especially when the German Navy holds the initiative, it can dispatch a large number of merchant ships and transport ships to provide supplies for these submarines and increase the residence time in the ocean. These submarines, with their elusive attack methods, are hard to guard against, and directly caused great losses to the British merchant ships. A large number of British merchant ships were sunk by German submarines.

Although the German Navy's breaking fleet is very strong, it is impossible to completely block the British coast because of its quantity. If the submarines of the German Navy can be solved, then the crisis in Britain can be alleviated to a certain extent.

Under such circumstances, Churchill directly issued an order to the British Navy Grand Fleet, asking them to find a way to get rid of the German submarines.

Admiral John Jellicoe also had a headache after receiving the order. The German submarines, hiding underwater to launch an attack, are not so easy to find. Although, British scientists have developed sonar. However, the sonar of this period was extremely crude, and it was not at all like the sonar of later generations, which could accurately locate underwater targets.

Therefore, the British Navy launched attacks against German submarines several times, but did not achieve much results.

Although, from the outbreak of the war to the present, Germany has lost more than a dozen submarines. But except for a very few that were sunk by the British Navy, most of the rest were lost due to their own failures.

The loss of these submarines in exchange for the cut off of the British sea transportation line is undoubtedly worth the price.

When Admiral John Jellicoe, in order to complete Churchill's order, a staff officer of the British Navy, proposed a battle plan. After seeing the plan, Admiral John Jellicoe was very satisfied and immediately flew to London to report the battle plan to Prime Minister Churchill.

"Your Excellency, this is the battle plan we came up with. The German submarines often surfaced, threatened our merchant ships with naval guns, and surrendered to them. Many merchant ships without any weapons were killed under such circumstances. Therefore, we can take advantage of this situation to ambush the German submarine, or in other words, set a trap for the German submarine and wait for them to step in by themselves." Admiral John Jellicoe said.

The British Navy plans to prepare 20 merchant ships. On these merchant ships, small-caliber rapid-fire guns were secretly arranged, pretending to return to the British mainland from North America, or from the British mainland to North America. Once a German submarine surfaced and was about to capture these British merchant ships, the British sailors in civilian clothes manipulated those small-caliber rapid-fire guns to attack the German submarine and sink it.

There is no doubt that this is a very stupid way. However, Churchill could only adopt such a tactic when there was no other way.