Transmigrated as the Crown Prince

Chapter 413: Trapping people

After leaving the paratrooper training base and returning to the palace, Foreign Minister Ribbentrop came to report that Britain was sending a special envoy to discuss peace talks.

"It seems that the effect of mines is quite good." Nearly 4,000 mines have been laid in the waters around the UK these days. Yannick received information that when a British fleet left port last night, the newly completed battleship Prince of Wales hit a mine and was severely damaged. As a result, the remaining battleships did not dare to move forward and could only retreat to the port. The British army was working hard to clear mines, but they obviously didn't realize that the German mines were new types of mines, and they were still using old-fashioned minesweeping methods.

In fact, once the principle of this kind of magnetic mine is discovered, it is easy to deal with. Just let the two minesweepers sail parallel, with long cables trailing behind the sterns. Passing an electric current through the cable creates a magnetic field between the two ships that will detonate nearby magnetic mines.

This method was developed by Charles Goodiff, deputy director of the Multiple Weapons Research and Development Department of the British Admiralty.

This guy is simply a "disaster" to Germany. Not only did he develop this mine-sweeping method, he also figured out a way to "wipe the ship" so that it would not be affected by magnetic mines. After being grazed, ships, from small boats to large ships, can pass through the magnetic minefield without hindrance. But he also found that the changed magnetic field would gradually be restored by the vibration of the engine and the impact of the waves, which meant that the ship had to be "wiped" again every six months.

Goodiff coined a new word for this process, "degaussing"; the word was a tribute to Carl Friedrich Gauss, who was the first to calibrate the magnetic field, and is also associated with "degaussing" in English. The word "lice" rhymes with. During the Dunkirk evacuation battle in the original time and space, he relied on his "degaussing" method to degauss more than 400 ships of various sizes in just three days. In the following days, another 1,000 ships were "wiped". This operation, combined with the minesweeping method described above, kept British ships surprisingly safe from encountering magnetic mines throughout the evacuation. The miracle of Dunkirk owes much to Charles Goodeve and his research.

He did not stop after that, and led his team to develop the "hedgehog bomb", an anti-submarine weapon.

At that time, the British Army had an emergency anti-tank mortar called the Black Grenadier, which was designed with a plug-in rod and was intended to be used against landing German tanks.

The so-called rod-type mortar has no barrel and only a firing rod on the gun base. The tail tube of the shell is placed on the firing rod for orientation. The propellant is installed on the head of the tail tube. After ignition, the shell is pushed away from the launching rod. . So when the hedgehog bomb is not loaded, the launcher is a lot of poles extending in different directions, looking like hedgehogs. This is why this weapon got its name.

Gudive's team used 24 firing rods to combine. By adjusting the angle of the firing rods and using an ignition circuit to control the firing sequence of each firing rod, the 24 hedgehog bombs would fly more than 200 yards and then fall at the same time, arranged in a diameter 30 meter circle or 30X40 meter ellipse. As long as the submarine is circled, it is destined to be hit by multiple hedgehog bombs at the same time, making it absolutely difficult to escape.

The Hedgehog bomb has a caliber of 178 mm, a range of 200-259 meters, and is equipped with 13 kilograms of TNT explosives. It can blast a large hole of half a meter to one meter in the submarine's pressure hull. Later, it was changed to the Topex underwater explosive used to load 16 kilogram torpedoes, which was more powerful. It uses double fuzes. When it hits the sea surface, the safety is released and it enters the standby state. When it hits the submarine, the second fuze detonates. The shock wave of a close-range explosion can also activate this kind of fuze, so it often causes large-scale serial explosions and adds additional damage to the submarine. The Hedgehog bomb sinks three times faster than a depth bomb after entering the water. It only takes 9 seconds to reach a depth of 61 meters, leaving very limited time for the submarine to escape. The charge of the hedgehog bomb is much less than that of the depth charge, so the explosion sound is also smaller and does not affect the sonar operation. Reloading can be completed three minutes after launch, and anti-submarine ships can launch continuous attacks.

Later, the Americans also installed the same weapons, which played a positive role in anti-submarine warfare in the Atlantic.

Of course, Yannick would not keep this kind of guy and sent someone to deal with him a few years ago. Yannick doesn't know when the British will develop a way to counteract magnetic mines.

"The British want peace talks. To show their sincerity, they have to pay the 'peace negotiation fee' first. If they don't pay, they just want to fool us. What I don't want is much, 50 tons of gold, or handing over the Glorious aircraft carrier to us." Okay, then we can talk. Just reply to the British, this price is non-negotiable." Yannick muttered after Ribbentrop left. "If you want to play tricks on me, then I'll play tricks on you too."

That evening, Spanish Deputy Head of State Salazar secretly visited Samuel Hall, the British Ambassador in Madrid.

"What are you doing, Mr. Deputy Head of State, so late at night?" Hall said angrily.

He really hated this greedy guy now. Last time the British Empire spent 270 tons of gold in vain, but it had no effect. The Soviet army has not been able to break through the Finnish defense line until now.

Salazar whispered with a mysterious look on his face. "I came here to tell you a big secret, a big secret that determines the fate of Germany."

"What secret?!" Hall almost blurted out.

But Salazar did not continue speaking, and smoked his cigar leisurely.

Hall gritted his teeth. "Your Excellency, Deputy Head of State, please make a price."

Salazar silently stretched out two fingers. Hall's heart jumped suddenly, and there was a faint feeling of uneasiness in his heart. "Two tons of gold?"

Salazar clicked his tongue twice. "When did Lord Hall become so stingy? Two hundred tons, two hundred tons of gold!"

"!!" Hall was furious and wanted to slap the table and chase people away; only Salazar continued. "Your Excellency Hall should also know that 'the greater the risk, the higher the reward'; what I am taking is the risk of the whole of Spain becoming an enemy of Germany. If Your Excellency Hall is not interested, just pretend that I have never been here. But I can tell you What's more, this secret has a chance to reverse the current situation." After saying that, he stood up and left.

Hall quickly stopped him. "Your Excellency, Deputy Head of State, please stay. I will go to London for instructions."

Churchill, who was so angry at Yannick's so-called "peace negotiation fee", almost fainted when he heard the news from the ambassador to Spain.

Are these people treating the British Empire as a cash machine? !

However, he was very interested in the secrets told by the Spanish Deputy Head of State. "What secret do you think it could be?"

Aiden couldn't help but smile bitterly. If he could figure it out, would it still be called a secret? "Although Salazar was greedy, he did receive money to do things. Like last time, Spain did withdraw its volunteers." But the price paid by the British Empire was a bit high, and the effect was not very good.

"Is there any chance to reverse the current situation?" Churchill fell into deep thought. It wasn't until the cigar butt between his fingers was almost burning that he finally regained consciousness and gritted his teeth. "I agree to this deal, I hope what he said is true, otherwise I will never let him go!"

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