Stamping foot

  When the submarine fleet led by Zhou Tianlei was to be incorporated into the naval combat sequence and given a hull number, the officer in charge came to ask Zhou Tianlei what number he wanted, which was approved by Lederle.

  Zhou Tianlei remembered that the hull number of the Kilo-class submarine he had commanded in the past was 353, and he wanted to name his current submarine 353 as well. He told this to the military officer, and thus the world-renowned U-353 came into being.

  After Hitler issued the order to execute Operation Weserübung, Zhou Tianlei wrote a report requesting to participate in the Norwegian Campaign. In the report, he requested that his submarine be sent to participate in the Norwegian Campaign to gain an opportunity for actual combat testing of new submarines, but D?nitz initially did not approve his participation. Zhou Tianlei used his "Tang Seng's Great Method" and made D?nitz so annoyed that he had no choice but to approve him and his submarine to join the battle (our SANGEDAIBIAO was something that people at that time had seen before, of course with greatly increased power, Zhou Tianlei smiled triumphantly).

  On March 15, Zhou Tianlei and the submarine No. 353 he commanded set out from Wilhelmshaven. (Their mission this time was to conduct pre-war reconnaissance in Narvik Port. Therefore, the submarine carried specially trained frogmen. As soon as the frogmen came on board, they found that this submarine was different from previous ones, and air conditioning was turned on inside, what a comfort!

  At 353, when arriving at the outer 2 kilometers of Narvik Port, Zhou Tianlei ordered the submarine to stop and frogmen to exit the cabin for reconnaissance of the port, especially to check if there were anti-submarine nets or similar underwater obstacles. In addition, they also followed Zhou Tianlei's order to investigate the sea currents, seawater stratification, and salinity here (Zhou Tianlei said, I have never been here before, and I don't understand the seawater situation here at all. Not understanding the seawater situation in the combat area is equivalent to putting one's own life and the submarine's survival into someone else's hands for a modern submarine officer. Of course, there are ocean survey ships doing this in later eras, but now only I can do it myself).

  Zhou Tianlei then commanded the submarine to surface, approaching Narvik harbor in a semi-submerged state to the maximum extent possible. He and several deputies stood on the command tower, observing the deployment of Norwegian troops inside with binoculars and handheld direction finders. His submarine was painted with ocean camouflage, and hid in a corner that was relatively easy to see but also relatively dark, so he wasn't afraid of being discovered by the Norwegian army.

  They marked on the map one by one what they observed and prepared to hand it over to the ships that received them after completing the reconnaissance.

  In the following days, Zhou Tianlei and his companions went out to Norway many times to gather intelligence on enemy situations and hydrological data.

  On April 9, the German invasion of Norway began with a sudden attack on Copenhagen, and Denmark was quickly occupied by the Germans with minimal losses.

  The German troops then set off for Oslo, Trondheim and Bergen under the cover of naval vessels to prepare for amphibious landings.

  Thanks to the tireless reconnaissance work of Zhou Tianlei and others, the naval vessels attacking Oslo fired at them before the Norwegian shore batteries opened fire, suppressing them. The accurate artillery fire from the German troops destroyed most of the Norwegian shore batteries, and the remaining ones were also suppressed by the German ships.

  The German cruiser 'Blücher' which historically sank here also did not sink thanks to the intelligence provided by Zhou Tianlei and only suffered minor injuries.

  The German landing troops took advantage of this opportunity to quickly land and consolidate their beachhead, then rapidly advance towards the Norwegian capital. The King of Norway hastily fled northwards.

  The Germans occupied Oslo without much effort. After the German occupation of Narvik harbor, Zhou Tianlei's submarine was ordered to patrol outside the harbor channel to detect British warships heading for the port in advance and fire at the British fleet if necessary.

  On the 10th, Zhou Tianlei finally opened. He commanded the submarine to use a snorkel for patrol while underwater when the sonar operator reported finding the British fleet and reported its current position and speed. Zhou Tianlei sent a telegram to the port and requested the implementation of pre-planned combat plan No. 1, where Zhou's submarine would follow the British fleet and fire at an appropriate time, and the German fleet that had been prepared in advance rushed to the battlefield.

  Zhou Tianlei ordered the submarine to sail at maximum surface speed towards the British fleet. After 20 minutes, Zhou Tianlei saw the British fleet through his binoculars. There were five British destroyers coming. Zhou Tianlei thought to himself that historically, this fleet was commanded by British Admiral Boteney, but he didn't know if it was still him now.

  He put away the binoculars. Went inside the cabin. Issued an order: "Now emergency dive." The red alarm lights in the cabin flashed non-stop. German sailors took their positions one after another.

  Zhou Tianlei saw that the submarine had dived to a depth of 80 meters and then gave another order: "Stop diving, sonar reconnaissance the position of the British fleet." "Report, the British fleet is heading northeast, bearing 150, speed 12 knots."

  Zhou Tianlei knew that the British fleet was also listening for underwater conditions, and personnel should be dispatched to observe the sea surface on deck. In order to discover German submarines in advance.

  But they didn't think that their submarine had many places imitating the 209 of later generations, and the underwater noise had already decreased by a larger margin than the World War II submarines. If those more advanced devices were installed on the boat, the noise would be further reduced. So their sonar personnel must have taken the noise of their own submarine as sea bottom noise.

  He couldn't help but smile lightly at the thought. He ordered the submarine to follow the British fleet from the right side according to the direction reported by the sonar operator, and mark their route on the nautical chart. Prepare to attack the British warship at the predetermined ambush point.

  Finally arrived at the predetermined ambush point. Zhou Tianlei observed the enemy situation with a periscope and ordered the submarine to turn around, aiming the bow torpedo tube at the British fleet's HMS Havock and giving the command: "Enemy destroyer one ship, distance 900 meters, No. 2 launch tube loaded G7e electric torpedo, set depth 2.5 meters, fire."

  Only the sound of rushing water was heard from the torpedo tube. The torpedo had already escaped from the tube. Zhou Tianlei retracted the periscope and ordered, "Main ballast tank, quickly fill the diving tank with water, reduce speed to 6 knots, dive to a depth of 150 meters."

  After giving the order, he thought: I have changed history. In history, Prien did not achieve much in the Norwegian campaign due to these unstable torpedoes and was even exposed when attacking the British battleship "Warspite". He almost got surrounded and annihilated. After returning home, he once refused to go into battle. Now I propose to D?nitz to improve the torpedo's fuse and depth setting. Now it only has a contact fuse, its reliability is greatly improved compared to before.

  Just as the submarine was diving, Zhou Tianlei's sonar operator on the submarine suddenly threw down his headphones: "Torpedo hit." He used the naval hand signals that Zhou Tianlei had taught him to convey the information to Zhou Tianlei. The sonar operator on the British destroyer, however, was deafened by the powerful underwater sound of the torpedo explosion. The captain of the Hawke had to announce abandoning ship a few minutes later.

  At this time, the British fleet should have started anti-submarine operations and thrown depth charges into the water. However, at this moment, the German destroyer group that had been in battle was heard to be approaching. Taking advantage of the cover of darkness, they opened fire on the British fleet while it was evading possible submarine attacks.

  The British fleet was in disarray, with no heart to fight back against the German destroyers. They fired wildly and retreated in disorder, resulting in even greater chaos. The German destroyers took advantage of the situation and sank one British destroyer and severely damaged another. Including the one sunk by Zhou Tianlei earlier, the British fleet had lost two ships and had one heavily damaged. The remaining warships fled in a panic (In this historical battle, the British destroyers were ambushed by the German destroyers and outnumbered. One was sunk, one was heavily damaged, and the fleet commander was killed by a stray bullet. However, with Zhou Tianlei's participation, the naval battle turned out to be even more impressive).

  The German destroyer saw the British destroyer escape, and the sailors on the deck cheered. Zhou Tianlei's submarine also surfaced. The sailors inside also climbed out one after another, looking at the slowly sinking British destroyer and shouting loudly.

  In addition, some sailors were carrying lifeboats and holding weapons to rescue the British sailors who were still struggling in the water. These British sailors were the first batch of British naval prisoners captured by these people. They would be transported to a temporary prisoner-of-war camp set up for them within Norway. Zhou Tianlei stood with Luk and Muller on the command tower, the three of them laughing loudly.