Chapter 53: Turning Calamity into Blessing

  Sorry, the broadband at home was faulty and couldn't access the internet last night. It just recovered after reporting for repair! The chapter that was pulled down yesterday will be made up today. Sorry to keep everyone waiting!

  The U-7 has sunk!

  The wreck was neither in the English Channel nor in the North Sea or somewhere in the Atlantic, but sank at its own berth!

  When Zhang Haino returned to Wilhelmshaven, he learned that on Christmas Eve, while the officers and soldiers on the boat were celebrating in the city, several British or French agents had deceived the guards near the dock and placed explosives on the submarine. A total of five submarines were sunk by explosions, including U7, U39, U100, U109 and U171.

  What made Zhang Haino most sorrowful was that U171 was sunk by a man-made bomb, it was the first submarine he commanded, and more than half of his achievements were achieved while commanding it, saying it was his favorite mount was not an exaggeration.

  What brought Zhang Haino the most comfort was that, apart from a few patrolling soldiers on duty, no one else was injured in this incident, and his current subordinates, Edwin and those old subordinates, were all safe and sound. He believed that as long as people are there, reorganizing an elite submarine team is not a difficult task.

  In the following two weeks, Zhang Hainuo and these unfortunate sailors not only had to help the Navy salvage the submarine but also had to endure tedious questioning by the Naval Military Police Department. Fortunately, one of the agents was caught soon after, confirming that this incident had nothing to do with these innocent sailors. Nevertheless, Zhang Hainuo and his crew were each given a major demerit for not taking good care of their submarine.

  Among the 5 submarines, the smallest U7 was the first to be salvaged. After research and analysis by a team of experts, it was found that although the amount of explosives used by the destroyer was not large, they were very professionally placed in the most critical position on the submarine - the oil tank. The submarine not only sank quickly but also had its important equipment and pipelines destroyed by a large fire before sinking. After repeated assessments by these experts, U7, U100, and U171 were directly declared scrapped, while the other two submarines were towed into dry dock for major repairs.

  Although his submarine was bombed and all personal belongings were lost, Zhang Haino found that his crew members did not have too much sorrow, but even some rejoicing. Zhang Haino soon understood that these guys' allowances were either mailed back home on time or spent, there was nothing valuable on the boat, and this small and old antique submarine had already tortured them enough, they couldn't wait to change to a new submarine that was more comfortable to live in, less bumpy to navigate, with more powerful firepower, and higher survival performance.

  In fact, Zhang Haino also had similar thoughts in his mind. If he were to command the U-7 submarine again in the English Channel, he felt that he would eventually suffer a heart attack like his predecessor.

  Given that three submarines had directly "died", the Navy Department could only reassign Zhang Haino and his team, but since the Navy currently did not have any available submarines, they temporarily assigned them to the 6th submarine squadron which was still in the planning stage. When Zhang Haino and his team reported to this submarine squadron, there were over 200 sailors undergoing training, plus the old sailors from the three submarines, which was enough to form 10 submarine teams according to the previous standard of ordinary UB-type submarines, but their superiors finally assigned them to only 6 teams, each with 48 people. Zhang Haino was appointed as the commander of the 2nd team due to his military rank and achievements.

  Considering the gap in quality and experience between new and old crew members, superiors reorganized the old birds and newcomers here, forming a pattern with old crew members as the core and new crew members in the majority. In this way, although Zhang Hainuo was reluctant to part with those familiar old birds on U7, he was able to obtain Edwin, Simon, and several other old subordinates from his superiors, and he felt that his gains far outweighed his losses.

  At the same time, 48 people in a group also allowed Zhang Haino to more or less infer the scale of the new submarine. He believed that it must be a submarine with an underwater displacement of over 1,000 tons. In fact, this new submarine was even larger than he had imagined.

  In the first month of training at the base, since the new submarine had not arrived yet, Zhang Haino just took his team members to do physical training every day, and combined with his own experience as well as that of other lieutenants and non-commissioned officers in the team to explain the key points of actual combat to the newcomers, also using his usual skillful small games to bring everyone closer together.

  It wasn't long before people discovered that Zhang Hainuo's 2nd group had a more harmonious atmosphere than the other groups.

  During this period, Zhang Hainuo also made some adjustments to the personnel structure based on his understanding of the team members. Edwin still served as the torpedo officer of this group, Simon was the only choice for the deputy captain, Giselle was the best wheelman in the engine department, and other crew members went to their relatively skilled and interested departments. When their new submarine came down from the dock, they became a well-coordinated submarine team, which made Zhang Hainuo feel extremely proud as a commander.

  Twenty-six days later, the new submarine had not yet completed its final outfitting work, but detailed information about it was finally distributed to Zhang Haino and his team. It wasn't until then that Zhang Haino learned that he would be commanding the German Empire's U-139-type cruiser submarine, which had the longest range and most advanced equipment of any submarine up to that point. This submarine had a submerged displacement of 1,500 tons, more than twice that of the UBIII type, and was equipped with six 500mm torpedo tubes, making it the most powerful submarine of its time. In addition, it could carry eight spare torpedoes, three deck guns - two 100mm cannons and one 37mm cannon - as well as two 8mm machine guns, giving it a formidable surface firepower that was truly impressive!

  Finally, this level of submarine can carry up to 110 tons of fuel, with a range of over 10,000 nautical miles!

  Although he only had the data and line drawings of this submarine in his hands at this time, Zhang Haino's "grief of losing a submarine" had long since disappeared without a trace. Such a first-class submarine was still a hot commodity even during World War II. Compared to ordinary U-boats, its speed may not have been advantageous, but its performance in terms of armament and endurance was too outstanding. Zhang Haino even thought that he could use one U-139-type submarine to defeat a British convoy - using torpedoes to destroy all the escort warships, and then sinking the remaining merchant ships one by one with deck guns after surfacing. Of course, this idea was based on the premise that he himself would not be sunk. Unfortunately, apart from having a deeper diving depth than ordinary submarines, the U-139 did not have any fundamental improvement in defensive capabilities, nor was it equipped with advanced listening devices such as sonar!

  After familiarizing himself with the submarine's performance on paper, Zhang Haino began to ponder the true purpose of these submarines - building such ultra-long-range submarines at a cost of more than twice that of ordinary submarines was clearly not for activities in the waters near Britain. This made Zhang Haino think of Germany's submarine raids on the US mainland during World War II; could the German commanders have had similar ideas during World War I?

  PS：

  During World War I, there were over a dozen types of German U-boats. Some were named after the first boat of that class, such as Type U 1, Type U 5 and Type U 23. Others were named by combining the type of submarine with Roman numerals or letters, such as UB I, UB III and UD, where UB indicated a medium-range coastal submarine and UD indicated an overseas-type submarine.

  2. U-139 was the pinnacle of German submarine construction during World War I, known to the British and Americans as a cruiser submarine. After the war it was acquired by the British and Americans who conducted in-depth studies on it, having a significant impact on the development of submarines. During World War II, Germany, the United States, Japan, and Italy all produced more powerful and modernized cruiser submarines than U-139.

  At the end of World War I, the German Navy did send several U-139 type submarines to fight in the waters near the United States, but the effect and influence were not as great as those of the German submarines in World War II, for unknown reasons.