Chapter 674: Eating Vegetarian
Recently, Akado had been overwhelmed by the losses suffered by the paratroopers and had missed the commissioning ceremony for the navy’s new equipment. However, the ceremony was still held on time, presided over by the Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Navy, Raeder, and the Commander of the Submarine Force, Dönitz.
In a dock in the port of Hamburg, Germany, 40 of the most outstanding submarine officers and men stood in four rows with their hands behind their backs, waiting for the military band to play a solemn war song. In fact, the new type of submarine was currently parked inside a closed, dedicated submarine dock. Neither the military band nor the current crew had yet seen this new piece of equipment that was said to change the way submarines fight.
“Admiral Dönitz, can this new type of submarine really change the operational model of the submarine force in long-range combat, as those designers boast?” As the military music played, Grand Admiral Raeder leaned slightly, moved closer to Dönitz’s ear, and asked in a low voice.
He was wearing the naval officer’s dress uniform, black with double rows of gold buttons, and looked to be in excellent spirits. After all, under his command was the powerful fleet that had defeated the world’s number one navy. He could be said to be the most successful high-level naval commander since the birth of Germany. Although most of these achievements had little to do with him directly, it was during his tenure as the supreme commander of the navy that the German Navy had achieved a terrifying combat record that had shocked the world.
One could say that he was already standing at the very pinnacle of the Imperial Navy. The battleship named after him, the Grand Admiral Raeder, could even be said to be the first true battleship since the rebuilding of the German Navy, and possibly the last.
Dönitz nodded. As the supreme commander of submarines, he had witnessed the testing of this new vessel and had even personally seen its entire development process from birth. Due to improvements and developments in materials and technology, this submarine was destined to become a representative of the highest technology of this era, and was also destined to be forever engraved in the long scroll of human weapon development history because of its terrifying performance.
“The new propulsion is a completely new and terrifying system. This system allows the submarine to sail underwater for long periods of time,” Dönitz said, trying to explain this German naval superweapon to Raeder with data that was not too classified. “The birth of this submarine marks the evolution of the submarine from this day forward into a true submarine.”
“Such a big change? What do you mean, a ‘true submarine’? Weren’t they true submarines before?” Raeder was even more puzzled after hearing this. He looked at Dönitz, waiting for a more colloquial and reasonable explanation.
Dönitz’s smile grew even brighter. After all, this weapon was enough for him to formulate even more terrifying wolf pack tactics and an even more despairing system of strangulation warfare. “Grand Admiral, the weapons we used to command could only be called ‘submersible boats’. But this new submarine, to put it simply, is a submarine that can surface.”
“What’s the difference?” Raeder still didn’t understand the distinction between the two, but he immediately realized something. Before Dönitz could show off his new toy any further, he asked again, “You mean… this submarine’s main mode of travel is underwater?”
“Yes, Grand Admiral,” Dönitz nodded proudly, his face beaming with pride. “This submarine can submerge to a very, very great distance, and it can stay submerged for a very, very long time. Its underwater speed…”
He lowered his voice and whispered a number in Raeder’s ear, “Exceeds 15 knots.”
“Hiss!” Raeder couldn’t help but suck in a sharp breath. The temperature in the Hamburg military port was already very low in October, so this sudden intake of cold air irritated his lungs, causing him to cough violently. “Cough! Cough! Cough cough!”
The military band was still playing. In the center of the crowd stood Günther Prien, the submarine commander with the most heaven-defying luck and the most glorious combat record in the German submarine flotilla. He was standing at attention when he suddenly saw Grand Admiral Raeder coughing violently not far away, as if he had received some kind of shock.
After he finished coughing, Raeder looked at Dönitz with shocked eyes, momentarily speechless. As a commander who had come from surface ships, Raeder was quite familiar with the rules of anti-submarine warfare. He knew what this speed meant for surface vessels.
In this era, the sonar installed on almost all surface ships was not very accurate. They could only roughly detect a submarine’s position and then used the blast radius of depth charges to compensate for the lack of attack accuracy. Now that the submarine’s speed had tripled, it meant that the submarine’s approximate position could no longer be used as a basis for an attack by a surface ship. By the time you dropped the depth charge, the enemy would have already moved out of its destructive radius.
The reason why most World War II submarines had a sharp bow design was mainly because they needed to travel on the surface most of the time. Therefore, they were designed as much as possible like a ship to reduce drag and improve seaworthiness. However, this design was obviously not intended for underwater travel. In addition, the power output of the batteries underwater was far from satisfactory, so the underwater speed of most WWII submarines was maintained at around 5 knots.
However, at Akado’s suggestion, the newfangled thing called a “fuel cell” had been successfully developed by the Germans in the White Orchid laboratory as early as 1927. After ten years of technological accumulation, this new submarine underwater power solution had finally met the design standards a year ago, satisfying Akado’s requirements for equipment stability.
With this new powertrain, Germany’s new type of submarine could travel quietly underwater for more than two days. At a quiet cruising speed, it could even exceed four days. And during this time, it didn’t even need to expose its snorkel to the surface for air, which made the submarine a true underwater god of war, not just a submersible warship.
Since the submarine could stay underwater for about 3 days on a single surface charge, for safety reasons, this new type of submarine would spend most of its time submerged. Therefore, the sharp bow design style seemed a bit outdated.
And so, the new submarine adopted a more hydrodynamic rounded bow design. Coupled with more abundant power, the new submarine’s maximum underwater speed could reach 17 knots, about three times that of the previous fastest model. This speed could even support the submarine in chasing some merchant ships underwater and, if conditions allowed, it could almost track an enemy fleet while submerged.
In order to maximize the submarine’s speed and to reduce the noise generated by irregular parts underwater, this submarine had, for the first time ever, done away with the 88mm cannon on its bow and designed the 40mm anti-aircraft gun on its conning tower to be retractable and concealable. It could be said that after these efforts, this submarine was now the quietest in existence.
Because the size of the batteries had increased, a larger submarine hull was needed. And since the crew could not surface for fresh air most of the time, they also needed a larger space to relieve the pressure of being in a confined space. From another perspective, a larger size also meant it could carry more provisions and more ammunition. So the new submarine’s displacement reached a staggering 2,400 tons, an absolute and terrifying underwater behemoth.
The more rounded bow brought this new submarine an additional benefit that was previously unattainable: a portion of the sonar system could be installed in the position with the widest coverage angle. This way, the submarine could detect its targets from further away and earlier, and its only blind spot was at the stern.
If one still remembers Prien’s battle at Scapa Flow, one would recall the pitiful ad hoc reloading capability of the U-47. Because it could not fire enough torpedoes at once, although the German submarine had more opportunities to create a more glorious combat record in that battle, it was ultimately unable to do so due to technical reasons.
Now, this phenomenon had finally been solved by the German submarine design technicians. The increased size gave the new submarine the powerful firepower of six bow torpedo tubes. Moreover, the more professional torpedo room was even equipped with the fashionable device of an auxiliary loader. With sufficient ammunition, this new submarine could fire all 18 torpedoes in its ready racks at once and could fire another salvo after 10 minutes.
When Dönitz transferred Prien from the Spanish coast back to Hamburg, Germany, Prien and his men were still a little reluctant. But after the military band left the pier and the engineers pulled open the concealed dock, revealing the new submarine inside, Prien and his men were so shocked by this super submarine that they were speechless.
After the engineers explained the powerful functions of this new submarine to Prien and his crew, Prien glanced at Admiral Dönitz standing beside him. From the other’s eyes, he could see what was in his own. Their very souls were trembling at the birth of this submarine, because the submarine warfare to which they had devoted their entire lives had changed at this moment. And they, these men, would personally witness this earth-shaking change.
“You are no longer just the Battleship Killer. You are also the fastest man underwater,” Dönitz said proudly, pointing at the new submarine. “Once this type of submarine begins to form wolf packs, His Majesty the Emperor of the British Empire on Iceland will probably starve to death.”
Prien nodded. “I will set sail tomorrow. Before he starves to death, I’ll have him eat vegetarian for a few months!”
Published: 2025-09-17T08:52:29.000+00:00
Last Edited: 2026-02-18T19:22:09.000+00:00
URL: https://www.patreon.com/caleredhair/posts/mtr-c674-eating-139090316
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