Battle of the Third Reich Chapter 469: Jean Barr (middle)

Leading Captain Ronak into a dilemma, he was reluctant to destroy this powerful warship, and he was also unwilling to let her fall into the hands of the Germans. The French army can be defeated and surrendered, but the glorious French navy will never catch it with one's hands. After letting Ronach think twice, he issued the order to set sail immediately.

The outfitting captain is actually more like an administrative officer. On the one hand, he is responsible for coordinating the contact between the shipyard and the navy. At the same time, he also shoulders the responsibility of training technical officers and grassroots sailors, leading them to be as familiar as possible The various systems of this warship ensure that the ship can be tested normally during the trial period.

Let Ronak witness the gradual formation of this battleship before him. For this navy colonel, the Barr was like his son and daughter. He was proud of her advanced and powerful and could not tolerate it. Announced to give up without an attempt.

Let the Barr be parked quietly in the huge outfitting dock at this time. After being filled with water, the depth of the water here reached ten meters, enough to float the huge hull of the Barr. The engineer suggested blasting one side of the hull in the dock and letting her hull tilt to one side. This would cause structural damage to the hull and the bottom keel, and the weight of the hull would cause extremely serious damage to the dock.

In this way, even if the Germans get the hull, there is no repair value, and this advanced dock can not be used by the enemy in a short time.

This is really a ruthless and effective strategy. If Ronak was allowed to agree to the advice of the adjutant and engineering director, the Germans would have nothing but a mess in the end.

However, Colonel Ronach refused to adopt the advice of the director of engineering. He believed that there was a risk in everything, and this was obviously worth his risk, for the French Navy to retain this cutting-edge warship, even if only a thousand points. One possibility he will not give up.

Different from the semi-finished warship in history, at this time the Jean Barr has been roughly completed, and the hull weight and draft are basically the same as the design data. The project to dredge the waterway from the dock to the estuary was contracted to a private company. In order to save the amount of construction, the standard set at the beginning was for the hull of the preliminary outfit. The French navy originally planned to only carry out the sea in Saint-Nazaire. In the trial, the subsequent assembly work of this warship was completed at the naval shipyard in the port of Brest.

In the Navy’s plan, the weight of this warship when it sails is 6,000 tons lighter than the finished body. It is calculated that the draft can be maintained at about 8 meters, while the original channel depth is only 5.4 meters, so the plan is The construction party needed to excavate a ditch four meters deep and ninety meters wide and 3.4 kilometers long at the bottom of the river to ensure that the warship could safely enter the main channel of the Loire.

This is a very difficult project, and the construction environment is very complicated because there are a lot of rocky reefs besides silt at the bottom of the river. In order to catch up with the progress of the project, the shipyard has also lowered the standard of the channel several times. The original safety width of 90 meters was reduced to 50 meters, and the depth of 4 meters was reduced to 3.5 meters, which barely allowed the draught. The eight-meter warship passed through the middle.

But now the draft of this warship has already exceeded nine meters, so if you want to escape from the harbor, you must reduce the draft of the ship, so Captain Ronak and the engineers at the shipyard tried everything. The method is to reduce the weight of the battleship.

They emptied the ammunition inventory of the main and secondary artillery, leaving only a small amount of ammunition for anti-aircraft firepower. They also emptied most of the fuel, emptied the ballast tanks, and even abandoned all the furniture and debris. It even reduced the scheduled crew and passengers, and finally reduced the draught of the warship to 8.1 meters.

This means that there is only a safety gap of less than half a meter between the bottom of the ship and the riverbed, and any small mistake will cause a serious grounding accident.

Let Captain Ronak foresee that this sailing will be very difficult, but the German motorized forces are approaching fast, and the navy colonel has no other choice but to bite the bullet and take risks.

On the section of the route leaving the outfitting dock, the Barr did not start her own power, and all relied on the two steam tugs of the shipyard to tow back and forth. Because of the narrow waterway, it would be difficult for the tug to control the warship if the main power was activated. The course, because even in a drifting state, in order to overcome the huge inertia of this battleship, the two tugboats have been exhausted.

As soon as Barr was released from the dock, the more than 3,000 workers left in the shipyard were also deported on the spot. These people were originally intended to be evacuated with the warship, but due to draught, they could only be After staying, the feeling of being abandoned by the organization was really uncomfortable. The frustrated workers left the slipway silently, and no one looked back at Jean Barr.

The battleship was cautiously retreated out of the 900-meter-long artificial channel and rushed into the Loire River. At this time, it was at low tide. The danger of the battleship stranding is beginning to double as the water level drops. The upward increase.

Along the pre-set buoys, the battleship moved slowly forward, allowing Colonel Ronak to stand on the nautical bridge and personally operate the rudder wheel. In an unpowered state, the rudder was barely much at this time. Role, the navy colonel is doing this now solely for the purpose of being able to take all the responsibilities once something goes wrong.

The battleship’s voyage has been very smooth so far, as long as it passes through the two-hundred-meter-long passage between Bilho Sandbank and Penoe Reef~IndoMTL.com~ the battleship can enter the deep water area. Seeing victory in sight, the expressions of the officers and soldiers on the bridge gradually began to relax, and some even smiled on their faces.

The huge hull is slowly passing over the river. The bilho sandbar covered with reeds and thatch is on the left side of the bow. The starboard side has crossed the Penoe Reef, just before people thought it had passed. On the most difficult channel, the ship suddenly halted, and the officers and soldiers who did not hold the support in the bridge immediately fell to the ground. Accompanied by a harsh rubbing sound, the battleship stopped advancing, and at the same time the port side of the hull slowly lifted upwards at a speed that could be discerned by the naked eye. In just a few seconds, the huge battleship appeared five degrees.

"We are stranded!" The deputy captain stood up with the compass pillar, turned around and reported to the captain.

"All departments report the damage, don't be alarmed, we should have hit a rock that has not been cleaned up." Ronak returned the steering wheel to the helmsman, walked to the captain's seat and gave the order calmly.

ps: Sorry, the author has something to do at home today, so I only took the time to write these, not many words, please forgive me, I will definitely add a big chapter in the future.

Thank you for your support. (To be continued.)

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