world of warships french battleships going to suck

It was, indeed, for just such an eventuality as this that Admiral Sir John Tovey’s fleet existed and had been stationed in the Orkneys namely, the appearance of enemy warships in the North Sea. The information that had just come in was obviously of major importance, though not such as to cause surprise. King George V, then in harbor at the main operating base at Scapa Flow in the Orkneys. This vital piece of news was at once sent on to the flagship of the Home Fleet, H.M.S. In the early hours of May 21, a report arrived in the Admiralty to the effect that two large German warships, heavily screened and accompanied by eleven merchant vessels, had been seen steaming northwards in the Kattegat the day before. She also might take a hand in the game at any time. It was almost certain, too, that the new battleship Bismarck had been completed and had for some months been under training in the Baltic. The battle cruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau had been out early in 1941 and had inflicted some severe losses on convoys before appearing at Brest in March.

The Scheer had been operating against shipping in the Atlantic late in 1940. The German Naval Command was not content to rely only on U-boats and aircraft, great as was the damage they were inflicting, but was using also its surface vessels in the attack on Britain’s sea communications. By May, 1941, they had become so serious that the British War Cabinet was on the point of deciding that it would be contrary to the national interest to publish any more monthly figures of the tonnage sunk. Mercantile losses had been mounting ever since the fall of France. The enemy’s acquisition of the whole Norwegian coast and the French Channel and Atlantic seaboards had given him numerous excellent bases for the prosecution of his submarine offensive against shipping - an offensive which was facilitated by the grave shortages in convoy escort vessels and coastal aircraft with which Britain had entered the war and which could not be rectified under many months. Early in 1941 they had overrun Yugoslavia and had passed on to the invasion of Greece.Īt sea, the situation was bad and getting worse. For practically a year she had been standing all by herself in face of the powerful and victorious Axis Powers Hitler’s forces had conquered Norway, Denmark, Holland, Belgium, and France in 1940. IN the middle of May, 1941, Britain’s fortunes were low.

World of warships french battleships going to suck