Chapter 426 Battle of the Sea IV, the revenge of Beiyang has not been avenged yet!

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What happened at that moment?

When Hipelle returned to Germany to report the scene to Tirpitz, he shook his head hard and described it in five words, "chaos plus luck".

In fact, no one could say what had happened at the beginning. It was not until the observer who followed the No. 1 gun position of Guangxi sent a message that one of the three main guns in the gun position of the ship hit the Crown Prince. Everyone knew who had made the contribution. The main gunner who took off his clothes and wiped the marks of the shell was dishoned after the war. The birds admired it, because it took him only 50 seconds to help the whole gun group win the naval gold medal, and also made a collective first-class contribution. During that period, there was even a craze of wiping shells with old clothes.

From the first shell to more than 20 seconds later, the first wave of shells exploded beside the Crown Prince, and then the third round of sipation in 30 seconds to reach the target.

The whole process takes 50 seconds!

If the time can freeze, at that time, the eight capital ships grabbed the T position, and the muzzle all pointed to the explosion of the Crown Prince, while the second battleship detachment of the Xinhua Navy was still continuing to shell in parallel with the Russian battleship line. Roger Strinsky was checking the chart, and the captain of the Crown Prince had been shaken. Dizzy.

What the hell happened?

Is it the guide of two hummingbirds hovering over the formation? Li Mo quickly rejected this answer, because when one round of shells fell, there were only ten seconds left for the second round of shells to be fired. With the current technology, it is impossible for the mechanical computer in the fire control room to recalculate the new coordinates of the report within ten seconds and distribute them to the ships. Although Xinhua's radio and fire control technology is proud of the group. But the shortest process must be about one minute.

It was not until the explanation of a Russian sailor who claimed to be a lookout of the Crown Prince that everyone figured out everything. According to the sailor, his position at that time was on the front mast, and he was guiding the front main gun to fire on the Xinhua Fleet. Then he was scared down by a dense column of water and waited until he stood up again. Later, he found that the second shell had arrived. This time, before he could squat down, he saw a shell almost straight through the top of the No. 1 turret.

These words made everyone finally figure it clear that the armor-piercing shell running down from the top must have penetrated the ammunition depot under the turret, otherwise it would not have caused such great damage with the 8kg TNT high explosive in the 305mm armor-piercing shell alone.

There is no doubt that this is luck.

But it is the only ironclad ship in the world with the most experience. The first equipped Chinese battleship, the first to develop centralized fire control, the first to install an optical rangefinder, the first to use radio command, and has sacrificed more than 4,000 people in ten years. It has the world's largest ironclad actual combat experience, and has been touching The luck of the hard-trained navy!

No matter what happened at that time, there was no need to investigate. This battleship, which had only been launched for four years and was called a proud battleship by France and Russia at the same time, persisted for only two minutes in the violent explosion and disappeared in the warm waters of the Indian Ocean. There were 803 officers and soldiers on the ship, and only two survived.

On the French observation ship, several people were talking with other friendly countries, pointing to the Crown Prince's boasting [***] officers at the same time, they felt as if they had been slapped in the face loudly, because they had just said that the battleship was only a little worse than the new battleship, and it was completely blown up by two rounds.

On the British USS Donetal, Fisher stared, clenched his fists, and was short of breath. There was only one thought in his heart. The empire needed a large number of such battleships!

On the U.S. observation ship, George Dewey, the commander of the Far East Fleet, looked gray. While the United States still did not break through the new battleship technology, the Pacific sea power seemed to be getting farther and farther away from the world's first economic power.

As for the Alexander III, Rogerstwinsky looked at the porthole in a daze, as if he was still looking for the familiar figure. As for the Russian naval officers and soldiers who saw this scene, they were even more sweating. If it weren't for the sea, they would have escaped half of them.

According to the Russian naval staff officer who was later rescued, Glo, he recalled: "A puff of smoke floated over the sea, and when he opened his eyes again, the Crown Prince had disappeared. At that moment, Russia seemed to have been hit on the head by a hammer, completely unconscious."

This sentence explains a series of stupid mistakes of the Russian fleet later.

At 1:40, Roger Strinsky, who was stunned by the second kill, gave the order to turn right with all his strength, but he forgot an important thing, not to mention that the warships under his command did not have the opponent's speed at all, but because the following five were Borodino-class battleships.

The biggest problem of the Borodino class, which follows the legal bloodline of the Crown Prince, is that it is top-heavy. Especially after the birth of the Duke class, Russia urgently revised the drawings. On the basis of two double 305mm guns, two double 210mm guns were added to the middle, and the displacement was also increased to full load 1. 5,200 tons.

Just from the perspective of displacement, this weapon is not equipped too much, but the problem is that the French style is named after the sideboard side and inward tilt, and the armor protection is complex. In appearance, it looks like a middle-aged uncle with a round belly. In addition, in the extreme pursuit of protection on the water, the steel plate is almost pasted layer after layer, so that it can be guided. As a result, the water troops were overweight, and the water deck was narrow, and the front and rear naval guns were fine. However, in order to cope with the torpedo threat, 12 152mm secondary guns and 20 75mm secondary guns were installed. The installation position was almost all close to the water line. When turning sharply, the secondary guns on one side would be directly immersed in the water.

In addition to the sharp increase in weight, the complex protection settings did not improve the protection force. Finally, Russia had to reduce the thickness of sideboard armor, using only 200mm Harvey nickel steel, which should be the most tightly turret front and conning tower, and only 254mm nickel steel armor.

On the other hand, the main armor belt of the Dalian-class heavy cruiser uses 220mm more advanced Krupp armor with surface carburizing technology. Although the front of the command tower and turret are equal, the protective power is double that of it!

The most important thing is that these five capital ships have not even conducted sea tests!

So when Roger Strinsky ordered to turn right, the captains of the five Borodino-class ships did not dare to beat the rudder to the end of the warship drift just now. It can be seen that the engine power and the ocean name are not even believed by themselves.

In fact, in the final analysis, the only navy in this era that focuses on long-term ocean airworthiness is the United Kingdom. Although the French are known as the second in the world, they still belong to the Mediterranean fleet, and the unique geographical environment of the Mediterranean is doomed to cause trouble. Only the British navy that needs to be deployed all over the world needs to be good. Airworthy surname.

As a traveler, coupled with the vastness of the Pacific Ocean, Li Mo has to learn from the United Kingdom. From the Jinghai class's resolutely adopting the Atlantic bow, to the height of the trunk, the strengthening of the keel, and then to the beginning of the development of the rocking fin, it is not to enhance the airworthiness surname, and full The Dalian class, which carries 16,800 tons, is only equipped with eight 130mm secondary guns and eight single 76mm deck guns. It can be seen how much sacrifices have been made.

So when Fisher saw the five Borodino-class starting to turn right slowly, he even said rudely regardless of the image, because these stupid and slow stupid bears were completely targeted in a few minutes of turning!

Yes, the sharp turn made the five Borodino-class hulls begin to lean to the right, and the secondary gun position on the right was suddenly submerged in the sea, and because the left side was too high, neither the main gun nor the secondary gun could fire for the time being!

The inexperienced Roger Strinsky once again made a mistake of turning sharply before the battle. When the eight capital ships of the Xinhua Navy began the third round of shelling, the experienced people immediately caught the mistake.

At 145 minutes, when Alexander III, the flagship Alexander III, who began to turn behind the Crown Prince, shook his tail, eight capital ships that had quietly pulled the distance to 13,000 meters exploded again. When the flagship was about to complete the last moment of turning the rudder, a 254mm uncaping armor-piercing bullet was accurate. It did pass under the command tower. Although the shell did not directly enter the command tower, the explosion below still threw everyone in the command tower in mid-air and smashed it down fiercely, killing several people and seriously injuring more than a dozen people. The Russian commander who gave the order to turn was not even able to issue the second one. Order.

Because the Russian fleet did not know that Roger Strünsky was seriously injured and in a coma at this time, the Eagle behind it continued to turn the rudder according to the previous order, but it was not so lucky.

Heilongjiang aimed all ten naval guns at this big guy. According to the captain Fang Jin, unless it can sink the battleship, which is known as one of the most powerful in Russia, it will not be considered to have participated in this naval battle.

10 305mm main guns, at a speed of two per minute, continue to shoot out the latest armor-piercing bullets with the cooperation of the aircraft and the rangefinder. Although it was later learned that the bronze hood of this armor-piercing shell still has the problem of falling off easily, the hit rate still reached 30% at a distance of 13,000 meters. .

When two armor-piercing shells in the third round penetrated the thin main armor belt at the same time, bit all the way to the boiler chamber and exploded, the proud eagle of the Russian navy stepped into the dust of the Crown Prince. The explosion of the boiler chamber permeated the ammunition depot of the 210mm secondary main gun in the middle of the right side. After a violent explosion, it turned The curved deck was never flattened again, and finally after three hours of floating, it was sent to the bottom of the sea with a torpedo by a guard class.

At two o'clock, when the Eagle's belly turned to the queen, the ships behind them did not dare to turn, and the neatly arranged battle line finally loosened. At this time, Lin Tai had accurately seized the opportunity of the chaos of the Russian fleet and fiercely inserted the Russian second and third battleships with four Duke-class ships.

Seeing this scene, Long Guozhang also ordered the disbandment of the battleships. The first to be released were four Dalian-class ships. They originally came to pretend to be battleships. After the formation was cancelled, the surname of the heavy patrol was immediately restored. Ji Rushan immediately ordered to accelerate to 25 knots and chase the Russian cruiser detachment that had been crushed on the inside of the battleship.

At this time, the Borodino behind the Eagle suddenly turned left. The accident caught the Glorious behind him off guard. When the bow of the Borodino kept shifting, the gun commander of the Dalian suddenly found this delicious target.

"Three o'clock, Glorious! Ten thousand and one thousand meters."

"Gain fire!"

With the shouts of the gun commander, the four Jilin-class guns turned the main guns at the same time, aimed at the Glorious, which was exposed to the muzzle but could not move because of the partner's rudder and the Hawk overturn.

When the Glorious suddenly found that there was no obstruction in front of him, he was completely exposed to the four Jilin-class terrible muzzle, and all the sailors held their breath. Although several main guns could not be fired because of the angle problem, when the 28 main guns roared at the same time and bloomed the flowers of death, the Glorious Suddenly, he fell into endless despair.

I don't know whether it's a minute or a few centuries. It was not until a cross-fire appeared that Captain Glorious suddenly realized that he should find a way to escape, but it was too late.

A cannonball roared and landed beside the Glorious. When an armor-piercing shell tore the main armor and entered the officer's rest cabin, the disaster happened!

The luxurious interior decoration burned quickly in the explosion. The wood and carpet oil paintings everywhere in the warship became fatal injuries. The fire in the cabin began to spread. In just a few minutes, the fire spread to the deck, which was fatal to any warship, not to mention the Glorious, which had been hit and unable to move. .

At 2:15, after completing the turn and disbanding the formation, the Guangdong immediately rushed to the Glorious, which tried its best to put out the fire. After taking the initiative to close to a distance of 6,000 meters, it took the life of the Glorious with two consecutive rounds of high-explosives. The violent explosion not only brought the disaster to the sailors who were extinguishing the fire, but also caused the fire to explode. Uncontrollable, when it was sent to the torpedoes to the bottom of the sea, the fire inside had not been extinguished.

It was not until later statistics that the fire caused the 903 people's Glorious to escape only 57 people, and all the rest were killed by the fire.

As for the burial of his partners, the good luck of the Borodino, who fled first, and the Duke of Suvorov, who retreated together, did not last long. After the Glorious was set on fire, the Guangxi and Heilongjiang rushed quickly, and the four battleships immediately launched a fierce artillery battle.

Just as Long Guozhang was about to enter the second stage with the record of killing the enemy's first battleship detachment. At 2:30, the navy of Xinhua's main fleet, which had always had the upper hand, was finally traumatized. The Duke of the four duke-class ships that crossed into the middle of the Russian second and third battleships encountered great trouble. It was caught by the two fast-classes obtained by the Russians from Britain before the war, although it used four doors 305 The millimeter main gun, as well as eight 203mm secondary guns, can be fired in two directions at the same time, but the fast class is worthy of the highest masterpiece of British shipbuilding technology. Although the 254mm naval gun is not comparable to its opponent, its 14 190mm rapid-fire secondary guns have played the greatest effect, with a high rate of three rounds of fire per minute. The Duke was also a little overwhelmed, and Captain Liu Bu toad had to distance himself.

But at the moment when the Duke turned the rudder, a shell accurately hit the steering gear, causing the left rudder to die. Fortunately, the Akashi successfully pushed back two fast levels and finally helped the Duke withdraw from the battle.

No one expected that the Duke was forced back by two fast collegs, but was seen by Sa Zhenbing in the melee. He immediately gave up the Rurik, who was on fire, and led the Fengtian to forcibly insert the two fast ships that were preparing to escape hand in hand at a speed of 25 knots. Between the numbers.

The revenge of Beiyang has not been avenged yet!

(to be continued)