Tune the Pacific

Chapter 858 The last Z word

The night began quickly and deep. 130 nautical miles northwest of the Azores, the red light fluctuated up and down with the waves, like a fleeting stream of color.

The wide cargo compartment of the Huangshan ammunition supply ship is full of rows of special anti-rolling ammunition racks with grooves, and each groove is equipped with a 500 kg aviation bomb.

In the corner of the ammunition compartment, there were several vigilant soldiers sitting around a simple cabin.

This scene may be normal in the eyes of others, but it is particularly wrong in Lefei's eyes. It should be that this is a naval transport ship sailing on the sea of reading power. There are dozens of warships escorted and protected around. Why do you still need someone to guard the ammunition depot? If there is a real danger, just open the sea valve directly, but it is said that these soldiers eat and sleep here after boarding from Hawaii, almost every inch.

What do they guard?

Are the second-generation new incendiary bombs shown in these ammunition depots and naval supply manuals true?

Le Fei's eyebrows have been twisted into Sichuan characters, and under the leadership of a captain officer guarding ammunition, he walked to the bomb.

Both the shape and volume of the bomb are no different from ordinary high-explosive bombs. But when Lefei walked to the back of the shelf, he saw that three of the four stable tail wings of the bullet tails were painted bright red, and the corners of his eyebrows involuntarily jumped twice.

The dazzling red told him that this was by no means a incendiary bomb, it was just a cover-up.

As the commander of the naval aviation, he is considered to be one of the most likely to succeed Long Guozhang. He has entered the senior officer of the General Staff. No one knows better than him what the bomb means by marking red.

Even if there are powerful air incendiary bombs and asphyxiating gas bombs, there is only one yellow and red on the stable tail.

And on top of this, there are three pieces.

Maybe this does not mean anything in the eyes of ordinary soldiers, but in the interior of the Ministry of Defense, there is a legend that the more colorful the bomb is, the more dangerous it is! It's like a colorful viper!

It is impossible to mark three pieces of red with the new incendiary bomb!

Le Fei turned his head and looked at the captain who took the ammunition on the ship and moved himself into the ammunition compartment. He didn't even leave half a step away from eating and drinking water: "Can you tell me now?"

"General, I can't explain it. According to the order, I am only responsible for supervising the use of ammunition and cooperating with you to drop them after receiving the order. After raising his right arm to salute, the inside shirt was exposed, and the small black and white sign on the collar was immediately exposed to the light.

"Is it your newly developed suffocation? How powerful is it?

"Maybe." The captain seemed to know that his identity had been exposed, but he just smiled, put down his salute hand, and seemed to feel that it was impolite to answer a lieutenant general's question like this. After thinking about it, he added: "General, I can't answer your question, but I can tell you that it was born from a accidentally failed stain remover. Mixed experiment with pesticides.

"A mixture of stain remover and insecticide?" Lefei was a little confused. These two things have only appeared in recent years. In the case of obviously different effects, someone actually mixed them. No wonder the emperor always uses "big-headed monsters" to describe those guys.

The captain seemed to see Le Fei's doubts, and did not explain. He just said lightly, "Can I give you an example?"

"What's the metaphor?"

"In theory, they can destroy Britain!"

The captain's words shocked Le Feidu's heart, who was used to life and death. The power shown by suffocation in those years still made many people's backs cold, but he never expected that only ten years later, the mysterious ghosts took out a weapon more terrible than suffocation.

4,000 500 kilograms of "new suffocation" can theoretically destroy Britain!

What kind of terrible thing is this?!

"General, my task is to protect them." The captain pointed to the insurance and delay fuse interface in the middle of the bomb's tail, and said, "unblock and use them when necessary to help my country win!"

The crisp words made Le Fei understand that it was impossible for him to know what it was from the mouth of the loyal captain. After all, he was a ghost. From the perspective of the army, even if Commander Long Guozhang came, he had no right to ask.

"Maybe I shouldn't be curious! Keep them well, me." Le Fei tried to suppress the idea of wanting to know what was going on. He patted the captain's shoulder with a smile and walked out of the hatch. When he arrived at the door, he suddenly stopped again and turned his head and said, "I don't want to use it."

"Me too." The captain nodded with a smile.

The hatch slowly closed again, and the inside and outside became two worlds in a trance. Looking quietly at Le Fei, who closed the hatch, knew that if he opened the door again, it meant that a devil would be released by himself.

After boarding the deck, the cold sea breeze in the north still made Lefei a little sober. He didn't tell lies in the ammunition compartment. He came to Huangshan because he was indeed curious, because he heard that when his fleet logistics officer was preparing to count the bombs on the ammunition supply ship Huangshan, the captain only gave a list. I refused to see the real thing, so I came here.

He is not the kind of indecisive person, nor will he be soft-hearted. In those years, he bombarded Banda Aceh, risking the consequences of starting a war with the Netherlands or even triggering the Eurasian War. He ordered to bombard the unprepared Bandaazi without any hesitation, causing tens of thousands of people to frown.

Otherwise, Europe and the United States would not call him a "naval butcher", and even their own people often call him "living Yan Luo" because of his constant face.

So as long as he is ordered, he will not hesitate to use the bombs, and he also understands why the General Staff does not tell the soldiers what the bomb is, just for fear that everyone will have a psychological impact when using it.

It is surrounded by 2 Western Qin-class heavy aircraft carriers, 2 Taiwan-class battleships, 2 Yanjing-class battleships, 1 Xi'an-class large cruisers, 5 light cruisers, 16 destroyers, 7 supply and rapid support ships. It has entered the Xinhua Royal Navy 51 Special Fleet under light and radio control. . He knows that only they can decide the fate of Britain now!

"Commander, the flagship sent a signal."

In the finger of Captain Huangshan, the mast light of the flagship Wu Yue aircraft carrier began to flash. As the lights were played over and over again, everyone knew the news that the British mainland fleet stationed in Scarpa Bay and guarding the North Sea of England had set off.

"Full speed!"โ€”โ€”

In the North Sea, the throat of the Gulf of Germany, under the ocean north of Helgoland Island, a periscope half a meter out of the water rises and falls with the waves.

Since the then British Prime Minister Salisbury returned the island to Germany in 1890, which he thought would not be able to ensure that it was included in the rule of the Royal Navy in wartime, he sold warships to Chile the following year and finally fell into the hands of Li Mo. It has been praised as the most committed by the British Empire. Stupid two decisions.

Behind the periscope, a half-squinted eye glanced at Helgoland Island lying on the sea like a giant beast. Because there is a famous world, known as the "barbarian bull" in the Far East, Fang Yuan is more aware of the embarrassment faced by the British navy after losing this island, which is extremely commensurate in value and strategic position.

However, if it was the British navy in its heyday, there was really no need to rely on this small island to contain Germany. What's more, Britain and Germany had the common goal of curbing Russia's expansion at that time, but today, when the British Navy is in a devastation, they have to pay the price and have to rely on the more distant Skapa Bay. You can't put the sword directly on the German throat.

After finding no valuable targets, Fang Yuan put away the periscope with some disappointment.

Although the submarine brigade base has moved from Panama to Guantanamo, Cuba, the distance is still too far after all. Yu Yu Yu shows that he can only stay here for two days at most. If he doesn't leave in two days, he may repeat the embarrassing scene off the coast of South Africa. At that time, it happened that General Lefei solved the urgent problem and took credit for sinking a British cruiser. This time, if he had to expose himself because of lack of fuel, perhaps only British shells would be greeted.

Fang Yuan wiped his hands on his oily clothes, and then took out a can of fruit from there and ate it.

The days on the submarine are very boring, especially when performing missions. Because they stay underwater for a long time, many people have developed some bad habits, such as himself. As long as he is bored, he wants to eat. Fortunately, he is in good shape, so he has not been kicked out of the army because he can't get into the submarine.

"Captain, three o'clock, the sound of the motor!"

As soon as he stuffed a piece of pineapple into his mouth, Fang Yuan, who had no time to swallow it, jumped up like a rabbit when he heard the report. It seemed that he didn't seem to find that several submarine soldiers behind him smiled and quietly took away the canned fruit he had treasured for half a month.

After the re-rising periscope, Fang Yuan quickly caught the sound of the motor said by the listener. He only saw several destroyers arching three huge shadows, which had quietly explored from the German side of Helgoland.

What kind of warship is it?

Just as Fang Yuan wanted to order him to see clearly, a huge column of water suddenly took off a few kilometers ahead of him, and then the rumbling explosion suddenly penetrated into his ears.

"It's paralyzed. Isn't it that I was found? These German bastards thought I was British, and they were so angry that they wanted to kill people?!"

Seeing several destroyers rushing straight, Fang Yuan immediately ordered an emergency dive and turned right to avoid it. But what surprised him was that just after he dived, there were still violent gunfire on the sea from time to time.

After waiting for a moment, there was no deep-water bomb coming down, and the large-caliber shells were getting farther and farther away. The nervous submarine soldiers immediately looked at each other, stared at Fang Yuan and asked in surprise, "Captain, are you sure you're right?"

"Cough." Fang Yuan coughed twice and kicked away these guys who stole the captain's canned fruit without wiping their mouths. He pretended to have the courage to order slowly rise to see clearly. When the periscope appeared secretly a few kilometers away again, the scene in front of him directly made him open his mouth wide.

I only saw two huge fireballs rising from time to time in the distance of the sea. From a distance, it looked like a fire-breathing dragon in the night, constantly shelling the place where the German navy was just found in the distance.

It's starting!

On the flagship DFlinger, Hipper, who had just led two Flinger-class battlecruisers and the Mourch, arrived on Helgolan Island, never expected that he would be bombarded by the enemy's main ship here. He immediately pulled the intelligence officer and asked angrily what was going on.

The intelligence officer was also confused. In the afternoon, the aircraft reconnaissance showed that there were only small British warships in this area, and the previous destroyers did not report the enemy's situation. It should be said that there was no trace of large capital ships at all. What's more, the intelligence department also clearly reported that the last British home fleet was still in Scarpa Bay. How could it be What's next here?

What's more strange is that from the water column, there is a capital ship-level gunfire in the opposite darkness, but the intensity is far from the fleet standard. What's going on?

In fact, there is nothing wrong with the intelligence officer. Hiffel is indeed a strange small fleet, which was proposed by the late British Secretary of the Navy Fisher, who proposed a strong attack plan in the Baltic Sea that year, and developed a shallow water heavy artillery fleet.

The fleet was led by the British Navy Captain Burnham, and the artillery formation of seven shallow heavy gunboats, which he said had the strongest guns in the world, Lord Clive and General Ulf.

Colonel Burnham, who appeared in front of Hipel, was actually very accidental. After he got the telegram of Germany's upcoming operation, he immediately went north along the Strait to try to support the mainland fleet. Because of speed reasons, he wanted to come to Helgoland Bay to find several German light cruisers or destroyers to make tooth sacrifices. After all, although his fleet was small, With the firepower that was not weaker than the main force of the fleet, he didn't expect to meet the newly drilled Happel.

Lord Clive and General Ulf slowly rotated the wide hull, and the huge single-barre 18-inch (457 mm) on the deck could spew out a huge ball of fire every minute and a half.

These are the two most abnormal shallow heavy gunboats in the history of the human navy. After the large light cruiser proved to fail, the 18-inch cannon originally developed with the development was useless. At that time, I got the news that Xinhua had developed the 16-inch gun, and gradually obtained peace by taking advantage of sea and air. The British navy, which was eager to solve the German army on the western front, installed three 18-inch heavy guns on the shallow-water heavy gunships at the proposal of Lieutenant General Renard Bacon.

Due to the delay of the gun frame, only two ships were put into service. Originally, they should have been used as a long-range naval artillery force to attack the German army on the French coastline, expel Germany from the French coastline, and cooperate with the Battle of Paris. However, they did not expect that the allied forces on land did not have an advantage. After serving, the Battle of Paris had begun to turn to the alliance, so the two warships had to be seriously damaged on the capital ships. In case of loss, he was responsible for patrolling the strait to ensure safety.

The German navy made a mistake. According to later analysis, if Scheer, who led the main assault for the second time at that time, chose to be in the daytime, then the mini-fleet led by Burnham with a movement speed comparable to the "ox cart" could not be a threat at all, but because of the fear of the British fighting Ming, Scheer cleverly chose to set out at night, believing that after breaking through the strait at night, he could use the thick fog and night to avoid the British mainland fleet sweeping the strait between Britain and France.

Compared with the 10 280mm and 16 305mm guns in Huppert's hands, although Burnham's small fleet is a temporary patchwork, it has two single-pipe 457mm super guns, three double 381mm guns and two double 343mm heavy guns, even accounting for firepower and range. Have an advantage.

If it is daytime, Hiffel can completely identify the other party with the naked eye and then accelerate to 20 knots, which can easily get rid of the enemy, and even kill the other party with maneuver. But at this moment, the distance between the two sides is 20,000 yards. Colonel Burnham relies on two small torpedo boats to carry out long-range guided shelling, so Hiffel is basically I can't see that the other party is that kind of warship.

In fact, Colonel Burnham did not think that he could defeat three well-equipped battlecruisers, so he was unwilling to close the distance and carry out this extremely inaccurate long-range guided shelling, but the problem is that Germany is unlucky today!

The two are actually not ready. The fleets with huge differences are shooting at each other through the darkness. Hipel has a speed advantage. The smaller caliber means faster rate of fire, while Burnham has mastered the distance. The large caliber is slow but has a long range, and can attack outside the best range of German naval guns.

What's more, the British sailors were more confident when they saw that the German naval guns were not as accurate as the legend.

At 2:10 a.m., General Ulf harvested the largest and last battle result in the history of the shallow-water heavy gunboat.

After hitting a hot ball of fire, the manic 18-inch naval gun pushed the 1.2-ton shell to a distance of 21,000 meters and accurately hit the starboard side of the battlecruiser Mouch in the last row.

Although the 18-inch naval gun developed by Britain was abandoned by its own navy and considered unsuitable for combat, the power of the super naval gun was fully reflected at this moment. The heavy shell landed vertically on the port side of the Mourke. Its own weight and speed made it easily break through the armor and have a drama inside. Fierce explosion.

According to the memory of the surviving lookout of the Maughty, at that time, he only saw the fire in the dark in the distance, and it was obviously a large-caliber naval gun from the size of the firelight, but he didn't expect that when he was trying to distinguish the target, the Maughty trembled suddenly. Then a 100-meter-high orange fireball appeared on the port side. When the fire faded slightly, he saw that the bullet on the port side seemed to be bitten by some monster. A large piece of the ship was missing, and the sea water poured in quickly. Then the mast tilted quickly, and he was also turned into the sea water.

Hipper was completely stunned. Shortly after he saw a dazzling fireball on the port side of the last Mauchy, he got a report of a serious water on the port side and a deck tilt. Then everyone saw that the Mauchy overturned at a very fast speed and fell obliquely only southwest of Helgoland Island. Five kilometers away.

Although the Maughch finally did not sink because of the good watertight cabin design and was towed back to Germany the next day, the seriously damaged ship was still abandoned by the German navy, and due to the fast tilt speed, only 470 of the 1,350 officers and soldiers survived, and the rest The department was overturned and pressed into the ship's body, and finally died alive due to lack of oxygen.

In the Battle of Tehran, the Queen Maria was quickly hit and sunk by Germany. Unexpectedly, it was returned to the Germans by a small fleet a year later. Looking at the huge fire shining 20,000 meters away, the fleet soldiers shouted and cheered, but Burnham knew that his mission had been completed and began to retreat while fighting.

At this time, several German destroyers that rushed over finally broke through the defensive circle of the British escort destroyers. After seeing the essence of Burnham's fleet, Hickelton was so angry that he gritted his teeth and ordered a left turn to accelerate.

As the remaining two DFlinger-class battlecruisers began to accelerate, the advantage of the Burnham fleet completely disappeared, and these little guys, who could reach an ideal speed of about 12 knots, became targets for the German gunners to vent their anger.

The first unlucky one was the Dark Realm. The little guy with a double 15-inch (381mm) naval gun was fiercely attacked by the Dflinger-class No. 3 Hindenburg, which missed the Battle of Deland. When the distance was shortened to 16,000 yards, the precise advantage of the German naval gun began to be exerted. Eight L50/305mm guns hit the warship with a displacement of only more than 3,000 tons.

After being hit by two consecutive shells on the side of the wide torpedo water-tight compartment, a large amount of water inlet caused the ship to be seriously unstable. Finally, after being hit by a 305mm shell on the deck hit by an explosion gap of about 3 meters in diameter, the Dark World quickly disappeared into the sea with 210 officers and soldiers.

Burnham had no choice. He knew that he had been exposed and had no advantage, so he gave the order to disperse the breakout.

The heroic British destroyer once again saved the main force. With the night and fog, these little guys who shuttled at the top of the waves kept launching torpedo assaults on Hipper's fleet, forcing Hipel to take the initiative to pull away.

At 3:20, when Scheer heard the news and led the main force to accelerate the arrival, Hipper's fleet sank three shallow heavy gunboats in a row. However, in the face of the situation that had been exposed and was likely to attract the British home fleet, Scheer decisively gave up the pursuit and ordered the fleet not to turn to the southwest.

No one expected that the most incredible scene would quietly begin in this small battle known as the second Hurghoran Bay encounter.

In the periscope, looking at the General Ulfu, who had left the formation and fled to the north alone, which severely damaged the Mourke, Fang Yuan's heart was as if he had been stuffed into seven or eight kittens, and ordered to quietly catch up--

"General, Colonel Burnham's telegram, they found the German main fleet in Helgoland Bay." The first mate pinched the telegram and looked at it twice as if he couldn't believe it. Then he continued to report in a strange voice: "The colonel said that he confirmed that he had hit a German capital ship!"

"Really!"

Hearing the news, even people like Hamilton's eyes widened. They couldn't believe that the small fleet, known as the Irish hound (meaning a hairless dog), could seriously injure a German capital ship.

"It was a sudden encounter, and Burnham chose to attack at a long distance, observing and guiding the bullet point through the torpedo boat hiding behind the reef, and then passing the message through the lamp."

"That's also worth celebrating!"

Although the first mate and the staff described Colonel Burnham's way of fighting and believed that luck accounted for 70%, what better news for the British home fleet at this moment?!

"Kads, it's our turn!" Lieutenant General Hamilton buttoned up his collar, brushed the dust off the cuffs, and turned his head faintly: "I don't know if my country will sign the surrender letter tomorrow, but today we still need to do our duty!"

"You can't let them defeat England so easily!"

(to be continued)