1855 United States Tycoon

Chapter 609, Sea Battle (1)

Major General Hood’s battlecruiser Invincible took the lead, followed by the Indomitable cruiser, and then the cruisers and destroyers. Today’s sea conditions are rare, with clear skies and almost no wind and waves. The fleet has now accelerated to 25 knots. By this time, Major General Hood could already see the towering masts of the German battlecruisers with a telescope on the bridge. .

The Germans did not have much preparation for the emergence of the British. In order to save fuel, their fleet had been sailing at a low speed of about ten knots, although when Major General Hood’s fleet rushed over at high speed, the Germans also discovered The British fleet, but all kinds of external combustion engines, including steam turbines, have a common defect, that is, they will be relatively slow to increase speed. Therefore, although the first time Admiral Spey ordered the warship to accelerate. But acceleration requires a process. According to the staff’s calculations, the British fleet can catch up with the German fleet before the acceleration is completed. And if the German warships blindly escape, they will naturally fall into another dilemma:

In the escape, the German warships could only use artillery in the direction of the stern against the British gun in the direction of the bow. Although the number of cannons, the stern and the bow are the same, but in terms of anti-strike ability, the anti-strike ability of the stern is far inferior to that of the bow. There are steering gears and propellers in the direction of the stern. Extremely important parts, once they are hit in a gun battle, the movement capabilities of the entire warship will be destroyed. At that time, there is really only a dead end. In contrast, the weakness of the bow position is much less.

“How many warships does the enemy have?” General Spey asked.

“It seems that there are two battlecruisers. The other warships are unclear.” The combat staff Witte replied. “They were blocked by the British battlecruisers. I can’t see clearly.”

“Continue to accelerate. Once the British warship has reached the maximum range of our tail guns, we will immediately fire at the British.” General Spey knew that since the British had two battlecruisers on their side, he had nothing to fight with the British. reason. Although he also had two battlecruisers in his hands, (the British watchpoint obviously did not see clearly at the earliest.) Not less than the British, and the performance of the warships alone has the upper hand, but General Spey still does not plan to fight The British worked desperately because he understood that the British would have a great advantage in the number of auxiliary ships. This advantage is not the performance advantage of battlecruisers that can be pulled back. Moreover, he also knew that once his warships were damaged in battle, there would be no ports where they could be safely repaired.

“The limit speed of our battlecruiser is two knots higher than that of the British. As long as we can escape the initial shelling, we have a chance to escape.” General Spey thought.

At this time, the British fleet had entered the firing range of the giant guns of the German battlecruisers. At a distance of 20,000 meters, the eight tail guns of the two German battlecruisers successively fired the first round of salvos. .

Under the technological conditions of this era, firing at such a distance may have very few hits. In fact, General Spey’s purpose was not to attack British warships. His purpose was merely to interfere with the British and force them to do evasive actions, thereby gaining time for the acceleration of the own fleet.

The German’s first round of shots had a very off-track impact. The distance between the impact of the shells and the British warship was more than 700 meters.

“Go ahead at full speed, don’t dodge, close the distance to 10,000 meters and fire again!” Major General Hood stood firmly on the bridge, looking at the German warship in the distance, and ordered.

The Germans quickly scored a second round of volleys, this time even a little bit worse than last time.

“Bah! These cowards! They knew they couldn’t hit.” Major General Hood said to the officers around him with a disdainful smile.

Then the Germans shot a third round volley. When shooting at a long distance, it took almost half a minute from the time the Germans fired the cannon to the time the cannonball fell on the sea. When the heavy cannonball flew over in a breath, it would tear the air and make a whistling sound similar to the whistle of a train. Even in the bridge, you can clearly hear this sound. It’s just that the sound of the howling shells this time is obviously different from the previous few times.

“Boom!” At a distance of only a few tens of meters from the bow of Major General Hood’s Invincible, a water column tens of meters high suddenly appeared, and the falling sea water hit the ship. On the glass on the front of the bridge. At the same time, of the other three rounds, two landed less than 100 meters from the port side, and one landed less than 50 meters from the starboard side.

“General, the enemy straddled!” A combat staff officer shouted to Major General Hood, “The captain invites you to the command tower!”

The so-called straddle fire refers to the drop point of the enemy’s shells appearing on the starboard and starboard sides of the warship at the same time. This shows that the enemy has found the correct parameters, and their subsequent shelling will become more precise and more dangerous. As for the conning tower, it is actually a small room with relatively thick armor. It is certainly much safer to get there than on the bridge.

“I’m not going anywhere. The Germans are just blind.” Major General Hood remained unmoved, “Keep going!”

The Germans’ training level is quite good, they quickly shot another round, but this round of shooting missed another two or three hundred meters.

“I just said they were mongolian.” Major General Hood said coldly.

The Germans made a few more rounds of volleys, but none of them formed a straddle shot. This may be because the speed of the German warship has also begun to Ascension, once the speed increases, the shooting accuracy will also decrease.

“One more salvo, the distance will be close to about 10,000 meters.” Major General Hood looked at the German battlecruiser that had grown a lot in his telescope and said.

At this moment, the Germans fired another round. Now the distance is much closer. The shells don’t need to fly in the air for half a minute. After just over ten seconds, the German shells fell. After coming down, everyone on the warship clearly felt the warship shake suddenly. At the same time, around the battlecruiser Invincible, several water jets suddenly appeared.

“Have we been shot?” Major General Hood asked.

After ten seconds or so, an officer ran in and reported: “The enemy has hit our mast! Our mast broke a piece.”

This is not too much damage. Major General Hood nodded and asked: “How far are we from the enemy now?”

“General, it’s already close to ten thousand meters.” An officer replied.

“Very well, let’s fire at the enemy!” Hood said.

Because the British still have a higher speed, they will be more affected by the shaking of the ship when shooting. Fire at too far distance, the hit rate must be ridiculously low. So Hood had to let the own warship risk a little closer before firing.

But even at such a distance, the first round of shelling of the Invincible was a lot off the mark. On the contrary, the German shot a straddle shot again. It is definitely not luck to hit a straddle shot twice in a row. Therefore, even though his mind was full of brave Nelson, Hood still had to allow the captain to take the measures he felt should be taken.

The Invincible began to take evasive actions, which allowed the Germans to gain more time to accelerate. Now the speed of the German warship is not much slower than that of the Invincible. General Spey felt that the chance of escape was growing.

At this time, the Kentshire cruiser took advantage of the Invincible and the Invincible, and dared to come up from behind with full horsepower, and surpassed the two battlecruisers that had been at the forefront and rushed towards the German Mochi. At the same time his six-inch gun began to fire frantically at the Germans.

At a distance of 10,000 meters, the shooting accuracy of the six-inch gun is much worse than that of the battlecruiser’s main gun. But the rate of fire of the six-inch gun was much higher than that of the German battlecruiser’s main gun. Under the leadership of the Kentshire, the following cruisers followed and fired frantically at the Germans.

Such intensive firepower certainly achieved certain results. Soon, the battlecruiser Mochi was hit with several six-inch shells in succession. Of course, such shells cannot bring a fatal blow to the Mochi. It was a few shells from the U.S. Mochi’s secondary battery that hit the British cruiser Pitbull, which set the cruiser on fire.

However, the cruiser’s attack was not without effect. The flaming Pitbull fired a shell that hit the rangefinder on the C turret of the Mochi, which made Mochi’s shooting accuracy against the Invincible. Down, two consecutive volleys do not know how far they missed.

“The sight of the enemy ship may be damaged! Stop the dodge action and fire at the enemy ship at the fastest speed!” Major General Hood ordered.

The shelling accuracy of Invincible, which stopped doing dodge actions, quickly improved. In the sixth volley, they made a beautiful stride shot, and in the eighth volley, they successfully hit the Mochi for the first time.

The disadvantage of the ship’s stern against the enemy was immediately revealed. The shell blasted a large gap in the stern of the Moqi, and Moqi immediately began to yaw to the left. Obviously, its steering gear was broken.

This was a fatal blow. After the steering gear was damaged, the maneuverability of this warship was completely destroyed, and it was impossible for her to escape from the British pursuit.

Just before and after, the battle between the Inflexible and the German Goben also came to an end. A shell fired from the Goben blew up most of the bow of the Inflexible, causing the Inflexible’s speed to drop suddenly. It’s the ten-day festival. But before the Goben had time to celebrate, the Indomitable used color and knocked out the C turret of the Goben with a salvo.

However, the sailing speed of the Goben was not affected. She continued to accelerate and threw off the Indomitable and fled towards the depths of the ocean…