Chapter 118, Loss

After the storm swallowed the two ships of the Netherlands and France, it did not stop, but continued to chase the remaining two warships.

There should have been more than 200 people on the destroyer "Guardian".But for this attack, it is not responsible for the strike mission, and it is also prepared to abandon the ship when necessary, so there are a lot fewer people on board, basically except for the people in charge of navigation and the people in charge of communication, The others had already been transferred to other ships.Therefore, at this time, there are less than 100 people on the entire destroyer, and there are not even damage control personnel.Anyway, if something goes wrong during the retreat, it must be too late to repair it. In this case, why take them with you?

The all-electric "Guard" theoretically has a speed of 33 knots, and due to geographical factors, the British have always paid attention to the ability of ships to sail in high sea conditions when designing ship types, so the nominal speed of British warships is often not It is particularly high, but in high sea conditions, it often runs faster than those ships with a theoretically higher speed.Just like the last British battleship, the Vanguard-class battleship, the theoretical maximum speed is only [-] knots, but in military exercises in the North Sea, it ran even faster than the American duck-sliding-class battleship with a maximum speed of [-] knots .

This is also the case today. In theory, the top speed of the Burke class is a little higher than that of the 45th class destroyer. But it runs significantly faster than the American Burke class-and it seems to be more than a little faster.

But the "Flying Dutchman" is faster than the British 45.The British's level 45 is only slightly affected by the wind and waves, but the "Flying Dutchman" is completely unaffected, and can even accelerate further in the storm, and soon the "Flying Dutchman" accelerates to 35 Festival, catch up.

The American's Burke increased his horsepower and only ran to 27 knots in the wind and waves. Seeing that the British were running faster and faster, the speed had already reached 29 knots.And what's more terrible is that because of the rapid intensification of the storm, it has become more and more difficult to rely on helicopters to quickly transfer personnel. Although it is the same as the 45th level, they are ready to abandon the ship before departure, but after all they are To perform some combat missions, even if the combat mission is as simple as launching a missile, it is still a combat mission after all. In addition, the Burke class is older, the degree of automation is lower than that of 45, and the personnel are originally more many.So the retreat task is also more onerous.

Moreover, the sudden increase of the storm exceeded their expectations, so at this time, many people on the warship had not had time to retreat, but it was already difficult for the helicopter to land on the deck.Today, helicopters can barely keep pace with warships and lower long rope ladders for retreating men to climb up.But in such wind and waves, how can it be so easy to climb a high rope ladder?Not long ago, a sailor fell into the sea when he failed to hold onto the rope in a storm.

This is not the most fatal, as the storm becomes stronger, it becomes difficult for the helicopter to continue to fly synchronously with the warship.The Dutch flying warship swayed violently in the middle of the wind and waves, and the helicopter also drifted uncontrollably due to the air current.

However, the helicopter still worked very hard to get close to the warship, trying so hard to lower the rope ladder, but at this moment, another gust of wind hit, and the rope ladder swayed violently in the storm, whipping it like a whip. With one click, a sailor who was waiting to go up was drawn into the sea, and then swung back again.Suddenly hung on the mast.

At this time, the ship was also swinging in another direction, and the mast caught the rope ladder and pulled it in the opposite direction.The helicopter lost control, fell headlong, hit the bridge of the warship directly, and exploded and ignited a fire.

What's more terrible is that the impact damaged the chimney, which caused the power of the warship to drop sharply, and this made the speed of the warship drop further, so the warship was quickly swallowed by the storm that was catching up.

As for the British, they held on longer, but on their ship, there were also people who didn't have time to retreat-after witnessing the crash of the American helicopter, the last British helicopter that came to pick up the people suddenly happened Failure, so that the work could not be completed, had to retreat early.

Even so, the 45 of the British persisted for a long time. She ran at a speed of 29 knots all the way, dragged the "Flying Dutchman" for several hours, and made an outstanding contribution to the fleet's emergency avoidance. contribute.

Because of turning to catch up with the warships, the fleet turned northeastward in an emergency and escaped the "Flying Dutchman".And the "Flying Dutchman" suddenly disappeared after the storm it unleashed finally engulfed the British 45.In short, neither the American Maritime Satellite nor the HX Maritime Satellite found where she had gone.The transport fleet also escaped a catastrophe.

But this does not mean that the fleet has no losses, because in order to avoid the "Flying Dutchman", the fleet deviated from the "safe channel" and broke into the territory of some sea monsters. For example, there is a ship called "Clark" Yes, a 15-ton container ship flying the Dutch flag was attacked by a B-class Kraken, and was entangled by this Kraken with its tentacles. In just five or six minutes, this 6-ton container ship It was directly torn apart and sank into the sea.

In addition to the "Clark", some other ships were attacked by sea monsters.By the time the "Flying Dutchman" disappeared and the fleet returned to the original "safe route" under the escort of warships, ten ships of various types had sunk due to various sea monster attacks.

On the subsequent voyage, they encountered one or two small-scale attacks, but the losses were very limited, only a 7000-ton ro-ro ship was lost-a sea monster with a low energy level was on the waterline of the ship. There was a big opening below.None of this damage would have resulted in the sinking if the ship had not been a ro-ro ship. (It is difficult to install compartments on ro-ro ships, and the anti-sinking performance is poor) However, with the help of the escorting warships, all personnel were safely transferred out.

The fleet finally arrived in North America smoothly, but this disastrous voyage exposed the problem of the fleet's slow speed.Some experts in the maritime industry pointed out that if the entire fleet can sail at 25 knots or even [-] knots, and the escorting warships can sail at [-] knots, the entire loss may be much smaller.

This is not empty talk, because there is just a contrasting example, that is the fleet from HX across the Pacific Ocean, which is a fleet composed entirely of high-speed merchant ships, and the entire fleet can sail continuously at a speed of 25 knots. As a result, during the entire voyage, they only lost one ship, and all the personnel were safely transferred out.

So it is said that the shipbuilding enterprise of HX has received a large number of new orders at once, and these orders all require ships to have a speed of 25 knots.

And taking advantage of the opportunity of the "Flying Dutchman" to go to the North Atlantic, the two special ships parked in the port of Havana also arrived in Tubarão, a port in southern Brazil, under the escort of the HX Navy.

(End of this chapter)

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