Travel through the Qing Dynasty and become emperor

Chapter 270: Fighting in the Raging Sea (2)
The Angara urgently needs to complete the turn. However, he is the command ship of this strategic formation. It takes time to turn, but Popov does not know whether the time is his enemy or his ally. If it is the enemy, he must turn as soon as possible to avoid the Chinese fleet. If it is an ally, he must hold back the opponent's warship and wait for the main fleet to come up and annihilate it.

But just as it was turning, the Angara was hit again, and this time the luck was even worse. A 6-inch bullet hit the starboard side almost scratching the waterline, and a 2-inch diameter bullet appeared behind the middle of the hull. The seawater poured into the hull at a speed of more than ten tons per second. In less than a minute, the Angara had already tilted slightly to the right, and its speed had dropped from 1 knots to 14 knots.Fortunately, Angara was at the head of the formation, and a loss of 11 knots would not cause him to leave the formation immediately.At this moment, the Aprak behind him had a starboard secondary gun knocked out.

At this time, Lin Jianzhang, who was standing in the command tower of Zhonghua No. 3, looked unhappy. After fighting for 10 minutes, the coastal defense fleet fired more than 200 shells, but only hit 12 shells. The hit rate was pitifully low.On the other hand, the Far East Fleet has fired more than 50 shells, and so far none of them have hit. Thinking of this, Lin Jianzhang feels a little relieved that the training fee of 10 taels allocated by the court is not in vain.

"My lord, the formation led by Angara is turning to the left." The orderly reported.

Lin Jianzhang picked up the binoculars and looked into the distance. Sure enough, Angara and other five warships were sliding out of arcs on the sea and turning to the left.

The formation of the Russian army turned around at this time, and it was still a little early. It seemed that Popov couldn't sit still because he was beaten and couldn't fight back.Now the distance between the two teams is 3500 meters. After the Russian army completes the turn, the distance may be shortened to within 3000 meters. The average speed of the Far East fleet is about 15 knots, compared with the speed of the Chinese fleet of 11 knots. At this distance, the Russians It is still possible to complete the outflank to the left and regain the favorable formation of the T prefix, but the problem is that if the coastal defense fleet suddenly accelerates to 15 knots or even faster, it will block the space for the Russians to outflank to the left and approach the Angara formation at the same time , At that time, the side of this formation will face the front of the Chinese warship, which is definitely not good news for the Russians.

"My lord, should we speed up?" Miao Changqing who was next to him had already seen the clue.

"No, let's not accelerate and keep the boiler temperature. Once the Russians complete the turn, we will turn right." Lin Jianzhang gave an order after a little consideration.

Miao Changqing looked at Lin Jianzhang in confusion at first, and then smiled knowingly.

Accelerating closer can indeed improve the hit rate. When the coastal defense fleet has an advantage in formation, it can use the superior firepower to the limit, but the problem is that after the Russians complete the turn, the firepower advantage is still great. just disappeared.The reason why Lin Jianzhang wanted to go the other way and keep the fighting distance was to make full use of the advantages of the Chinese fleet in formation. This is the real strategic vision.

At 10:22, the Angara formation of the Far East Fleet was turning rapidly, and Lin Jianzhang reassigned targets in response to this situation.Fuyuan, Weiyuan, Luyuan and Xiangjiang continued to attack Angara, while Ningyuan, Ganjiang, Minjiang and Haitian aimed their guns at the first-class target ship Alexander.Soon the formation of the coastal defense fleet changed and accelerated slowly, always keeping a distance of about 3000 meters from the enemy ship.

"Turn left 30 degrees, all ships are at full speed, ready to copy up." The impatient Popov immediately issued an order. He couldn't wait for the two formations to sail in parallel and bombard each other. Although his own formation was at a disadvantage in terms of firepower and troops, After all, the opponent has three Yuanzi-class battleships, but as long as they are dragged out for 10 minutes, waiting for the main fleet behind to kill them, waiting for the Fuyuan formation will be a disaster.At this time, Popov's gambler mentality is undoubtedly, he has obviously decided to put all his eggs in one basket and exchange his sacrifice for the honor of the empire.

After 4 minutes, the formations of both sides basically completed the turn, and the shelling began again.Popov calmly commanded Angara, Aprak, Bold, and Xenia to attack the Fuyuan formation.The naval guns of both sides shot out flames almost at the same time.

A 6-inch shell fired from the bow main gun of the Luyuan hit the starboard side of the Angara again. The shell landed between the two funnels and knocked out two lifeboats, which immediately caused panic among the soldiers on the deck. There was confusion.

Soon the Weiyuan also ushered in the first hit. The hit point was around the rear of the starboard side of the Angara. Lin Jianzhang could vaguely see that the Angara shook violently after the explosion, but it did not seem to affect the warship. rear main gun fire.

Only 2 minutes later, the front main gun of the Aprak also hit the bow of the Luyuan. After learning of the first hit, the commander tower of the Angara burst into cheers, and even Popov was relieved. Tone, after all, the two sides are in a fair duel now. If it continues, it will definitely benefit your own formation. In just ten minutes, the Angara formation will surpass the Fuyuan formation, and then complete the outflank and face off with the follow-up main fleet. The Fuyuan formation launched a pincer attack.

But Popov's sweet dream didn't last long. Two shells from the Luyuan and Fuyuan hit the Angara almost at the same time. I couldn't sit still anymore, and while observing the formation changes of the enemy ships, I directed the damage control team members to put out the fire.

At this time, the hit rate of the naval guns of both sides was rising sharply. The main gun on the right side of the bold directly hit the formation command ship Fuyuan, but the 210mm shell hit the rear of the main turret of the Fuyuan and did not penetrate the armor. , although it caused some shaking to the commander in the command tower, it did not cause much damage to the hull.The Luyuan immediately responded to the Daring with two 6-inch shells, one hit the bow, and the other knocked out a secondary gun.

"The big nose is really courageous. With their thin armored ships, they dare to fight us in an upright manner. Hehe, brothers, greet us with shells." Xiang Zhong, the captain of Fuyuan Jay said.

As the fleets of the two sides set up their battles, the battle on the sea became more and more fierce. The linear array can best concentrate the firepower of the fleet to attack in one direction, but at the same time, it also means to bear the most violent counterattacks from the opponent. It is a real, upright confrontation at sea, where the side with the superiority in military strength and firepower can turn the advantage into victory in a short period of time.

At 10:34, the Angara, which has been under the care of the Fuyuan formation, finally ushered in his funeral song. The Angara, which was hit by 14 bombs successively, has been lucky, and it can even be said that it is a bit too good. Although the artillery fire on the starboard side was almost completely lost, except for one shell at the beginning of the battle, almost no shells hit its waterline armor, and the breaches were blocked one by one. Although the water intake reached hundreds of tons, with excellent With advanced power equipment, the Angara still maintained a high speed of 6 knots, and even fired back with its undamaged rear main gun.But the good times didn't last long. In just ten seconds, the Angara was hit by three shells in a row. Among them, a six-inch shell from the Weiyuan directly hit the conning tower, and the flying shrapnel directly captured the inside of the conning tower. The lives of more than a dozen officers and sailors, including the formation commander Popov, although three officers tried to protect Popov with their bodies when the shells hit, but the command tower was too small, and the 100-inch shells would kill him. Covering the [-]sqm studio was so easy.

Afterwards, a 7-inch shell of the Fuyuan directly hit the middle and rear part of the hull, and drilled directly into the boiler room along the passage "opened up" by the previous shell. Two reciprocating steam engines exploded loudly, and the boiler room The sailors in several nearby cabins were either killed by shells or burned to death by high-temperature steam. The screams of the sailors below the deck seemed dull and miserable.The destruction of the boiler directly caused the Takachiho to brake suddenly, and the speed dropped from 14 knots to less than 5 knots.

The third shell was a 160mm shell fired by the Ganjiang. This shell hit near the waterline in the front cabin of the Angara. Although it passed through the armor belt, due to the limited charge of the 160mm shell, it only exploded A breach with a diameter of 1 meter was opened, but this was also fatal.

Previously, the Angara was still able to fight with more than a dozen shells in its body, mainly because the engine compartment was intact. Not only can it maintain high-speed navigation, but the energy provided can also drive the water pump to pump out the influx of seawater. However, once the engine compartment When the ship was destroyed, the water pump stopped working, and sea water poured in from several breaches at a rate of 4 tons per minute. What was worse was that as the starboard side water intake increased, the constantly leaning ship hull caused more damage to the starboard side. The mouth is below the waterline, and the water inflow is increasing. If it is not controlled, the warship will capsize, if not sink, within 2 minutes at most.

After Popov's death, Lieutenant Ulanov, the rear main battery gunner who took over the mobile command, did not know that Ulanov, the gunner, should inject water into the port side to maintain the balance of the hull, but the problem is that the amount of water entering the starboard side has already increased. It is close to 1000 tons, and if water is injected to the port side, the reserve buoyancy of the hull will not be enough to maintain the weight of the hull. Doing so is undoubtedly drinking poison to quench thirst.

"Sir, the water level on the starboard side is close to the rear main gun!"

"Understood." Ulanov felt his scalp tingle for a while. The rear main gun is the only firepower of the Angara, but it will soon lose its effect, because the ship's hull leaning 30 degrees to the right has already made the rear main gun Unable to shoot.

"Inject water, inject water to the port side." Ulanov ordered painfully, hoping that the dead Popov would not blame him for his decision.But his order was still too late, or in other words, there was no power to save Angara at this time. The remaining less than 200 sailors hurriedly opened the sea valve on the port side, but before the hull regained its balance, Angara The number has begun to sink rapidly.Soon the entire deck of the ship was submerged in sea water, and after only one minute, even the mast did not enter the sea, because Ulanov did not issue an order to abandon the ship at the last moment (I don’t know if he had made up his mind to die or forgot) , only 1 of the more than 500 officers and soldiers on the ship were rescued.Ulanov did not believe until the moment of his death that this was an asymmetrical war.

(End of this chapter)