Bismarck

After turning to the southeast, the relative position between the USS Washington and the USS Prinz Eugen had changed from a disadvantage to a disadvantage. Moreover, the distance between the USS Prinz Eugen and the USS Washington had shortened to 18000 meters (225 yards). Most importantly, the USS Washington was originally heading 150 degrees southwest, but after turning, the USS Prinz Eugen was heading degrees southeast. If the lead time is taken into account, this heading is directly heading towards the stern of the USS Washington.

The Washington had only three 406 main guns at the stern, which could not suppress the maneuverable Prince Eugen.

Wilcox felt a rush of horses galloping in his heart. Well, alpacas are horses too.

Now I can only follow suit - but it's not easy to make up my mind to follow suit...

The Portland had been paralyzed, and the two destroyers without torpedoes were severely suppressed by artillery fire. Even so, the destroyers' 127mm gun mount guns, regardless of their accuracy or power, could not do anything to the Prinz Eugen, which had 40mm armor protection on the bow waterline.

Even more, because the Portland had been paralyzed, and the Washington's MK3 fire control radar itself had no error observation capability, it had to use an optical sight for auxiliary aiming. Unfortunately, the Washington's own 127mm secondary guns had insufficient range, and now the only ones who could use flares to "light up" the Prinz Eugen were the two destroyers.

Because the Prinz Eugen had already turned, the US fire control concept ignored the repositioning of mobile targets, so the Washington had to spend several rounds to reposition. Although the tracers of the 406mm main guns were one after another, and even in order to quickly position, the three guns in each turret were staggered and fired alternately in a single-gun ladder mode, even so, even on the training ground, it still took several minutes.

Every second counts on the battlefield, and it's either you or me. How could Prince Eugen and Top be like living targets on the training ground and give the Washington this much time?

A flare only lasts for a few tens of seconds. Under the rain of 105mm anti-aircraft guns, the main gun shields of the American destroyers, which had no defense at all, had already suffered heavy casualties. Now the two American destroyers had to do their best to ensure that the light of the flare would not be interrupted.

Now the only ship that can threaten Prince Eugen is his own USS Washington.

but……

The distance was now only eighteen thousand yards, and Eugen was still behind him.

There was a British fleet coming from the east, but the Prinz Eugen was about to enter right behind him. If he turned left, he would be on the same course, but that would allow them to block his rear, where his firepower was the weakest, and his underwater propellers and steering gear were not protected from underwater explosions by high-explosive shells. If he turned right, he would quickly close the distance and be sunk by a torpedo from the Prinz Eugen. But if he did not turn, the distance between him and the British would widen, and the Prinz Eugen could run away at a speed of more than 37 knots.

It's hard to make up your mind.

Wilcox was determined, but Top had no such concerns. The passive radar receiver on Eugen's rear mainmast had already received several new radar transmission signals on the left side of his front, that is, in the southwest-west direction. However, the signals of these radars were still thirty nautical miles away from the battlefield.

There is still time, we can delay it for a while.

"It looks like the British main fleet is coming... Toptop, should we break away at full speed?"

After all, that American battleship didn't seem to be a soft persimmon, and the cute Eugen couldn't help but feel a little worried.

However, looking at the two American destroyers that were already badly wounded and unable to hold on, Top shook his head firmly:

"We can't retreat now. The battlefield isn't big enough yet. The British main fleet is nearby, and the American battleships can still track us for at least another hour."

"What should we do, Top?" Eugen was a little confused. Although the captain's words were orders, she really couldn't confront the battleship head-on.

"How many shells do we have left?" Top asked.

"There are only about thirty-five or six armor-piercing shells and three or four high-explosive shells for each gun..."

"It consumed quite a bit... Eugen, we are only 15,000 meters away from them now. You operate your main gun and use the last few high-explosive shells and armor-piercing shells to concentrate on attacking them. Make sure to destroy the sighting system on their main mast. If possible, inflict as much damage as possible on them."

"Hmm... there shouldn't be any problem with dispersing it. I'll give it a try... Top! Watch out for the shells!"

As Eugen exclaimed, a 406mm armor-piercing shell went straight through the rear bridge of the Prinz Eugen. Then, in front of Eugen and Top's eyes, it passed through the bridge and exploded on the other side of the hull. Soon, in the remaining microphone, the damage control team reported the losses: the 105mm secondary guns on the rear port side were destroyed, and another twin 37mm anti-aircraft gun was destroyed by shrapnel, and more than a dozen sailors were killed.

"Luckily the distance is short and the trajectory is flat, so it can penetrate..."

Both Eugen and Top felt a lingering fear.

Even though only the three rear main guns could fire, there were no main guns that could not hit the target, only the distance was not close enough.

Although at this distance it was still outside the range of the American battleship's 127mm secondary guns, the sky lanterns lit by the secondary guns had barely illuminated the outline of Prince Eugen at the edge of the flare's illumination range.

"So, we still have to destroy their sighting system."

"Okay, Eugen understands!"

Eugen and Toph looked at each other and nodded at the same time.

It’s nice to have a battleship that is in tune with your mind.

The Prince Eugen changed its course slightly and took up a position at the stern of the Washington, which reduced its exposure area, allowed it to keep up with the Washington, and slowly disengage from it.

Wilcox was helpless when he saw the Prinz Eugen start to turn. Although he knew that if the Washington turned again, it would not be able to fire effectively, but in order to prevent Eugen from escaping, he had to give the order to turn left and prepare to switch to a naval battle.

As soon as Wilcox's order was given, the Prince Eugen's 203mm eight-barreled machine gun opened fire.

The first was a round of chaff jammers, which blinded the radar of the USS Washington. Then, the cleaning began...

"Report to the commander. Our radar is being jammed... (BOOM!) Oops!"

"It's... a bombardment! The Krauts are firing!"

--One minute ago-----

"...Prince Eugen, prepare to start the pursuit. All gun positions, pay attention... prepare a round of jamming shells. Then load all our high-explosive shells and fire them as quickly as possible. After firing the high-explosive shells, load the armor-piercing shells and continue firing!"

"Fight until we shout stop!"

In the four turrets of the Prinz Eugen, all the gun crews received such an order. No one asked why. The urgency of the battle with a battleship made everyone work with all their heart and soul. Even though the turret of the Prinz Eugen was relatively small and could not accommodate the automated propellant loading equipment and ammunition depot shell transportation equipment, the sweaty sailors, including those who were originally resting in shifts but now returned to combat positions, placed the heavy 122 kg high-explosive bombs and kg propellant one by one, one package at a time, on the ammunition slide in front of the elevator without complaint, waiting for the moment to fire them.

And this time, it was Eugen who took aim himself.

As a heavy cruiser that has trained hard and inherited the rich combat experience of sister Bismarck, although little Eugen is still very cute when he is serious, he has already developed a kind of calmness and fighting spirit that truly belongs to a battleship.

"Main gun... Aim carefully..."

"Bombard! Fire!"

Fly~ (Head of State: Fly over here~)

Following Eugen's shout at the microphone, the Prince Eugen, dragging thick smoke, began to use her 203mm main gun to fire round after round at the stern of the Washington.

The dense rain of bullets covered the ship like a real downpour. In front of the eight-inch machine guns, the Washington's superstructure was very fragile, just like being strafed by a real machine gun, and it was hit with balls of fire.

Even the 105 secondary guns were loaded with high-explosive bombs and began deck cleaning operations on the Washington.

The armor of the North Carolina-class battleships was not afraid of Eugen's bombardment. But those with only weak armor protection, or even no protection at all, such as the hull, secondary gun positions, superstructures, and even the sights themselves, were in trouble...

This is the consequence of washing the floor.

For a moment, flames shot up into the sky on the battleship Washington!

"The main gun director was hit. The MK3 fire control radar cannot be used!"

"The backup main gun director was hit by a high-explosive shell and caught fire. We are currently extinguishing the fire and the equipment needs to be repaired..."

"The two 127 secondary turrets on the port side were attacked and cannot be used!"

"Report! Water has been detected in the rear of the ship! Water has also been detected in the empty compartment outside the main armor of the tilted side of the ship! The damage control team is draining water and plugging the leak..."

"Report……"

The bad news that came one after another made Wilcox in the command tower a little angry. He called down the fire control director operator in the command tower, stood on it himself, grabbed the periscope, and planned to aim and guide the shooting himself.

He just grabbed the periscope and turned it towards the direction of Prince Eugen, but now that the radar is no longer usable and the secondary gun flares are out of range, he can see nothing except the flashes of muzzle flames in the distance.

The only thing I could feel was that the locations of these flashes seemed to be getting farther and farther away from me.

Suddenly, there was a vibration under my feet, and a spark flashed on the dark red explosion-proof lamp in the command tower, and everyone's eyes went dark. The periscope of the firing director also stopped turning - this periscope was connected in parallel to the main gun director, and there was a large circle of equipment and gears outside the seat. Without electricity, there was no way to drive it with human power except to fine-tune the range of the periscope lens.

Seeing this, three words popped up in everyone's mind: The power outage...

"asshole!"

The armor of the command tower was unusually thick, but because of this, with the periscope unusable, there were only a few observation slits to look out. Unfortunately, the field of view of these observation slits was relatively limited, especially under the interference of thick smoke and fire, it was impossible to see the situation of the Prinz Eugen behind him.

If you cannot perceive the situation on the battlefield, you will not be able to give effective command.

The maintenance personnel had already started repairs, but Wilcox couldn't wait any longer. Every second counted on the battlefield. Although he was turning around, the Prinz Eugen was getting farther and farther away from him. With the speed of the Prinz Eugen, if he dragged it for another four or five minutes, the distance between the Prinz Eugen and him would be more than 23,000 yards. At that time, his artillery accuracy would be useless against this ghostly heavy cruiser.

Some of his subordinates had already asked weakly: "General...what should we do now?"

"What to do? Go out and observe! If you're still a man, come with me to the Ertai!"

He gritted his teeth, grabbed a helmet, picked up the binoculars, plot board and slide rule placed aside, opened the armored door of the command tower and walked out. He wanted to go to the ear platform on the side of the bridge - this was the best place to be away from the interference of the fire on the hull, where he could clearly observe the relative situation between Prince Eugen and himself, and there was a microphone to command the battleship in real time.

The general went out, and the staff officer didn't go either, so everyone went up to the ear platform.

To be honest, this place is very small and generally speaking, it is out of reach. Just like in Sakagami no Kumo, Togo Heihachiro was standing on an open-air observation deck to direct the battle, not to mention that the distance is still far away.

However, Eugen saw it.

This place was occupied by a 28mm anti-aircraft gun, and there was no defense at all. In the current sea conditions, it was easy to fall into the sea accidentally. But for the sake of victory, Wilcox didn't care about all this.

Just as Major General Wilcox led the way out and his men hurriedly followed behind, grabbing the chart board, slide rule, and dragging the long temporary telephone lines, the distance between the Prinz Eugen and the enemy had already been pulled to 19,000 yards away, and the last few rounds of salvos began.

Eight 203mm shells were flying in the sky...and their target was the USS Washington, which had just turned but had not yet found its target because it had lost command.

On the platform, Major General Wilcox was holding a telescope, staring intently at the distance, where there was a heavy cruiser with flashing gun muzzle flames. His staff officers were holding flashlights, concentrating on marking the enemy and our situation on the nautical chart.

In this temporary command position where I was invincible and fully focused, no one noticed that the tracer of the artillery shells in the sky was coming directly towards the ear platform...

Rear Admiral John Walter Wilcox, commander of the Sixth Battleship Division of the United States and commander of the 39th Atlantic Task Force, has died...

ps: I didn't update in the past few days not because I was lazy, but because the battle needs to be written coherently to make it look good... So I saved it up and posted it, 13,000 words, Xiao Gao, Chao

Chapter 539: Safe Escape

The interception battle at the Faroe Strait came to an end with the power distribution box in the command tower of the USS Washington being shaken and causing a short circuit, as well as the death of Rear Admiral Wilcox. The USS Washington could not catch up with the Prince Eugen and finally had to give up the pursuit.

When the Renown, North Carolina, and Tovey's flagship Duke of York arrived at the battlefield, it was already an hour later. On the battlefield, apart from the battered Washington and a destroyer that was lucky enough not to sink on the spot in the barrage of Eugen's 203 and 105 missiles but was just floating on the water, there was only the heavy cruiser Portland that was slowly sinking into the sea, and the lifeboats that were desperately paddling around the sinking Portland, trying to get as far away as possible before the whirlpool that sank the battleship to the bottom of the water arrived...

In the second half of the night, the long-range patrol aircraft that took off at night to search the sea area found a target suspected to be Eugen on the radar, but the wind direction was northwest. The aircraft carriers that wanted to launch carrier-based aircraft and attack directly at dawn had to turn around to launch the aircraft - in just half an hour, the distance between the two sides widened by more than 30 nautical miles.

Although long-range patrol aircraft have a great range, it is not unlimited, not to mention that the range of carrier-based aircraft is even more limited.

Just like that, by the time the carrier-based aircraft arrived at the battlefield at dawn, the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen had completely disappeared from the Atlantic Ocean...

------

The Prinz Eugen escaped, but the United States was furious.

After all, it is a country with "free speech", and there are so many survivors, the news of the disastrous defeat cannot be concealed.

When the 39th Task Force, which had 14 warships, intercepted a German heavy cruiser together with its British "allies" in the Faroe Strait east of Iceland, they were sunk by the enemy with one heavy cruiser and five destroyers, and the fleet flagship battleship Washington and three heavy cruisers and one destroyer were severely damaged. When the news of the defeat in which more than 1,600 people including the fleet commander Major General Wilcox were killed was reported back to the country, the whole country of Bald Eagle was in an uproar for a while.

Is there any justice in this world? The American fleet, which represents freedom and justice, was defeated by a single evil Axis ship, and even the commander was killed.

Because it was a night battle, and because of the legend of the shipgirl, and the terrifying speed of 37.5 knots of the Prinz Eugen, and the fact that the German Navy always favored black, the nickname of the Black Storm Prinz Eugen spread like wildfire in Britain and the United States, following the Bismarck sisters of the Evil Spirit-class battleships and the Edelweiss Witch Zeppelin. And the result... It is said that the business of various Christian churches alone has increased by as much as % compared to the daily average.

It would have been fine if there had been a Pearl Harbor incident, but now there is no trace of the Pearl Harbor incident. Although according to the will of the American big capital, the mainstream of the public opinion overwhelmingly advocated "defending the free world", but Roosevelt's forced participation in the war this time was somewhat unconvincing. And now, the first drop of blood shed by the US Navy and even the entire US military after joining the war, along with the face of the US military, was directly beaten into a pig's head by the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen.

Especially since Roosevelt himself violated the convention that the US president could only serve two terms and served as president for the third term with a shameless face - although it was not until after Roosevelt's death that there was a clear law stipulating that the president could only serve two terms - but speaking of it, was there really no one dissatisfied with Roosevelt?

All kinds of people, with their own ulterior motives, began to criticize the Roosevelt administration everywhere under the "righteousness" of "free speech"...

What's wrong with this country? It must be the government's fault!

The White House, Capitol Hill, the Department of Defense, the Department of the Navy... For a while, the streets of Washington were in chaos, with marches and protests with all kinds of flags - whether they felt that the United States should not participate in this "war without a justification" or that the US government and military were too incompetent and demanded "replacement of more capable people", there was an endless stream of them.

If it weren't for the relatively stable attitude of the armed mounted police and garrison troops in the District of Columbia, and the forced suppression with batons, hoses, shotgun slugs and tear gas, and the resignation of Admiral Harold Stark, the U.S. Navy's Chief of Operations, as a scapegoat to give the public an "explanation", "order" was barely restored, I'm afraid this group of people could even overturn the White House - although Stark's resignation was originally the result of Roosevelt's desire to promote King...

Under such circumstances, even Admiral Ernest King, who had just assumed the position of Chief of Naval Operations as Commander-in-Chief of the Fleet and whose power had even overshadowed that of Secretary of the Navy William Knox, and whose personality was always strong and aggressive, had to temporarily put aside some of his pride in front of Admiral Andrew Cunningham, who was sent by the British to negotiate, and who was always smiling and always had a "little (jian) secretary (niang)" with him. However, he also became more shameless in asking for things...

such as…

"…There is absolutely no problem with our proposal to use IFF together with your country. This is a practical requirement. However, our radar and our IFF technology may require your country to provide us with the latest technology. If we had your equipment, our entire fleet would not have been defeated by a single ship."

Kim, who usually looks unhappy, is now shamelessly asking Cunningham for British technology.

Although the American people were confident in their own military's weapons and combat effectiveness thanks to the media, the British were able to fight the Germans for so long, while they were defeated miserably. Just think about it, their technology must still be behind the British. If they don't ask for it now while they are allies, when will they ask for it?

In fact, Britain has also been suffering from defeats all the time, and the British people have no way to express their grievances.

Besides, even the excuse for asking for technology is ready-made - wasn't it the 39th Task Force that was crippled by a heavy cruiser?

Behind Cunningham, Ms. Belle Dura Despicio, who was diligently serving as a secretary with a notebook in hand, curled her lips in displeasure when she heard what Jin said, which was basically a rogue move...

"How did Churchill, that old bastard, become the Prime Minister..."

Next to her, sitting at the main seat of the British naval delegation, even Cunningham, who was also a shameless hottie, felt his eyes twitch and wanted to complain when he heard Kim openly and nakedly asking his country for technology without any disguise.

This old guy is even more shameless than me...

I still have a bad temper...

But now that I think about it, the Prime Minister had also specifically instructed that the Americans’ technological requests must be met… He also said that the British Empire no longer had foreign exchange reserves or gold and silver reserves, and that only these technologies and colonies were worth mentioning…

Even I expressed doubts at the time, but Prime Minister Churchill was always right. He talked about the overall situation of resisting Germany, the same language and race, and that we should get through this first. He even said that a soldier's duty is to obey, and we should obey whether we understand or not...

Although he knew that he had to wait and see after this, Cunningham was a little dissatisfied with the Prime Minister's practice of stuffing all the hidden treasures out at once.

But there is nothing I can do, he is the Prime Minister and I am just a soldier...

"Alas...it's shaking the foundation of the country..." Cunningham sighed in his heart. Great Britain has its own national conditions. What can we do about this, Lord Zhongtang?

Although he was unhappy, he could only put on a business smile and nodded to Jin across from him...

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