Bismarck

Page 356

On the other side of the battlefield, the two King George V-class battleships under Tovey's command had gradually dropped to about 25 knots due to water ingress and structural damage. Although they were also trying their best to chase, and although the Ludendorff on the opposite side had one of its main turrets silenced by the two of them, the speed of 27 knots was still faster than Tovey's two battleships! And with the attack power of the King George V-class battleships, it was already difficult to injure and slow down Ludendorff and Hindenburg...

Now, the only way to catch up with Hindenburg and Ludendorff is to maintain thirty knots of war weariness!

but……

If Scharnhorst and Gneisenau hadn't been causing trouble, it would have been easy to deal with Warspite with its current speed and combat power. But the problem now was that Bey had been catching up little by little with his speed of 32 knots, and began to get between Warspite and Hindenburg little by little!

After all, the speed of Scharnhorst is 32 knots, while Warspite is only 30 knots now...

Now, Scharnhorst is 22000 meters away from Warspite - at this distance, even ordinary sailors can achieve a relatively impressive artillery hit rate!

"You are such a tenacious opponent. I have no choice but to defeat you!"

Looking at Scharnhorst who was gradually catching up, War-weary gritted his teeth.

As soon as the thought came to his mind, eight green-headed CRH8 armor-piercing explosive shells appeared on the elevator in the turret. With the gunner's operation, they were quickly pulled up from the ammunition silo, stuffed into the loader in the changing room under the main gun, and stuffed into the gun barrel...

On the other side, Bey, with clenched teeth and red eyes, shouted at his subordinates in a rough tone, inputting the latest artillery parameters of the Warspite into the mechanical fire control computer...

"Fire!"

"Feuer!"

----

The warships operated by humans and the warships operated by evil spirits roared at the same time with their main guns towards the enemies opposite!

This is the ultimate confrontation between two forces.

One is to turn thousands of people into a whole, the other is to be the whole yourself.

But after all, the opponent was an evil spirit. If she attacked head-on, even if Bay had two battleships, the Scharnhorst and the Gneisenau, he would still be at a disadvantage!

The artillery shells from both sides drew a deadly arc in the sky, and then smashed down heavily!

The salvos from Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, commanded by Bey, were mostly evaded by Warspite, and only the crane next to the Warspite seaplane hangar was blown away. However, Warspite's counterattack directly destroyed the rear main turret of the battlecruiser Scharnhorst!

The blood-thirsty Bay still didn't care and even gave up evading. He commanded his Scharnhorst and the Gneisenau that followed him to continue firing at the Warspite that wanted to continue to outflank the Hindenburg!

But on the other side, Tovey, who was gradually losing hope of catching up with Hindenburg and Ludendorff, also began to order the Duke of York and Howe to shift their firepower!

At the extreme distance, the Duke of York battleship's six main guns fired a fatal round of artillery fire, which had already hit the Scharnhorst's chimney from the rear in a backstab attack angle. Under the chimney, due to the small width of the hull and the high volume of the boiler, a "step" of only 45 mm steel plate had to protrude, which could only defend against shrapnel. On the left and right sides of this step were the two main steam pipes of the Scharnhorst-class battleship!

A total Achilles' heel!

With a loud bang, the entire battleship seemed to have slammed on the brakes, and the people on the battleship suddenly felt a force leaning forward - the Scharnhorst, which had lost most of its steam pressure, suddenly dropped in speed to less than ten knots!

"Report to the captain! ... The flue is blocked, the left boiler pipe is blown off, and the right boiler pipe is leaking... The chief engineer said that he can probably block the leaking pipe within ten minutes, and then maintain the speed at around 24 knots..."

"Twenty-four sections? What use is there for twenty-four sections?"

Bey gnashed his teeth with a fierce look on his face, staring at the powerful ship girl in front of him whose speed was still reaching 30 knots, and his gums were bleeding!

Now the only warship on the battlefield that can catch up with Hindenburg is the Warspite with the ship girl! Even if he has to sacrifice the people on this ship and the more than 30,000 tons of displacement of the Scharnhorst, he must definitely hold back the Warspite!

"Order! Have the Gneisenau break away from the formation at full speed, entangle the Warspite, and cover the flagship's evacuation!"

Seeing this situation, Bey issued the final battle order without hesitation! Soon, the Gneisenau, which was still able to maintain 32 knots, bypassed the battlecruiser Scharnhorst, which was under repair. While passing by its flagship, the Gneisenau continued to fire at the Warspite and blew the whistle to express its final respect to its flagship...

They all knew very well what the consequences would be if they lost motivation and were left behind on this battlefield.

"…Very good, don't worry about anything else now! Scharnhorst, target Warspite! Stop evasion! Armor-piercing shells, fire at full speed!"

The Scharnhorst, which has been completely crippled, still continues to stubbornly carry out its duties!

Under Major General Bay's iron-blooded determination, another round of 380mm armor-piercing shells was loaded into the barrel of the SKC34/380 main gun at the fastest speed and fired at the Warspite that was being harassed by the Gneisenau!

Less than forty seconds later, the battleship Warspite was attacked from both sides by the separated Shane and Gnay. The waterline near the boiler room in the middle of the hull was a big fireball. Her 330 mm side armor plate was still unable to withstand Bey's final determination at a distance of 22000 meters!

And the Gneisenau over there was hit by a shell from the Warspite not long after!

Although the speed did not drop much, it still fell below 27 knots - except for the Scharnhorst, the slowest ship in the German fleet, Hindenburg, had a speed of over 27 knots!

Soon, the distance between Warspite and other German warships was getting farther and farther, and they were no longer able to catch up.

Seeing that the Warspite, knowing that it had no hope of catching up with the remnants of the German Arctic Fleet, began to turn around, and then looking at the two King George V-class battleships on the opposite side that could only maintain a speed of 25 knots and were rushing towards him in a mess, Bey's face finally showed a hint of a mission accomplished smile...

"Get ready to continue fighting!"

--------

While Bey fearlessly defended the honor of the German Navy with his life in front of the Warspite, Duke of York and Howe, Kumetz was trembling in the corner of the Hindenburg battleship, racking his brains to think about how to write a battle report after returning so as to get rid of his responsibility by whitewashing his mistakes...

"...I'll tell you this later! The British sent out the Warspite, and it was a shameless sneak attack... The Admiral also knows the ship girl, so he should forgive me...right...?"

"...But...I won't accept this! Why can that old fellow Lütjens gain the loyalty of the shipgirls and abduct the Prinz Eugen, while I can only be ambushed by the British shipmen!"

“…I want to be a world-famous general too!!…It’s all because of these damned things! They ruined my plans… Damn it…”

"…This must be…it must be the fault of the ship girl…"

In the middle of the night, in the defeated German fleet, in the captain's cabin of the Hindenburg, besides the sound of beating his chest and stamping his feet, there was only a despicable soul howling...

(Scharnhorst's B skill: Sniper!)

ps: Request a razor blade.

Chapter 591: Tovey eats dog food

In the second half of the night over the Norwegian Sea, the waning moon hung in the southern sky, shining on the sea surface which had returned to calm despite the strong southwest wind.

A hastily made makeshift wreath was floating on the oil on the sea, and next to the wreath, the battleships HMS Warspite, HMS Duke of York and HMS Howe were surrounding the wreath.

Next to them, the British destroyers were lowering small boats to rescue the German sailors who had fallen into the water. Although the water temperature was close to zero degrees and the strong southwest wind on the sea would quickly take away the heat, it was questionable how many of the German sailors who were rescued would not be frozen to death...

On the battleship HMS Warspite, Cunningham and Secretary Bailey looked at the wreath floating in a pool of oil on the sea in silence for a long time.

The battlecruiser Scharnhorst fought to the end, and even after the three British battleships had exhausted all their main guns and even their secondary guns, they still did not surrender! Until the last battle, this battleship, with the battle flag flying high, was still symbolically firing back with machine guns...

After a long while, War-weary finally spoke softly:

"... the Scharnhorst... it's a worthy opponent."

"Yeah... I hope our navy can be like her when facing this kind of situation..." Cunningham tilted his head slightly and looked to his side. His wife, with whom he had been supporting for nearly thirty years, gently grabbed her little hand.

War-weary's face turned a little red. He pulled gently but couldn't get it off.

Although there were still many people around, but... seeing a battleship fighting bravely against three others and sinking to the bottom of the sea under the siege of three of his own battleships, the softest part of my heart was still somewhat touched...

If I and my pet named Cunningham were faced with this situation, would we be similarly affected?

Being able to sink together or something... maybe this can be considered the romance between the captain and the battleship...

Even though he was an experienced elder, he couldn't help but overthink things when he saw War-weariness.

Fortunately, Kumets has already retreated and will not come out again for the time being, so Captain Cunningham and I don’t have to think too much...

I pulled twice but couldn't get it off. Forget it, just let him hold on to it like this...

After all, after marrying this guy, there are always many good memories over the years...

But before she could think about her little thoughts for long, Cunningham spoke beside her.

"Hmm? Tovey is here."

"?!" War-weary was stunned, but he only saw a transport boat slowly approaching his body from the direction of the Duke of York.

This transport boat was a special officer's boat. And War-weary also knew that Tovey had just sent a signal saying that he would come over.

but……

"I'll go down for a moment."

Just when War-weary was still confused, his own admiral let go of his hand and prepared to go downstairs to greet his old friend.

I finally had a little bit of warmth, but it was interrupted by you, the light bulb!

War-weary gritted his teeth and disappeared from the bridge while no one was paying attention.

"…Torvi, just wait, you'll be in trouble!"

On the bridge in the night wind, only a faint but bitter resentment was left floating.

------

Tovey, who was on the transport boat, was also in a very complicated mood tonight.

In order to protect the safety of shipping in the Atlantic, as the commander of the Home Fleet, he had to lead the Home Fleet in full force to fight against the German main fleet that seriously threatened Britain's maritime power - even though he knew very well that he was no match for this German fleet.

However, as a Royal Navy commander who must fight whenever he sees an enemy, Admiral John Tovey told himself that he must perform his duties conscientiously no matter what!

At the beginning, when he was forced into a desperate situation by the overwhelming superiority of the German fleet, and even watched the Renown lose its strength and sink to the bottom of the sea, he had already despaired. But soon, he was saved from a desperate situation...

Moreover, the Scharnhorst had been sent to the bottom of the sea by Cunningham and himself! Kumetz was also running away!

This is the first real victory since I knew that the Germans had ship girls!

I won! It was hard, but...

At this moment, Tovey couldn't help but think of the girl who always wore a pair of red-rimmed glasses. She accompanied him when he was at his most frustrated and about to commit suicide more than a year ago. At the last moment of his life, she used (physical means) to stop him from committing suicide and sent him out...

Perhaps, what she wanted to express to herself at that time was that no matter how big the setback was, she must persevere until victory?

Looking at the sky, thinking of the past, even though he is a veteran of many battles, his eyes still feel a little wet:

"Hood, did you see that? We won... We finally won!"

He wiped his eyes and saw that the battleship HMS Warspite was very close to him.

The gangway for the transport boat to dock was lowered, and it seemed that Cunningham was already waiting for him at the side of the ship.

The transport boat approached the side, Tovey wiped his eyes again, and walked up to the landing step at the bottom of the gangway.

Then I felt my feet slip for no apparent reason and almost fell flat on my face…

………In the reception room of the Warspite’s officer’s room…………

"…Because she can repair and reinforce some injuries by herself, so you guys fixed it in advance, and you got here so quickly?"

Looking at the people around Cunningham, Tovey was so angry that he felt like his teeth were itching!

"Yes, and as soon as we knew you were in danger, we came to find you. ... You have to know, even though she is an old lady, when she lifts her skirt, she can still run very fast... Ouch! It hurts, it hurts..."

"You old man, you are old yourself, don't drag me into this!"

It turned out that it was War-weary, who had a feverish face, who grabbed Cunningham's waist unhappily.

"So... Cunningham, not only did you know about this a long time ago, but you've been married to War-weary for so long!?"

Looking at the couple flirting in front of him, Tovey felt a little annoyed.

This guy has kept it a secret for so long! I even attended the wedding when these two got married, but I never thought that this person was actually a ship girl!

Especially since you, who is tired of war, actually recognized Hood and are close friends with Hood? Even Cunningham just nodded with a smile on his face without saying anything... Are you trying to show off in silence?

So it's you two who are showing off my single look!

Are we still friends? Do we still have to be loyal to each other?

But...if I hadn't sent Hood away...it would probably be like this now...

Looking at the flirting couple in front of him, Tovey thought of his secretary ship again.

Thinking of Hood, Tovey, who was always cold and serious, had the urge to beat his chest and stamp his feet even though so much time had passed.

But... I won this time after all.

Even though they had lost their head maid, they had just received a telegram that night bombers from airports in the Shetland Islands and the Faroe Islands had launched an air strike on the German fleet, which had already suffered heavy losses!

The heavy cruiser Hipper was sunk on the spot, and the Ludendorff and Gneisenau were both severely damaged by torpedoes! Although the Hindenburg narrowly escaped the torpedo attack, it was hit by four armor-piercing shells in a row!

The mighty German fleet fled back to Norway in such a panic. And it seems that it will not be able to come out again in the short term!

Although it was a bit sad to think of Hood and the head maid who died in the battle, the British Empire Royal Navy finally won this decisive naval battle no matter what!

Ignoring the flirting couple, Tovey stood up gently and walked to the porthole. While looking at the morning star hanging above the sea sky in the southeast, he picked up the cross hanging on his chest and kissed it gently.

This cross, in fact, was a relic left to me when the Hood sank...

"Hood, thank you for blessing us in heaven..."

With emotion, Tovey continued to look up at the night sky. In that distant and deep starry sky, it seemed that a well-educated, bookish girl with glasses was smiling at him.

It seemed that there was a perfect and elegant head maid standing beside her...

………The Admiralty Building in Berlin, where some are happy and some are sad………

Tap the screen to use advanced tools Tip: You can use left and right keyboard keys to browse between chapters.

You'll Also Like