Chapter 637: The Battle of the Natuna Islands (9)
In the course of two minutes, the Revenge received a total of 2 280-mm shells, five 155-mm shells, 11 105-mm shells, and several near-misses, two large holes in the deck, and many dents and water seepage on the side of the ship. However, none of the revenge's counterattacks hit, and it seems that the revenge's character is not very good.
However, after completing the turn, the Revenge was obviously running, because the Mo Xie behind the Cadre actually started to turn in advance, and it happened to miss the Revenge perfectly, and did not launch an attack on the Revenge, so Captain Martin couldn't help but secretly rejoice, and hurriedly ordered the damage control personnel to immediately seize the time to repair and prepare to meet the next opponent, the Weiyang.
After staggering with the Revenge, the Cadre's fire hit the England behind it, and on the other hand, it drew a large arc on the sea surface and rushed straight towards the queue of the Far Eastern Fleet, while the Mo Evil turned in advance, not following the Commander, but was located behind the Cadre's side, but flashed the angle of firing forward, and at the same time, like the Commander, it changed lanes along a large arc and rushed towards the queue of the Far Eastern Fleet, and the target of the two warships was the turning position of the Far Eastern Fleet.
At this time, the remaining warships of the Far East Fleet did not understand the intention of the People's Army fleet, which was to cut the Far East Fleet in two and then break them one by one, so the England, which was turning, and the Centurion and Balel behind them all opened fire one after another, attacking the two ships of Gan Jiang and Mo Xie who rushed towards them.
At this time, the Ganjiang and the Mo Xie were both facing the enemy with the bow of the ship, so the four front main guns and four front 155 mm secondary guns of the two ships opened fire together, launching a fierce counterattack on the Far East Fleet, and at the same time both increased their speed to the limit, both exceeding 20 knots, and at the same time, the five destroyers of the 2nd destroyer detachment of the People's Army Fleet also followed at some point, and even quickly increased their speed, surpassing the Ganjun. The Mo Xie rushed directly towards the Far Eastern Fleet, apparently intending to attract the fire of the enemy ships and cover its two battleships to cut off the enemy's ranks.
The 5 destroyers of the 2nd Destroyer Detachment are 4 Hailong-class ** destroyers and 1 Feiting** gunboat that originally belonged to the Beiyang Naval Division, of which the Feiting was purchased by the Qing court before the First Sino-Japanese War, but was delivered after the war, and the 4 Hailong-class destroyers were purchased by the Qing court after the First Sino-Japanese War to rebuild the Beiyang Naval Division, which was the best in the world at that time Boat destroyer, the maximum speed reached 33 knots, was captured and divided by the Eight-Nation Coalition during the Gengzi State Change, and later the traverser arrived, annihilated the Eight-Nation Coalition Navy, and took away the five destroyers, and later organized into the 2nd destroyer detachment, named: River Dragon, River Qing, River Rhino, River Hua, River Ting.
And the British warships did not dare to be careless, although the tonnage of these five destroyers was not large, only 3, 400 tons, but once they broke into the 2000-meter range of the warship, then the ship's ** can pose a great threat to the warship, so all ships also hurriedly turned their small and medium-caliber guns to carry out fierce and intensive strikes on these destroyers.
However, these five warships were small and fast, and the slowest of them could reach 22 knots, and the other four destroyers reached speeds of more than 30 knots at this time, and traveled on an "S" route, so it was not easy to hit these destroyers. Moreover, the Ganjiang and the Mo Xie were not dry food, and they fired with the same full force, bombarding the British warships, and the same 5 destroyers provided cover. In fact, the Far Eastern Fleet also has two destroyer detachments, but now these two destroyer detachments are following behind the team, and it is too late to catch up now.
For a time, the sea was full of water columns, and five destroyers advanced through the water columns, gradually forcing into the British fleet. However, the intensive blows of the British fleet were not without gains, and the slowest Riverthunder was the first to be shot, almost all of the bow was destroyed, and it sank in the sea in less than 10 minutes. The Ha Qing and Ha Hua were also shot, but fortunately, they were both 75 mm shells, which were less powerful and could continue to move forward. The Cadre and the Mo Ye fired continuously, hitting the England, the Centurion, and the Baller, but they themselves did not hit a few shots. This was mainly due to the fact that several British warships currently participating in the war were taking care of one thing and losing the other, so it was difficult to concentrate all their efforts on firing at the Cadre General and the Mo Xie.
First of all, the England was hit by 12 shells, including 1 280 mm shell and 3 155 mm shells, but it had completed the turn, and then fought against the Weiyang, unable to support the warships behind. And the Centurion entered the turn, so the Cadre and the Mo Ye concentrated their firepower and launched a blow to the Centurion. In just over one minute, the Centurion received 3 rounds of 280-mm shells and 7 rounds of 155-mm shells, and almost all of the blows were concentrated in the front of the Centurion, and the entire bow part of the ship was almost destroyed, and a large amount of seawater poured into the front of the warship, causing the front part of the warship to sink and the rear to rise.
However, at this time, the Baller, as well as the two Monmouth-class armored cruisers, the Monmouth and the Bedford, also rushed to support, and the formation of the British fleet began to be chaotic.
At this moment, the River Green and the River Rhino first entered the launch area, and the two destroyers each fired 2 ** at the British warship. Immediately afterwards, Helong and Hehua also entered the **launch area, and each launched 2 rounds**.
8 rounds ** at a high speed of 38 knots, to the British warship galloped away, Baller, Monmouth, Bedford can only turn around, to evade, only the Centurion due to the influx of a large amount of seawater, front and back imbalance, slow action, was hit by **, made a shocking loud noise, originally the Centurion was only half a life left, this ** undoubtedly became the last straw that pressed the camel, and finally completely helpless, slowly sinking into the sea.
In fact, in this era, the hit rate of ** is very low, but the People's Army does not expect to sink the British warship by relying on the ** of these destroyers, but only hopes to use ** to contain the British warship and gain time for the Cadre General and the Mo Ye to cut off the British fleet. Sure enough, the Commander and the Moxie did not disappoint, seized the opportunity won by the destroyers, and finally cut cross-cutting into the queue of the British fleet, and faced the enemy on the side of the ship, with full firepower, the Baller, the Monmouth, the Bedford, and the warships behind Edgar, the Royal Arthur, and the Grafton were all shot, and could only turn to dodge, and the Far Eastern Fleet was finally cut into two sections by the KPA.
"Smack!"
Wang Hailong slapped his palm on the table, waved his fist excitedly, and shouted: "Well done, well done, well done." We will win this battle. ”
Chen Xiaojiang also nodded, cutting off the British fleet was another important node in this war, following the change of direction of the armored cruisers of the People's Army fleet, and laid the foundation for the victory of the People's Army fleet in this naval battle.
However, Chen Xiaojiang is the chief of staff after all, and he is calmer than Wang Hailong, and said: "Old Wang, it is still too early to say that we have won, we can only say that we have the advantage, and if we want to win it completely, we can't make mistakes in the battle in the future." Otherwise, the cooked duck will fly away. ”
When Wang Hailong heard this, he immediately calmed down and said, "Yes, yes, yes, the duck that has been cooked can't be allowed to fly." ”
Therefore, Wang Hailong first ordered that the helicopters must closely monitor the entire battlefield and give timely feedback to the Yueyang warship of the battlefield information and data, so that the Yueyang warship could calculate the firing units of each ship; he also ordered the Ganjiang and Mo Xie to turn around immediately to support the battle on the cruiser's side; and then ordered the other three battleships of the People's Army Fleet to lead the five protective cruisers of the Third Cruiser Squadron and the remaining four destroyers of the Second Destroyer Detachment to take over the Gan Jiang and Mo Ye and annihilate the remaining British warships. Ensure the final victory of the KPA.
At this time, the busiest people were in the air, because the battlefield at this time had been divided into two obvious parts, one was on the west side of the battlefield, and the KPA fleet of the cadres and Mo Xie, the armored cruisers Jinan and Tianjin, the protective cruisers Qingzhou and Yizhou, and the 1st destroyer detachment played against the Far East Fleet's Old Man Asterisk, Ocean, Victory, Revenge, The 5 battleships of the England and the Goliath have sunk, and the Old Man Star has basically lost its combat effectiveness and actually withdrawn from the battle, and the remaining 4 battleships have also been damaged to varying degrees.
The other part is on the west side of the battlefield, and is composed of the Weiyang, Boyang, Feiyang, the 3rd Cruiser Detachment, 4 destroyers of the 2nd Destroyer Detachment, a total of 12 warships, and the battleship Baller, the Cruiser Detachment, the 1st Destroyer Detachment, the 2nd Destroyer Detachment and 2 notification ships of the Far Eastern Fleet, a total of 16 warships, although the Far Eastern Fleet has a slight upper hand in the number of warships, but there are 3 battleships in the People's Army fleet, while there is only one battleship in the Far Eastern Fleet, and it is also a battleship of the 2nd rank, and the rest of the warships are mostly destroyers, Notification ships are small warships of less than 1,000 tons.
But now the two battlefields are about 10,000 meters apart, and the battle situation is very complicated, both sides can hardly maintain an intact column formation, it is completely chaotic, which gives the helicopter to monitor the position of all warships on the battlefield, and the accurate data is transmitted to the Yueyang ship A lot of difficulty, and the workload is not ordinarily large, so in addition to Li Yangang to control the helicopter, Liu Heyang and Yu Wenfen are both engrossed in monitoring the battlefield, constantly on various panels, Switching back and forth between windows, the sound of the keyboard was constantly ringing, and Li Yangang did not dare to disturb their operation, so there was almost no sound in the helicopter except for the sound of the machine.
In the command room of the Yueyang ship, Wang Hailong had also regained his composure at this time, his eyes moving back and forth on various screens, paying attention to the situation on the two battlefields at the same time. Of course, at this time, the People's Army fleet has basically locked the victory, only in the size of the results, for Wang Hailong, the results are naturally as big as possible, it is best to completely annihilate the British Far East Fleet, but Wang Hailong also knows very well that this is impossible, just sink as many British warships as possible.