Chapter 389: The Battle of Tsushima (15)
By the time the Western Fleet arrived, the skirmish between the Japanese and Russian fleets had been going on for about 40 minutes, and the battle was unusually fierce.
Although the two battleships of the Russian fleet tried their best to bombard the opponent with their main guns, the opponent's warships were too fast, and the four warships of the 3rd Sentai were divided into two groups, constantly attacking the Russian fleet from the left and right, and firing from time to time* In addition, the training level of the Russian soldiers is low, the artillery is old, and the firing speed is slow, so although the 8 main guns on the two battleships carried out more than ten rounds of bombardment, they did not even hit each other, but the small and medium-caliber artillery has a lot of gains, after all, the number of small and medium-caliber guns is large, the rate of fire is fast, the firepower is intensive, and the probability of hitting is naturally greater.
All four warships of Sentai 3 were hit by more than 10 shots, but none of them were fatal and still maintained their combat effectiveness. And they also gave a lot of blows to the Russian ships, but these Russian ships are all rough and thick-skinned, and the two battleships naturally need to be said, even the three 5,000-ton "admirals" have relatively thick armor, so the blow of the Japanese ships to the Russian ships is not serious.
And the real results were the 3 old Sanjing ships of the 5th warband, and the 3 320 mm guns fired a total of 5 times in the battle, which was quite a good result, because the tonnage of these 3 warships was too small, and the 320 mm guns could only be fired in a very stable state, otherwise they would be easy to capsize, and in the battle of Dadonggou, these three large-caliber guns only fired 6 times in total. However, the Battle of Dadonggou also allowed the Japanese Navy to accumulate a lot of experience in using the "Sanjing Ship", that is, it was necessary to have other warships to attract the attention of the enemy and create conditions for the "Sanjing Ship" to use huge artillery bombardment in a stable state.
Due to the attraction of the 3rd Sentai and the slow movement of the Russian ship, the "Sankei ship" The five shots actually hit two shots, one hit the middle of the Admiral Apraksin, crippled the Admiral Apraksin on the spot, and the other hit the aft side waterline of the Navarin, making a large gap with a diameter of more than 3 meters, and more than 1 meter deep into the waterline, although the Navarin was not completely finished, but there was only half a life left, and the soldiers on the ship were only busy rescuing and had no intention of participating in the battle again.
However, this time it also exposed the "Sanjing Ship", and the Russian ship only then knew that these three inconspicuous little guys were still carrying a big pipe, so Nicholas I didn't care about chasing the Japanese ships that were running fast, and instead aimed at the "Sanjing Ship" for a round of bombardment. Because the "Sankei ship" had to slow down in order to open fire just now, and the distance was not far, so the Nicholas I finally opened the meat, and a 305 shell hit the Matsushima, the result is naturally conceivable, this warship of only 4,000 tons was completely broken up by this gun, and Itsukushima and Hashidate saw that the situation was not good, and they could not care about firing at the Russian ship again, so they hurriedly distanced themselves from the Russian ship first.
However, the 3rd Sentai took advantage of the fact that the Navarlin was busy draining and plugging the leak, and the Nicholas I's attention was focused on the "Three Views", concentrated its firepower and desperately launched an attack on the other two "admirals", and fired 9 shots in succession*, which caused the two warships to be scrambling, and as a result, when dodging*, they made a mistake and collided with each other.
At this time, the Western Fleet rushed to the battlefield and encountered the Itsukushima and Hashidate, which were dodging the huge artillery of the Russian ships. The Itsukushima was taken by surprise, and as a result, it was hit by three shells in a row, one 240-mm shell directly hit the headquarters, the commander of the 5th Sentai Squadron, Lieutenant General Shichiro Kataoka, and the first staff adjutant were all killed on the spot, and the other two 152-mm shells all hit the waterline on the side of the side, and they were immediately beaten and unable to take care of themselves.
In desperation, the Hashidate fired back at Takumi with its 320 mm main gun, but this gun not only did not hit Takumi, but was shaken by the reaction force of the cannon's fire, and the hull shook violently, and the ship almost capsized. And the Western Fleet will be polite there, all the warships have opened fire, and the Hashidate has not yet regained its balance, and even hit more than 10 bullets, all of which are of various calibers, but it was beaten so that the whole ship caught fire, and it looked hopeless.
In less than 2 minutes, the Western Fleet sank two Japanese ships, and then, led by the Takumi, headed for several other warships that were tangled and entangled.
At this time, the Japanese and Russian warships also discovered that there were uninvited guests on the battlefield, and they also saw the flag clearly, so they all stopped fighting, and the heart of Vice Admiral Dewa Shigeyuan, the commander of the 3rd Sentai Corps, sank, and the overseas Chinese finally joined the war at this time, because the Western Fleet had sunk two Japanese ships just now, so the officers and men on the Russian ships were relieved, and this fleet seemed to be coming to help them, and the captain of the Nicholas I, Rear Admiral Nepokadev, also ordered to send greetings to the Western Fleet.
It's a pity that he was rewarded by the shelling of the Takumi, although the Takumi shot did not hit the Nicholas I, but it scared Nepokadev a lot, and then he knew that this fleet was not here to help himself, but the Japanese ships took themselves together, so he hurriedly ordered the ship to fire back, but the old guns of the Nicholas I took 3-4 minutes to shoot once, and the 240 mm guns of the Takumi could shoot twice a minute, and the Russian soldiers on the Nicholas I were busy loading, ranging, adjusting, Aiming, Takumi had already carried out four rounds of shelling, and hit two guns of the Nicholas I.
Fortunately, the 240-mm shells were slightly weaker, so they did not cause much damage, but the rate of fire of the Takumi was higher than that of the Nicholas I, and the accuracy was also higher, and as a result, the Nicholas I struggled with great effort, and the main gun only fired two rounds, but one shot missed, only 1 152-mm shell and 2 100-mm shells, but these shells did not hurt the Takura much.
The Takumi has carried out 9 rounds of shelling, and hit 6 guns of Nicholas I, and other small and medium-caliber guns have hit 8 guns, although the 240 mm shells are not powerful enough, but after all, they are also large-caliber shells, and they can't stand it if they suffer too much, and Nicholas I is already an old ship that has been in service for 16 years, and it can't afford to toss too much. As a result, the hull of the ship was damaged in many places, and the ship's artillery was also destroyed by nearly half, and its combat effectiveness was greatly reduced.
Just as the Takumi and the Nicholas I were fighting each other, other warships also started fierce battles with Japanese and Russian warships. The opponent chosen by the Lookout was the Navarlin. In the battle just now, at this time, the Navarlin had not yet blocked the gap, and more than 600 tons of seawater had poured into the ship's hold, but the KPA Navy did not have the spirit of "Ferporai" and believed in the principle of "taking advantage of your illness, asking for your life", so the six 280-millimeter main guns of the Lookout opened fire on the Navarlin.
The age of the Navarin is 14 years, and the age of the Navarin is 11 years, the gap is not big, and the tonnage is comparable, although the Navarin has two more main guns, but the caliber of the main guns is slightly smaller than that of the Navarin, so the firepower projection capacity is also about the same, but now the Navarlin is wounded, and the Yang is unscathed, which naturally accounts for the stool.
The two ships went back and forth, and continued to fire 6 or 7 rounds, and the Yang hit 13 guns of the Navarlin and 6 shots of the main gun, while he suffered 7 guns and 3 rounds of the main gun. Although the 3 main guns caused some damage to the Yang, it was not yet broken, but the Navarlin couldn't stand it, after all, it was still plugging the leak, and there was a 280 mm shell that hit the position less than 10 meters from the gap, and as a result, most of the gap was finally plugged and all of it was shattered, and the previous efforts were basically in vain. The sea water poured into the ship's cabin again, and the Navarin was gradually sinking.
The 3rd cruiser detachment of the Western Fleet faced the 3rd squadron of the combined fleet, but the commander of the 3rd squadron was so far away that he did not dare to fight, and the strength of Bi Jing's fleet was too strong to deal with these warships. Therefore, the fleet commanded fought and retreated.
However, the 3rd Cruiser Detachment would not let them go easily, clinging to the 3rd Sentai and chasing after them, as a result, the two sides fought and ran, and gradually broke away from the current battlefield.
There is also the 2nd destroyer squadron, and their opponents are two "admirals", Admiral Ushakov and Admiral Sinyavin, these two Russian ships collided just now, and both suffered a lot of damage. The second destroyer squadron is several destroyers of the former Beiyang Naval Division, with a displacement of 400-500 tons, although the tonnage of these 5 warships bundled together is less than that of an "admiral", and the main gun is only 100 mm caliber, which poses almost no threat to these two "admirals", but they have their own weapons of mass destruction - *.
The five destroyers fanned out and fired a salvo at the two warships, and before the strike was over, a second salvo was fired.
As a result, the Admiral Ushakov was hit by two* and sank into the sea about 10 minutes later, while the Admiral Sinyavin was hit by one*, and although he tried his best to save it, he was still unable to prevent the warship from sinking, so in about half an hour or so, the captain ordered all the officers and men to abandon the ship and escape.
The two "admirals" fell on the battlefield in this way, and the Navarlin was already dying, and at this time it had sunk to the deck less than a meter above the sea, and it was not far from sinking completely. At this time, the deck was full of Russian soldiers who had escaped, and many of them had jumped into the sea from the gap to escape earlier, and they had even put down two lifeboats.
At this time, the only Russian ship that was still fighting at all, the Nicholas I, raised the white flag and surrendered to the KPA Navy.