At about the same time that the destroyer Yutachi caught fire and exploded, the 356-mm guns of the battleship Kirishima also began to breathe flames at the American forces. The excellent gunnery of the Japanese army was exhaustive, and with just the first shot, they formed a straddle fire on the Atlanta cruiser. The battleship's huge projectile stirred up a column of water tens of meters high surrounded the Atlanta in the middle. As soon as Rear Admiral Scott, who was aboard the Atlanta, saw this situation, he knew that something was wrong, and hurriedly ordered to turn the rudder and dodge. But at this moment, a 356 shell from the Hiei hit the stern part of the Atlanta directly, and the C turret was completely destroyed, but fortunately, the fire door connecting the ammunition depot was closed tightly. However, another loss was much more fatal than the loss of the C turret: the reconnaissance aircraft on board the cruiser was hit and set on fire. In the darkness of the night, the fire turned the Atlanta into a king-size light bulb. So all sorts of cannonballs flew towards her.

In just a few minutes, the Atlanta cruiser was hit by a single 356-mm shell and at least 30 5-inch and 6-inch shells, and the entire superstructure of the warship was almost completely destroyed. The captain was killed in battle, Rear Admiral Scott was seriously wounded, and before falling unconscious, he gave the order to abandon the ship. 5 minutes later, the cruiser Atlanta, which had already burned into a flare, was hit by two Type 93 torpedoes in succession, and almost within a few minutes sank into the sea. Most of the U.S. officers and men on board the ship were killed in the battle, including Rear Admiral Scott, and 15 people are missing. Some witnesses said they saw them get into the lifeboat before the warship sank, but no one ever saw them again, one, Ben, read #novel xstxt to that lifeboat and the people on it. No one knows what happened in this dark night.

While the Japanese ships were besieging the Atlanta, the Americans were not idle, and the B-17 at high altitude first used searchlights to illuminate the battleship Hiei. Countless shells flew over, and the Hiei was hit by more than 80 bullets, although it was not able to penetrate his armor according to the law, but her superstructure was also shattered, and all kinds of observation and sighting facilities were almost completely destroyed, and she almost lost her combat effectiveness. But that wasn't the biggest blow she'd ever suffered.

Captain Stern divided the Night Assassin's torpedo planes into two groups to attack the two Japanese battleships, and they quietly approached the Japanese fleet from the opposite direction of the American fleet. The sound of the torpedo engine was completely drowned out by the roar of artillery fire at this time. The only possible targets are two small searchlights, one red and one green, for altitude. But these two lights are not too bright, and by the time they attract the attention of the enemy, they are already not far away. What's more, at this time, the enemy also has to identify and judge the target, and it is not easy to judge the distance and speed in the dark. It is almost impossible to intercept them with effective fire.

Now Captain Stern himself approached the battleship Hiei with the first squad. The Japanese, who were busy hiding from American artillery fire, were unaware of their coming. It was only after approaching a distance of 400 meters that Captain Stern took the lead in dropping torpedoes from the 70-degree angle of the Hubiei. Immediately afterwards, four other torpedo planes also dropped torpedoes.

Captain Stern, who was the first to drop the torpedo, steered the plane around a corner and began to climb. At this time, he observed three violent explosions on the side of the Hiei: three of the five torpedoes hit, all on the side of the warship. This blow was definitely enough for this battleship to drink a pot. The American torpedo was a great tragedy until 43 years. Contrary to the Japanese torpedo, which has a very bad temper and will explode if it does not do anything (the 93 spear is very sensitive, almost half of them will explode halfway after being hit by the waves), the American torpedo is definitely a wood with a super dull feeling. To paraphrase Jia Yingchun, nicknamed "Ermu" in "Dream of Red Mansions", the sentence "Prick the needle, I don't know if I know the oops" to describe it is not enough, this guy is definitely a super wood who will not feel anything if he hits his head. In actual combat, there were many times when American torpedoes hit enemy ships and were smashed into two parts, but they still did not lose their temper and exploded; on the contrary, the half-cut torpedoes floating on the water were often used as lifebuoys by Japanese soldiers who fell into the water.

Later, after repeated experiments, although it has not been able to completely solve the problem, at least, this embarrassing torpedo finally figured out under what circumstances it will explode and what circumstances it will not explode:

If the hit angle is too positive, and the contact angle with the target is between 80-90 degrees, well, basically it will not explode, if it is 90 degrees, then it will definitely not explode, even if the impact force can break the torpedo, it will never explode. So if you drop a torpedo that hits the target accurately but doesn't explode, it's probably because you're aiming too accurately and hitting too right. But the hit angle is too off, let's say the hit angle is less than 45 degrees, well, basically it won't explode. This time there were three successful explosions, indicating that Captain Stern was very successful in controlling the angle of hit.

Vice Admiral Hiroki Abe got up from the floor with the help of his assistants, and the continuous explosions just now caused the battleship Hiei to shake violently, and Hiroki Abe fell to the ground without standing firmly.

"What just happened!" Captain Masao Nishida asked, "Let each department report the damage." ”

"Sir, the starboard side was hit by 3 enemy torpedoes, it began to enter the water, the steering gear was damaged, and there were difficulties in the operation of the ship."

Under normal conditions, Hiei's injuries are not irreparable, however, this is the island of Kuah. There is no more fatal problem here than a loss of navigational ability, if you can't stay out of the combat range of the American bombers at high speed at night, you have to be prepared to be surrounded by the US dive bomber group and torpedo group during the day.

"General," Masao Nishida walked up to Abe, "given the state of the ship, it is already difficult to continue to perform the duties of the flagship. The general is asked to move to another warship to continue commanding. ”

Abe also understood that the current Hiei was really not suitable to be a flagship, it was hit by a mine, and it was impossible to keep up with the movement of other ships, and the Hiei's radio antenna and signal light system were seriously damaged, which did cause a lot of trouble to the command.

"Okay, then I'll trouble Your Excellency, Captain." Abe decides to leave the Hiei.

Before leaving, Abe ordered: "The destroyers Terutsuki and Akatsuki escort the Hiei to retreat." The destroyers Xuefeng, Tianjinfeng, and Shiyu should pay attention to searching for possible torpedo boats on the starboard side. (The Japanese didn't expect to be attacked by torpedo planes at all, and intuitively thought that the torpedo boats had done it.) "Originally, according to Yamamoto's order, once the battleship was damaged, if it was difficult to retreat, it should take the initiative to rush to the beachhead and run aground, as a fixed fire point to continue the battle. But the Japanese were worried that this would not lead to the capture of the final battleship. If the Americans captured an Imperial battleship and then displayed propaganda everywhere, the damage to the reputation of the Empire would be too great. So later this order added an amendment clause, that is, the battleship must be irreparably damaged before it was allowed to rush to the beachhead. But what exactly does this "irreparable" mean, but it is really difficult to grasp, you must know that the Americans later salvaged most of the battleships sunk in Pearl Harbor and repaired them. That is, none of these sunken battleships were considered "irreparably damaged." It is really not ordinary for a battleship to get to such a "irreparable" point. And they have already suffered such damage, and it is even more difficult to wash up on the beach and run aground. In addition, Abe was unwilling to make himself the first commander of the empire to lose a battleship, so he decided to let the Hiei retreat.

Just after the Hiei was attacked, the B-17 above pointed its searchlight at the battleship Kirishima again.

Abe was sitting on a traffic speedboat at this time, approaching the battleship Kirishima, but suddenly saw that it was illuminated, and Abe immediately thought that Kirishima might be unlucky with the Hiei.

There was nothing wrong with this feeling, and as soon as he saw that the Kirishima was illuminated, Callahan immediately ordered the cruiser to concentrate fire on the Kirishima. Half a minute later, Kirishima was in a hail of bullets.

Seeing the column of water constantly rising around the Kirishima ship, Abe knew that leaning on it now was simply the birthday boy hanging himself - he thought that his life was long.

So where to go? Of course, the Nagara was another option, but just as Abe turned to the Nagara, he found that something had happened to the Nagara. A 127-mm shell hit the Nagara's seaplane catapult, destroying not only the plane above, but also igniting the fuel on the plane, so that the Nagara was suddenly exposed in the night.

The most terrible thing in the night battle is that there is a fire, and when it is on fire, it will be conspicuous, and when it is conspicuous, it will be watched by onlookers, and it will become a magnet for cannonballs. This law is just as valid for Nagara. The 127 shells of the American destroyer came running at once with a buzzing sound like flies that had seen stinking shit. As a result, after the Japanese withdrew, the Nagara received 26 shells, and the entire superstructure was destroyed.

Fortunately, there is a Japanese warship fighting not far away, well, there is no place to go anyway, just go there. A few minutes later, Abe's transport boat approached the warship, and in a few moments, his lieutenant general's flag flew high on the mast of the great destroyer, the destroyer Yukikaze.

Just as Abe approached the Yukikaze, Yukikaze's curse was in effect again, and another team of Night Assassins had already approached the Kirishima......

Kirishima was still a lot better than the Hiei, only one torpedo hit him, and of course it was possible, well, very likely, that only one of the torpedoes that hit him exploded. With Kirishima's displacement of 35,000 tons, an air-dropped light torpedo generally does not cause too fatal damage. In fact, at least for now, I don't see much of a problem. The Kirishima even continued to use his 356mm cannon to launch counterattacks against the American ships. She fires far fewer shells than her opponents, and fires them much less frequently, but she also poses a much greater threat than her opponent's 6-inch guns. A minute later, she fired two 356mm shells that hit the American cruiser Juno, one of which directly penetrated the armor of the Juneo's ammunition depot and exploded inside. The shell detonated the ammunition depot, and the Juno was blown in two pieces and sank into the sea almost instantly. More than 700 people on board were all martyred, including Thomas in Waterloo, Iowa. The five sons of the Sullivans. Later, in order to avoid the recurrence of such a tragedy, the US Navy specially issued a decree stipulating that immediate family members of the same family should not serve on the same warship.

The battle between the destroyers was extremely fierce: the US destroyer Mowson recklessly turned on its searchlight to search for the enemy ship, but instead exposed itself, was besieged by the Japanese company with more than 20 guns, the hull of the ship was flooded, and it sank half an hour later.

An accident occurred when the Mayrain fired a torpedo at the U.S. forces, and a Type 93 torpedo suddenly exploded during launch, causing a fire on the ship, which made it worse to suffer eight shells, four of which were shells from the 6-inch guns of the U.S. cruiser. Fourteen minutes later, the May Rain sank.

Taking advantage of the May rain, the U.S. destroyer USS Patton rushed up and fired four torpedoes at the Kirishima at a distance of 2,000 meters, but none of them hit, but was hit by the Kirishima 356mm gun three times in a row, one of which hit the waterline part, causing a large amount of water to enter. Ten minutes later, the Patton sank.

Although Kirishima quickly achieved two consecutive victories after being hit by a torpedo, the previous midmine itself had already terrified Abe. Nagano's (that) self-cultivation phrase "Don't break the warship" suddenly popped up in his mind. So as soon as he boarded the destroyer Yukikaze, he immediately ordered: "Give up the shelling plan and return home!" ”

After Abe ordered the other destroyers except Yukikaze to break off, the other ships began to withdraw from the battle one after another. Callahan commanded the American fleet in hot pursuit. In the dark, the Japanese destroyer released a large number of Type 93 torpedoes, and at 0:12 on the 13th, the cruiser USS San Francisco, which was pursuing the enemy ship, was hit by a Type 93 torpedo, and the entire capital of the ship was blown up. At 0:13, the destroyer Fletcher was also hit by a Type 93 torpedo, which exploded and caught fire and sank a few minutes later, leaving only two officers and men alive.

Fearing the Type 93 torpedo, Callahan ordered the pursuit to be stopped. So the boiling night gradually fell silent.

In this battle, two Japanese destroyers were sunk, two battleships were injured (one of them was seriously wounded), one cruiser was seriously damaged, and the other destroyers, the Snow Removal Wind, were damaged to a certain extent.

The US forces had two cruisers and three destroyers sunk, one cruiser was seriously damaged, and the other ships were also injured to varying degrees.

In terms of the results of this time alone, the losses of the American army seem to be even greater. But this battle is not over yet, because, in a few hours, it will be dawn!