Just after 6 a.m.

The four Nuland battleships actually fired first, still twenty kilometers away!

The lookout observed the muzzle flash of the Nuland battleship's main guns when it opened fire, and the distance measured by the radar was more than 20 kilometers.

It can be seen that in the ten minutes before the firing, the four Newland battleships must have deflected their course to the east, expanding the distance.

At the same time as the alarm was raised, the captain gave the order to fight.

Then, the anti-fragmentation armor in the commander's bridge fell, and the Praetorian Guards guarding the doorway closed the hatch 500 mm thick.

"Longxing" was the first to start accelerating and turning, and the three battleships behind also began to turn at the same time.

To say, it doesn't make much sense.

The opponent only shot probabilitarily, did not aim at the battleship, and could not aim.

In addition, it was previously cruising at a speed of only 15 knots, and it was simply impossible for a huge battleship to change its speed as easily as a fighter. Even if all boilers are in the highest range, it will take a few minutes to increase the speed to more than 20 knots.

The point, how did the four Nuland battleships aim !?

Although both sides had been firing flares before this, Zhang Guozhu had already issued an order for combat readiness, and all four battleships were in a state of light control.

Even if the night sky is clear, more than 20 kilometers away, you will definitely not be able to see clearly.

What can eat carrots and cod liver oil to enhance night vision is a trick made by intelligence agencies, used to deceive ghosts, and it is useless at all.

When Zhang Guozhu was thinking about this problem, the shells fired by the enemy ships had already flown over.

Judging by the sound of the shells falling, the deviation of the impact point is not large.

Subsequently, this was also confirmed by the lookout's report.

Although the 12 shells that came in did not form a cross-fire, and all of them fell to the right side of the "Longxing", that is, the impact points were all remote, but the deviation of the landing point was not large, and one of the shells was no more than 500 meters away from the "Longxing", and the farthest was about 2,000 meters.

Night artillery battles, and the distance of engagement is more than 20 kilometers, this accuracy is already very high.

The lookout also reported that three other battleships were also shelled, and judging by the point of landing of the shells, the deviation was not very large.

At 6:05 a.m., the enemy ships fired a second salvo.

At this time, the speed of the "Longxing" reached 20 knots, and the separation of the four battleships was expanded to more than 2000 meters.

The dispersal range of the second salvo of the enemy ship made Zhang Guozhu even more shocked.

The deviation of the impact point was further reduced, and the nearest shell was less than 300 meters away from the "Longxing" and landed on the port side of the battleship.

That is, the enemy ship adjusted the aiming point between two salvos, only overcorrected.

As expected, in the next few rounds of salvo fire, it will definitely form a straddle fire on the "Longxing", thus entering the stage of covering the shelling.

As a matter of fact, the No. 2 enemy ship had already formed a straddle fire on the "Shengwu" that was following behind the "Longxing."

There were only two salvos.

If only one enemy ship fired a shell that was accurate enough, it could be said that it was luck.

But now, the accuracy of the shelling of the four enemy ships is not low.

To say that this is the result measured with an optical device is a liar!

So far, none of the four battleships of the 42.1 Squadron have opened fire.

Could it be that there was a gun-sighting radar on the battleship Nuland!?

This sudden thought made Zhang Guozhu tremble a few times.

Although the "Longxing" class is not equipped with a gun-aiming radar, Zhang Guozhu is very aware of the powerful performance of the gun-aiming radar.

Don't forget that during the last war, Zhang Guozhu was the captain of the "Beihe".

In the first half of the year, the "Beihe" and "Nanjiang" took the opportunity of replacing the barrels of the main guns and installed the same gun-aiming radar as the "Xuhai" class.

Crucially, the radar is not affected by the distance of engagement, and can maintain almost the same accuracy rate over the full range of the main gun.

To be precise, the radar commands the shelling, and the primary factor affecting the range of shell dispersion is no longer the error of measurement, but the accuracy error of the naval gun itself.

Of course, the number one value of radar is its ability to detect and lock on to targets at night.

If I want to say, the advent of radar has completely changed the tactics of night artillery battles, making special training for night battles meaningless.

In addition to being shocked, Zhang Guozhu did not forget to do the most important thing, that is, to ask the communications staff officer to shoot and send a telegram.

Although it was only his speculation, there was reason to believe that the four Nuland battleships must have radars, or advanced gun-sighting radars.

So, what about the other Nuland battleships?

Now that there is an artillery sighting radar, will there still be a shortage of anti-aircraft search radars?

The time of the telegram sent by the "Longjiang" was 6:15.

At that time, the four Newland battleships on the opposite side had already fired a third salvo and were preparing for a fourth salvo.

Around 6:10 a.m., the four "Longjiang" ships successively fired a half-salvo for the purpose of school guns, preparing for the first full salvo.

About 100 kilometers southeast of Detachment 42.1, four fast battleships of Detachment 43.1 were galloping eastward at a speed of 28 knots.

At the head of the list was the "Asahimi".

The commander of the 43.1st detachment was Li Jie, but he was not the commander of the 43rd task force, and the 43rd task force did not have a commander.

Of the four task forces, Task Force 43 is the most exceptional.

The 43rd Task Force itself was formed temporarily, except for the "Xuhai" and "Yanhai", the other warships did not originally belong to the Fourth Fleet, but were drawn from the Second Fleet, but because the assembly place was in Naqiu Harbor, they were assigned to the Fourth Fleet.

In addition, Task Force 43 is the smallest.

In addition to the four fast battleships of the 43.1st Detachment, there were only four light cruisers of the 43.2nd Detachment and four destroyers of the 43.3rd Detachment.

There are no heavy cruisers, that is no heavy cruisers available!

Before the war, the Imperial Navy had only sixteen heavy cruisers in total, and the four "Queensland" class built after the end of the last war were already lagging behind, because the hull life was almost exhausted, so they were left in the rear to be used as training ships. Of the other twelve, four were in Task Force 41, four were in Task Force 42, and four were sent to Yanhai to keep an eye on the two heavy cruisers of the Nanzhu National Squadron of the Nuland Navy.

For the 43rd Task Force, whether there are heavy cruisers or not is not a big problem.

In a traditional fleet battle, the main task of a heavy cruiser is to cover the capital ship, block the enemy's light cruisers and destroyers, and avoid torpedo attacks on the capital ship. It's just that in the decisive battle of the fleet with fast battleships as the main force, speed is the best protection.

The pre-war exercises had long been well established, and fast battleships were able to respond to enemy destroyer attacks with their speed.

Crucially, the Imperial Navy's fast battleships all had increased anti-aircraft firepower, and the most notable sign was the replacement of secondary guns with large-caliber anti-aircraft guns.

The 130-mm anti-aircraft guns of the Imperial Navy were absolutely very powerful against small and medium-sized warships.

Don't look at the power of 130 mm shells as good as 150 mm shells, but the advantage in rate of fire is enough to make up for the lack of power of shells.

It is precisely this that fast battleships often do not need cruiser cover.