Battle flags fluttered, machinery roared, and the German destroyer split the waves and plunged straight into the smoke unleashed by the British cruisers. The radar fan at the top of the bridge rotated back and forth, always locking on to the specific position of the British battleship. After a short time, the thick smoke screen in front of them began to dissipate rapidly, and to the joy of the German officers and soldiers, the British fleet, which they were preparing to attack, really appeared in the close sea less than 8 kilometers ahead!

In contrast to the British Royal Navy's centuries-old dominance of the oceans, the three British cruisers that appeared in front of the German destroyer group were in disarray: the flames on their decks were still raging, and the scorched black scene of twisted armor and steel cracking was everywhere. And the speed at which they relied for survival was also drastically reduced at the moment due to the loss of the core cabin and the massive flooding of the hull. According to the estimates of the German lookouts, these few fugitive British battleships had a speed of less than 18 knots, which was even inferior to the previous dreadnoughts of the last century!

Colonel Rao is Bent knew that the target had been heavily damaged by his own cruiser, and when he saw this scene, he still couldn't help but feel a strong sense of surprise and excitement. Against this kind of mortal enemy, he has more than ten ways to completely destroy the target, and this battle has lost its suspense! The thought that the destroyer fleet under his command would soon be able to perform as feats as aircraft carriers and pocket battle cruisers, Bent's heart was filled with longing and fiery. If you perform well, you may be commended by the great Führer!

At Bent's loud order, the 9 German destroyers quickly split into 3 squads. They finely adjusted their course and galloped towards the three British cruisers in a manner most suitable for torpedo interception. Due to the rough seas, the German armored overdrive at high speed was almost completely unable to exert its main gun firepower, but they were not prepared to sink the other cruiser with eight 128 mm high-level dual-purpose guns: the two five-pack 610 mm torpedo tubes in the amidships of the ship had already exposed their deadly fangs.

"Boom!" There was a loud roar, the waves were surging, and a series of imposing roaring columns of water soon rose around the German destroyer. The British sailors, who had recovered from their senses, used their sufficiency to carry the shells, pouring deadly fire on the incoming German destroyers. However, this resistance was nothing more than the death throes of the caged beast. After the previous fierce battle, the firepower of the two British heavy cruisers was not complete at this moment; This, combined with the relatively low rate of fire of the 203 mm guns, made it cumbersome and slow to deal with high-speed assault destroyers at close range, which made the German destroyers completely undenied the deed.

And the situation of the light cruiser Ajax is also extremely unoptimistic. Although she still retains the firepower of six 152mm guns, which should be unsatisfactory against the destroyer's close combat, her gunners have exhausted their strength in the previous battle, and at this moment they simply cannot let the 152mm cannon play its rate of fire at the same level. At the beginning of the design, in order to save weight, part of the ammunition delivery process of the British twin/triple 152 mm turret was still carried by manpower; If the battle dragged on, the 50.8kg shells would make the arm strength of the British loaders unsustainable.

The German destroyer cut through the waves and the water column as fast as it did, and in less than 15 minutes, the first three-ship squadron was only about 3 kilometers away from the British Heavy Cruiser York. The British sailors desperately counterattacked with the remaining 2 203 mm main guns and one 102 mm secondary guns, but the destroyers on the opposite side were not afraid and directly began to turn before the lightning strike. With the skyrocketing white foam on the bow side, the German armored overdrive at the front of the queue quickly turned the hull sideways. Under the officer's loud order, the sailor, who had been preparing for a long time, immediately pulled the flap valve in his hand; High-pressure air rushed through the gas tank, quickly pushing heavy oxygen torpedoes weighing 2.7 tons out of the launch tubes. The waves exploded, the torpedo entered the water, and the impacted engine began to operate at the same time, and the entire torpedo was fired forward at a speed of 50 knots.

"Damn, I can't see the tracks of those torpedoes!" The captain of the York's face turned pale, and his mind was already in a mess of panic. For a warship that is about to be torpedoed, mastering the path of an incoming torpedo is undoubtedly a crucial prerequisite for evasion: after all, only after the speed, course, and position of those underwater demomen have been roughly determined can the warship take an effective maneuver. Otherwise, if any link goes wrong, it may lead to the catastrophic consequence of close contact between the warship and the torpedo. However, now, I can't see any white lines on the rough sea, how can I avoid this in accordance with the combat regulations?

After a brief moment of panic, the captain of the Yorkie gritted his teeth and gave the order to break the broken jar of the left rudder. Now the German destroyer was located in front of its port side, so the torpedoes could only come from this direction, and in this case, the left full rudder was usually the ideal response to effectively avoid the incoming torpedo. Due to the unknown situation of the enemy, he can only do a maneuver with a relatively low probability of being hit by mines, and as for the outcome, he can only resign himself to fate. Faintly, the captain of the Yorkie still had a considerable degree of expectation for his decision. The current waves on the sea will be a great obstacle to the self-sustaining navigation of the torpedoes; Perhaps the torpedoes fired by the Germans would have deviated from their original course in these bad sea conditions, and the ship would have been spared disaster?

The machinery hissed, the waves rolled, and the officers and men of the York held their bodies tightly as the ship turned, and their hearts were in their throats. It was so irritating and anxious in just a few minutes. Just as the British officers and soldiers were sincerely praying to God, a thunderous sound suddenly poured into their ears; The battleship shook upwards and jumped up, knocking a large group of unprepared sailors to the hard deck......

"Boom!" A blinding glare as red as blood rose from the sea to the sky, like a sunrise Fuso, and the volcano boiled; The surging column of water immediately soared into the air with a loud thunder, and its top height far exceeded the mast of the York's heavy cruise. The power of the explosion of 490kg of high explosives almost overwhelmed the mountains and seas, and the stern of the York, which bore the brunt of the attack, was immediately blown off by the waist, and the entire battleship also sank sharply at a visible speed!

"Poor Englishman, I knew you were going to turn the rudder to the left and try your luck." On the destroyer Z13, which had just completed the attack, the simple-looking first mate Noah whispered to himself with a hint of pity. It turned out that the torpedoes fired by the German ships were not aimed at the inherent course of the York: Noah, who was also in charge of the torpedoes, had already calculated that the other side would use the conventional maneuver of the left rudder to avoid the incoming torpedo if it could not see the track of the incoming torpedo, so he directly set the torpedo launch parameters for the latter case. And this was indeed very effective: although the specific steering performance of the British battleship was unknown, and the navigation error of the torpedoes also existed, with the attack fan formed by the 10 torpedoes, the German ship still managed to secure a decisive hit.

Harwood's heart ached as the York's bow gradually lifted out of the water, but he had no time to mourn the fallen sailors, as another group of German destroyers had their sights on the battleship he was on. At a distance of 3 kilometres, Harwood could even see the splashes of the torpedoes as they crashed into the sea. In an instant, chaos was engulfed on the deck and bridge, and all the British sailors knew that the steering engine room had long been destroyed, and the Exeter, which had only managed it manually, could not effectively evade it!

"Lucy, there's no way I can go home with you anymore." Harwood slowly closed his eyes.

"Boom!" The waves exploded like crazy, the waves were surging, and the figures of more than a dozen sailors were swallowed by the waves, and they disappeared in an instant. The Exeter's hull creaked as it twisted and deformed, and each steel beam shattered and sent desperate shudders to the remaining British sailors. After eight years of service, the newest heavy cruiser in the British Navy has also come to the end of her life; Less than five minutes later, the Exeter writhed her 8,390-ton steel body and sank into the vastness of the sea.

Under the command of Colonel Miller, the destroyers that had fired a round of torpedoes began to reduce their speed and rescue the survivors of the British battleship, while the destroyers that had not yet carried out the lightning strike flanked and cooperated with the warships in the front to attack the last light cruiser of the Ajax. 152-mm shells sporadically crashed into the sea and did not in any way stop the aggression of the German ships. With torpedoes crisscrossing one after another, the inflexible Ajax was not spared: a violent explosion shattered her underwater parts, and the entire battleship disappeared into the sea within 10 minutes.

"It is reported that the four British cruisers that attacked have all been sunk, and our Königsberg is seriously damaged, and is currently gathering the formation." About 20 nautical miles from the battlefield, the Zeppelin finally received a battle report from the front. The corners of Fang Yan's mouth showed a relaxed look, and at the same time, the sense of accomplishment in his heart was indescribable: those two auxiliary warships were all designed by themselves, and this time they were able to hit a perfect battle damage ratio, and their excellent performance was obviously on display!

"News of the destruction of this British detachment will soon spread throughout the North Atlantic. The rest of our journey back will not be peaceful, and hopefully Lady Luck will not favor the British as she does today. Fang Yan looked at the raging waves in front of him and whispered softly. (To be continued.) )