"The dreadnoughts of the Croats have bowed! Her bow is flooding! ”

The microphone in the command tower of the Agamemnon was filled with the excited shouts of the Lookout, and the command tower, which was overwhelmed by the scorching battle situation, instantly became a sea of joy. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 info

The bow roll indicates that the bow of the opposite warship has a lot of water, and maintaining the speed will accelerate the influx of seawater and affect the damage management and plugging. To stop further water ingress, it is necessary to reduce the speed of the ship and then completely seal the breach. This means that this dreadnought of the Croats must be out of the queue! Not only would this result in a loss of combat power on the opposing side, but the Agamemnon would also be able to get out of the dreadnought's blows.

Seeing that although the dreadnought on the opposite side was hit by 9 9.2-inch shells and at least 4 12-inch shells, the whole ship was on fire, and the 8 main guns still fired at themselves without any effect, Milne was not having a good time at this time.

The Agamemnon had already been hit by the opponent with 7 11-inch shells. 1 shot hit the bridge behind the second chimney, Blew up three 12-pounder (76.2 mm) rapid-fire guns; one shot pierced the 8-inch armor belt between the S2 and S3 secondary main gun turrets and crashed into the rear of the seat side of the seat under the S2 turret, although it was bounced off by the 6-inch thick seat armor because the impact angle was too small, but the impact still caused the S2 seat to jam; one shot hit the top cover of the main turret in the bow, and was also bounced open by the tilted top cover because the angle was too small, and the shocking scratches on the top cover of the A turret could be clearly seen from the condescending height; and the first shell hitting the lower part of the front bridge shocked everyone in the command towerdizziness; Three more shots hit the unprotected areas of the bow and stern, respectively, and blasted the nearby compartments into a pile of twisted scrap metal. As for the number of 6-inch shells that hit, it is not worth mentioning.

The loud vibrations and loud noises that followed each shell made Milne feel like he was standing in Big Ben that had been struck. The problem is that Big Ben will not be knocked through, and the armor of the battleship under his feet is not as strong as the bell wall of Big Ben at this time! Milne's heart was on the verge of stopping when turret A was hit.

Now that the formidable opponent was finally being pushed back, Milne felt the scales of victory finally start to tip in his favor.

However, the Croatian-Slovenes did not just evacuate, and the Ljubljana did not send any telegram to Didrichs asking for a slow disengagement. After receiving an inquiry signal from the United Forces, which had discovered something strange in front of her, the Ljubljana replied: "There is nothing abnormal on this ship, and the battle can continue." ”

In fact, one 305-mm shell pierced the bow waterline armor of the Ljubljana, and the influx of sea water at a speed of 13 knots rushed like a high-pressure water cannon, making it difficult for the damage team trying to plug the leak to even get close to the breach.

However, the Ljubljana did not withdraw from the battle line. After the damage management operation was carried out without success, the captain decisively ordered the abandonment of the damaged compartment. Soon, the Ljubljana had a bow roll of about 3 degrees due to the 300 tons of water in the bow, which would make it difficult for the Ljubljana to sail and affect the accuracy of the shooting, but the invaluable dreadnought remained in the battle line!

The two sides have already killed each other, and the two fleets are like two entangled gladiators, and the stalemate will be broken in an instant with a successful attack at any time! In this hand-to-hand battle where life and death must be separated, any cowardice and retreat will bring immeasurable consequences!

Just when Milne thought that the Ljubljana was about to run out of steam, a loud bang that shook the ground all day almost shook the entire Ionian Sea, and the explosion heard for dozens of miles made the battlefield where the previous cannon rumble seem to have come to a standstill at this moment.

A huge fireball rose up, orange fire rolled in the black smoke, and a steel giant ship broke in two from the front of the bridge like a toy twisted by a mischievous child, and the violent explosion raised the bow stump high, the red bottom was faintly visible, and then at least 3,000 tons of steel smashed into the water and splashed huge waves. Scattered scraps of steel fell into the sea as if it were pouring rain.

"Oh God! The Lord Nelson exploded! ”

The Royal Navy officers and sailors of the Agamemnon and the New Zealand watched in amazement, the broken bow was completely submerged in the sea after only a few tens of seconds, the huge stern of the rear hull was already raised high, the bridge was inserted into the water, revealing the water, and the brass propellers that were still spinning at high speed glistened in the afterglow of the setting sun.

At 17:43, the huge hull of the Lord Nelson disappeared from the sea in just four minutes, and such a tragic scene also caused a tragic result, and only 19 of the 817 officers and men of the Lord Nelson were rescued in the end.

Both sides watched in shock, no one knew what was going on aboard the Lord Nelson, and even the crew of the battleship Hesse who sank her had no idea how their shells had caused such terrible damage.

Later generations of war historians and researchers have investigated and reconstructed the terrible events that happened on board the Lord Nelson.

One 283 mm shell fired by the Hesse hit the position between the main deck and the protective deck below the front main turret of the Lord Nelson, and the shell pierced the upper 203 mm armor belt of the Lord Nelson, and after passing through the space of nearly half the width of the bow, it slammed into the turret seat under the forward main turret, and the castrated shell finally penetrated the 102 mm armor and exploded in the seat.

The original 330-kilogram armor-piercing projectile, with only 7.8 kilograms of explosives, could not have caused such terrible damage. However, the explosion affected the 117 kilograms of propellant being lifted in the ammunition hoisting silo on the right, and the violent explosion caused by this extremely sensitive and explosive Cordite propellant swept through the entire turret seat, and the damage of the explosion went all the way down the ammunition hoisting shaft, and the former main turret ammunition depot directly below was instantly affected!

The explosion of the entire ammunition depot caused such a tragic scene.

Later researchers agreed that the cause of this tragic result was the Royal Navy itself. First of all, the main armor belt of the Lord Nelson class was not high enough, the main armor belt of only 2.13 meters high only covered the hull near the waterline, while the upper armor belt between the upper main deck and the protective deck was only 203 mm, and the lowest and thinnest position of the main turret seat was also on the same level.

This position is usually difficult to hit, but in the Battle of Ionia, both sides focused on attacking the waterline in the hope of flooding the other side, and the shells were fired almost horizontally at a distance of 9,000 yards to hit this position. If the two sides were farther away and the angle of incidence was larger, the Hesse's shells would most likely have ricocheted on the 30 mm thick horizontal armor on the protective deck, and it would have been impossible to threaten the ammunition depot below.

If the height of the main armor belt of the British, like that of the Germans, was close to 5 meters, then even if the thickness of the main armor belt under the main turret of the Lord Nelson class was very unreasonably cut from 305 mm to 229 mm, it would be difficult for the shells of the Hesse to penetrate the 102 mm armor at the bottom of the turret seat after penetrating the main armor belt.

The thickness of the turret seat in the Lord Nelson class is also extremely unreasonable, with the forward main turret facing the bow being the thickest, the aft main turret facing the stern being the thickest, and the rest of the turret being cut. However, judging from the situation of the battleship engaged sideways, it should be the thickest on both sides, and the front and rear are cut. If arranged in this way, the 203 mm armor at its thickest point was enough to hold off German shells, even in the weakest part of the seat with weak protection at the bottom.

Then there's the culprit - the Cordite projectile, which is extremely sensitive and explodes at the slightest bit. All of the Royal Navy's ammunition depots in World War I were related to this propellant, and if the Royal Navy's propellant had been ignited like the Germans' propellant, then a considerable part of the losses, including the Lord Nelson, could have been avoided.

However, what happened on the Lord Nelson at that time does not matter how later researchers analyze it. What is important is that the Hesse used the tragic end of the Lord Nelson to put a heavy weight on the balance of victory for its own side.

Milne, who had just felt that the scales of victory were tilting in his favor, fell like an ice cave. Even though the front of the Lord Nelson could not be seen behind, such a violent explosion made Milne know that the Lord Nelson had no chance of surviving. And the sinking of the Lord Nelson was not just the loss of a battleship by the Combined Fleet, but also the loss of a valuable quasi-dreadnought.

The wreckage of the Lord Nelson, which was sunk by direct explosion, blocked the path of the follow-up warships, which meant that the entire formation had to be transferred to evade, which would not only affect their own artillery bombardment, but also the originally neatly arranged battle line would be disjointed, and it would take a lot of time to turn to the rear formation that went around to get back into the battle line.

And the Germans continued to fire at their own fleet, and both fleets were still sailing in the same direction, and after their own formation was disjointed, they sank the Lord Nelson, and the German battleships, which had been freed up, were likely to target the Agamemnon!

Milne guessed correctly at all, because the Lord Nelson was sunk, and the New Zealand and the Commonwealth behind began to turn to evade, and the pressure on the Hesse, which was originally burned by the combined fire of the two ships, was greatly reduced, and she did not take revenge on the New Zealand, which was slowly distanced by the turn, but turned the turret, and the muzzle of the gun pointed directly at the Agamemnon in front!

At 17:45, the Hesse opened fire on the Agamemnon, the flagship of the Anglo-French combined fleet!