ps: I made a mistake in the front, the Iowa is still in the Atlantic Fleet, changed to the Indiana, sorry!

By the time everyone realized that something was wrong with the North Carolina, the giant ship had swallowed more than 10,000 tons of seawater, and the whole was tilted 13 degrees to the right. Pen % fun % Pavilion www.biquge.info

"Approach the landing site, prepare to storm the beach!" The captain of the ship, Admiral Herstvedt, suddenly gave a surprising order.

"Sir?" The surrounding staff officers were in an uproar: the damage management did not report that the warship could not be saved, and if it rushed to the beach, the ship would be completely finished.

"Fool, carry out the order immediately and report to General Halsey!" The captain roared, "Attacking Betio obviously requires fire support, and without the sacrifice of battleships, how can you exchange the strongest firepower?" Don't you know that the enemy used the Mutsu to block the Panama Canal? ”

"The USS North Carolina sent a telegram saying that the ship had been seriously damaged by an enemy suicide rocket attack, and was going to run aground on the beach and serve as a fixed battery."

Halsey gritted his teeth and grimaced, and handed the telegram to Nimitz without a word, and although the latter did not interfere with his specific operational command, it was always right to ask for advice on such a major decision.

Nimitz didn't look at it, and calmly issued an order: "Agree to the captain's request, be sure to maintain the firepower of the whole ship, their sacrifice will be worthwhile!" ”

The staff officers were all gloomy, the Battle of Tarawa had just begun, and they didn't expect to have lost a battleship, and the situation seemed to be not good. It can be seen from the commander's decision that he is under great pressure: The loss of a new capital ship is certainly distressing, but if the Gilbert Islands cannot be taken, the Pacific Fleet will not be able to account to the HSD and the Joint Chiefs of Staff at all -- the combined fleet will not be able to attack an island without it, so what should it do?

"The Indiana reported that they also encountered enemy suicide rockets, one turret was destroyed, and the rest were unharmed."

"Inform the ships, be careful, but not give up fire support for the landing force." Halsey thought for a moment, "I guess the enemy suicide rocket should be about the same." ”

"Beached! It's beached! Under the watchful eyes of many warships, the North Carolina rushed to the Tarawa beachhead like a king on the end of the road, and the coral reef plate it encountered at first was shattered by the powerful impact of the warship, but then the ship remained motionless on the beachhead like a stranded whale. Due to the increased draft after the water ingress, the waterline of the stranded North Carolina rose by 2.4 meters.

"Maintain the power supply of the whole ship and the operation of one-third of the turbines, ensure the availability of all turrets, and the damage management department will find a way to plug the gap and discharge the seawater." Despite the big change, Captain Hurstvedt still had a cool head and gave the order in an orderly manner, "The main gun is aimed at the enemy turret attack, and don't let go of an RB devil." ”

"Onboard! Onboard! "Seeing the North Carolina run aground, all the Japanese troops defending the island were screaming in a frenzy, and they were proud of the heavy damage to an enemy ship—this was almost the capital ship of the Nagato-class class.

Only Rear Admiral Shibasaki's face changed greatly: although this stranded giant ship is finished, but the fortifications on the island are also under the direct deterrence of battleship fire, and now the enemy has a heavy turret and main armor belt to rely on, and can attack at close range, and is not afraid of being sunk, this firepower advantage has been strengthened too obviously - the enemy commander is also ruthless!

If it weren't for the fact that he had allowed both the Mutsu and the Hiei to break through and run aground, and finally paralyzed the Panama Canal, the U.S. military would not have been willing to use battleships to do such a thing. The only difference is that Panama's position is crucial, and Tarawa doesn't seem to be there yet, but for the Pacific Fleet, which can't afford to lose, Tarawa is their Panama.

In addition to the hidden firepower and ferocious suicide rockets on the island, Nimitz frowned at other circumstances: the troops reported that the nautical charts they were using were old goods drawn by the British a hundred years ago, not only were they in the wrong direction, but even the shallow water on the maps was now the deep sea, and several sites that were scheduled to be used for landing missions had to be abandoned, and in one place a landing vehicle was directly submerged due to the depth of the water, and everyone had to find another way.

Now Nimitz, Halsey, and Holland are all suspicious of taking Tarawa quickly, but the battle must continue, or the North Carolina will be lost in vain.

The American soldiers generally thought that the Betio defense system had been reduced to powder under heavy artillery fire, but the actual effect greatly exceeded their expectations. The island's flat terrain is covered with large amounts of absorbent coral sand and coconut wood, which greatly weakens the destructive power of aerial bombs and artillery shells. The results of the dumping of tens of thousands of tons of ammunition were extremely pitiful, destroying only the airfield and ancillary facilities with obvious targets, and the defenders' firepower points only cleared two 8-inch naval gun batteries and three tanks, and cleared some of the Japanese army's outcropping fortifications and communication systems. But for most of the defenses hidden beneath the surface, the damage was minimal.

However, the RB defenders quickly felt the power of the North Carolina, and the 406mm caliber shells were poured at close range to form a powerful suppression, and many of the Japanese artillery did not die from shrapnel, but were shocked to death by the huge impact force. As time passed, the Japanese counter-artillery fire fell silent again.

"The enemy must be put up to fight." After listening to reports from all sides, Shibasaki said, "Otherwise, we will always have to face the threat of heavy artillery from enemy battleships, which is too much trouble." ”

Several others nodded their heads in unison, and they also woke up from the initial frenzy of inflicting heavy damage on enemy ships - one stranded battleship was more difficult to deal with than three other battleships that were still active.

At 14:21, the U.S. troops landed again, and this time the charge was much more cautious, and the minesweepers used smoke screens to sweep a channel from the landing craft group area to the lagoon. The Indiana's maritime reconnaissance planes guided them to lay buoys while throwing smoke buoys to mark the location of the shoals. Guided by the minesweeper Essential, the destroyers USS Ringold and USS Dahir broke into the atoll breach channel, ready to provide close-range fire suppression.

The Japanese batteries on the west bank of the island once again shot with a fluke mentality, but before they could fire two shots, the North Carolina counterattack ship artillery shells roared, and the only remaining battery was lifted into the sky, taking advantage of the opportunity of the Japanese firepower being completely suppressed, a large number of landing craft took the opportunity to rush into the lagoon. Subsequently, in order to avoid accidental damage, the battleship gun group stopped shelling.

The development of the battle proved that Shibasaki's decision was correct: the enemy battleships would cease fire only if they were close to each other, and the defenders of the battery who had just ventured to open fire had already gone to see Amaterasu.

Hundreds of amphibious landing vehicles and a group of tank landing craft formed three attack waves, and under the command of Colonel Connelly, commander of the 3rd Marine Regiment of the 3rd Marine Division, drove onto the reef and swooped straight for the northern shore of Betio.

The first wave of amphibious vehicles successfully boarded the Red Three Beach, and the trembling soldiers, under the command of the loud voice Curt, continued to fire with the M1 rifles in their hands, while wading through the water with non-standard tactical maneuvers, but the Japanese did not respond. The overjoyed Connally immediately beckoned the second wave to prepare for the landing, and the second wave also smoothly got off the amphibious vehicles and began to land -- now two companies were landing on each beachhead scheduled to land, and the US troops immediately launched a third wave of landings -- after this wave went up, basically each beachhead could reach one battalion.

However, just when the first two waves had not yet fully landed, and the third wave had just approached the reef, Shibasaki, who had been patiently waiting for a long time, suddenly gave the order to open fire.

With the lesson of the end of the West Bank battery, the Japanese army learned to be obedient and never risked firing again, but waited until the US infantry approached the forward position only more than 100 meters before opening fire fiercely, this time most of the small-caliber infantry artillery fire was used, 75mm, 57mm and 37mm shells were slashed and swooped down into the landing crowd, most of the slow-moving amphibious vehicles were beaten into flames, ammunition exploded, and there were severed limbs and stumps everywhere and the screams of the crowd.

Seeing that the artillery was unfavorable, the Sherman tank began to rush forward bravely, trying to tear a bloody path for the infantry with armor and artillery fire, they used machine gun fire and tank shells to try to suppress the infantry fire on the opposite side, but the good times did not last long, the Japanese army quickly launched an iron fist from the bunker, Captain Curt could see clearly, the dozen or so Sherman who rushed to the front were shrouded in rockets that came out of nowhere, and the sound of "boom" was endless, and then I saw the tank soldiers running out of the tank in embarrassment, In the blink of an eye, he was knocked down in a pool of blood by dense machine-gun and artillery fire.

The rest of the tanks rushed in a panic, and some drove into the reef pit on the reef, unable to climb out for half a day, and finally simply stopped the fire; Some of them rushed onto the beach, but instead of being destroyed by the iron fist, they ran into the oncoming anti-tank fire, and only six of the more than 20 tanks managed to escape back to the vicinity of the lagoon -- a tank that proved to be a fixed target for fighting on the reef without infantry cover.

Seeing that there was no way back, and the way was blocked by the wreckage of their own tanks, the soldiers on the amphibious vehicle jumped into the sea frantically under the command of the officer, trying to outflank the enemy's fire point with infantry in a roundabout way, these abandoned vehicles and wading soldiers held weapons in both hands, slowly advancing on the reef, and if they were not careful, accidents would occur: either they tripped over the reef under their feet or the corpses of their companions, or they were thrown down on the reef by the Japanese Type 92 heavy machine guns.

Few soldiers climbed through the wading area and rushed to the predetermined beachhead unharmed, and even if they did, the situation was not ideal, and they were crushed to the beach by Japanese machine guns, and occasionally grenadiers or grenades exploded in the crowd, constantly reaping their lives.

Holland, Devin and others, who were watching the battle from the battleship in the distance, were angry and anxious, but they did not dare to let the ship's guns open fire, and if the 406mm shells hit them directly, it would be a massacre that did not distinguish between the enemy and the enemy and covered hundreds of meters. Now one can only hope for the 127mm firepower on the destroyers with close support, and they have increased the rate of fire to the maximum, but even so, in the face of Betio Island, which has firepower everywhere, it is still impossible to completely suppress it. (To be continued.) )