In the face of the locust-like German carrier-based aircraft group, the sailors of the Royal Navy's home fleet did not sit idly by, but operated all kinds of anti-aircraft guns on the warships, and bravely fought back against the attacks of dive bombers carrying thousand-pound bombs straight down.

But as brave as they were, they had little success, as they lacked enough anti-aircraft guns.

The main reason for this is that most of the warships in the Royal Navy were launched during World War I or not long after the end of World War I, and in World War I, there was no tactic for carrier-based aircraft to attack surface hulls as they do now, so there were very few anti-aircraft guns on their warships.

In fact, the British have also recognized this problem, so they plan to carry out a complete modernization of all ships now in service, among which the battleship "Queen Elizabeth", which was originally in the second modernization refit, became the first warship to accept the new Gaoping dual-purpose gun.

According to the plan, the battleship "Queen Elizabeth" after the completion of the transformation will have 4 six-mounted "MKIII" 12.7mm anti-aircraft machine guns, 8 single-mounted "Erlikon MK4" 20mm anti-aircraft guns, 4 eight-mounted "8" 40mm anti-aircraft guns, and 10 twin 114mm 45 times diameter MKII-BD anti-aircraft guns!

Such anti-aircraft firepower, if you talk about the density of firepower alone, is not far behind even the latest German Bismarck-class battleships.

It is a pity that the "Queen Elizabeth" in this state has not yet been "born", and at the moment it is still in full swing of transformation, and the transformation base is not in Scarpa, but in the Rosyth Naval Base in Scotland.

So the strongest anti-aircraft firepower of the old ships in Scapa is the "Warweary" and "Barham", which completed a second modernization in March 1937 and October 1939 respectively, in which both ships were equipped with new 8-pack bangbang guns and 102mm high-level dual-purpose guns.

The anti-aircraft firepower of the home fleet can be said to be weak, but compared to Scarpa, which should have taken on more anti-aircraft firepower as a base, their anti-aircraft firepower is extremely strong......

As Abraham had complained before, because of Scarpa Bay's unique geographical location and strong home fleet, the British top brass never paid attention to Scarpa's anti-aircraft firepower, and for them, it was obvious that London, which was only a hundred kilometers away from the European continent, needed air defense more than Scarpa, which was almost impossible to attack by the Luftwaffe.

Especially now that the Allies are being beaten by the Germans in Belgium.

As a result, Britain transferred almost all of the new anti-aircraft radars, anti-aircraft guns, and fighter planes to the English Channel, and set up a powerful air defense network and early warning network along the strait.

HMS Nelson, the flagship of the Royal Navy.

"Woohoo!" As the distinctive sound of the guns firing uninterrupted, several eight-pack guns spewed thousands of two-pounder shells into the sky at a rate of 920 rounds per minute, creating a web called "death" in front of the German dive bombers.

But the Germans did not flinch in the face of this weaving net, they charged at the "Nelson" at a speed of 600 kilometers per hour like a hunting peregrine falcon, and stretched out his claws - 1,000 pounds of high-explosive aerial bombs to the "Nelson" at the extreme altitude.

The "Nelson" crammed into the harbor could not move at all, let alone evade maneuvers, and the hit rate of the bomb depended entirely on the quality of the German pilots.

And the quality of this group of pilots is not bad.

The 1,000-pound bombs smashed on the "Nelson" one after another, and the "Nelson" shook from side to side with a violent explosion.

Soon, the deck of the "Nelson" was in a sea of fire, all the anti-aircraft gun positions were dumb, the main turret was also burned red, the soldiers inside were obviously all killed, and as for the brains of the whole ship, the bridge, it was directly hit by two 1,000-pound aerial bombs at the beginning, turning into a pile of twisted scrap metal.

The rest of the Nelson's crew jumped into the sea, while the sailors trapped below the main deck closed fire doors and waited for rescue.

But how could there be rescue in the chaos of Scapa Bay? The other warships themselves are difficult to protect, and it is impossible to lend a helping hand.

There are only two options waiting for the trapped crew - suffocate or burn to death.

The two options were difficult to choose, so the "helpful" German pilots offered them a third option - to be torpedoed and drowned partly.

The seven torpedo attack planes barely received any attack when they approached the huge "Nelson" that was "red" and penetrated half the sky, took aim for a while, and then dropped seven 533mm aerial torpedoes, turned around and flew away.

Seven torpedoes dragged seven white lines and quickly shot towards the "Nelson" hundreds of meters away, "as steady as Mount Tai", and a few seconds later, with a violent explosion and seven tall water columns rising, Nelson's side chord was torn open five huge openings, and the sea water surged into its body, carrying the ship with a full load displacement of 38,000 tons and thousands of sailors to capsize to the left side at a rapid speed.

In just over a minute, the huge "Nelson" completely disappeared from the sea.

After confirming the sinking of the first target, the Nelson, the flagship of the British fleet, the remaining German carrier-based aircraft, began to change their targets.

The equally massive "Rodney" is clearly a good target.

So five minutes later, the "Rodney" also fell into flames, and as before, when the "Rodney" lost its ability to defend itself, the torpedo attack aircraft appeared.

It was still a round of torpedoes, and the "Rodney" also began to sink, but it was much more fortunate than the "Nelson" - the water where it was located was relatively shallow, so it just sat in the harbor, and instead of turning over and sinking to the bottom of the sea like "Nelson".

At this point, more than half of the first attack wave of the German aircraft carrier fleet had passed, and all the dive bombers responsible for the ship had finished dropping bombs, and the remaining small number of torpedo attack planes were unable to fight alone with British anti-aircraft fire, so they roughly dropped their torpedoes and evacuated Scarpa Bay with the group.

The first German attack wave, with a total of 171 carrier-based aircraft, successfully sank two Nelson-class ships, the strongest British ship today, and damaged the "War Weyer" and "Malaya".

This once again demonstrates the combat effectiveness of naval aviation in modern naval warfare.

After the German carrier-based planes left satisfied, the remaining large warships in the harbor withdrew at full speed to the outside of the harbor, and the other small boats in the harbor also began to rescue the survivors, but the wreckage of the sea greatly blocked their pace.

It was not until half an hour later that a second wave of German attack aircraft with a total of 214 fighters arrived over Scarpa Bay.