Seeing the stupid gulls led by the squadron leader writhing their bodies in the air, Schnofel felt an indescribable worry in his heart. He took a deep breath, put the plane's flaps in the cruising position, adjusted the elevator and rudder, released the airbrake, and then the nose sank, and the blue sea appeared right in front of him along with the target, the South Dakota-class battleship.

The wind and black smoke were blowing in the face, the place where the anti-aircraft shells exploded was no longer far away, the thumping explosion seemed to be ringing in the ears, the plane was vibrating because of the air current, a small part of this change in the air flow came from nature, and the rest was caused by the American shells. In Schnaufer's eyes, the outline of the American battleship became clearer and clearer, the hull of more than 200 meters long and 30 meters wide was like a small steel island floating in the sea, and the four triple 406 mm main gun turrets were so powerful and majestic, and its firepower was not inferior to that of the best German battleships. Because it was a first-class battleship that used all-oiled boilers, even when sailing at full speed, the black smoke coming out of the thick chimney was far less dense than that of coal-fired boilers, but at this time, there was a large stream of smoke rising from the ship in front of Schnaufell, which was the result of a whole squadron of dive bombers before, at the cost of 6 Junkers Ju-DD and 12 excellent pilots above. Seven 150-kilogram semi-armor-piercing bombs hit the starboard and mid-aft sides of the battleship, but the massive battleship was still turning on the sea at a top speed of 23 knots, and a little fire was clearly visible in the black smoke, which was as many as 120 anti-aircraft guns and anti-aircraft machine guns of various types on the ship desperately firing into the air.

After passing through the smoke screen formed by the explosion of anti-aircraft shells, Schnauffel suddenly saw a series of flashes of light, not fireflies or angels, but machine gun shells and machine gun bullets with tracer added to them, and many dive bombers were shot down by these seemingly beautiful bright spots during their dives. Schnaufel kept glancing out of the corner of his eye on the dashboard to read down, his plane was diving down at a 70-degree dive angle and over 500 kilometers, his hands clutching the joystick, the elevator had become extremely heavy by this time. He had to put a lot of effort into adjusting his aims.

Dangdang

Two machine gun bullets hit Ju-DD's engine armor shell impartially, and the fleeting but very glaring spark surprised Schnofel's heart, and he prayed that his engine would not go wrong, if the engine stopped at this moment, then he would not hesitate to crash headlong into the enemy ship, hoping that the rear machine gunner behind him would not have any objection to this.

The bullet that ricocheted off the armor grazed Schnoefer's cockpit, but luckily there was no problem with the propeller or the engine itself, and Schnaufer's eye glanced over the altimeter again. That just showed a very suitable bomb dropping height, but he thought to himself, "Wait, wait, make sure to hit, for the sake of the dead comrades, and for the sake of the living!" So, his fingers were still tightly pressed against the bomb.

Next to a quadruple 7.62 mm machine gun on the port side of the battleship, the officer in the steel helmet pointed at the German planes that were diving sharply and shouted, and the sailors sitting in the gun position quickly turned the horizontal rotating handle, and the whole body vibrated at a frequency of 10 times per second. And every second, 40 yellow bullet casings were thrown from the machine gun's ejection opening. A thick pile of cartridge casings had been piled up on the deck, and the sailors on both sides carried the bullets in tin boxes, and as soon as the gunfire stopped, they quickly replaced the quadruple machine gun with new cartridges.

When I put the German plane in front of me into the machine gun sight. The American sailor in charge of shooting let out an exclamation of "ah", only to see that the three black bombs had already left the plane and had reached the top of their heads in an instant.

After enduring the huge centrifugal force brought by the plane out of the dive state, Schnofel finally breathed a sigh of relief, and at the moment when he swept over the American battleship, he clearly saw the commander's flag on the mast!

"It's a flagship! That is the flagship of the Americans! Schnaufer exclaimed excitedly.

rumble

In the loud noise, the whole plane shook violently, the engine was still roaring, the propeller was still rotating at high speed, but the plane that was gradually climbing became light and fluttering as if it had lost power in an instant. After flying forward by inertia for several tens of meters. The heavy nose of the plane finally began to fall irretrievably, and Schnofel saw the blown tail in his rearview mirror, as well as the blood in the back seat.

He calmly opened the hatch, and although the air outside was cool, the various smells gathered together gave people a feeling that was difficult to describe. The plane began to fall, and in this less than 200 degrees, on the sea in which bullets were raining, it seemed that there was not much difference between parachuting or not jumping. Schnaufer unbuckled his seatbelt and even had a little time to tidy up. He remembered the words he had heard before he left:

"Even if we die in battle, Germany will still exist!"

Half a minute later, Schnofel was floating on his back on the water, and the messenger of God did not take him away, but he quietly enjoyed the ease that belonged to him on the noisy sea. A few hundred meters beside him, smoke billowed from the USS South Dakota, the flagship of the US Pacific Fleet.

Without Schnaufell's squadron became incomplete, and when the squadron returned home, the pilots were surprised to find that there were only 20 of the 25 bombers left, which meant that a total of 5 bombers were lost in the attack on the American battleship, and this was only the loss of their squadron. Looking at the nearby returning formations, none of them were complete, and the most unfortunate formation had only 14 flights.

"Guys! Good job! "There was no sound in the communicator for a long time, and for some reason, the squadron leader's voice sounded a little hoarse.

Half an hour later, Schnaufer was rescued by an American destroyer, and the German naval ensign was able to watch his comrades perform on a U.S. ship. After the dive bomber attack ended, the Americans finally breathed a sigh of relief, and at this time the only two aircraft carriers of the US Pacific Fleet had all been sunk, and the main battleships were also sunk, and they were sunk and wrinkled. All the fleet commander, Admiral Robert Koontz, could do at this time was to risk sending the battle cruisers "Lexington", "Constellation", "Saratoga", "Rover" and five high-speed cruisers north to find and attack the German aircraft carriers, but they had only just set off when six squadrons of German torpedo bombers flew in from the north.

This time, the German torpedo undermount was not an E-type torpedo used to attack light ships, but a genuine Type 1923 Type A 533-mm torpedo. The warhead was equipped with a full 230 kilograms of mixed explosives, which were made of 45% TNT, 5% hexanitrodiphenyl face, 30% aluminum nitrate and 20% aluminum, and its explosive power was more than 1/3 stronger than that of 100% TNT charge, which, with a range of 8,000 yards and a speed of 40 knots, was bound to be a nightmare for the relatively slow-moving megaships.

The detachment of battle cruisers that broke away from the large formation and headed north bore the brunt of the German heavy torpedoes, and although the German Barracuda torpedo bombers were slower than the dive bombers after carrying an old ton of torpedoes, their killer feature was to unite and drop torpedoes from a distance. As long as the number of torpedoes is large enough and the distribution is reasonable, it is difficult for the battleship itself to escape.

Seeing more than 150 German torpedo planes circling around him, the American commander who commanded the battle patrol detachment was a little overwhelmed for a while, and after the war, he absorbed a large number of former British ship designers, and the Lexington-class battlecruiser built by the United States largely inherited the style of the British battleship, with fierce firepower, fast speed, and weak defense, and the full-length anvil meter of this class battleship is the longest one in the navies of various countries at present, and even the Japanese Amagi-class battle cruiser with greater tonnage and stronger firepower than it is only 252 meters. On the other hand, the Lexington-class waterline armor with a standard displacement of 35,000 tons is only 177 mm thick, while the Japanese Amagi-class battle cruisers do a much better job of protection than the American Lexington-class. Its waterline armor reached 250 mm. Not to mention the German battle cruisers, even the Deverlinger class, which was in service 7 or 8 years ago, had a 300 mm waterline armor belt.

Following the design of the British ship designers, it was doomed to punishment, and the sinking of the "Lexington" cost the Germans only 21 torpedoes and 3 torpedo planes. The "Constellation" consisted of 33 torpedoes and two torpedo planes, and the "Saratoga" and the "Rover" were very unfortunate, although they shot down four German torpedo planes one after another, they were hit by the opponent's first torpedo attack, and more than 20 torpedoes, which cost less than 10,000 marks, sent these two battle cruisers costing tens of millions of dollars to the bottom of the sea, in addition to which the US government had to pay a high pension for a large group of dead and wounded shipmen.

After packing up the U.S. battle patrol detachment trying to go north, some of the Barracuda who had dropped their torpedoes returned, but more like wolves flying towards the main force of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, where the anti-aircraft fire was more fierce, but the prey was also more valuable.

Look at the flying gray eagles and the swarms of torpedoes. Robert Koontz was silent, what could be more disheartening to him?

On the other side of the sea, the U.S. Atlantic Fleet, commanded by Admiral Edward Eberly, was still a dozen hours away from Scheer's battlefleet, and at this time both battleships received an update on the fierce battle in the Caribbean.

"Did the German battlefleet really operate in the waters north of Cuba?" Edward, Admiral Eberly was cautiously skeptical of this information, he never dared to believe that the Germans only used the main aircraft carriers against the United States Pacific Fleet, through the in-depth study of the Anglo-German Pascalflo naval battle and the South American Battle of Laura, Eberly came to the conclusion that aircraft carriers and carrier-based aircraft alone could not destroy a fleet, and after seizing air supremacy and disrupting the opponent's deployment by a large number of carrier-based aircraft, the battleship was the final terminator.

Is it the smokescreen unleashed by the Germans or the facts. General Eberly pondered for a long time, and the telegram sent from Washington had only a few words about the war in the Caribbean, let alone the true whereabouts of the German battlefleet, and at noon on August 30, General Eberly finally made a decision that made the whole United States sad: go south at full speed!

On the sea more than 100 nautical miles north of Cuba, Marshal Reinhardscher waited quietly with astonishing patience. The long-range reconnaissance planes that took off from Cuba flew over the fleet again and again, and this veteran scanned the majestic warships on the sea from time to time with a deep gaze; this may not be the last confrontation between giant ships and cannons in human history, but I am afraid that its fierceness and bloodiness may be no less than any naval battle, and perhaps in another day, some ships in this fleet will disappear from people's sight.

"Marshal, this is a cipher telegram from the 'Ernst'!" The communications officer grimaced as he handed a message to Scheer, saluted, and turned to leave.

"Sink 'Lexington', 'Constellation', 'Saratoga', 'Rover' and 'New York', 'Arizona', 'Mississippi', 'West Virginia', and wreak havoc on 'South Dakota', 'Montana', 'Texas', 'Idaho'! The overall loss rate of our carrier-based aircraft is 11%, which is fully capable of maintaining the current attack intensity, and the enemy fleet is fleeing in the direction of the Gulf of Mexico! ”

Scheer read the message softly, and when his eyes swept over the word "escape" at the end, a hint of mockery crossed his lips.

At this time, there were not only a large number of busy German officers on the German heavy aircraft carrier "Ernst", but also six guests with special status. After Japan declared war on the United States as an Allied Power, at the strong request of the Japanese Government, the German Navy allowed the Japanese Navy to send a group of special observers to watch the battle from the German warships, and most of these observers chose to stay on the flagship of Field Marshal Schell, the "Graf," and only six officers chose to watch the battle on the "Ernst," the ship of Prince Heinrich.

Among the six officers, there was a naval colonel of only one height, who was particularly silent, who had participated in the Battle of Tsushima and lost his left index finger and middle finger in that naval battle, and later studied in the United States and Germany for a period of time, and after returning to China, he served as the commander of a naval aviation and air force, and was deeply supported by his subordinates because of his strict self-discipline and good command. After the outbreak of the German-American War, although Japan declared war on the United States and occupied the Philippines and Hawaii, there was no actual war in the Pacific region, so the naval colonel named Isoroku Yamamoto volunteered to come with the regiment to watch the battle, and witnessed the great victory of the German air force in the Caribbean battle.