Task Force 6 with the "Warrior". As well as the "war weariness" battle is without any suspense. Just like the British Navy's encirclement and suppression of the German Navy's small battleships of the "German" class, the combat strength of the two warring sides was not on the same level at all, but this time it was the British who were unlucky, and it was the turn of the British Navy's ground battleships to be ravaged by the Tang Imperial Navy's ground battleships.

It is true that the word "ravage" can be used to describe this completely unequal battle. From the very beginning, the two British battleships made mistakes, and in addition to the difference in their own strength, the two British captains turned to order to speed up their demise. This battle is not a two-on-one battle. Instead, they fought in two fours and in four. In addition to the four rounds of artillery bombardment in front, in the following battle, the four battleships of Task Force 6 were all fighting against a British battleship at the same time!

First of all, the unfortunate was naturally the "Warrior", which stood in front of the "war-weary", and this battleship also deserved to be finished, after being hit hard by torpedoes, not only could not get up to speed, but even the steering was not very flexible, and it also lost a quarter of its firepower. It can be said that in less than half an hour of fighting, the "Warrior" did not even return fire decently, and was constantly pressed and beaten by four battleships, and the final outcome can be imagined!

After readjusting the course, the four "New Provincial Capital" class ships used two more salvos to calibrate the shelling, and both rounds of shelling also failed. Then from the third salvo until the "Warrior" slowly sank into the sea in a big explosion, and the four battleships fired twelve salvos from the ground, each time hitting the target!

At 4:56, in the seventh volley." Nanjing" was the first to open the battle, and a Type 26 armor-piercing shell from the No. 2 gun of the ship's C turret accurately hit the "Warrior":■■■: The armor-piercing shell directly pierced the frontal armor of the turret. Explodes after entering the inside of the turret. Thankfully, there was no ammunition in turret A at the time, and the main gun ammo lift was closed. After the explosion, the automatic sea valve on the ground of the battleship was shaken open, and seawater poured into the ammunition compartment of the A turret, avoiding the catastrophic consequences of the ammunition compartment being detonated. But this cannon also solved one-third of the firepower that the "Warrior" had at that time. Makes the Warrior's return fire less threatening.

At 4:57 a.m., the "Hefei" fired a seventh salvo one minute late and hit the "Warrior" with two shells. One of the ground-piercing shells fired from the No. 1 gun of the armor turret hit the ground auxiliary artillery group on the left side of the bridge of the "Warrior". It exploded in the ground communication room under the bridge, completely destroying the battleship's ground communication center. The ground-piercing projectile from the C turret No. 3 hit the rear of the C turret of the "Warrior", also near the seaplane catapult, blew up a crane located there, and completely destroyed the seaplane hangar.

At 4:58 a.m., the eighth round of salvo from the "Fuzhou" also achieved results. From the ship's B turret No. 2 gun fired a ground-piercing projectile that hit the "Warrior" No. 1 smoke ■ roots. The shell only penetrated the horizontal armor of the battleship and exploded above the boiler room, destroying several surrounding compartments with a huge shock wave. Blew up the boiler room below, and also shattered the smoke base. A few minutes later, the cigarette broke off from its roots and fell into the ocean. Because of the smoke breakage, the boiler soldiers did not have time to shut down the boilers that were still working, and as a result, the thick smoke immediately poured into the interior of the ship. The officers and soldiers in several cabins did not have time to escape. Suffocated alive!

At five o'clock sharp, the "Nanjing" once again performed a miracle, in its ninth salvo, made a beautiful straddle shot, and visually observed that at least two shells hit the "Warrior", but in fact three armor-piercing shells should have hit. Among them, the first armor-piercing shell hit the ground auxiliary artillery group on the left side of the bridge of the "Warrior". This hit point is not much different from the position where the "Hefei" hit the ground before, but this time it was not able to penetrate the armor of the "Warrior" on the ground, but only blew up the two secondary guns here, killing dozens of gunners. The second shell hit the mast behind the bridge. The shell was not able to explode on the battleship, but after hitting the mast. It flew to the port side of the battleship before it exploded. The shell only broke the mast, causing several lookouts to fall to their deaths at the top of the mast. The third shell landed on the sea a few meters away from the port side of the "Warrior". Later, an investigation of the wreck confirmed that it was this shell that caused the "Warrior" to begin to sink into the ground. After passing through several meters of seawater, the armor-piercing projectile hit the underwater part of the middle part of the port side of the "Warrior", and penetrated the underwater armor belt of the battleship, entered the interior of the hull, and then exploded in the 3■ boiler room, in addition to destroying the boiler room and several adjacent compartments, it also opened a large hole in the middle of the port side of the battleship that has been more than five meters so far, accelerating the speed of seawater pouring into the ground, and finally causing serious water ingress on the left side of the "Warrior", thereby speeding up its sinking speed.

By five o'clock and three minutes, the "Matsue" also achieved success, and its tenth salvo hit two shells of the "Warrior". One of them hit the bridge of the commander of the Warrior, and the shell killed the captain of the Warrior and most of the officers. As a result, the "Warrior" lost its command center, and it was impossible to raise the white flag and surrender, resulting in the fearless sacrifice of thousands of British naval officers and men.

By this time, all four battleships had completed the "warm-up" battle, the frequency of shelling was accelerated, and the accuracy was much improved. At 5:08 a.m., the B turret of the "Warrior" was hit, and the turret was shaken directly into the air by a huge explosion, and then fell on the sea outside the port side. Two minutes later, the D turret was also destroyed. By 5:15 a.m., the "Warrior" had been hit by nearly 40 Type 26 armor-piercing shells, and the left compartment of the battleship was seriously flooded, and the left angle of tilt reached 25 degrees, and the street was close to the angle of overturning.

At 5:22, the "Warrior", which could not withstand the cruel devastation, finally "collapsed" on the surface of the sea with a groan of pain. The battleship was capsized to the left side. Because the captain of the battleship had died at that time, the highest-ranking officers on the battleship were only two captains, and no one gave the order to abandon the ship in time, so most of the officers and men on the battleship had no time to escape. When the battleship capsized, only about 200 officers and men outside the battleship and in the superstructure jumped into the sea in time to escape, and were finally salvaged by the destroyers of the 6th Task Force, and those officers and men who remained inside the ship did not have time to escape at all. In the end, of the more than 1,600 officers and men on the ship, only 218 survived, and all the others were killed or missing!

A few minutes before the "Warrior" capsized, the "War Weathiness" was already exposed to the ground guns of the "Hefei" and "Fuzhou", because the "War Weathiness" was still advancing at a speed of 12 places, and the "Warrior" was rapidly reduced in speed after being hit hard, and finally stopped completely, so the "War Weathiness" had already overtaken the front of the "Warrior" at about 5:15.

Gu Zhenyun did not let the "Hefei" and "Fuzhou" divert their firepower to deal with the "war-weary". At that time, the battle situation was already obvious, and it was impossible for the "War Weyer" to escape from the ground by killing the "Warrior" first, with a speed of only 12 knots, and still sailing in a southeasterly direction. Therefore, it was not until 5:25 a.m., that is, after the capsizing of the "Warrior", that the four "New Provincial Capital" class ships turned their guns and aimed at the "War Weyer", which was still fleeing.

In order to allow the "Nanjing" and "Songjiang" to bypass the "Warrior" as soon as possible, Gu Zhenyun ordered the fleet to speed up to 18 knots, and at the same time the course was dispatched, approaching the "War Wereary" at a faster speed. Beginning at 5:25 a.m., the "Hefei" and "Fuzhou" first began shelling the "war-weary" ground, and three minutes later, that is, from the third salvo, the "Nanjing" and "Songjiang" also began shelling the "war-weary" ground.

"Nanjing" won results from the fourth round of salvos, and "Fuzhou" had even better luck. By the time it fired its third salvo, it was less than ten nautical miles away. This round of shelling hit two shells, and the next shell hit. Almost every salvo was able to hit the "War Weyer". Comparatively speaking, the effect of the first few rounds of salvo fire between "Nanjing" and "Songjiang" was not obvious. The main reason was that the "Warrior" was still unsunk at that time, blocking the ground radar of the two battleships, so that they could not use the radar to guide the main guns to fire, and could only rely on the lookout to observe the flash of the ground explosion. and the enemy's main guns emitting ground cannon muzzle flames to determine the approximate position and distance of the enemy ship, and then let the main guns fire blindly." The "Nanjing" began to use radar to guide the shelling at the time of the seventh salvo, while the "Songjiang" only used radar from the ninth round of salvo fire.

The fate of the "war-weary" land was even more tragic. The main reason was that the ground engagement distance was closer at that time, and the Type 26 armor-piercing projectile could almost 100% penetrate the "war-weary" landlord's armor and horizontal armor at a distance of 18,000 ground. Other than that. This distance is also more accurate for artillery strikes. The artillery battle went from 5:25 to 5:53. In a total of 28 minutes of engagement, the "Hefei" fired a total of 21 volleys, hitting the "war weary" 18 times. The "Fuzhou" fired 20 volleys and hit 19 times. Nanjing" played 18 rounds of volleys. Hit 12 times." Matsue "fired 18 volleys. Hit 9 times .58, Type 26 armor-piercing shells, this is still all exploded ground armor-piercing shells. If you count those armor-piercing bullets that did not explode after the hit, then even more .

Like the "Warrior", the "War Wey" was shot mainly from the port side, and at least six armor-piercing shells hit the battleship below the waterline. As a result, at least two-thirds of the ground compartment on the left side of the "War Weathiness" was flooded. And according to the design of the "war-weary", if a third of the ground compartment on its port side is flooded. Then the battleship is not saved. At that time, in order to rescue the battleship and prevent the battleship from capsizing due to serious flooding on one side, seawater was often actively injected into the compartment corresponding to the bomb part on the other side of the battleship. The problem is that if a third of the ground compartment is injected with seawater at the same time, the weight of the battleship itself will be greater than its buoyant, and the result will be sinking. Therefore, when two-thirds of the ground compartments on the left side of the "War Weyer" were flooded. There is no way to save this battleship.

Unlike the "Warrior", the captain of the "War Wey" did not die in battle. At 5:45 a.m., the order was given to abandon the ship, and the officers and men began to be organized to evacuate the battleship from the starboard direction. The time left for the more than 1,000 British officers and men on board the ship was quite limited. By 5:53 a.m., that is, when the "War Wey" capsized, only about a third of the officers and men left the battleship in lifeboats or life jackets. In the end, only 579 officers and men on board the "War Weathiness" survived. All other places are killed or missing.

Gu Zhenyun gave the order to stop shelling the ground at 5:54 a.m. At this time, the "Warrior" had disappeared from the radar screen of the "Hefei", and the "War Wey" was also belly up to the sky and fell to the sea. In addition, because the fleet was advancing towards the southeast French coastline throughout the battle, the fleet was only about 14 miles away from the French Trepole. It is precisely because of this that at that time, the "Wuhan" and "Nanchang" had already caught up with the "Gold Coast" and were 35 nautical miles away from the destroyer formation at the rear of the Sixth Task Force, and at this distance, it was impossible for the "New Provincial Capital" class battleships equipped with ground radars to detect small warships such as "City" class destroyers.

At this time, Gu Zhenyun also breathed a sigh of relief, he had been worried that this was a trap set by the British, but now it seems that this is not a trap. Two British battleships had been sunk, but the rest of the British battleships had not appeared, not even the escort cruisers and destroyers! But Gu Zhenyun was still a little puzzled, why did these two battleships appear alone? And it seems that he was injured before the encounter with Task Force 6, otherwise he would not have been able to escape at 12 knots all the time. So, who is the one who wounded them? Also, where is Task Force 3 at this time, and what is it doing?

Thinking of this, Gu Zhenyun was also a little unstable. On the one hand, he ordered the destroyer formation behind him to speed up and catch up, and went to salvage the British officers and men who had fallen into the water in order to get some information from the prisoners, and on the other hand, the battleships also began to count the wounded. At 6:15 o'clock, after Gu Zhenyun had finished handling the details of the fleet, he finally considered that the Third Task Force might be nearby, and immediately asked the communications staff officer to send a telegram to the Third Task Force. And this is exactly the telegram that Chang Jianxin received directly from the Sixth Task Force around dawn!