Chapter 540

The sea is boiling!

The rumbling sound of cannons echoed across the sea, and in the roar of the cannons, the cannonballs that rained down like drops stirred up countless columns of water around the warship. www.biquge.infoSmoke spewed from the chimneys of the warships, mixed with gunpowder from the artillery, and the blue sea was stained gray.

The sea is dyed yellow!

This is a picric acid explosive used by the Navy, with special traces after the explosion.

At this moment, the high-sensitivity fuse and picric acid explosives used by the Navy once again exert their unique effects, and the highly sensitive letter tube makes it explode in the air even if it touches the rope. The thousands of degrees of heat generated by the explosion on the water next to the hull of a British warship can still destroy the hull armor.

And for the "Warrior" and "Black Prince", the two most powerful ironclad ships of the British Royal Navy, it is like falling into hell at this time. Completely enveloped in artillery fire and flames, they swayed incessantly in the wind and waves created by the explosion of the shells.

The battle between the ironclad ships was tedious, and there was not even any hope, like two knights in heavy armor, who desperately slashed at each other with their warship swords, but each sword, each sword was blocked by the opponent's armor.

But even so, the sailors on the two warships still stuck to their posts, they still loaded the guns, and constantly spat shells at the enemy fleet at the maximum rate of fire, and the explosion of the cannon flames and shells when they hit the battleships dyed the blue sea and sky unique to the Caribbean Sea black, and black smoke rose on the warships of the two countries.

Although the British Navy used a patented cotton explosive purchased from China, after the improvement of British technicians, the strong cotton explosive with a water content of more than 20% was still extremely powerful, although it was far inferior to the Chinese Navy's picric acid explosive, but its shells were still full of lethality, and the shrapnel shattered in the smoke of gunpowder flew sideways in the air, and even ignited the deck of the Hubei.

However, in this regard, the navy has long been prepared, in the rain of bullets and flying shrapnel, a group of damaged sailors dragged heavy water pipes to rush to the deck, with high-pressure water hoses to extinguish the flames, whether it is shell fragments or flames can not stop their footsteps, a shell exploded at the explosion at the command tower of the "Hubei", thousands of shrednel on the deck made a sharp sound, the scorching steel fragments shattered the bodies of the sailors, more than a dozen sailors who were rescuing the deck fell, blood and sea water flowed on the deck.

But even this did not stop the movements of the damaged sailors, who were struggling in blood and sea water, dragging their wounded bodies, and even dragging stumps and broken arms, and once again picked up the heavy hoses to extinguish the flames on the deck to avoid heavy damage to the deck, and at the same time, more damaged sailors rushed to the deck to protect the warship in the rain of bullets.

The Chinese Navy has developed a set of extremely excellent damage management methods and established a professional damage management team when the navies of other countries are only temporarily dispatching sailors to form a damage management team.

Compared with the Western dispatch fleet, which will soon extinguish the flames, the two ironclad ships of the "Warrior" and "Black Prince" are completely caught in flames, because neither side has fired useless "solid shells", both use high-explosive shells, and high-explosive bombs that explode when they encounter it, it is impossible to enter the inside of the warship through the armor and then explode, but the high temperature it produces is enough to burn the deck made of oak, and the beautiful oak deck on the two ironclad ships is constantly hit by shells After the fire, the deck is full of flames. Even some of the flames rushed into the cabin, and if they burned again, the main deck soon became unsupportable.

In contrast, because there were no professional damage control sailors, the two ironclad ships "Warrior" and "Black Prince", which were caught in flames, seemed a little panicked Those sailors who were improvised and even had to try to use buckets to extinguish the flames on the deck, in the old era of naval warfare, this method was effective, after all, the possibility of ignition at that time was extremely small.

But now almost every shell that landed on a British warship set off a blaze that ignited the dry deck, and the majestic flame burned and almost burned through the deck.

But this is not the most deadly, the most lethal is the damage to the side - the installation method of the "Warrior" class armor is to first place a row of 254 mm chestnut horns horizontally on the outside of the 14 mm gunwald iron plate, and then a row of 203 mm hemp chestnut horns longitudinally on the outside to make a liner plate. Next, a layer of wrought iron armor was layered on top of each piece of wrought iron armor 366 centimeters long and 91 centimeters wide.

It is this kind of mixed ironclad mixed with the old era that makes the Warrior-class ironclad ship have one of the most fatal weaknesses - its hull has a 14 mm thick ironclad on the outside, this thickness of ironclad is enough for a round cannonball to bounce it away, but for a sharp grenade fired by the rear-loading gun, it can't make it bounce away, and the violent explosion often blows up this thin layer of armor to pieces, as the shells continue to fall, the armor is soon blown up with huge holes, revealing the wooden planks at the back.

Suddenly, the British sailors, who were loading shells, felt a flash of light in the gun window, followed by a loud bang, and they were shaken to the ground. They were dizzy from the shock, only then did they find that the side of their warship had become full of holes, the wounds of huge broken iron holes were hideous, and the wooden planks behind them were even burned black.

"Our warship technology is already far behind the Chinese."

Witnessing the "Black Prince" caught in the flames, such a sad feeling appeared in his heart, and he never thought that even in the battle between the ironclad ship and the ironclad ship, he did not take advantage of it in the slightest.

It can be said that the technological gap made the British Royal Navy at an absolute disadvantage at the beginning of the naval battle, and now, the most fatal weakness of the seemingly powerful "Warrior-class" ironclad has been completely discovered by the Chinese Navy.

After noticing through the binoculars that the surface armor of the British warship had been blown open, Zhang Di immediately realized that this was his chance to win, and he immediately ordered loudly.

"Fuse Delay!"

After years of improvement, the grenade fuse used by the Navy has undergone a qualitative change, and its standard setting is instantaneous, and the timed nail rotation of the fuse is 0.05 seconds delay. The purpose of the grenade with short delay mode is to hit enemies inside fortifications and buildings, so as to achieve the purpose of penetrating the implosion. And now, the reason why Zhang Di gave this order was precisely because he hoped that the shell could penetrate the surface of the thin iron armor and explode.

Sometimes in a naval battle, a seemingly inconspicuous decision by the commander can be a decisive battle for victory or defeat. And now, Zhang Di is undoubtedly seizing the opportunity to win.

Immediately after the new order was given, the ammunition men used a wrench to set the delay, and the shell, which had still exploded, immediately changed to penetrate the thin armor on the surface of the British warship.

This situation fundamentally reversed the situation on the battlefield.

"Quick! Reload! ”

In the gun compartment of the "Warrior", the British gunners are still continuing to work hard, in the past half an hour, shells have continued to hit the deck above their heads, and thick smoke instantly fills the entire gun bay, but these British sailors are still fighting hard.

In the flames that had not been extinguished, no one noticed that the inch-thick layer of iron armor above their heads had become soft, brittle, and twisted in the constant explosion of the wooden deck, and the rivets used to hold the iron armor in place were constantly blown away.

In the shrill whistling of the cannonballs, a shell that landed on the deck easily penetrated the layer of iron armor that had become extremely fragile, and then exploded violently at the iron armor on the roof of the cabin, although the explosion only killed a dozen British gunners nearby, but it blew a hole in the roof of the cabin the size of a half-man.

And the shells continued to fall, blowing holes one after another in the iron armor of the roof of the Warrior, and constantly taking the lives of the British sailors in the cabin.

And what is more deadly is a cannonball that fell into the cabin from the hole, the explosion in the cabin instantly took the lives of dozens of British sailors, the flames of the explosion even ignited the surrounding gunpowder, a violent explosion occurred in the cabin, and the chain reaction caused by the explosion instantly filled the entire cabin, but only an instant, the entire gun compartment was swallowed by a completely violent explosion, and the explosion produced fireworks along the gun window and the hole in the deck.

Although it was luck, sometimes the gods of luck always befell the unexpected, as now, for the British, they were undoubtedly lucky - the explosion did not extend to the ammunition depot, which made the explosion occur entirely in the open gun compartment, although the explosion was violent, but because of the few shells, the impact of the explosion leaked out of dozens of gun windows and dozens of holes in the deck, although it took the lives of almost all the gunners, but did not sink the warship, As a result, the surviving sailors on board had room to abandon ship and escape.

"The Warrior is finished!"

Witnessing the "Warrior" spewing smoke everywhere, the corners of Zhang Di's lips lifted slightly, and now he no longer doubts that he can win this war, everything is doomed!

Now there is only one warship of the British Royal Navy left on this sea, which is also the flagship of the British task force, the "Black Prince", and the four warships of the sending fleet are watching it with fierce eyes at this time, looking at the Black Prince......

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