At the time of the martyrdom of the Rodney and the Iron Duke, the situation of the Nelson was not much better. The battleship was at the rear, facing the "Wuhan" and "Nanchang". And the confrontation between these three battleships can be said to be a duel between luck, but also a duel of courage.

Nelson can be said to be a legendary figure in the history of the British Navy, he is the only general in the history of the British Navy who has defeated the Tang Imperial Navy in a naval battle, and he is a highly respected and important figure, and the British respect him as the "soul of the British Royal Navy", which shows Nelson's status in the British Navy. But the fate of the battleship named after Nelson was not very good, at most it could only be said to be mediocre, but this did not affect the final swan song of "Nelson", after more than 20 years of silence, "Nelson" finally broke out at the last moment.

Like the Rodney, the "Nelson" has undergone the same improvements, but its fundamental problems have not been solved, mainly because its protection capability is far from meeting the needs of the British Navy, and the main gun turrets arranged in the same position have become the "cannonball magnets" in the entire battleship. The same was true in the battle, from the very beginning, the "Wuhan" and "Nanchang" aimed at the B turret of the "Nelson", so that even if the shelling was off, it was possible for the shells to hit the A and C turrets on both sides.

The battle between the three battleships began at 3:26, the "Wuhan" was the first to aim at the target, less than 20 seconds after it fired the first salvo, the main guns on the "Nanchang" also roared, the "Nelson" did not stand still, the 16-inch caliber main gun using heavy armor-piercing shells was not a small threat to the "New Provincial Capital" class battleships, and the British naval officers and men would not give up resistance, but there was one thing that could not be changed by the morale and determination of the officers and men, that is, the comparison of strength between the two sides." The "Nelson" was one to two, and this was the doom of the "Nelson".

The battle went on quite fiercely. It can be said that the more stubborn the resistance of the "Nelson" is, the more it will arouse the fighting spirit of the officers and men of the Imperial Navy, especially for the officers and men of the Third Task Force, who have never lost to any opponent in an artillery battle, and will not be afraid of the stubborn resistance of the British. It is precisely because of the stubborn resistance of the "Nelson" that the "Wuhan" and the "Nanchang" fought bravely. So the battle between these three battleships can be said to be the most exciting in the first round of the battle between the two sides.

At 3:28, good fortune once again befell the "Nanchang", and in the third salvo, the "Nanchang" opened the record, and the shells fired by the No. 1 gun of its C turret hit the "Nelson". It's just that the shell didn't directly hit the key part, and hit the sailor's compartment in front of the base of its A turret, and after penetrating the horizontal armor plate, the shell was not able to continue to penetrate into the hull, and the horizontal compartment exploded. Thankfully. At this time, the officers and men on the battleship were on combat posts, and there were a large number of flammable materials in the sailor compartment, and the flames from the explosion quickly exposed the "Nelson" to the light. It took the officers and men of the "Nelson" only five minutes to extinguish the fire. But those five minutes were enough to cause a great disaster on the "Nelson".

Before half past three, the "Wuhan" took advantage of the fire from the "Nelson" to accurately fire the fifth salvo, and the "Nelson" was hit for the second time. The "Wuhan" was not very lucky, and this shell hit the front of the last impact point, that is, the material compartment between the sailor compartment and the anchor compartment. This was not a fatal part, and most of the supplies in the supply compartment had been used up at that time, so it did not cause a fire, but the explosion damaged the anchor compartment in front of it, forcing the British officers and men to cut the main anchor on the right side, and in addition, a huge gap was blown out of the bow of the battleship, and more than a dozen main armor plates were blown away.

At 3:30 a.m., the "Nanchang" shelling again "succeeded," and its sixth salvo hit the base of the "Nelson's" A tower. However, this shell did not have 15 inches of armor in the bow, and the biggest effect was to injure the gunner in the turret, causing the A turret to be unable to fight normally for ten minutes. This can be regarded as the last luck of the "Nanchang", the main problem is still that the engagement distance is too long, if it is within 20,000 yards. It is quite possible that this shell penetrated the turret base and entered the main ammunition compartment, completely negating the "Nelson". Approaching 13 nautical miles is a little too far for both sides.

The problem was no less serious for the "Nelson", in fact, other British battleships at that time were unable to solve the problem of too long a distance, and it was precisely because of the distance of engagement. In addition, the performance of the ground radar anchor system of British battleships was not as good as that of the Tang Imperial Navy, so its hit rate was also very low. The first eight rounds of shelling of the "Nelson" were all missed. It is enough to prove how bad the radar on the British battleship was.

At that time, when the Tang Imperial Navy was testing the artillery sighting radar, the error range of the shell at a distance of 20 kilometers could reach 250 meters in the static shelling, and within 500 meters in the dynamic shelling. In terms of the technical level of the time, this hit accuracy is yes, if expressed in probability, at a sailing speed of less than 18 knots, the hit rate of the Imperial Navy battleship is more than 10%, and if the conditions are a little better, it can even reach about 20%. The situation in actual battles was also quite small, and the hit rate of battleship gun battles was always between one and two percent, as evidenced by the examples.

Later, the Tang Empire obtained several sets of gun-sight radars from the British, and similar tests were carried out. In static-to-static shelling, the margin of error reaches 500 meters, and in dynamic shelling, the margin of error even exceeds 1000 meters. And the hit rate is with the mistake.

The difference in range was proportional to the square, therefore, the British battleships when using radar-guided shelling had a hit rate of only a quarter of the naval forces of the Don Empire! This gap is quite huge, even under other equal conditions, the British battleship needs more than four times the density of firepower to make up for the difference in accuracy, that is, it can fight with four battleships to fight a battleship of the Tang Imperial Navy!

In practice, no one thinks about these purely technical analyses. But any battle is actually a test of the correctness of technical analysis. It is not difficult to understand that the hit rate of the British battleships was so low, the "Nelson" fired eight volleys, but failed to hit the target, while the same eight rounds of salvos, the "Wuhan" and "Nanchang" hit the "Nelson" three times. But the problem is that as long as the "Nelson" has not lost its combat effectiveness, as long as its main guns are still firing. Then it is possible to hit the target, and it is.

At 3:34 p.m., before the "Nanchang" could fire the ninth salvo, the shells fired by the "Nelson" for the ninth salvo fell. This time, luck did not go to the naval fleet of the Don Empire, but to the "Nelson". In the case that the A turret could not operate normally, the "Nelson" fired from the ground with six main guns of two turrets, and this salvo actually hit the target.

The point of impact was exactly in front of the "Nanchang" B turret, between the No. 1 and No. 2 guns. The armor-piercing projectile failed to penetrate the turret's frontal armor, but the powerful shock wave it generated damaged some of the turret's equipment. At the same time, the gunner in the turret was injured. The most critical thing is that at this time, the gunner in the turret was loading the propellant for the main gun, and the bolt was not closed, and when he was shot, several propellant packets were shaken out. Fortunately, strict pyrotechnic control was implemented in the turret, and the main gun used electric excitation technology, and the cartridge was not detonated, but in order to eliminate the danger, the kit was disposed of, and the B turret could not be used within ten minutes, and the "Nanchang" temporarily lost a main gun turret.

At 3:36 a.m., the "Wuhan" avenged the "Nanchang" with an accurate return fire, and its tenth salvo hit the ground auxiliary artillery group under the bridge of the "Nelson." The two 6-inch secondary gun turrets here were blown away, and at the same time, the commander in the commander's bridge temporarily lost his command ability, but the armor-piercing shells still failed to penetrate the main armor belt of the "Nelson", and did not deal a fatal blow to the "Nelson".

At 3:38 a.m., the "Nanchang's" counterattack improved, and its 11th salvo hit the antiaircraft gun group at the tail of the "Nelson" and swept all the more than a dozen machine guns here into the sea. But again, the delay-time fuse on this armor-piercing projectile was activated prematurely, detonating the explosives before the armor-piercing projectile could penetrate deep into the hull. As a result, only a couple of compartments under the anti-aircraft artillery group were blown up, without being able to cause more damage.

At 3:43 a.m., in the fourteenth salvo fired after the repair of the A turret on the "Nelson", at least two shells hit the "Nanchang". It can be said that at this time the hit rate of the "Nelson" was already frighteningly high. One of the shells hit the secondary artillery group between the bridge and the No. 1 chimney of the commander of the "Nanchang" and exploded outside the main armor, and the other shell hit the bow of the ship, blowing up a section of the bow that was about 10 meters long. This was also the biggest damage to the "Nanchang".

A series of counterattacks by the "Nelson" greatly annoyed the officers and men of the "Wuhan" and "Nanchang". At this time, the "Rodney" and the "Iron Duke" in front of the "Nelson" had been severely damaged one after another. And ignited the fire, "Nanning", "Guangzhou", "Guiyang" frequently achieved results, which can be regarded as an encouragement to the officers and men on the "Wuhan" and "Nanchang". It can be said that after hitting the "Nanchang" for the second time, the good luck of the "Nelson" was basically over. In the following battles, although the "Nanchang" fired more frequently, the "Wuhan" was the real "terminator".

At 3:46 a.m., the "Wuhan" fired its seventeenth salvo, and this time two of the nine shells hit the "Nelson", one of which directly penetrated the top armor of the "Nelson" B turret, causing a violent explosion inside the turret. At the same time, several propellant packets were detonated, but fortunately, the "Nelson" class battleship used an armored isolation door, and the explosion did not spread to the main ammunition compartment below, as a result, only the B turret was completely destroyed, and if the main ammunition compartment below also exploded, the consequences would be unimaginable.

Six minutes later, at 3:52 a.m., the "Wuhan" fired its nineteenth salvo, and this time two more shells hit the "Nelson", one of which concentrated on the roof of the bridge of the "Nelson". The armor-piercing projectile exploded on the navigation bridge above the Commander's Bridge after penetrating the 5-inch-thick top armor, killing more than a dozen officers inside, while the huge shock wave also shocked more than twenty officers on the Commander's Bridge. Because the "Nelson" was not the flagship of the fleet, the captain was directing the battle from the commander's bridge, not from the seafaring bridge, thus avoiding the blow.

By the twenty-second volley, that is, close to four o'clock, the "Wuhan" once again showed great courage, and three of its nine armor-piercing shells hit. The first armor-piercing shell hit the C turret base of the "Nelson", and the thickness of the armor here was not 15 inches, but 12 inches, which was also designed to reduce weight, but it turned out to be a fatal hole in the design of the "Nelson". The shell exploded only after entering the ammunition compartment. The violent shock wave penetrated the hull of the ship, and at the same time, it also shook the sea-opening valve at the bottom of the ammunition compartment, and seawater quickly poured in, thus stopping the spread of the fire, but the fire produced by the explosion made the officers and men of the "Wuhan" battleship more than ten nautical miles away exclaim. The second shell hit the root of the chimney and penetrated the horizontal armor, entering the boiler compartment before a violent explosion occurred. Centrally deployed boilers on board the "Nelson".

The cabin finally became a hidden danger, and just one shell reimbursed more than half of the power on the battleship! The third shell hit the bridge of the commander's ship and hit it diagonally. At that time, the captain and other wounded officers on the "Nelson" had been transferred out of the commander's bridge, which may have been a blessing in misfortune!

By this time, the "Nelson" had lost its effective command, and the remaining A turret was only able to fight alone, and the failure of the turret was not completely repaired, and its firing speed was naturally much slower. It was precisely because of the successive hits that the damage management personnel on the battleship could not extinguish the fires everywhere in time, and as a result, when the British officers and men on the "Nelson" were still stubbornly resisting, the fire had already begun to spread, which would eventually kill the "Nelson".