I have to admit that the British battleships were really excellent in terms of defense. This is not to say how thick the armor of the British battleships was, but that the British battleships were indeed commendable in terms of overall design, and this is also the lesson and experience that the British exchanged their blood for in the war.

In the First Global War, there were three fairly important naval battles, and the only one of them took place in the Atlantic was the Battle of Jutland, which was fought between the British Grand Fleet and the German High Seas Fleet. In terms of strength, the British Grand Fleet was much stronger than the German High Seas Fleet, and in the end the British also achieved a strategic victory, forcing the German High Seas Fleet to retreat to the inland seas, and until the end of the war, the German High Seas Fleet was not able to fully restore its combat effectiveness, no longer posed a threat to the British Navy, and after the war, several battleships that had not been repaired were dismantled. However, at the tactical level, the British Grand Fleet was a loser, and in terms of the number of losses of warships and the number of casualties among the officers and men of the fleet, Britain was a tactical loser.

There were many factors that led to this result, such as the tactical missteps of the British Grand Fleet, the excellent quality of the German Navy, the excellent performance of German warships, etc., but one of them is quite important, that is, the serious design flaws of the British warships that were sunk.

At that time, two of the three battlecruisers sunk by the British Navy were sunk by an explosion at an ammunition depot. All four battlecruisers in the German High Seas Fleet were heavily damaged, and two of them had ammunition depots hit, but none of them sank because of the explosion of the ammunition depot! The reason is that the German Navy first adopted a bomb bay isolation design on the warship, which was injected with seawater immediately after being shot in the ammunition depot. An explosion of the ammunition depot was avoided. However, the British Navy did not have this design on the warships at that time, as long as the ammunition depot was shelled, the battleship would definitely be finished!

This is only a problem that is directly exposed in the war. After the war, the British found out when they were introspective. It is true that their warships have too many shortcomings in design, especially in defense. And the lesson of blood led the British to put the survivability of their battleships in the first place, and all the battleships they designed after the war emphasized survivability first, rather than firepower. This can be regarded as a special situation. After all, after the war. Especially in the last few years of the validity of the naval treaty, when the Tang Empire, the United States and other naval powers designed warships, they emphasized the balance between the three most important performances: firepower, armor, and speed, that is, the overall performance of the warship was the most important, and it was not unacceptable to highlight a single performance. And, as it turned out, this was indeed the right way to go.

The British did not immediately follow this trend (starting with the "avant-garde" class. The British Navy only realized the importance of the balance of warship performance). It was precisely because of the emphasis on the survivability of warships that the British Navy completely canceled the development of battlecruisers advocated by the previous Admiral Fisher, and returned to the development of battleships after the war. Especially the road of fast battleships. And this is the direct reason for the birth of the "King George V" class and the "Lion" class, both of which have a strong emphasis on defense, and they are not slow (the "Hood" class battlecruiser only built one, which is precisely why).

In order to improve the ground defense capability of warships. The approach taken by the British in many respects is indeed puzzling. For example, the "King George V" class had a much less displacement than the "New Capital" class (the initial model), but it was a 14-inch gun. At that time, the British Navy was capable of producing excellent 16-inch guns (the "Prestige" class battleships were equipped with 16-inch guns), and the performance of the British Navy's 15-inch guns was quite good (the shells were not very good). It was only because of the restrictions of the naval arms treaty that it could not be equipped with main guns of more than 360 mm caliber, and the British Navy was in urgent need of new battleships, so there was a situation where 14-inch guns were installed on 45,000-ton battleships, that is, large ships carried small guns.

And if it was in the Tang Imperial Navy, it would definitely adopt other solutions, such as leaving room for improvement in the design, replacing it with a larger main gun after the treaty expired, or building it two years later. But the British did not do this, and at that time, if they wanted to replace the 15-inch or 16-inch main gun on the "King George V" class, it would take a lot of time, and the cost of modification would not be less.

It can be said that in the eyes of the Navy of the Tang Empire, the methods of the British in developing battleships were incomprehensible. Even the United States and Japan felt that the British were indeed strange, and they were capable of building the best warships in the world, but they preferred to go to extremes. But this is also caused by the actual situation, after all, in the North Atlantic, the British Navy has to deal with the German Navy, and after the first global war, the German Navy has shrunk in an all-round way, and it is impossible to challenge the British Navy at all, and it is not a problem for the guns of the battleships to be smaller, as long as there are enough warships, the German warships will not dare to leave the port.

In the North Atlantic, this problem is really not obvious. In the fight with the two "Bismarck", although the British Navy suffered again, the last two German battleships were also frightened and fled back, and the British achieved their goal. But the problem is that in the confrontation with the battleships of the Tang Imperial Navy, the British focused on defense in the design of the battleships, and the defects of the main gun caliber being too small and the armor-piercing shells being too weak were exposed.

The artillery battle began at half past four and lasted for two hours, and Chang Jianxin also felt a headache. The two British battleships had long been battered, each suffering dozens of huge shells, and countless small-caliber shells, almost losing their combat effectiveness, but they did not explode or sink. This made Chang Jianxin a little tempted to rush up to see if the British battleship was made of foam, why didn't it sink? In the past, when fighting with the battleships of the US Navy, when it was fought to such an extent, the American battleships either exploded or sank!

In addition, three of the five battleships in the Third Task Force that had been shelled continued to fight as if nothing had happened, and even the main gun on the "Canton," which had been shaken out of failure, was restored to combat effectiveness at about 5:50 p.m. In other words, the British battleships' return fire largely did not hurt the 3rd Task Force.

". How come the battleships of the British are not sunk yet? Even Gu Zhenyun was anxious at this time, "Old Chang, do you want to go up and have a look." Maybe we'll be able to capture these two battleships! ”

Chang Jianxin smiled bitterly. Then he glanced at the nautical clock. "The bombers of Task Force 1 are about to arrive, and we are going up now, aren't we creating chaos?"

"This ......"

"General, there is a large group of planes approaching to the north, and it is the bombers of the First Task Force."

Chang Jianxin nodded. Then he looked at Gu Zhenyun. "It seems that this time it is the turn of Task Force 1 to pick up the bargain. Tell the lookout to pay attention to the impact point and the torpedo hit point, and I want to see how long these two battleships can hold up before the bombs and torpedoes! ”

This is indeed a bomber sent by the First Task Force, led by Qiu Gengbo, there is a squadron of "water birds" and a squadron of "sea eagles" in the group, and there is also a small group of "Golden Eagles" responsible for escorting the bombers, which is a bit redundant. And this batch of bombers set off at five o'clock.

Before five o'clock in the morning, Tan Renhao had been a little apprehensive, and he had to ask if he had received the third task force almost every once in a while. And the message from the two cruisers that were in charge of the sea guard. The news of the third task force was sent once every half an hour, but the two cruisers never sent a message, and Tan Renhao was even worried. The two cruisers had been killed before the telegram could be sent, but he quickly dismissed the ridiculous idea that it was impossible to approach the two cruisers undetected unless all enemy warships were underwater.

Meantime. Tan Renhao was also closely watching the battle in the south, and when he learned that there were two British battleships (this one is easy to identify, the main guns of the French battleships were located in the bow, and there were no main guns in the stern), he immediately became vigilant. What did Cunningham do with leaving two battleships? Entangled in Task Force 3? If that was the case, what were his other five battleships and battlecruisers, and the four battleships of the French expeditionary fleet, doing? Or rather, what are you going to do?

At that time, Tan Renhao thought that Cunningham might have abandoned the car to protect the commander, but the problem was that before the two battleships turned, the speed was more than 27 knots, while the speed of the British fleet was only 29 knots, this speed difference was not big, and there was no reason to abandon the two battleships that could still sail at high speed in order to keep the other five battleships. Herein lies the problem, before dawn, those five battleships could not escape the bombers' strike range, did Cunningham want to test the power of the Imperial Navy's "New Provincial Capital" class battleships?

This is just a suspicion, and Tan Renhao didn't think much about it, he only needs to wait until dawn, to be precise, an hour and a half before dawn, if there is no enemy fleet around at this time, then the bombers in the first task force can take off, and these bombers will definitely be able to reach the sky over the British expeditionary fleet around dawn. At that time, even if the French expeditionary fleet suddenly kills, Tan Renhao can escape at full speed, no matter what, the speed of the aircraft carrier will still be faster than that of the battleship.

He did so, and at half past four, he personally went to deploy the aviation combat operation, and at the same time asked people to call Zheng Guanhua up. As soon as five o'clock arrived, Qiu Gengbo was the first to leave the flight deck of the aircraft carrier with the bomber, and within fifteen minutes, all the bombers and escort fighters in the first group had taken off.

After Qiu Gengbo's group departed, Tan Renhao did not rush to arrange for Yang Qinkai's group to leave, but immediately made the 24 reconnaissance planes on the two aircraft carriers ready to leave, and at the same time ordered the seaplanes on the cruiser to depart before six o'clock.

At this point, he was thinking not just about winning, but about getting the maximum amount of victory.

If it was the British Expeditionary Fleet that was fighting the Third Task Force to the south, then the bombers led by Qiu Gengbo would be enough to destroy it, at least slow it down, and when the Qiu Gengbo group returned, it could also organize a second batch of bombing, or directly let the Third Task Force go up and pick a bargain. And Tan Renhao's biggest concern is that the French Expeditionary Fleet is not in the south, but in another direction, so after letting Qiu Gengbo's fleet set off, he first arranged reconnaissance planes, if he can find the French Expeditionary Fleet, then let Yang Qinkai's fleet deal with the French Expeditionary Fleet, so that he can get the maximum victory, not just half of the victory!

This is also Tan Renhao's greatest understanding of aviation operations, or rather, it is a characteristic of his command, as long as it is possible to achieve the greatest victory, then he will never miss it. In fact, this also reflects the superiority of aircraft carriers against battleships, as long as there is enough distance between the aircraft carrier and the battleship, then the aircraft carrier has almost all advantages.

At 5:40 a.m., the first reconnaissance plane took off, and by 6 o'clock, all carrier-based reconnaissance planes had left the aircraft carrier, and these reconnaissance planes were to conduct repeated searches within 250 nautical miles to 150 nautical miles from the fleet. Then, the cruiser's seaplanes began to depart one after another, and these seaplanes were to conduct repeated searches within 150 nautical miles of the fleet. Two levels of scouting circles, enough to ensure that any enemy fleet that wants to get close to Task Force 1 will be found.

After six o'clock, Tan Renhao also received a message from Jiang Zhongmin that a group of long-range water patrol planes that had arrived at Moroni in the early hours of the morning would also join the search for the enemy fleet. In addition, the same group of seaplanes, which had already been transferred to the seaplane base in the north of the island of Madagascar in the first half of the night, had also been dispatched and were looking for traces of the enemy fleet.

The net has been spread, and all that remains to wait now is when to find the French expeditionary fleet, and catch up with the British expeditionary fleet. Five minutes before dawn, after contacting the cruiser in charge of guarding, Tan Renhao ordered the fleet to turn, this time he was going to start the pursuit, he had been delayed enough time, he didn't want to miss the opportunity again.

At this time, the bombers in Yang Qinkai's group are being sent to the flight deck, Zheng Guanhua has already deployed two bombing missions, if the French expeditionary fleet cannot be found, when the Qiu Gengbo group returns, Yang Qinkai will go to bomb the British expeditionary fleet, of course, it is also possible that the two expeditionary fleets are together!