The battle between the "Nanning" and the "Guangzhou" and the "Montana" was the most contest between the flagships of the two sides, that is, the losing side would lose its unified command and fall into a passive situation, so the duel between the three battleships was related to the final victory or defeat of the battle.

Before 6:44 p.m., the "Nanning" and the "Guangzhou" had an absolute advantage, because in these few minutes, the "Montana" only had the main guns in the bow direction that could be put into battle, while the two "new provincial capitals" had 18 main guns. It was these few minutes that determined the final outcome of this battle.

During this period, the "Nanning" fired a total of 75 shells, hitting "34, of which only 8 really posed a threat, which is not much different from the previous situation against the "Ohio". It was these few minutes of shelling that allowed Chang Jianxin to discover the strong protection capability of the US ship and the performance defects of the Type 26 armor-piercing projectile, but the problem was that there was no problem at that time, even if there were many problems, the battle still had to be fought. And of these 8 armor-piercing shells, one hit the vital part.

The first hit was at 6:39 a.m., when in the third salvo, an armor-piercing projectile hit the "Montana" between the A and B turrets, although the armor-piercing shell was not able to penetrate the .:: deformation at the base of the B turret, which also made the B turret >:.=|angle. It is simply not possible to turn freely. In other words. This shell rendered the B turret incapacitated, and the B turret was no longer a threat unless it was turned by a battleship. This can be regarded as a very "magical" artillery shell, judging from the fact that it "hit" a quarter of the fire of the "Montana" main gun, this shell can be regarded as a dud, but its credit is certainly not small.

The second hit was at 6:40 a.m. In the fifth salvo, an armor-piercing shell hit the position of the electromechanical chamber under the bridge. This is the auxiliary electromechanical room on the battleship, which is mainly used to power electronic equipment such as radio, radar, etc., and there is a diesel generator with a power of 200 kilowatts. And this armor-piercing shell not only exploded, but also ignited the diesel fuel stored here. Although fires from diesel fields were relatively easy to contain, there were many flammable items on the battleship, such as rubber on watertight doors. And the rubber will produce a large amount of highly toxic smoke after burning, and the command cabin is not far from it. Soon, thick smoke filled several surrounding compartments, which eventually led to the temporary withdrawal of the officers and men of the fleet command on the battleship, thus temporarily depriving the fleet of unified command. Although this was only a matter of more than ten minutes, it also caused irreparable damage.

At 4:43 a.m., the "Montana" was about to complete its turn. Before the main gun in the tail was engaged, an armor-piercing shell hit the two secondary gun turrets on the starboard rear side of the battleship, and successfully penetrated the main armor belt and entered the interior of the hull. And below the part of the hit shot was the 6 boiler compartment on the battleship. The eight boilers and eight steam turbines of the Dana-class were installed in separate compartments to improve the survivability of the power system, but the shell also eliminated at least one-eighth of the ship's power and caused a leak of high-temperature steam. The officers and men in the boiler room were all finished, and a nearby damage management team also suffered huge casualties. Had it not been for the timely arrival of another damage management team, and the steam quickly dissipated through the bullet holes, I am afraid that there would have been even greater losses.

During this period, the "Guangzhou" was not idle, and its performance was much better than that of the "Nanning". Of the 81 shells fired, 44 hit, of which successfully penetrated the armor, 10 shells exploded, causing great damage to 5 places. The hit point of these 5 shells was pinned to the right front of the battleship's A turret. Several sailor cabins. On the right side of the B turret, exploded outside the main ammunition compartment. Leads to an automatic sea-pass valve in the main ammunition compartment of the B turret ..; Cabin. No. 3 secondary turret on the right, exploded.: It affected the accuracy of the shelling, and the shells from the opponent hit continuously, even if most of them did not explode, but these shells smashed will inevitably affect the accuracy of the shelling. As a result, the "Montana" returned fire in a few minutes and actually had no effect, and even the officers and men on the two battleships opposite did not feel threatened.

It stands to reason that through these few minutes of heavy shelling, dozens of shells hit the enemy ship in a row, and even if the shells that were fired were not explosive, all of them were solid shells, it was enough to sink the enemy ship. However, when Chang Zhixin was surprised to find that the speed of the enemy ship had not decreased, and it continued to accelerate, and the steering was not affected much, and more importantly, the main guns on the enemy ship had not been completely knocked out at all, and they were still firing.

"Montana" reached a full load displacement of 70000 tons, and more than 30000 tons of armor steel plates were by no means wasted. It can be said that the "Montana" class is one of the most armored battleships in the history of battleships, and even in the entire history of battleships. If measured by dimensional data, the thickness of the armor of the "Montana" class far exceeds that of the "New Provincial Capital" class. Of course, if you take into account the quality of the armor plates, it may change. However, after all, the "Montana" class is a kind of battleship designed by the US Navy after combining many actual combat experiences and lessons, while the "New Provincial Capital" class was designed before the war, and it is impossible to substantially improve the performance of the warships by improving them during the war. compare

At that time, the large-angle inclined armor design used by the "Montana" class in large numbers changed the defensive capability of the battleship. After all, the basic performance of the battleship has been determined, and any large-scale changes will have a serious impact on the other performance of the battleship, and the engineers must also comprehensively weigh the impact of the improvement on the performance in order to determine the best improvement plan, and it is impossible to unilaterally improve the defense capability of the battleship.

At that time, the strong protective ability of the "Montana" gave Chang Jianxin a huge shock, and even made Chang Jianxin doubt that the 400-meter caliber armor-piercing projectile could deal with that kind of "perverted" class battleship. In fact, the power of the 55-diameter 400-meter main gun is not worse than the US Navy's 50-fold diameter 16-inch main gun, or even a little better, but the "Montana" is designed + to be able to withstand the blow of its own firepower, and even requires to be able to cope with the blow of the "Yamato" main gun. In addition, the Type 26 armor-piercing projectile was not very powerful at close range, and its strength was the ability to hit horizontal armor at long distances, and the engagement distance at that time was a little too close to penetrate the armor of enemy ships.

The battle was still raging, and there was no chance for Chang Xindong to think about it, especially when the "Montana" turned its bulky body and the main gun in the tail was also put into the battle, the battle became even more intense. Moreover, the constant recommendation of new worries is also a bit redundant, at this time the "Montana" only has nine main guns left, and its power is not necessarily better than that of the "new provincial capital". Plus the damage before the "Montana". The situation is very favorable to them, and they only need to hold on for a while longer, and the battle will naturally be separated.

At that time, the main guns of the "Montana" at the tail could only share the D turret ground sub-sight, and the commander of the D turret reported the shelling parameters to the cannon commander of the C turret through the internal telephone of the battleship. Then both main guns opened fire at the same time. In this way, the shelling speed is naturally reduced a lot, and the shelling parameters of the C gun are not the most accurate, which will also affect the accuracy of the shelling to a certain extent. In addition, the commander of the battleship was not in the commander bridge and the navigation bridge at this time, so the three main gun turrets did not fire together, and the A turret was basically fighting alone.

At 6:44, the first salvo was fired from the six main guns in the tail of the "Montana". The effect this time was obviously better than the previous shelling of the first main gun, although it did not hit the target, but one shell fell about 200 places behind the "Guangzhou", which can be regarded as a near-miss.

Seeing the main guns on the tail of the enemy ship into battle, the gunners of the "Nanning" and the "Guangzhou" shifted their aiming points almost simultaneously, preparing to take out the main guns on the butt of the enemy ship first, and then slowly clean up the sturdy battleship. It was also this that the ground gunners on both battleships forgot. The A turret in the bow of the enemy ship did not lose its combat effectiveness!

At 6:46 a.m., just as the "Guangzhou" and "Nanning" were concentrating their firepower against the two main turrets on the buttocks of the "Montana," a salvo fired by the A turret finally yielded results, and an armor-piercing projectile weighing more than a ton directly hit the front of the "Guangzhou" B turret. The angle of impact of the shell was almost perpendicular, moreover, penetrating the frontal armor of the turret, exploding inside the turret. This was the first shell hit by the "Montana" when it returned fire, and it was also the most powerful one! The B turret of the "Guangzhou" was almost blown into the air, if it were not for the closed bomb bay. The ammunition bays below will be detonated. Moreover, the shock wave generated by the explosion also caused most of the casualties among the officers and men in the rear bridge, but fortunately, the captain and several other important officers were not killed and continued to command the battle with their wounds.

At that time, it was not a heavy armor-piercing projectile that hit the "Guangzhou", but a light high-speed armor-piercing projectile. The U.S. Navy was the first to use heavy armor-piercing shells, and it was also the first to recognize that heavy armor-piercing shells were seriously inpowerful in close combat, and were inferior to light armor-piercing shells. Therefore. On the battleships of the "Montana" class, each main gun was equipped with 30 light armor-piercing shells. to cope with close-quarters combat. Although this will increase the difficulty of logistics support, it will also be because the ballistics of the two armor-piercing shells are different, so the aiming calculation method is also different, and if the gunner is confused, it will inevitably lead to the shell not hitting the target. However, there is no doubt that in close combat, light armor-piercing shells with higher muzzle velocity are much more effective against vertical side armor-piercing bullets than heavy armor-piercing shells.

In addition, this also exposed a problem of the "New Provincial Capital" class, that is, the battleship's ground armor was not enough to block the blow of its own main guns. The power of the main gun used by the "Montana" class is not much different from that of the "New Provincial Capital" class, and it is able to penetrate the armor of the "New Provincial Capital", which is undoubtedly a major flaw in the design.

The "Guangzhou" did not withdraw from the battle because of this, and Chang Jianxin did not let the "Guangzhou" withdraw from the battle after receiving the report sent by the captain of the "Guangzhou." At this point, Chang Jianxin had already realized that the "Nanning" alone could not defeat the enemy ship on the other side, and it was necessary to let the "Guangzhou" hold on.

This insistence quickly paid off, and at 6:47 a.m., an armor-piercing bullet fired by the "Guangzhou" C turret cleanly returned the opponent's color. The shell hit exactly the position between the C turret and the base of the "Montana": the > tower was directly blown up. Almost at the same time, the shelling of the "Nanning" also received a remarkable effect, and an armor-piercing shell hit the D gun>:: but was bounced up and flew along the top of the turret, as a result of which the sub-sight behind the top of the turret was thrown away. That is, the D turret has lost sighting and lowered a lot.

At this point, the "Guangzhou" re-locked the A turret of the enemy ship, while the "Nanning" continued to slam the D turret at the rear of the enemy ship, and the lookout did not see clearly whether the sight on the D turret of the enemy ship had been knocked out, so the gunners still listed it as the primary target. The "Montana" faced the opponent's fifteen main guns with three main guns, and this gap in firepower could not be made up by the ability to protect it, and there was basically no suspense in this battle.