Located about 70 nautical miles northeast of Flores Island, the German fleet was in front of the British fleet, and all the battleships were facing the enemy on the port side, and all the main guns and single side secondary guns could play a role in the battle, which was the standard T-shaped tactic, and the British battleships could only return fire from the guns in front of them in this state, and in order to resolve this very passive situation, they had to quickly adjust their course under the enemy's heavy artillery fire. Pen × fun × Pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ

The Germans did not easily waste this golden opportunity, and the two German battle cruisers switched to a salvo after only two rounds of alternating fire, with the second salvo of the "Prince Heinrich" and the third salvo of the "Count Tirpitz" forming a straddle of the enemy flagship. Only six minutes after the resumption of the battle, the "Prince Heinrich" showed its might, hitting the "Hood" with two direct hits in succession, and a piece of the scissor-shaped bow of the British battle patrol was blown away, and a raging fire broke out again in the amidships, and the billowing smoke had seriously affected the observation and correction of the shooting commanders.

The "Prince Heinrich" took the lead, and although the officers and men of the "Count Tirpitz" were not far behind, they were really a little unlucky today, and four successive salves all formed a straddle fire on the enemy ships, but they only blossomed but did not bear fruit, and it was not until the eighth round of the salvo that the fire was opened, and the shells blew a second big gap in the bow of the "Hood", which seemed to be just a painless blow.

Two Earl Tirpitz class battlecruisers launched a heavy artillery bombardment of enemy ships, and two light cruisers in the German fleet also opened fire on the British fleet for the first time in this naval battle, they were equipped with triple 150mm Skc/26 naval guns with a maximum range of 23 kilometers and a combat rate of fire of 7-8 rounds per minute. The artillery battle lasted for 10 minutes, and the two German light cruisers fired more than 800 main shells, six of which directly hit the enemy ships, and a number of shells were missed, a British light cruiser was beaten to the ground, and a destroyer was unfortunately beaten.

In the most difficult ten minutes, the British gritted their teeth and survived, the distance between the two fleets was extended to 18,000 meters, the British fleet sailed eastward in the northeast sea, and the Germans sailed northeast in the southwestern sea. Of course, the commanders of both sides have a cautious and sensible option at this time, which is to gradually disengage from the battle and reap a draw with no winner or loser.

In the time that followed, William August and Dudley Pound embodied their choices in the actions of the fleet - the German fleet turned left to the north, the British fleet to the right to the south, and returned to the parallel dueling arena again!

William August's intention was to hold off the British fleet and wait for the second wave of carrier-based aircraft groups to take off from the "Emperor Karl". The enemy's flagship was hit by artillery fire, and the observation and sighting equipment on the ship and various types of secondary guns must have suffered a lot of damage, and the anti-aircraft firepower has been greatly reduced, which gave the brave and warlike Ju-17 an opportunity to take advantage of, as long as it could sink the British super battle cruiser, the German Atlantic detachment had been a great success in this adventure, and the aura of sinking the enemy's main warship for the first time since the beginning of the war must have made his personal reputation skyrocket.

Dudley Pound's intention is also to drag down the opponent, he knows very well that the German naval force in the Azores is based on these two Tirpitz-class battlecruisers, those old battle cruisers and dreadnoughts have long been outdated, as long as they can level the two Tirpitz-class in front of them, even if they are only heavily damaged, it will also play a positive role in the strategy of the United States and Britain to jointly attack the Azores, What's more, the British Navy, which suffered a crushing defeat in the last war, needs a quick revenge to resolve years of stagnation.

After the previous battles, the "Hood", "Count Tirpitz", and "Prince Heinrich" had all been damaged to varying degrees, but the "Rodney" was intact. In a purely long-range artillery battle, the British fleet also had a significant advantage, that is, they had one more heavy cruiser than their opponents. In terms of tonnage and armament, most of the heavy cruisers designed and built in the 20s can be considered "quasi-capital ships", and some are even more vigorous than the earlier battle cruisers, such as the Dudley-Pound "Cumberland", the British Kent class heavy cruiser was born before the signing of the international naval treaty in Limerick, its standard displacement is 14,700 tons, and it is equipped with 9 doors 50 times the diameter of 9. 2-inch (234mm) naval guns, armor thickness of 4-6 inches in key protection areas, maximum speed of 31 knots, in terms of these main indicators, the Kent class is not inferior to the existence of the Irish Danu class and the German Prince Albert class, but its cost is only 89% of the German heavy patrol of the same level, 53% of the Irish heavy cruiser, and the cost-effective advantage is still obvious.

Under Dudley-Pound's command, the "Cumberland" locked its guns on the German flagship "Count Tirpitz", which did not seem to be a very wise choice from the situation of the two sides, after all9. At a distance of more than 10,000 meters, the armor-piercing shells of the 2-inch naval guns could not threaten the important parts of the German battle cruisers, nor could they penetrate the horizontal decks to enter the lower cabins, at best, they would cause some damage to its deck buildings and auxiliary weapons, create tension for the enemy, and then disrupt the normal performance of the officers and men of the enemy ships.

After the last course adjustment, the distance between the two fleets gradually decreased from 18,000 meters to 15,000 meters, which was the closest distance between the two fleets since they had clashed. Due to the damage in many places, the shooting accuracy and speed of the "Hood" have declined significantly, the "Rodney" has become the backbone of the British fleet, and the "Cumberland" has also played better and better, the two German battle cruisers have been shot one after another, the "Prince Heinrich" has been on fire for the second time, the "Count Tirpitz" has been damaged in the main bridge rangefinder and the No. 2 turret rangefinder, and the battle situation has begun to develop in the direction of the British.

That's when the real twist came. The second group of carrier-based aircraft that took off from the German aircraft carrier "Kaiser Karl" and a group of bombers from the Flores Island airbase arrived on the battlefield one after another under the radio guidance of the German fleet. Receiving the combat order issued by the "Count Tirpitz", 8 Ju-17s decisively launched an attack on the "Hood", they swooped down from a height of 1,000 meters, and passed through the anti-aircraft fire network of the British fleet with lightning speed, one after another heavy armor-piercing bombs stirred up stormy waves on the side of the British battle cruiser, and finally, an aerial bomb hit the "Hood", which penetrated the top armor of the main turret of the British ship No. 1 with huge kinetic energy, hit the tail of the gun in the fighting compartment and then exploded. The terrible power of the bomb, coupled with the three warheads placed in the fighting compartment and more than 200 kilograms****** was killed on the spot, with a total weight of more than 1,500 tons - the main turret equivalent to a destroyer jumped up in an instant, and then disintegrated in the air, and three gun barrels weighing nearly 200 tons and the torn turret armor plate smashed heavily on the scarred foredeck, causing the stern of the battleship to rise up in an instant, and part of the propeller and rudder appeared on the water......

In the last war, the powerful British battle patrol formation was stigmatized, and the weak defense was the main reason, and after the war, the British Navy deeply learned the lesson, combined with the technical expertise of the American shipbuilding industry, completed the design and construction of a new generation of battle cruisers, and its success was reflected on the battlefield. The Hood's No. 1 main turret was completely destroyed in the violent explosion, but the ammunition depot located under the main turret did not suffer a fatal explosion - the double armored partitions and heavy fire doors blocked the impact of the explosion, and the automatic water filling system immediately became operational, filling the ammunition depot with tons of seawater in just 30 seconds, preventing the ammunition depot containing more than 400 main shells and nearly 200 tons of ****** from becoming a Pandora's box for the destruction of the battleship.

As the saying goes, there is no such thing as a blessing and a curse, and all the officers and men of the "Hood" had just walked on the verge of death, and then suffered a heavy blow, and an armor-piercing bomb dropped by a German fighter plane entered the water next to the port side, and the violent explosion instantly stirred up a wave of water 100 meters high, and the main armor belt below the water line was suddenly blown open a terrible gap, and seawater poured into it from the four oil storage tanks and seven watertight tanks where the bulkhead plate was ruptured. These contingencies still could not prevent the massive hull from tilting to the left. In order to prevent the ship from capsizing, the captain had to order the starboard watertight compartment to be filled with water, which reduced the ship's speed to 16 knots, and the tactical mobility of the British fleet almost ceased to exist.

The Luftwaffe base on the island of Flores was small and had only a few dozen combat aircraft deployed for patrol and alert, so it was not targeted by the U.S. and British fleets in the first wave. Tactical bombers and dive bombers took off from here without hesitation to attack the British fleet, and the embarrassed "Hood" remained the only choice for German pilots. In just over 10 minutes, more than 50 large and small aerial bombs fell on it. The British battlecruiser, who had lost his mobility, struggled desperately under the cover of friendly ships, and actually shot down the German plane during the battle, but as the damage deepened, Dudley-Pound, who was commanding the battle from the bridge, began to despair.

While his naval and army aviation was teaching their opponents a hard lesson, William August cunningly commanded the fleet to regain the T-line position and reduce the engagement distance to 12,000 meters. Looking at the smoke-shrouded "Hood", the German naval commander exuded a confident look of aspiration, but just as he was about to attack, the lookout post suddenly sounded an alarm: the mast of a large enemy warship has been found in the eastern sea!

(End of chapter)