Is it an enemy aircraft?

Seeing that the situation was not good, Colonel Thorpe hurriedly ordered the ship's searchlights to be turned on. Pen "Fun" Pavilion www.biquge.info

The "Revenge" is equipped with a total of 9 high-power searchlights with a diameter of 1000 mm, which are evenly distributed in the front and rear bridge-class amidships, if they are turned on together, the outline of this battleship will inevitably be fully displayed, and the strong pillars of light may also expose the surrounding ships, and the experienced Colonel Thorpe will certainly not do such a stupid thing. He explicitly instructed his subordinates to use only the two searchlights on the rear bridge.

In an instant, two bright lights pierced the night sky, and in a matter of moments, they locked on to the intruder over the fleet - the gray-green camouflage paint favored by the Germans alone was enough to make the American and British naval officers and sailors feel disgusted, not to mention the fact that the Heinkel-28 was highly recognizable.

"It's a German plane! Sir! Ordered to fire? ”

In the face of the urgent questioning of the staff officers, Colonel Thorpe strangely chose to remain silent. After a while, the nearby American battleships took the lead in firing, and Thorpe nodded and said: "Pass the order, the anti-aircraft guns fire freely!" ”

The flagship of this detachment was the American battleship USS Massachusetts.

In this time and space, the Allied camp won the First World War, the United States did not participate in the war from beginning to end, but was worried about the aggressive expansion of the German Empire and its allies all over the world, and gradually became the core force to contain and confront the Allied camp after the war, the second wave of the international naval shipbuilding race peaked ten years earlier than the old time and space, from the late 10s to the mid-to-late 20s, a large number of warships from the design table to the shipbuilding platform, and then sailed to the ocean, The South Dakota-class battleships of the U.S. Navy were born in the context of this era, because they were not limited by arms treaties at that time, the Americans took a big step on the basis of the Colorado class, and achieved a standard displacement of more than 40,000 tons in the South Dakota class, and its main guns continued to use the 16-inch (406mm) of the Colorado class, but the number increased from 8 to 12, returning to the four-seat triple gun configuration used in the Pennsylvania class. You must know that the German Navy's 46,000-ton German-class battleships still use four twin-mounted 16-inch main guns, and the British Navy's 45,000-ton Britannia-class uses three triple-mounted 16-inch guns.

When the mighty and domineering South Dakota-class battleships were first presented to the world, even the most discerning naval experts had to be impressed by the high level of the American shipbuilding industry, and the arrogant style of the Americans was vividly reflected in this super battleship. In addition to the unprecedented weaponry, the South Dakota-class auxiliary firepower is also staggering—the decks of the bridge and amidships are stacked like 10 twin 5-inch high-level dual-purpose guns, 16 quadruple 40mm anti-aircraft guns, and 40 single-mounted 20mm cannons, and the barrels are stacked like a hedgehog.

On the surface of the sea, the dense shells and bullets fired by various ships weaved an invisible net of fire in the air, and I saw the low-flying Heinkel-28 shuttling between a series of points of light with a dexterous posture, not only safe and sound, but also caused the US ship's gunfire to almost hit the friendly ship by mistake.

After a while, people's eyes caught another Henkel-28 in the same livery, which had been quietly hovering over the landing ship group, and after being locked by the searchlight, easily avoided the artillery fire of the escort ships and flew north.

Seeing the two German water reconnaissance planes flee into the vast night sky, Colonel Thorpe was safe. Fortunately, they were only reconnaissance planes, and if they were enemy bombers carrying aerial bombs or even aerial torpedoes, what terrible consequences would have if they had found the target at night and then launched low-altitude bombing?

The artillery fire gradually subsided, and the "Massachusetts" finally replied to the "Revenge": the flagship had received an order that the German Ocean Fleet was operating nearby, and the detachments should concentrate their forces and be on guard.

didn't say yes or disagree, such a reply made Zhang Er scratch his head.

Colonel Thorpe pondered for a while, and then ordered his subordinates to send another signal to the "Massachusetts": This ship can only maintain a speed of 4 knots in the mine, and requests to temporarily break away from the fleet fleet, and then catch up as soon as possible after the emergency repair is over.

This time, the reply from the American battleship came quickly: it agreed to your ship's request, and your ship selected some British ships to stay as escorts.

"Cunning Yankee!" Thorpe scolded angrily, and he ordered the communications corps to send orders to the three British destroyers operating in the vicinity to stay and escort him—the same result, but with an unprovoked toss.

In about a cup of tea, more than 20 warships and more than 30 landing ships belonging to the detachment fleet sailed away from this once boiling sea, leaving only the damaged "Revenge" and three British destroyers, and the dark sea suddenly fell silent.

Colonel Thorpe returned from the bridge observation deck to the battle bridge, and the busy officers saluted him.

Colonel Thorpe pretended to spread his hands to everyone with ease: "Gentlemen, today seems to be a bad day, but don't be discouraged, the war has just begun, and there are still many opportunities to build meritorious deeds ahead." ”

The atmosphere eased slightly, and at this time, a staff officer who was answering the phone turned his head and said: "Colonel, the damage management team reported that the watertight cabins B-23 and B-24 were lost, and someone was trapped inside, and they are organizing rescue." In addition, our drainage system is operating normally, the damage of the lightning protection compartment has not expanded, and the **** angle of the hull is controlled within 4 degrees. ”

Colonel Thorpe immediately ordered: "Immediately send all the reserve teams to support the damage management team. ”

The officers on the bridge of the battle were back to their busy rhythms, except for Captain Thorpe, who paced back and forth in front of the porthole, then walked to the hatch and smoked a cigarette. The speed of 4 knots was very slow, and the three destroyers left behind to escort the escort constantly circled around it. After about half an hour, one of the destroyers spotted a suspected submarine target nearby, rushed up and bombarded it with depth charges, but it did not achieve any real results except to increase the tension.

After tossing back and forth several times, Colonel Thorpe was a little upset, and a very bad premonition germinated in his heart: What was the intention of those two German carrier-based reconnaissance planes to appear here? Are they from the German oceanic fleet, which the flagship informs? Did they detect damage to the Revenge? Will the unpredictable German oceanic fleet follow?

Thinking of this, Colonel Thorpe shuddered, he left the battle bridge and went to the navigation room, pondering the calculation on the navigation chart, the second detachment was still more than eighty nautical miles away, and it would take more than two hours for the battleships to arrive at full speed, and once the "revenge" was attacked, the first detachment would have to turn back and rescue.

After thinking about it, Colonel Thorpe decided to take the initiative to deploy defenses and launch two "Otter" water reconnaissance planes from the ship to conduct circular patrol and reconnaissance in the surrounding waters.

At this moment, von Oldenburg and his staff officers did not know that the "Revenge" had broken away from the fleet, and the report of the pilot of the reconnaissance plane let them know the size of the enemy's detachment fleet, and it was difficult to defeat an opponent with four large battleships and three medium cruisers in a hard-fought naval battle with the strength of two Earl Tirpitz battlecruisers, and the night battle, surprise attack and quick victory were the only chances to achieve victory and retreat, so they sent two destroyers to reconnoitre, It was not until the location of the enemy fleet was found out that the beacons were fired to help the "Count Tirpitz" and "Prince Heinrich" to observe and measure the range -- at the beginning of the design and construction, the Count Tirpitz-class battlecruisers were not equipped with radars, and only after they were put into service were they equipped with the Lorentz-I shipboard pulse detector, which was a relatively primitive electronic detection equipment with a maximum detection distance of 20 kilometers in actual measurements, which could only give early warning and did not have the accuracy required for fire control, so the night battle still followed the traditional mode.

A few minutes later, the radar crew of the "Count Tirpitz" noticed an anomalous echo on the display screen of the detector and immediately reported the situation to the bridge.

"What? Four ships were detected, and the preliminary judgment was one large warship and three small warships? ”

Hearing the report, William August was first surprised, and then couldn't hide the joy in his heart - an enemy capital ship was wounded and left behind? Actually let yourself run into a big bargain?

In a flash of joy, the instinct of the naval commander made William August cautious: could this be a trap for the enemy? Or a combat alert unit organized by the enemy? Can the radar detection equipment of enemy ships give early warning?

Without waiting for William August to think about it, the 1930 destroyer T-709, which risked his death, also sent a radio report: four enemy ships were detected 10 kilometers ahead, and they tried to attack or raid with all their might?

The commander hurriedly assigned the staff officer to contact the radar crew in the communications room to confirm the distance between the ship and the enemy's large warship.

The staff officer quickly got a reply from the radar officer: "The distance calculated by the detector is 15,000 meters, and there may be an error of several hundred meters in reality!" ”

After weighing it for a moment, William August made a resolute decision: "Let our outposts move on, and in five minutes they will all launch a surprise attack!" ”

The radio waves are invisible and colorless, and cannot be observed by the naked eye, but special electronic equipment has a keen ability to detect them, and the "Revenge" radio monitoring instruments immediately captured a strong radio signal, and through technical means, it is speculated that the signal source is in the nearby waters.

This anomaly increased Colonel Thorpe's concern, and he immediately ordered the communications officer to liaise with the escorting destroyers and the reconnaissance planes that had been dispatched, so that they could reconnoiter the southwest direction from which the suspicious radio signal was emanating.

A few minutes later, an "otter" was the first to send a radio signal: an unidentified ship had been spotted in the southwestern sea, requesting that flares be dropped.

Colonel Thorpe did not hesitate to make a proactive choice.

Then, in less than a minute, two sets of flares burst out at a distance of about 10 kilometers, and the dazzling white light illuminated the sea surface and the ships sailing within the range of light -- the Germans saw the "Revenge" and the British saw the "Prince Heinrich," and the guns of the two sides faced each other, and a fierce naval battle was about to break out.

(End of chapter)