When the "Barham" let out a painful groan in the thick smoke of gunpowder and slowly disappeared, Chang Jiexin finally breathed a sigh of relief. At this time, the sky was about to dawn, and he also found at this time that the "Wuhan" and "Nanchang", which were supposed to be following the "Guiyang", had disappeared, and even the radar had not detected the two warships.

Chang Jianxin was first taken aback, thinking that the two battleships had been sunk by the enemy, but he quickly denied this idea, and if anything happened to the "Wuhan" and "Nanchang", he would definitely take the initiative to contact the flagship "Nanning". He immediately asked the communications staff officer to contact the two "straggled" warships. Now that the sky is faintly bright, the naval battle is basically over, those bombers of the British Air Force will not stay on the airfield and do nothing, as long as the weather conditions allow, then the British bombers will be dispatched, and the fleet must be reorganized as soon as possible, form a defense and control queue, and then withdraw from the dangerous sea area!

"They're chasing the last enemy ship." The communications staff officer quickly contacted the "Wuhan" and immediately reported the situation to Chang Jianxin. "The battle was coming to an end, it was the telegram from the "Wuhan" on its own initiative that the enemy ship No. 5 had been destroyed, and after confirming that it had been sunk, they would return to the fleet. ”

When the communications staff officer reported the situation, the navigation staff officer had already marked the location of the "Wuhan" and "Nanchang" on the nautical chart.

Chang Jiexin glanced at the two markings on the chart. "Let them return to the fleet as soon as possible, without any delay, we will sail at full speed in the southwest direction, and we will have them catch up in two hours!"

The order was quickly conveyed, and Chang Jianxin was also a little annoyed, the behavior of the "Wuhan" and "Nanchang" in making claims without permission had violated the military order. He did not criticize the captains of these two battleships in front of so many staff officers. But the psychology is very uncomfortable. Thinking about it on the other hand, Chang Jiexin also felt that the actions of the "Wuhan" and "Nanchang" were worthy of affirmation, and if it were not for their rapid pursuit of the fleeing No. 5 enemy ship, then it would not have been possible to destroy the last intact battleship of the British Home Fleet before dawn.

After his mood relaxed, Chang Jianxin gradually calmed down. He was not thrilled by the victory he had won in those few hours, because at this time, excitement did not do him or Task Force 3 any good.

The few hours of fighting in the early morning of the 23rd can be said to be the most exciting hours in the history of the operations of the Third Task Force. In the face of an opponent stronger than itself, or at least numerically superior to itself, Task Force 3 won a great victory at the cost of almost zero casualties. By daybreak, it was certain that at least six battleships, seven cruisers, and eleven destroyers had been sunk. And throughout the engagement, the 3rd Task Force did not lose a single battleship, and even the damage was not worth mentioning.

After the defeat and surrender of the British, Chang learned that on this night, the six British battleships sunk by Task Force 3 were "Queen Elizabeth", "Barham", "Gold Coast", "Iron Duke", "Nelson", and "Rodney". It can be said that this is the only remaining fruit of the British Navy except for the three "avant-garde" class battleships repaired in Aberdeen, in addition, the "War Weathiness" and "Warrior" were also damaged by torpedoes fired by the destroyers of the Third Task Force, and finally could not escape the fate of annihilation. If we look at it from a longer-term perspective, it was this naval battle that completely deprived the British of their ability to operate in the North Atlantic. As a result, they lost the ability to defend their homeland. Finally in Rio de Janeiro compromised with the Don Empire and signed a surrender agreement. That is, the Third Task Force made the British completely desperate in just half a night. And finally withdrew from the war!

This battle also has its own uniqueness, which is different from the artillery battles that are often recommended for new commands in the past, and its fighting method is more similar to the battle in which Yan Shiqi commanded the Third Task Force against the US Navy's "Z Fleet".

These two naval battles have some things in common, such as the enemy's main forces are relatively weak old battleships, and the 3rd Task Force has advantages in speed, firepower, protection and other aspects. In addition, the battle process is somewhat similar, that is, the third task force first uses the advantage of speed to cut off the enemy's retreat, and then strikes the enemy in long-range engagements, reversing the balance of forces, and finally defeats the enemy in close combat. Finally, and most crucially, both battles ended with the victory of Task Force 3.

Of course, there are differences between the two battles, and this is mainly due to the ability of the commander. In the battle against the "Z Fleet," Yan Shiqi was unable to judge the enemy's movements in the first place, so he finally forced Chang Zhixin, who was still the chief of staff of the Second Task Force at that time, to use a cruiser to organize a defensive line in the north to intercept the enemy ships heading north, with the result that the artillery bombardment formation of the Second Task Force suffered extremely heavy losses. And in this battle, Chang Jianxin made an accurate judgment from the beginning, and every battle adjustment was very accurate, and he didn't give the enemy much chance from beginning to end. On the other hand, in the battle more than two years ago, Yan Shiqi finally caused the Third Task Force to pay a heavy price in order to compete for merit, and several battleships were sunk or heavily damaged. And in this battle, which was commanded by Chang Jianxin, the losses of the 3rd Task Force were negligible, and it could almost be regarded as a complete victory!

I have to admit that the "Battle of the English Sea" was a decisive battle between extremely beautiful battleships, and this was certainly for the Tang Imperial Navy, for the 3rd Task Force. This battle also reflected Chang Jianxin's cleverness in commanding the fleet's artillery battles, and even more reflected Chang Jianxin's command characteristics, that is, in the battle, it is necessary to attack the enemy as short as possible with the strength of the enemy. In fact, this is a unified feature of tactical command, whether it is a ground battle or a sea battle.

Throughout the engagement, Task Force 3 had been using its superiority to fight the enemy, and Task Force 3 had two advantages, one was the advanced gun-sighting radar system, and the other was more powerful artillery than the enemy. Combined, these two advantages meant that Task Force 3 was much more powerful than the British Home Fleet in long-range combat. Actual combat has proved that even at a distance of 13 nautical miles, that is, about 26,000 yards, the Type 26 armor-piercing projectile has a penetration rate of about 30% against the main armor belt of the "Nelson" class battleships up to 15 inches thick, and even more so against the "Queen Elizabeth" class.

From this, it can also be seen that the quality of the armor steel of the British is really not very good. It stands to reason that the Type 26 armor-piercing projectile can penetrate up to 15 inches of armor at a distance of 15,000 yards, and at a distance of 25,000 yards, it can only penetrate armor up to 10 inches thick. In other words, the 15-inch thick armor of the British was at most equivalent to the 250-millimeter-thick armor on the battleships of the Tang Empire.

The gap in radar is more decisive. At a distance of about 12 nautical miles, the radar of the "new provincial capital" class can provide accurate target guidance parameters for the main gun, although the hit rate at this distance is very low, not even half of it, but under the same conditions, it is even more difficult for the radar on the British battleship to detect the target clearly, and it is even more difficult to guide the shelling. It was also true that the three British battleships that had not been hit at first could not pose much of a threat to the battleships of the Third Task Force throughout the engagement, let alone the three battleships that had been hit intensively. With the exception of a few lucky hits, the battleships of the British Home Fleet did not pose any substantial threat to them during several hours of artillery battles.

The battle was fought to this point, no matter how proud the British were, they had to admit the ability of their opponents, and even more so the huge gap with the Tang Imperial Navy. Eight old battleships, even if they were the eight most advanced "avant-garde" class battleships of the British Navy at that time, would not necessarily be able to win the battle, at most they would only inflict greater casualties on the Third Task Force. It can be said that by the end of the war, Britain, the country that attached the most importance to battleships, did not have the best battleships in the world.

There were a number of reasons that led to the backwardness of Britain in the creation of advanced battleships. national strength, the idea of the design of the battleship, the devastating bombing of the homeland, etc. One of these points cannot be ignored is that in the North Atlantic, the British Navy practically did not encounter any threatening challenges, so the pressure on the British to develop new battleships was not very great. Often, the British Navy developed in a passive situation, for example, when the Germans began to build the "Bismarck" class, the British Navy found that all their previous battleships, including the "George V" class, which was built before the war, were no match for the "Bismarck". As a result, the British Navy restarted the construction program of battleships of the "Lion" class and accelerated the pace of construction of the "Avant-garde" class. It was precisely this passive, localized theater of war demands that made it impossible for the British to keep up with the pace of the other powers.

On the contrary, the Tang Imperial Navy not only faced the immediate threat of Japan, but also had to compete with the U.S. Navy for control of the Pacific Ocean, while also having to take care of the global situation. Therefore, the Tang Imperial Navy not only had the pressure of the enemy as the driving force in the development of new warships, but also pursued perfection itself, which was also the main driving force for the development of the Tang Imperial Navy. For example, the "Dignity" class that was originally built was actually built in response to Japan's improvement of the "Kongo" class and in order to seek to comprehensively overwhelm the superior warships of the Japanese Navy. The "New Provincial Capital" class, which was subsequently started, was directly aimed at the "Iowa" class of the United States, and the overall improvement of the "New Provincial Capital" class was due to technological progress and the needs of the Imperial Navy's own development.

Aside from the battle with the British Expeditionary Fleet commanded by Cunningham, this was the second time the Tang Imperial Navy had engaged the Royal Navy, and the only artillery battle fought between the two sides during the war. Before that, the British were still laughing at the Tang Imperial Navy as a navy that relied on aircraft carriers to fight, and after that, even the proudest British did not dare to cancel the Tang Imperial Navy. No one dares to say that the Tang Imperial Navy is a navy that relies only on aircraft carriers to walk on one leg.

For Chang Jianxin, this naval battle is equally important, it can be said that this is the protagonist he really plays on the battlefield. And a battle that caught everyone's attention. In the Battle of the Coral Sea, most of the credit goes to Task Force 1 and Task Force 4, and although Task Force 3 captured two American warships in that battle, Task Force 3 was not the absolute main force in the campaign. Then, in the expeditionary operation, although the 3rd Task Force annihilated the French Expeditionary Fleet, the main force of the Anglo-French Combined Expeditionary Fleet was the British Expeditionary Fleet, and it was the 1st Task Force that killed the British Expeditionary Fleet, so the main credit for that combat operation was also counted on the head of the 1st Task Force. After Chang recommended the new commander of the 3rd Task Force, he had participated in many battles, but this was the first time he had won a major victory as an absolute main force without any other support forces!

Chang Jiexin was not carried away by the victory, he knew very well that the fleet was less than 15 nautical miles from the British coastline at this time, and the sky had begun to brighten, and the British bombers could arrive at any time. Although both Task Force 1 and Task Force 2 promised to send air defense fighters in time, who could guarantee that the escort fighters would be able to repel all the bombers of the British Air Force? Therefore, after determining that the "Wuhan" and "Nanchang" would quickly return to the fleet, Chang Jianxin did two things: First, the fleet retreated at full speed to the southwest, that is, the exit of the strait. The other is to send out seaplanes to find out what the weather is like after dawn.

It was not the fighters sent by the other task forces that could really cover the safe retreat of Task Force 3, but the weather. As long as the weather conditions were bad, RAF bombers would not be able to bomb Task Force 3. Chang Zhixin is well aware of this, so he has to figure out how the weather is changing and try to get the fleet into the thunderstorm zone. It was while he was waiting for the weather forecast that a telegram came.

"From Task Force 6." The communications staff officer handed the telegram to the commander, "They came in time, it seems that General Gu Zhenyun is not as simple as we imagined." ”

Chang Jianxin glared at the communications staff officer who spoke without a little measure, but when he read the content of the telegram, he had to admit that what the communications staff officer said at the beginning was indeed reasonable, the Sixth Task Force came very "timely" Moreover, Gu Zhenyun is indeed not simple!