When Chang Jianxin saw the telegram sent by Tan Renhao, he suddenly sneered. Then, he gave the telegram to Gu Zhenyun, and Gu Zhenyun also laughed after reading it.

"It seems that there are still people who don't believe in our strength!" Chang Jiexin didn't feel that Tan Renhao was laughing at him, he just felt that the Third Task Force was being despised by him. "Then we're going to do something! The fleet is ready to fight, wait and fight closer, all the battleships concentrate their firepower to take out the two largest 'Richelieu' class battleships first, and deal with the French expeditionary fleet before the bombers of the first task force arrive, don't let others look down on us! ”

The telegram sent by Tan Renhao did not serve as a warning, but as a motivator.

Even if we do not take into account the difference in the quality of the battleships of the two sides, five ships against four, the third task force has an advantage, and compared to the number of main guns, it is 45 to 32, this advantage is even more obvious. If you take into account the quality and performance of the warships of both sides, then the advantage of the third task force is even greater. Chang Jianxin is very aware of this, he has memorized the performance of the two battleships of the French Navy very well, even if he doesn't want the first task force to intervene, the third task force can cleanly solve the French expeditionary fleet!

At 2:25 p.m., the sea-searching radar on the "Nanning" first discovered the enemy fleet approaching at high speed in the south, accurately calculated the distance of the enemy fleet, and also identified the relative positions of the four main warships in the enemy fleet. Within five minutes, the sea-searching radars on the other four battleships had also spotted the main battleships of the enemy fleet. By half-past two, the French expeditionary fleet was within 20 nautical miles of the battle line of the Third Task Force.

"The fleet turned, according to the plan. First of all, shell the nearest enemy capital ship, kill the enemy battleships one by one, and never let the enemy battleships rush through our defensive lines! Chang Jianxin gave the order at this time, just after half past two. The five battleships began to slow down and made minor adjustments to their course. Lookouts and radars on each battleship were monitoring the sea to the south. The main guns on the battleship had been raised to a 45-degree angle, the shells had been loaded into the chambers, and the gunners were waiting for the gunners to give the shelling parameters from the gunners officer, and the atmosphere on the battleship was already tense.

At 2:40 p.m., the two capital ships at the front of the French Expeditionary Fleet were about 16 nautical miles from the battle line of the five battleships of the Third Task Force. Chang Jiexin gave the order to open fire.

This was the maximum effective range of the main guns of the "New Provincial Capital" class battleships when firing Type 25 armor-piercing shells, and the first concentrated shelling of the five battleships was the battleship "Dunkirk", which ran at the forefront of the French expeditionary fleet. After more than two minutes, 45 Type 25 armor-piercing shells fell one after another, and not a single shell hit the battleship, the most "accurate" of which fell on the sea more than 200 meters away from the port side of the "Dunkirk", and the one that deviated the furthest fell more than 800 meters behind the "Dunkirk". At this time, the eight main guns of the "Dunkirk" in the bow direction could not fire back, and the distance between the two sides exceeded the maximum effective range of the 330 mm guns!

The battleships of the "Dunkirk" class should actually be classified as battle cruisers, or pocket battleships.

Its standard displacement of 255500 tons, full load displacement of 35500 tons. Much smaller than most of the battleships built later in the treaty and during the war, and even smaller than some of the battleships built later in the last war. Other than that. Its 330 mm caliber main guns and 250 mm ground side armor made it a considerable gap from the main battleships of other countries. Perhaps, the only thing that is commendable is its speed. It has a nominal maximum speed of 295 knots, but when it was tested, it ran a maximum speed of 31 knots. And this was much faster than the battleships in service at the same time, and not inferior to most of the battlecruisers. And the biggest feature of this battleship, or the biggest feature of the French Navy battleship, is that all its main guns are designed in the bow direction, and two quadruple turrets are used!

This design of placing all the main guns in the bow direction of the ship can be said to be a super alternative, and this is a special requirement of the French Navy for its own combat mission, just like the French Navy's warships have always attached importance to speed. Now the benefits of this design feature of the French battleship manifested themselves, and in the event of a breakout operation, the main guns of its battleships were used! But the biggest problem is that the "Dunkirk" class is not an opponent of the "new provincial capital" level at all, and it is not even comparable to the "dignity" level before the Tang Empire, so how can it confront the powerful "new provincial capital" level?

From the second salvo, the "Dunkirk" could no longer complete the rest of the voyage. In the second salvo fired by the five battleships, at least two shells hit the "Dunkirk" directly, and several close-miss shells were also hit. The damage caused by the two Type 25 armor-piercing shells that hit the "Dunkirk" directly was quite enormous, one hit the roof of its first turret, and the other smashed into the root of the mainmast behind its commander's bridge, and both exploded after penetrating several decks!

The power of the heavy bomb was also fully realized at this time. The Type 25 armor-piercing projectile was the latest armor-piercing projectile of the Imperial Navy, and its weight reached 1350 kg, which was much heavier than most armor-piercing shells of the same caliber at the time. The advantage of heavy bombing is that when the combat distance is long, when the shell falls, it is not the thickest side armor on the enemy battleship, but its horizontal armor. The horizontal armor of the "Dunkirk" class battleship is 125 mm thick, which is not very good, but the problem is that the Type 25 armor-piercing projectile can easily penetrate 200 mm thick horizontal armor even at extreme distances!

Just two shells caused the "Dunkirk" to lose half of its firepower, and caused most of the officers and men in the commander's bridge to be killed or wounded, the compartment above the power compartment was seriously damaged, and the speed of the battleship was also reduced. And the bulletproof partition in the center of the main turret of the French battleship quadruple kept half of the gunner, but there was no way to keep the turret rotation mechanism. And the turret, which cannot be turned, is basically useless.

By the time the fifth volley was fired, the distance between the two sides was close to 12 nautical miles. But the "Dunkirk" had been completely "disarmed", two turrets had been completely destroyed, and the bridge had been blown into ruins. The anchor compartment in the bow of the ship was also blown into a twisted shape. Even if it has entered the range of 330 mm guns at this time, the problem is. The battleship had lost its combat effectiveness, its speed had fallen below 20 knots, and it was no longer possible to keep up with the fleet.

The five battleships of the Third Task Force shifted their targets from the sixth salvo and no longer concentrated their fire on the same target. The "Nanning" and "Wuhan", which were located in the easternmost part of the fleet, concentrated their fire on the "Strasbourg" to the right of the "Dunkirk".

The other three battleships concentrated their shelling of the battleship "Richelieu", which had already surpassed the "Dunkirk" and was still sailing north at full speed. The counterattack of the French fleet also began at this time. And it was the "Richelieu" that fired first.

It was not difficult to solve the battle of the "Strasbourg", at this time the positions of the "Nanning" and "Wuhan" and "Strasbourg" had been staggered, the routes of the two sides did not intersect at right angles, the starboard side of the "Strasbourg" was exposed under the guns of the two battleships, and the area of the battleships was increased a lot, and the hit rate of the shelling was also relatively increased a lot. In addition, the 330-mm armor-piercing shells fired on the "Strasbourg" did not pose much threat to the two "New Provincial Capital" class battleships, and even if they were hit, it would not be possible to penetrate the main armor belt of the "New Provincial Capital" class. Therefore, during the battle, the "Nanning" and "Wuhan" constantly changed their routes. The distance between the two sides quickly narrowed, and the 400-mm Type 25 armor-piercing shell was fatal to the "Strasbourg"!

The twelfth salvo was hit, that is, the seventh salvo against the "Strasbourg". A Type 25 armor-piercing projectile fired from the "Wuhan" directly hit the starboard side of the "Strasbourg" below the waterline, and after passing through three compartments, it exploded in the boiler room of the battleship, completely destroying the ship's power system. After a few seconds. An armor-piercing shell from the "Nanning" hit directly behind the nose turret of the "Strasbourg", and then exploded under the rear turret, that is, near the ammunition depot. This is the deadliest shell, and the distance between the two turrets is relatively long in order to keep them from affecting each other. And the result of the detonation of the ammunition depot can be imagined!

The battle against the "Richelieu" was a little more difficult, and the three ships of the "New Provincial Capital" class fought quite hard. The Richelieu-class battleships were the most advanced battleships in France, and they were designed to be on par with the most advanced battleships of other powers, with a total armor weight of 16,400 tons, which was heavier than the armor of the British Navy's "King George V" and "Lion" classes. The performance of the 380 mm guns used by it is relatively close to the performance of the 382 mm guns used by the German Navy's "Bismarck" class battleships.

The threat is still quite large.

The two sides fought from a distance of 12 nautical miles to 8 nautical miles, and in the five rounds of bombardment, the "Richelieu" suffered at least five huge shells, although none of the shells fired by the "Richelieu" hit the opposite "Guangzhou", but this caused the "Guangzhou" to constantly avoid the incoming shells, and finally widened the distance between the "Canton" and the other two battleships. In order to maintain the distance between the "Nanchang" and the "Guiyang", they also had to constantly adjust their course and speed, and gradually widened the distance between them and the "Nanning" and "Wuhan".

The destructive power of 5 Type 25 armor-piercing shells cannot be underestimated, and the most "accurate" of them is the one that hit the bridge of the commander of the "Richelieu". The shell hit the Commander Cambridge directly, and the 340 mm thick armor on the bridge of the Richelieu-class Commander could not have stopped the Type 8 armor-piercing shells fired from 8 nautical miles away. This shell not only sent Godford into the arms of God, but also dozens of officers of the command of the French Expeditionary Fleet who were in command at Cambridge at that time, including the commander of the ground forces of the French Expeditionary Force who temporarily boarded the "Richelieu", were all killed, and none of them were spared! Another four armor-piercing shells destroyed six of the main guns of the "Richelieu", and a large hole with a diameter of several meters was opened near the waterline in the bow of the battleship, which blew up the sailors' quarters in the bow of the ship into ruins. Because of the damage to the bow, the speed of the battleship was reduced by two knots, and it could barely maintain a speed of 25 knots.

While the "Richelieu" was beaten to the point that it did not even have the strength to fight back, the "Jean Bar", which followed behind it to the left, was given a valuable opportunity. By the time the distance between the two sides had been reduced to about five nautical miles, the battleship had not yet been hit, and it was still maintaining a speed of 27 knots, continuing to break through to the north. In addition, the guns on the battleship were aimed at the "Guiyang" at the end of the battleship formation of the Third Task Force, causing the captain of the "Guiyang" to be in a hurry and continuously issuing orders to evade the shells.

Chang Jianxin also noticed the changes on the battlefield at this time, in addition to the "Jean Bar" that was breaking through, the destroyers and cruisers in the French expeditionary fleet had begun to accelerate, and it was obvious that these battleships would cover the last battleship to break through.

"Let the three battleships behind immediately turn left and pull away. Let the 'Wuhan' catch up, and we continue to turn right! Chang Jianxin immediately made a deployment, "The cruiser and destroyer formation went to kill the French escort battleships, and none of them could be spared!" ”

Task Force 3 immediately dispersed its operations. The three battleships led by the "Nanchang" immediately accelerated to turn to the left, and the main guns gradually turned to the port direction, which had been firing in the direction of starboard until then. The "Nanning" and "Wuhan" began to turn to the right while accelerating, and aimed their guns at the "Jean Bar", and the distance between the two sides was about 12 nautical miles.

In addition, the cruisers and destroyers that had been behind the battle line had begun to accelerate to the south of the battleship, preparing to deal with the escort warships of the French expeditionary fleet.

It was 3:25 p.m., and the battle had been fought for less than an hour. On the sea, the "Dunkirk" has already begun to sink. The "Strasbourg" was cut in two from the rear turret, the bow of the ship was already small from the sea, and the butt was raised high. The "Richelieu" basically stopped, it was burning on the sea, and the French expeditionary fleet could not see even a shadow of hope!