Scorching cannonballs streaked across the sky like falling stars, the blue night sky was dyed with fiery red flames, and violent explosions stirred up inky black sediment from the seabed, and huge water masses rose into the sky......

At the east entrance of the Strait of Magellan, the Chilean fleet hastily unfolded its array was shrouded in a storm of artillery fire, and the Chilean flagship "Admiral Latol", with a full load displacement of nearly 30,000 tons, was sometimes covered by the waves, and sometimes the majestic hull was revealed in the stormy waves, and the powerful 14-inch heavy guns continued to let out an unyielding roar, encouraging the Chilean fleet, whose morale was almost collapsed, to stabilize its position, but less than a quarter of an hour after the battle began, the enemy's accurate artillery bombardment achieved an astonishing victory: the destroyer serving as an outpost" The "Sennano" was hit by several bullets and capsized; The old armored cruiser "Esmeralda", which followed the flagship, was shot and caught fire, and the towering bridge was almost engulfed in flames, and the thick black smoke formed an extremely striking column of smoke; The "Admiral Latoll," which was in the center of the artillery storm, first suffered two near-misses, and then a heavy armor-piercing shell hit the bow of the ship, which was the weak position of the British battleship's defense, far away from the main ammunition depot and power compartment, and even if the shell exploded, it might not cause fatal injuries, and this large-caliber armor-piercing shell penetrated directly from the left side of the bow and pierced out on the right side, causing the officers and men on the ship to break out in a cold sweat. Pen, fun, and www.biquge.info

"Damn, I'm sure it's a German Mackensen-class battlecruiser...... Yes, Mackensen! ”

Admiral Lévis-Berry, a British Royal Admiral who had lived in the Battle of Jutland, stared at the dark shadow of the sea in the distance, its vague silhouette reflected in the light of the fire, which seemed to the average navigator to be indistinguishable from the ships around it, but the professional soldiers who had served the Navy for decades were as sensitive to it as an old chef smelled it.

Hearing this, General González, commander of the Chilean fleet, turned pale and his eyes were fixed. The direct intervention of the German Navy was the worst he could have expected, and now that the nightmare had become a reality, he did not want to believe that everything in front of him was real.

The Mackensen-class battlecruisers were the first class capital ships that Germany began to build after the war, they inherited the characteristics of strong defense and fast speed of German battle cruisers, and were equipped with the same 15-inch main guns as the Bavaria-class battleships, as well as first-class optical instruments and radio equipment. From the late 10s to the mid-20s, the three Mackensen-class replaced the Bavarian class as the symbol of the German Navy, and they sailed all over the world to show the unprecedented majesty of the German Navy and its ability to dominate the seas. They were victorious in shooting and tactical drills, with the best corps of officers and sailors in the German Navy; They carried the line in the crisis of the Azores and were not afraid to fight with the US and British fleets, which were several times more powerful than themselves.

According to the data released by the German Navy, the standard displacement of the Mackensen class is 36,000 tons, which is more than 7,000 tons higher than that of the "Admiral Latoll". The weight of more than 7,000 tons was not piled up on defensive armor, but translated into an all-round technical advantage: the caliber of the main gun of the German battle cruiser was a level higher than that of the Chilean flagship, and the speed was 6 knots faster. In the case of a head-to-head confrontation, unless all the officers and men of the German ship were replaced by Argentine sailors, the strength of the "Admiral Latoll" would not be able to escape from the mouth of the evil shark at all!

"Are the Germans crazy? Don't they know that this move could well provoke a new world war? ”

Colonel Davis, a U.S. Navy officer who wanted to follow the Chilean battleship to watch a beautiful battle, exclaimed in disbelief.

"They're not crazy." General Berry said coldly, "The Germans have been a brave and warlike people since ancient times, and in modern times, the rise of Prussia and even Germany has benefited not only from the development of commerce and industry, but also from the victory of one war after another." Denmark, Austria, France, Belgium, Great Britain, Russia, the Germans had the strongest countries in Europe on their victory lists, and they certainly wanted to defeat the strongest countries outside of Europe, so instead of fearing war, they were very eager to get rid of the economic crisis with a new war, and they believed that they could become the only world hegemon on the corpse of the United States. It makes me wonder why the sinking of the Ioda is not enough for you to recognize their sinister faces. ”

Colonel Davis gritted his teeth and glared angrily, and at that moment, the main guns of the "Admiral Latoll" launched a new salvo. Since it had not yet formed a straddle fire at the target, its five twin-mounted main guns still adopted the method of alternating firing, so the deafening sound of the cannon sounded twice in a relatively short time, like the beating of war drums twice, injecting great courage into the soldiers in adversity. General Gonzalez's stunned eyes lit up again, and he looked at General Berry, put a hand on the shoulder of Colonel Davis, who was full of anger and had nowhere to vent, and said, "Do you mean that we have no chance of defeating our opponents?" ”

Without waiting for the Americans and the British to speak, General González decisively ordered his officers: "Order all destroyers and torpedo boats to launch torpedo assaults on the enemy fleet, be sure to approach the target before firing torpedoes, and tell everyone that in this battle tonight, the Chilean Navy will once again be famous in the world!" ”

Half a century later, in 1879, the Chilean Navy defeated the Combined Fleet of Peru and Bolivia in the saltpeter war, helping Chile finally win the war that was vital to the country's fortunes. Time flies, today's Chilean Navy is still between the second and third rate in the world, but their opponent is not a weak South American country, but the Argentine Navy with direct help from the German Navy, judging from the shells from the enemy fleet, Argentina's only capital ship "Rivadavia" should also be waiting here, "Admiral Latol" is actually in a disadvantageous position with one enemy and two enemies, and there are many destroyers and torpedo boats in the fleet subject to the limited fuel on board, At this time, the Chilean port in the Strait of Magellan was still loading coal, and only 7 destroyers and 6 torpedo boats were able to enter the lightning strike operation at the first time, which was still far from the theoretical battlefield saturation attack.

After the previous order was issued, General Gonzalez gave the order for the three old ironclads that had fallen behind the fleet to retreat into the Strait of Magellan while firing at the recklessness of the effect. When the order was delivered, he resolutely gave the order that surprised people: "Admiral Latoll" stopped firing!

From the time the enemy fleet opened fire first to the present, the Chilean flagship has fired more than 40 guns but none of them hit, and it is difficult to visually observe the situation at the impact point at night; Gonzalez, as the commander of the Chilean fleet, is very familiar with the ability of the officers and men under his command, and if the bombardment continues like this, the result of defeat will be unavoidable. Rather than this, simply go off the beaten path and give it a go.

Without the striking cannon flame, the enemy's quite accurate artillery fire really reduced the sharpness, Gonzalez ordered the "Admiral Latol" to quietly retreat towards the Strait of Magellan, while watching the results of the destroyer's sortie, if the goddess luck is especially favored by the Chilean fleet tonight, so that the Chileans can get the same results as the Japanese navy attacked the Russian fleet in Arthur in 1904, if not to reverse the victory, at least it can block the enemy's offensive and let the main ships of the Chilean navy retreat in one piece. Its strategic significance is no less than that of an important victory.

At the beginning of the battle, the two fleets were about 20 kilometers apart, and in the night battle environment, the opponent did not plan to approach quickly, so after nearly half an hour, the firing distance of the capital ships of the two sides was still more than 16,000 meters, and it took more than 10 minutes for the Chilean destroyers to reach the torpedo range through the battlefield. After about seven or eight minutes, a series of flares of dazzling light appeared in the distance, followed by beams of light that kept moving. In the process, the roar of various artillery shots and shell explosions became more and more intense, and a wood-like column of water was faintly visible on the sea near the enemy fleet.

In the noisy environment, most of the crew of the "Admiral Latol" were unaware of the humming in the sky, and suddenly, a flare lit up in mid-air at a distance of two or three thousand meters and slowly fell, although this flare directly reflected the empty sea, but from the pilot's point of view, the whereabouts of the Chilean ship could still be captured. A moment later, the second, third, and fourth flares lit up the night sky, not in a straight line, but coming towards the retreating Chilean fleet. The fifth flare finally bloomed over the "Admiral Latoll", and the huge battleship was finally exposed.

This was a common auxiliary tactic used by the German Navy, which had suffered the British fleet during the Battle of the Faroe Islands. In order to give full play to the effect of this combat technique, the Germans tirelessly loaded every cruiser, supply ship, and even some large destroyers with water reconnaissance planes, and the speed of replacement of carrier-based reconnaissance planes always ranked first in naval aviation.

At this point, General González no longer had any chances, and he ordered the "Admiral Latoll" to sail at full speed towards the Strait of Magellan, not hesitating to disrupt the original order of navigation. In the process of evading the flagship, the old ironclad ship "Captain Pratt" unfortunately ran aground, but instead of fleeing in a hurry, the crew bravely used 240 mm Krupp guns to fire on the enemy fleet on the edge of the ultimate range.

Apparently due to the interference of the Chilean destroyers, the joint battle fleet composed of Argentine and German ships did not launch a timely pursuit of the main force of the Chilean fleet that was desperately retreating, but after its own water reconnaissance planes successfully lit up the position of the Chilean flagship, the firing of the large-caliber guns became accurate again, and the front, left and right sides of the route of the "Admiral Latol" and the rear of the stern were full of rising waves, and every three or four minutes one or two shells would cause close damage to it. Just as the Chilean flagship was about to enter the first bend at the eastern entrance of the Strait of Magellan, a 15-inch high-explosive bomb slammed into the right side of its main chimney. If it was a normal working armor-piercing shell, the "Admiral Latoll" might have been directly reimbursed, and this German-made high-explosive bomb, in addition to making the entire battleship tremble violently, was to bombard the upper deck of its starboard side, and to crumple several gun profile secondary guns on the second deck into scrap iron, and the ammunition stacked on the gun emplacements immediately underwent a series of explosions, flames rose and thick smoke billowed out, and people who did not know the truth thought that the Chilean flagship had suffered a fatal blow.

(End of chapter)