Major House Takashi was only an ordinary officer in Task Force 2, and as much as his status, as the commander of the destroyer formation of Task Force 2, he was not taken seriously. Those opportunities to get great honors and get quick promotions seem to be missing him. From the 1st Task Force (when Tan Renhao was the commander of the fleet) to the 2nd Task Force, Major House Taka's biggest gain was that he was promoted from captain to formation commander (and also captain), promoted from captain to major, and commanded destroyers to shoot down 7 enemy planes during the battle, and fired thousands of shells while supporting the 6th squadron. As a result, he also received two naval medals.

It is in this inconspicuous position, almost equivalent to the corner of the wall, that the house filial piety faithfully fulfills the obligations and duties of an emperor, and earnestly does the things of a destroyer captain and a formation commander. When Chang Jianxin asked him to move forward quickly with the formation and fight independently, Major House Takashi immediately understood what their mission was. Maybe in a frontal artillery battle, the destroyer doesn't even have a share of the side, but the destroyer has the power of a destroyer, and the dozens of torpedoes on each destroyer are not easy to mess with, even the largest battleship can't withstand the attack of the torpedoes!

"Sir, Chief of Staff, they're already fighting the enemy!" bsp; House Hyo nodded slightly, and those flashes on the southwest side were the muzzle flames of large-caliber artillery shelling. First the cruisers of the 2nd Task Force opened fire, and a few minutes later, the American fleet also opened fire, and the muzzle flames of the American battleships were much brighter (because the destroyer formations were closer to the American fleet) "Did the order of the chief of staff arrive?" ”

The communications officer shook his head, and the artillery battle had only been started for a few minutes, and he still had not received an order.

House Xiao looked up at the navigation clock, there are still three minutes, if he can't receive the order of the chief of staff within three minutes, he will immediately lead a formation to assault and strike at the US fleet!

Judging from the density of the flash and the muffled sound of the cannonball, the artillery battle between the two sides was extremely fierce. House filial piety is clear. Eight battleships can easily take out the eight cruisers in the fleet. In artillery battles, no battleship was an opponent of battleships. If a battleship is a medieval hoplite, then a cruiser can only be considered light infantry, with no armor on its body, and the bow and arrow in its grip cannot shoot through the light infantry of the opponent's armor at all!

"Sir, are we going to attack?"

The house was stunned for a moment, and immediately looked up at the nautical clock again, it was already the scheduled time. "No news from the chief of staff?"

The communications officer shook his head. If he receives the news, he will immediately tell the house filial piety.

"Out, all ships are ready for torpedo shooting!"

House Xiao did not hesitate any longer, "After being shelled, each ship tries to maintain formation as much as possible, and if contact is lost, then attack separately!" ”

House Takashi is ready to sacrifice, the destroyer is just a hound, and what they want to attack is an eight-headed beast, not to mention the main guns on the battleship. Even the main guns on those cruisers. And the secondary guns on the battleship can easily beat the destroyer to scrap metal!

In fact, the radar on the American battleship has long "appeared" the destroyer formation of House Hyo. The radar on the battleship "Maryland" had already shown a few "flashes" in the northwest direction before the engagement, but the "flashing spots" in the north were even stronger at that time. The radar operator judged that the "flashing point" on the northwest should be sea clutter, not a warship. Although there were later suspicions that it was a fleet, most likely a small fleet of destroyers or light cruisers (the United States had always regarded the large destroyers of the Tang Empire as light cruisers), but the artillery battle was imminent, and this suspicion was not confirmed, and a batch of high-explosive shells fell on the "Maryland", and one of the shells (mostly a 2oo mm high-explosive bomb, which was hit from a heavy cruiser) exploded near the rear mast with the radar installed. As a result, no one reported it.

The radar on the "Pennsylvania" also quickly appeared in the northwest direction of the group of "flashpoints", but after the radar of the "Maryland" was destroyed, the radar of the "Pennsylvania" became the only eye of the fleet, responsible for commanding the entire formation to fight (in fact, it is to provide the fleet with the approximate location of the opponent, and the artillery bombardment is the responsibility of each battleship, after the artillery battle begins, the lookout on the battleship can use the ground gun flame on the enemy ship to judge the position of the enemy ship, so as to guide the main gun to fire, And there is no need for radar to provide data on shelling. Moreover, at that time, it was not the Tang Empire. Or is it that the US fleet command system has not been perfected to the extent that a battleship commands a fleet of shelling), and it is not possible to take care of those "shining points" in the north-west direction.

At 3:33 a.m., the sixteen destroyers under the command of Major Hataka were divided into two formations and slaughtered the "Z Fleet" at the fastest speed of 35 knots. Of these sixteen destroyers, eight were built after the outbreak of the war of the "City" class, and the other eight were built after the First World War, which had been mothballed before the war and were opened for use after the explosion of the war (these honest destroyers actually rarely participated in fleet operations, and their main purpose was to escort the fleet) Both destroyers have two five-pack torpedo firing tubes on them, which can fire ten torpedoes in a salvo. This lightning strike capability was only worse than some destroyers of the Japanese Navy among the destroyers of other countries at that time, and comparable to most destroyers of other countries. But the problem is that the torpedoes of the Tang Imperial Navy were not so ideal.

At that time, the main battle torpedo of the Tang Imperial Navy was the O8 type 54O mm torpedo (finalized in 13O8 of the Tang calendar), with a weight of 3oo kg for the head and 14oo kg for the firing weight, and a range of 5 nautical miles at 4o knots and 8 nautical miles at 3o knots. This performance can only be considered mediocre. Much worse than the Japanese "spear". The Imperial Navy suffered the loss of the "Lance" at the beginning of the war, although it had ordered the development of better torpedoes, and it was better to develop oxygen torpedoes like the "Lance", but for more than two years, the Imperial Navy was still using O8 torpedoes, and new torpedoes were not even made samples!

That is, the house filial they had to approach at least to a distance of 8 nautical miles to shoot torpedoes, and this had already entered the absolute coverage of heavy cruiser fire. If you want to get a higher hit rate, you have to get closer to 5 nautical miles, or even closer, and at this distance, the main guns on American destroyers, cruisers, and battleships can easily kill them.

"Lightning Strike" is short for "Torpedo Attack", to put it bluntly. It is to fight the enemy with a dagger, which is simply a battle with bayonets at sea. The destroyers that carry out torpedo attacks are all more vicious and less lucky, and it is already very good to be able to successfully approach and shoot torpedoes, but it is even more difficult to escape!

At 3:45, the destroyer formation was ten nautical miles away from the "Z fleet". At this time, the radar operator of the "Pennsylvania" finally showed danger and immediately issued a warning. And the "Z fleet" was sailing west at this time, and in order to allow the cruisers in the fleet to participate in an artillery battle. The battleship formation was turning to the southwest, pulling the battle line apart. In other words, at this time, the course of the eight battleships of the "Z Fleet" was almost perpendicular to the course of the house, and this was the best chance for a torpedo attack, and what those destroyers rushed up to do, the stupidest sailors could think of.

Kimmel did not give the order for the fleet to evade, and those destroyers have not yet fired torpedoes. He still ordered the shelling of the main ships of the Don Army to the north, and at the same time let the secondary guns deal with the destroyers. This decision is not too much of a problem, it is not a good idea to bombard agile destroyers with giant cannons, and faster secondary guns are the ideal weapon against small warships such as destroyers. After Kimmel gave the order. The hundreds of secondary guns on the starboard side of the eight battleships were all aimed at the house and filial piety. Then the shells were fired.

"Sir, the enemy is firing at us!"

House Xiao gritted his teeth and asked quickly, "How far is it?" ”

"Eight nautical miles in a row!"

The staff officer's voice just fell. The first shells fell, and one exploded in the sea less than 1oo meters in front of the left side of the battleship.

"Sir, it's already eight nautical miles, you want to ......"

"Hold on!"

House Xiao grabbed the handrail next to him, "Approaching to the five seas, the torpedo is set to the maximum course, if you can get closer, kill it, don't give the enemy any chance to escape!" ”

"But ......"

House Takashi glanced at the staff officer in charge of the torpedo attack. "Do as I say and inform the other ships. If we're done, we'll attack separately and get as close as we can to buy time for the Chief of Staff! ”

Within two minutes of the order given by the house, three destroyers had already been hit by shells, and two honest destroyers (these destroyers had made certain improvements after the unsealing, but their performance had seriously lagged behind, and the main structure of the battleships was also aging, which could not be improved) quickly withdrew from the formation. But it is still trying to keep up with the degree of formation and kill towards the "Z fleet".

When there were still six nautical miles from the "Z Fleet", the destroyer of the "City" class behind the ship was hit by a 155-mm shell on the bridge, and then several shells hit her, one of which hit the engine room nearby, and the destroyer's degree immediately slowed down, followed by a violent explosion.

House Hyo didn't look back, the loud explosion said it all, sacrifice was inevitable, and sacrifice was worthwhile, he was ready to sacrifice. Suddenly, a sharp voice rang out, "Sir, be careful......

The staff officer immediately judged the point of impact of the shell, and then pounced on the house.

At the moment when House Takashi was pushed by the staff officer, a shell hit the bridge and the violent explosion shattered all the glass on the windows, and then House Takashi was shaken up by a huge force and then fell to the deck. There were a few more explosions, and the house was woken up.

He felt that his vision was blurry, and wiped his hand on his face, feeling some slimy liquid, and smelling blood. He couldn't care so much, so he crawled over and picked up the intercom in the ship, which was already broken. The degree of the battleship is decreasing, and it is turning to the left, and it seems that the steering gear has been damaged. As he staggered across the bridge, he saw the torpedo crew point two torpedo tubes at the enemy fleet in front of him, and then the torpedo shot out like a sharp arrow off the string, splashing a few small splashes on the surface of the sea, and then immediately disappeared into the dark sea.

House Hyo laughed, and although the sharp pain in his face made him miserable, he laughed anyway.

The other four destroyers also turned around at this time, fired torpedoes quickly, and then quickly retreated to the northwest. Each destroyer had twenty reserve torpedoes, and they could still attack, but they had to retreat out of the enemy's artillery coverage to reload the torpedoes, which took at least half an hour (about an hour including the round trip) Four destroyers did not fire torpedoes at this time, but continued to attack. They came under the heaviest artillery fire, and the one that took the lead received at least fifteen shells in one minute, most of them 155 mm shells. The entire bridge of the battleship was almost blown away by shells, and none of the officers inside were spared. The latter was immediately killed, became the new leader, and soon it was also hit by several shells. The three destroyers rushed to a distance of 3 nautical miles from the US fleet before turning right at the same time and firing torpedoes.

"Sir, sir......"

When the medical illness rushed over, the house was already down by the side of the gangway, and the major died with a smile, and his sacrifice, as well as the sacrifice of the destroyer formation, was exchanged for the most cargo victory!

In just one charge, four of the sixteen destroyers were sunk (almost all because the ammunition depot was hit and sunk after the explosion), four were heavily damaged and became live targets (and were quickly sunk), and the eight destroyers who escaped were all wounded, and the bridges of two were blown off, but the officers who replaced them still insisted on fighting. The eight destroyers began to reload their torpedoes as soon as they withdrew, and since there was no order to let them retreat, they had to continue their torpedo attacks until they ran out of torpedoes, or they were killed by the enemy like their comrades in front of them, or they received an order to retreat, otherwise they would never retreat.

The sacrifice of the destroyer was by no means worthless, the torpedo sailed at 4o knots, it took only 5 minutes and 3o seconds for 7 nautical miles, and a little more than 3 minutes for 4 nautical miles. In other words, if the "Z Fleet" wants to avoid this lightning strike, it must complete the turn within four minutes and turn the bow in the direction from which the torpedo is fired, and this will inevitably make it impossible for its main guns to be completely aimed at the second task force in the north, and it will not be able to swing all its forces, but this is by no means the most critical!