Dewey was high-spirited, and the other side only had six battleships, even if it was the most powerful battleship in the Chinese Empire, it didn't matter, after all, he also had the most powerful battleship of the American Navy in his hands, and he had an overwhelming advantage in numbers. Pen? Interesting? Pavilion wWw. ｂiquge。 ｉｎfo

"Twenty nautical miles!"

"Fifteen nautical miles!"

"Twelve nautical miles!"

"The other party has fired!"

……

From the tower of the battleship South Carolina, an American scout shouted.

Dewey raised his head, and in the telescope, he saw that the main guns of the six battleships of the Imperial Chinese Navy spewed out clusters of fire, and then the rumbling cannon sound crossed the sky, and twenty or thirty seconds later, the cannonballs fell into the nearby sea, exploding violently, and raising huge and terrifying waves.

Twelve nautical miles away, the first bullet impact point was so close to the fleet that the officers and men of the American Navy were frightened into a cold sweat.

Dewey's heart was also shocked, but his expression was calm, and he said coldly: "Don't worry! At this distance, they can't hit us! The ships are ready for battle, the second squadron is outflanked from the left flank, the third squadron is detoured from the right flank, the first squadron is facing the enemy head-on, and each ship can attack on its own when it is eight nautical miles away! ”

With more and less fighting, Dewey didn't need any tactics at all, just encircled these six warships of the Imperial Chinese Navy.

If these six battleships could be sunk, the Chinese Empire would no longer be able to compete with the American Navy.

Dewey even sensed that Roosevelt in the White House would directly award him a five-star admiral and the highest medal of honor.

There was a buzzing sound in the sky, and if you didn't listen carefully, you couldn't hear it at all, and you thought it was the whistling of cannonballs.

But Rice heard it, and when he looked up, he saw several planes hovering over their fleet.

It was the first time he had seen a seaplane, but he recognized it as an airplane, except that he didn't understand why it had no wheels, just two things that looked like rugby balls (pontoons).

"Shoot those planes!"

Rice didn't realize the role of those seaplanes, just curious.

It's just that when the videographer was filming the seaplane in the sky, he accidentally discovered a strange thing.

"Mr. Rice, look at the fake plane will still glow, flashing and flashing!"

Rice then took a closer look and was shocked.

"That's Morse code!"

Rice, who was familiar with Morse code, instantly discovered that the flashing lights on the plane were Morse code.

"Colter, can you untie it?"

Rice called in Colter, who was an expert in telegraph ciphers.

Because Roosevelt had secretly launched a large-scale spy operation in the United States, the Intelligence Bureau bribed the personnel of the American Intelligence Station of the Chinese Empire's S.H.I.E.L.D. and intercepted some of the Chinese Empire's codebooks and cipher machines, thus severely damaging the American branch of the S.H.I.E.L.D. department.

Colter analyzed the current encryption methods of the Chinese Empire, and although he could not fully decipher the contents, he had a clue.

"It should be a set of numbers!"

"Numbers?"

"These planes are hovering over our heads, but they are sending a set of numbers to the Imperial Chinese Navy, then this set of numbers should be our location."

"Nope! Each time it was sent after the shelling of the Imperial Chinese Navy! ”

"Damn, it's the impact point! The Imperial Chinese Navy is using aircraft to check the impact point of artillery shells and correct the shooting of naval guns! ”

Rice finally reacted and hurriedly told Dewey.

Dewey said: "No wonder the naval artillery strike accuracy of the Imperial Chinese Navy is becoming more and more accurate!" Knock the plane off my head! ”

……

Some U.S. sailors could only find out their rifles and fire into the sky, but unfortunately to no avail.

Dewey's face was ugly all of a sudden, and he looked at the plane in the sky, but he was helpless.

"The Georgia has been shot!"

A loud shout drew the attention of Dewey and Rice back.

At 8:46 a.m., the battleship Georgia was hit by a 406-mm shell on the port side, and there was a violent explosion, black smoke billowed into the sky.

A huge hole two meters in diameter was exposed, and a large amount of seawater poured into it as the waves crashed.

The American troops on the Georgia were so frightened that their faces turned green, and they hurried to repair it, and at the same time mobilized a large number of pumping machines to drain the influx of seawater.

On the battleship Fury, Lin Jiyun and Lin Taizeng immediately smiled when they saw the battleship Georgia being shot.

"This battleship Georgia is too fragile, only one 406 mm shell can tear through a hole of nearly two meters, which is too exaggerated! How do I remember that when our 406 naval guns tested American-made 300 mm steel plates at the shooting range, they could tear open half a meter at most! ”

If the hypothetical enemy is the United States, then according to the thickness of the armor protection of each class of American warships, live ammunition is fired on the shooting range to test the destructive power of various naval guns of the Imperial Chinese Navy, so as to ensure that when the commander of the Imperial Chinese Navy encounters the corresponding US warship, he will accurately judge whether the US warship can be sunk according to the test data of the naval guns at the shooting range.

Of course, Lin Taizeng paid great attention to the battleships of all classes of the American Navy, and the USS George belonged to the Rhode Island-class battleships, which began construction in 1888 and was protected by 300 mm Harvey armor, but at this moment Lin Taizeng felt too crispy.

Even if it was shelled from a long distance, there were aerial reconnaissance planes that constantly provided impact point corrections, and the error was compensated.

Soon, a salvo of the battleship Rage, a 1.2-ton giant shell hit the American ship Minnesota. The shells easily penetrated the horizontal armor protection of the battleship Minnesota, violently detonating in the rear of its apostle.

In an instant, the flames soared into the sky, black smoke billowed out, and the entire ship was blown up in a mess and seriously damaged.

Lin Taizeng suddenly said: "My lord, have you noticed that the protection of the American battleships is too fragile, and it seems to be more like a battlecruiser?" ”

After Lin Jiyun heard this, he also pondered for a while, and then said happily: "Do you say that it is possible that the US Navy is using battlecruisers to indiscriminately fill the numbers and pretend to be battleships?" ”

Lin Tai once said: "Battleships and battlecruisers are equipped with large-caliber naval guns of the same level, the difference is only that the battleship strengthens the armor and sacrifices the speed, and the battlecruiser strengthens the speed and sacrifices the armor, but we can't tell the thickness of the armor with the naked eye." ”

Lin Jiyun nodded and said: "Yes, we can't tell it with the naked eye, so we give the U.S. military room to operate with a fake reality, but in battle, it can be distinguished, and the battleship is much more resistant to beating than the battlecruiser." ”

Lin Taizeng nodded, this was exactly what he thought, because he felt that the so-called American battleship in front of him did not seem to meet the standard of a battleship in terms of its ability to resist beating.

"If the United States really used battlecruisers to pass off as battleships, then we would have a greater chance of destroying them!"

In order to determine what they were thinking, Lin Jiyun and Lin Tai decided to test it.

By this time, Dewey's fleet had already divided into three lines, trying to encircle six Imperial Chinese Navy warships.

Dewey also made a major mistake, that is, he also forgot that many of the battleships in his hands were actually battlecruisers that were used to pass off as those back then.

It was a very serious mistake to put the battlecruisers on the battlefield of the decisive battle of the fleet and let them fight against the opposing battleships.

Although at the moment the Imperial Chinese Navy is not sure that many of the American battleships on the opposite side are battle cruisers, as long as the two sides continue to fight, the crispy battlecruisers will soon be exposed.

"The main force of the Chinese Imperial Navy has been wiped out by us, these are their last six warships, as long as we sink them, the entire Pacific Ocean will be our American Navy!"

Dewey yelled to boost the morale of the American Navy and call on the American soldiers on all ships to fight bravely.

The Imperial Chinese Navy had only six battleships, but the American Navy had ten battleships and ten battlecruisers, and although two capital ships were attacked last night and could not participate in the battle for the time being, there were still eighteen capital ships, three times the number of the Imperial Chinese Navy, and the morale of the officers and men of the American Navy was naturally high.

Attacking head-on and outflanking on both flanks, Dewey wanted to destroy all six battleships of the Imperial Chinese Navy.

Lin Jiyun's original plan was to fight a war of attrition with Dewey, but after discovering that some of the so-called battleships of the American Navy were likely to be battlecruisers, he temporarily changed his plan and planned to test it.

So, under the instruction of Lin Jiyun, Lin Tai commanded six battleships, including the Anger, to concentrate fire on the left flank detachment of the American Navy.

At the moment, the left flank detachments of the American Navy are the USS Delaware, the USS North Dakota, the USS Florida, the USS Utah, the USS Mississippi, and the USS Georgia.

Among them, the four battleships of Delaware, North Dakota, Florida and Utah belong to the super dreadnought, carrying 15-inch guns, but the armor thickness is lower than that of battleships of the same class, but a little thicker than the battlecruisers of the same class.

The Mississippi and USS Georgia were battlecruisers with 14-inch guns, the latter had already taken a 16-inch shell, and black smoke was emitting from the ship's amidships, but it did not affect the battle.

Seeing that the six super dreadnought battleships of the Imperial Chinese Navy were directly killed, Vice Admiral Al, the commander of the US army commanding the left flank fleet, was also full of nervousness, but he glanced into the distance, Dewey's headquarters fleet and right flank fleet were rapidly approaching, trying to complete the encirclement, once the encirclement was completed, these six Chinese Imperial battleships would definitely not be able to escape.

So Al gritted his teeth and ordered his six capital ships to meet him.

The six-on-six situation looks evenly matched, but the firepower gap between the two sides is too great.

On the Chinese side there were 24 406 (16 in) mm guns and 48 381 (15 in) mm guns, and on the American side there were 48 15 in (381 mm) guns and 24 14 in (343 mm) guns.

This difference in firepower was evident at the moment when the two sides fought.

The warships of the two sides bombarded each other at a distance of more than 20 kilometers, the shells whistled, and the sea water boiled instantly.

In just five minutes, the two sides had completed between four and eight rounds of shelling.

The loaders on the warships of the Chinese Empire were highly efficient, the main guns could fire two shells a minute at the earliest, and there were aerial reconnaissance planes to help observe the impact points, and the artillery took less time to shoot and correct the trajectory, so eight rounds of shells were fired in five minutes.

Although the American battleship also had a loader, it was a little more efficient, firing a round of shells in more than a minute on average, and after each fire, it took a long time to correct the trajectory, so only 4 rounds of shells were fired in five minutes.

After five minutes of fierce firefighting, the fleet commanded by Al suffered a heavy loss.

Florida was hit by four shells, three of which were 15-inch armor-piercing blast shells, which opened three large holes on the port side of the stern, and the shells exploded inside, killing and wounding more than 100 people and seriously damaging the hull. There was also a 406 mm armor-piercing blast projectile that hit the bow command tower, which was 360 mm frontal armor protection, but was directly penetrated, and after the shell exploded, it directly killed the captain and other command personnel in the command tower, and there were no bones.

The Delaware was hit three times, the Utah was hit three times, and the Mississippi was hit once.

Among them, the North Dakota was the worst, with seven shots.

The seven shells that hit the USS North Dakota were all from the Imperial Chinese battleship USS Thunderstorm.

It was the third salvo of fire from the Thunderstorm, and because of the accurate calculation of the advance amount, the North Dakota's evasive intention was recognized, and as a result, 12 shells were fired this time, and 7 shells hit the North Dakota at the same time.

The entire battleship North Dakota superstructure was blown to shreds, more than 200 people were directly killed, and more than 300 people were injured to varying degrees, struggling in the flames and black smoke.

Luckily for Al, the Imperial Chinese Navy didn't hit the fatal penetrating hit, otherwise the battleship North Dakota would have been sunk in the five minutes of engagement just now.

Of course, at the same time that the shells of the Chinese Imperial warships hit the American ships, Al commanded the American ships to open fire, and many shells also hit the Chinese Imperial warships.

The 15-inch armor-piercing shell fired by the US ship Delaware hit the 350-millimeter armor of the battleship Fury, and could only smash a fiery red crater, in which the warhead was embedded and a puff of green smoke came out.

The 15-inch shell fired by the US ship Florida hit the armor of the battleship TThor of the same level, penetrating the armor of the battleship Thor, but because it was only an armor-piercing shell, it did not explode, and only caused pure physical penetrating damage.

The 14-inch shells fired from the Mississippi failed to tear through the Rage's armor, although it hit the Fury in the fourth salvo.

In just five minutes of firefighting, the gap in the combat effectiveness of the Chinese and US naval warships was quickly manifested.

Al realized the strength of the Chinese Imperial Fleet on the other side, and Lin Jiyun and Lin Taizeng also discovered the biggest weakness of the American Navy.

This is an Achilles' heel that is enough to ruin the entire American Navy.

Lin Jiyun and Lin Taizeng had already realized it, but Dewey didn't realize it.

Because Dewey had the same idea as the admirals of other countries, he hoped that the more warships he had, the better, so he would also integrate the battlecruisers into the battleship detachment to participate in the battle and use them as capital ships.

But this problem was strangled early in the Chinese Empire, and it was not stifled by Li Weiguo. Because since he coined the term battlecruiser, he forbade the generals of the Imperial Chinese Navy to use battlecruisers as capital ships in battleship formations, let alone use battlecruisers to fight against battleships.

In the past, Lin Jiyun, Lin Taizeng and others didn't quite understand, but at this moment, the two finally understood, because they found that it must be a gray thing to use the battleships of the Chinese Empire to torture and kill the battlecruisers of the American Navy. (To be continued.) )