The sortie of the two Vickers-class destroyers, the Deyer and the Guhan, undoubtedly carried a little tragedy, and in the dark of night, the opponent completely suppressed the American battlefleet with almost impeccable gunnery, and under the constant blows, the precarious battle situation actually needed the destroyers playing soy sauce on the periphery to impact the battle line of the Chinese Navy.

In the daytime, this kind of impact can be said to be a complete act of death, and the dense secondary guns of the battleship are enough to beat the destroyer into a sieve at a distance of 10,000 meters, and the only thing the destroyer can rely on is a speed of more than 30 knots...... Fortunately, the night at this moment at least gave Brigadier General Lucius a chance to make such a decision.

However, when the order was issued, the American general also had to admit that he had fallen into a Jedi, and the destroyer's attack, even if the combat goal was achieved and the opponent's attack was delayed, but his own side had no means to counter the opponent, and even because he was afraid of actively exposing the target and could not carry out effective calibration and salvo fire, it was meaningless to continue fighting!

"General, I propose to continue shelling Chinese destroyers, we must be driven to leave us as much as possible, otherwise, under the fire of the main fleet of the Chinese, we will not hold out at dawn!" Staff Officer Jason, who looked equally sad, leaned sideways into Lucius' ear and offered his advice, but this did not immediately change the decision of the brave American soldier.

The battleship Delaware continued to turn and maneuver, and at the same time try to point its sideboard fire at the two Chinese destroyers flickering in the distance, after the opponent made a tactical maneuver, and at the same time, the battleship Nebraska, which had received the order of the flagship, also gave up its combat intentions on the Chinese battle line, and in addition to performing Z-shaped maneuvers to try to extinguish the fire at the secondary main gun position as soon as possible, it also frequently used its sideboard fire to fire at the Yongzhou and Heyuan ships.

When the two American destroyers bypassed the battleship Nebraska and hid in the shadows and quickly rushed towards the Chinese battle line, and at the same time, after making full use of the fire flame of the battleship Delaware, the battleship Guangzhou fired three rounds of rapid salvos, but it was fruitless, and the fleet shooting officer Han Cheng was obviously not in a hurry.

The Americans are struggling desperately, which can be clearly judged from the opponent's constantly maneuvering and changing routes, which obviously affects the hit rate of the battleship's salvo, but the opponent's actions are actually burying themselves, the original American battleship formation was only 19 knots, while the Guangzhou and Shanxi battleship formations could easily run at a speed of 23 knots.

If it weren't for the Dayu battleship dragging its feet, it would have been easy to force into the Delaware battleship, so he had great initiative, and what he cared about was the situation map of the two sides on the side of the fire control platform that was constantly mapped on the drawings by the distance bell pencil on the drawing, in the eyes of the layman, there were only two crooked black lines and some inexplicable black spots, which was an important reference for him in artillery.

After a slight adjustment of the error correction, and after a delay of 1 minute, the Guangzhou fired a salvo, because at this time the Yongzhou and Heyuan ships were suppressed by artillery fire, only a few flares were fired sporadically, but the location was not good, fortunately, the shelling of the Americans' crazy counterattack made the sea light very well, and the observation was completely fine!

This round of bomb impact positions was quickly converted from the observation officer to the bullet impact correction input into the fire control platform, but Han Cheng did not immediately correct the data, but after observing the situation curve of the two warships, slightly delayed the next salvo time by 2 minutes, and then very decisively issued a salvo order for 3 rapid shots.

The first round of rapid salvo fire fired two close misses less than 100 meters away, and in the second salvo, the battleship Indelaware did not shoot at the Chinese destroyer on the right flank, while the Yongzhou and Heyuan ships were suppressed by artillery fire and could not fire flares in time, missing the results of the observation.

However, only 58 seconds later, the third round of salvo fired, Tang Zhen finally saw a long-lost red light at the end of the darkness through the telescope he clenched...... The 340-kilogram armor-piercing projectile fired from the D gun position of the battleship Canton accurately hit the bow B turret of the battleship Delaware after crossing a distance of 17,000 meters.

The main turret of the battleship Delaware has 12 inches of carburized armor on the front, and the top armor is also 10 inches thick.

However, the design concept of the American battleship is obviously not advanced, the top armor of the main turret turret is lower than the frontal armor, which directly led to the cap-piercing shell being wedged into the top armor of the turret, although it failed to penetrate the armor, but the huge kinetic energy still caused great damage to the top armor, and then the detonated warhead tore a deep pit of less than half a meter at the top of the turret.

The steel fragments shattered by the explosion ransacked all the lives in the turret, and directly caused a fire covering the vicinity of the battleship's B turret, the B turret of the battleship Delaware was obviously unlucky, and it was also hit by aerial bombs when it was bombed by the Shandong aircraft carrier dive, but at that time it only damaged part of the turret machinery, and after emergency repairs, some functions were repaired, but I didn't expect to encounter another blow, or the unlucky B turret.

You know, according to the design procedures, there are no ****** and shells that can be detonated in the turret, but at the beginning of the battle, the 5 twin turrets of the battleship Delaware have been loaded, but the explosion killed the American troops in the turret at the same time, but also distorted the iron door of the turret, so that the damage pipe could not enter, and could only be watered to suppress the fire, but for a time it was impossible to deal with the fire from the turret!

Lucius fell in the shock wave of the violent explosion just now, but fortunately, there were no other injuries except for the military hat flying, he jumped up and rushed to the lookout window, the turret that was braving the skyrocketing fire was now spitting flames like a large furnace, fortunately, the damage management team was stubbornly pounced on the fire, with a large amount of seawater pouring in, the fire was obviously under control.

But what shocked him at this moment was not the bullet in the B turret, the battleship Delaware had been constantly performing Z-shaped maneuvers before, and according to the U.S. Navy's understanding of gunnery and fire control, as well as a large amount of information obtained from the Royal Navy, even the Royal Navy's most advanced Dreyer MKIII fire control had never heard of effective targeted artillery.

Continue the Z-shaped maneuver? Or adjust the evacuation route? The question was immediately placed in front of him, and the battle had been raging for less than an hour, but the situation was completely one-sided, and with little thought, Brigadier General Lucius immediately made a new decision......

"Perform two positive and negative deflections of 15 degrees every 6 minutes to get away as soon as possible!" He turned around and pointed to the sky that was shining again in the distance, and between the flames of the opposing guns and his own flagship, two American destroyers were making their final efforts...... God bless them, for the sake of America, this is a decision that they have to make!

In just over 20 seconds, the shells that whistled past and swept past the stern of the battleship Delaware set off a large wave in the waters around the battleship, in addition to the B turret in the bow of the ship is still rising flames, Commodore Lucius has ordered to stop attacking the two Chinese destroyers that are fleeing from afar, as long as the other side does not fire damn flares, he disdains to use crushing firepower to deal with it, how to get rid of the Chinese in the next step is a big trouble!

At this moment, the officer in the telegraph room suddenly ran in and reported loudly, "General, I have received a telegram from Lord Dieters of the Royal Navy, asking about the situation of the Chinese Grand Fleet!" ”

British...... Brigadier Lucius waved his hand to ignore the telegram, and suddenly, he changed his mind again, "Reply to Lord Dieters, we are engaged in a fierce battle with the Chinese fleet on Guam, and we have not found any signs of the appearance of the Chinese Grand Fleet......"

Suddenly, a series of artillery flames in the darkness in the distance interrupted Lucius's train of thought, and the direction was the direction in which the destroyers Daiye and Guhan had sailed before, and according to the position, it was obvious that it was not the battle line of the American destroyer's target, but in the night at least seven or eight thousand kilometers away from the main Chinese fleet.

Suddenly, a battleship that did not take the initiative to counterattack Teng Ran sacrificed himself from the black curtain, and a lot of flames rose in the middle and tail of the battleship, and then panicked and prepared to make a quick U-turn, but it was obviously too late, and suddenly the illuminated target almost suddenly became the target of the nearby Chinese destroyer, and in the originally silent night, more than ten firepower points suddenly appeared! (To be continued.) )