The battlefield has been silent for nearly 10 minutes, and Lieutenant Colonel Owen has been staring at the chart in front of him for a full ten minutes, which is enough to open up a distance of at least 3,000 meters, at least let the Gloucester light cruiser temporarily stay at a safe distance, although he does not know the number of German battleships, but, according to the information he knows, although the appearance of German battleships is really unexpected, but in terms of the military strength of the entire region, the Royal Navy obviously has absolutely more strength than the opponent!

"Report, the Durendal Light Patrol has entered the sequence!"

"Report, the cruiser Straburg enters the sequence!"

At this time, the new news made Lieutenant Colonel Owen make up his mind, it was time to start an operation, the battleships behind were speeding up, the 3 battleships in the battle sequence still had good combat power, it was obviously impossible to annihilate the opponent, but as long as the Germans were dragged down, they could create a chance for victory, "Order, turn the rudder 30 degrees to the left, and prepare to search for the enemy ship!" ”

At this time, the sky in the Far East has shown a hint of morning light, however, the rain that had been somewhat stopped suddenly became heavier again, Lieutenant Colonel Owen stood at the lookout of the command tower, his tense face was a little ugly, he was avoiding the opponent just now, but he hoped that the rain would be heavier, but at this time he was going to find the opponent, this limited horizon was obviously more disadvantageous for the side that wanted to take the initiative, God knows what the Germans were doing? Where the hell are you hiding?

And behind him, the trailing merchant fleet had already extinguished any visible lights at this moment and turned to the left flank according to the plan, after all, there was a convoy on the left flank to intercept the enemy, no matter how it was considered. are relatively safe positions, and, judging by a senior officer. The Germans obviously would not have bombarded the offensive merchant ships before destroying the convoy!

"Boom...... Boom Boom Boom ......"

Just when Lieutenant Commander Owen was anxious that he could not find the Germans, at 5:15, the unexpected fire of battle was ignited again from the rear of the flotilla, and when the battleship Martel, which was hurrying to the front, was about to maneuver forward, it accidentally spotted an unknown battleship looming in the heavy rain on the right, and Rear Admiral Raymond immediately ordered the battleship that had already been loaded to attack...... Friend or foe. This is obviously the most practical rule.

As the Martel's 12-inch guns opened heavy fire, the side-chord 140mm rapid-fire guns also fired an armor-piercing shell and several high-explosive shells at the enemy ship at the end of the rain and fog. However, what is surprising is that two consecutive rounds of main gun firing and the bombardment of more than 10 secondary guns of caliber below 140mm were like mud cows entering the sea, and there was no repercussion at all.

But such a fierce counterattack. But the location of the battleship Martel was prematurely revealed. Just as Major General Raymond began to suspect the target in the rain and fog, a series of fierce artillery flames rose into the air in the dark night of the left front......

Lieutenant General Spee stood at the lookout of the HMS Empress with a serious expression, and after destroying the British light cruiser with a quick sword, the original plan of circumambulating the right flank and attacking the battle line was obviously difficult to implement, but the destruction of the enemy was obviously a good thing, which must have frightened the opponent. And it was easy to get out of the stupor, and the battleship Martel began to bombard the maneuvering light patrol formation at a long distance. Obviously, it was the stupid trick he was expecting......

"General, 4 points of fire have been observed...... Distance...... About 12,000 meters! "The officer loudly reported the information of the battleship Martel that was firing, the high-precision ZFIII fire control platform installed on the Empress battle cruise, the theoretical long-range strike capability has completely covered the enemy ship at this moment, of course, the most troublesome thing at this moment is the ranging error caused by heavy rain, and the error rate of the optical rangefinder in this bad environment must be higher than usual.

Moreover, in fact, at this moment, the double-layer rangefinder on the Queen's battle patrol can target the target of the range, which is only the artillery flame of the battleship Martel that is firing fiercely...... However, the situation clearly waits for no one!

After Spee's fleet sank the British light cruiser Brasger, it immediately escaped into the darkness, naturally not wanting its fleet to become the target of the French battleship Martel, the caliber of the opponent's 12-inch main gun, even at a distance of 10,000 meters, still has a huge threat to the Queen-class battle cruiser, after all, the battle cruiser is not a battleship, although the Queen-class battle cruiser adopts the design concept of key protection, but the main armor belt is only 210-250mm carburized armor, which is compared to the battleship with more than 300mm armor, Naturally, the protection capacity cannot be completely matched.

Now, the Martel was the first to reveal its location, which was an unexpected gain, and in the game of ideas considering the hit rate and chance, the fleet situation being plotted in real time on the fire control platform made him immediately make up his mind, "Order, send a signal to the Hans, and cooperate with the flagship to immediately prepare to attack the battleship Martel!" ”

At the same time that Spee's concentrated fire attack on the Martel, a series of new firing parameters had been released to the three 343mm main turrets through the synchronized instrument panel, and as soon as the signal light for the gun position was ready, the firing commander immediately pressed the launch button, firing the first half volley, and three 340-kilogram armor-piercing shells took off into the air, and the skyrocketing flames immediately reflected the sea and sky to the east.

Less than a few seconds later, the battlecruiser Hans followed by fired the first round of single-shot calibration, and Rear Admiral Turrell was obviously more conservative in tactics, the Hans did not use a half-salvo, but a continuous calibration at one-second intervals, and as for the merits of this gunnery, it is also difficult to judge theoretically - everything depends on the outcome of the battle.

The artillery fire piercing the red sky obviously immediately woke up the French on the opposite side, and the battleship Martel immediately stopped its ineffective shelling in the darkness and tried to redirect the four 305mm main guns, and at this moment, the first round and a half salvo shells of the Empress had been overwhelmingly smashed, and at this critical moment, Rear Admiral Raymond found out that something was wrong, when he deflected to attack the first target, the battleship was the most unfavorable way for the bow to attack the enemy at this moment.

"Turn the rudder 30 degrees to the right and prepare to face the enemy on the side side!" The battleship Martel immediately gave up the idea of attacking the first target discovered earlier in the dark, and the two German battleships that were listing themselves as the first targets at this moment were their most terrifying opponents! It is necessary to immediately change the position of the opponent to occupy the top of the key T-position, even if it is occupied for a short period of time, it is a tactical mistake that should never be made.

Rear Admiral Raymond's luck at the beginning was obviously good, the Germans' round of gunnery was really nothing to praise, the most recent one, nearly 700 meters away from the Martel that was sailing in the same direction, but followed by the whistling, the three school projectiles fired continuously from the south-to-left position, but Rear Admiral Raymond was shocked into a cold sweat, three rounds of calibration at an interval of 2 seconds, and the second shell was actually swept diagonally from more than 100 meters away from the front of the battleship, which made him immediately order another deflection of 15 degrees.

The Light Cruiser Metz, who originally followed the battleship Martel, after seeing the flagship being attacked by two large-caliber battleships, obviously realized the huge crisis at the moment, and immediately followed the flagship to turn, and then bombarded the German battleship in the distance with 105mm side guns and twin 150 main guns in the bow, hoping to give the flagship a little support.

At 5:27, the battle between the two sides in the darkness obviously did not show any superb gunnery, under the command of Rear Admiral Raymond, the battleship Martel successfully reversed the disadvantage of being stuck in the T-position, and in an extremely dangerous situation, the bow of the ship made a sharp turn, although the distance between the two sides was less than 10,000 meters in the end, but the 12 main guns of the Queen, Hans battlecruiser fired 4 rounds of calibration and 3 salvos, all of which were valuable results.

Seizing this critical point in time, the light cruiser of the Metz stood out of the darkness, closed the distance, and fired two MKIII torpedoes at the German battleship formation traveling in the same direction, which surprised Vice Admiral Spee, and the French unexpectedly broke into the torpedo firing range, which forced the two battle cruisers to urgently adjust their course, so that at 29 points, the battleship Martel finally fired the first salvo.

As a dreadnought masterpiece of the French Navy, the battleship Martel has good armor and artillery, but it does not have any characteristics in fire control, the fire control system of the French Navy has taken a path of introduction and careful research and development, and the early introduction of the Dreyer fire control that Britain was proud of at that time, and finally the French military insisted that the naval battle distance could not be greatly extended, and adopted a simpler shooting command instrument to replace the Dreyer fire control that is difficult to upgrade......

This erroneous development idea was only corrected before the war, but it was obviously too late, and the three 12-inch main turrets of the battleship Martel were equipped with separate firing commanders, and the difference between the firing commanders and the gun emplacements in the firing command room was not obvious, that is, the accuracy and size were upgraded, but in today's battles, the disadvantages in fire control were immediately refracted to gunnery.

The two sides constantly changed directions, trying to influence the other side's ranging and fire control predictions, and the trouble caused by the dark night was obviously another reason for the poor artillery skills of the two sides, so that the seven half-salvo and school fire attacks of the two sides at a distance of 11,000 to 13,000 meters were all fruitless, and the two sides failed to fire even a single miss.

In the tower of the commander of the battle patrol of the Queen, Spee was very disappointed holding the binoculars, originally planning to solve the plan of the French battleship in a quick battle, but it was shattered in the face of the ruthless reality, the French were obviously very cunning, and when the main gun fire was inferior to their own, they successfully dragged two battle cruisers!

In the distance, several British and French cruisers, which had been searching for German battleships before, had apparently also seen the engagement here, and were quickly turning to prepare to join the warband...... (To be continued......)