The "Fuzhou" had good luck in this battle, and in previous artillery battles, its hit rate was second only to the "Nanjing" in the fleet, and it fired several beautiful salvos, especially against the "war-weary" place." The "Fuzhou" fired three armor-piercing shells and solved the two main gun turrets of the "war weariness". and half of the ground power system, which made a major contribution to the final sinking of the "War Weathiness". When it was attacked by British bombers." The "Fuzhou" also performed very well in the first round of ground confrontation, and of the three battleships that were attacked, only the "Fuzhou" escaped the first round of blows. But the problem is that this kind of good luck cannot always accompany the "Fuzhou", and it cannot last forever.

Although Jiang Wenhan commanded the fighter group to do its best, it was not able to save the "Fuzhou" from danger. At the time of intercepting the British bomber group. More than a dozen "Peregrine Falcons" were shot down by the escort "Spitfire". Similarly, it was precisely because of Jiang Wenhan's group of pilots who bravely intercepted them that almost all of the 10-odd "Mosquito" bombers in the first batch were given a few minutes of valuable combat preparation time by the fighters.

In these few minutes, the captain of the "Fuzhou" has realized the danger. At the same time, the battleship "Nanjing", which was adjacent to the "Fuzhou", also accelerated to catch up. The distance between the "Fuzhou" and the "Fuzhou" was shortened, but because the "Hefei" was attacked at the beginning, it was not able to slow down in time to approach the "Fuzhou". By the time the second group of British bombers arrived, and broke through to the Jiang Wenhan Interception Site." The battleship formation "Fuzhou" was already close to the battleship formation "Nanjing", and two battleships and four cruisers formed the Xindi air defense battle formation.

Similar to the ground establishment of the aircraft carrier task force, the battleship task force also has a basic formation of battle groups. In most cases, battleship task forces do not operate in battle groups, especially when conducting artillery battles, they are grouped according to the type of battleship. However, in defensive operations. Especially in air defense operations, the formation of battle groups is quite useful. Compiled according to the standards of the Imperial Navy. In addition to one battleship, a battleship battle group is paired with two cruisers and three or four destroyers. And when performing air defense combat missions, it is mainly used by cruisers and battleships. Destroyers are scattered around the periphery to carry out perimeter interception missions. Thus, by the time the British bombers reached the 6th Task Force ground, the four battleship battle groups had already completed their formation, and each battleship was escorted by two heavy cruisers. Compared to aircraft carriers, the battleship itself is the best air defense battleship, and its anti-aircraft firepower is definitely the most powerful among all the warships of the Imperial Navy!

Eighteen "mosquito" bombers broke through the fighter-to-ground interception line while Jiang Wenhan and the others went to intercept the previous squadron escorting fighters. Only 2 were shot down while penetrating the ground. The other 16 all went into the inner air defense network of the fleet. These bombers did not slow down before dropping bombs. Instead, it's accelerating. Through the previous battles, the British pilots also found out. If they want to slow down the bomb to increase the hit rate. Then it is easy to be hit by anti-aircraft guns on battleships, and even give air defense fighters the opportunity to intercept them. The British pilots more directly experienced the tremendous pressure of the pilots of the Tang Empire not to fight with their lives. Therefore, during the assault on the "Fuzhou", the British pilots could no longer care about the hit rate of the bombs, they just wanted to successfully drop the bombs, even if the hit rate was reduced, as long as they could drop enough bombs and torpedoes, then they would still be able to hit the battleship!

High-speed penetration of enemy bombers caused great trouble to surface warships. The ground hit rate of anti-aircraft guns was also reduced a lot. The air defense operation was fought from a distance of 5 miles to a distance of about 2 miles from the outermost cruiser, that is, within the ground strike range of small and medium-caliber anti-aircraft guns. Only 5 Mosquito bombers were shot down by large-caliber anti-aircraft guns. But most importantly, the 120-meter and 80-meter caliber VT shells make it difficult for enemy aircraft groups to launch coordinated attacks without bombers. This is precisely the use of VT bombs in defense, and it is easier to deal with bombers scattered into the ground, and it is more difficult for them to hit the battleship when they drop ground bombs.

8:46 a.m. The second group of British bombers attacking the "Fuzhou" dropped bombs.4 The "Mosquito" bombers entered from two directions, and the first to drop ground were aviation armor-piercing bombs. The bomber was all hit by the battleship's anti-aircraft guns after dropping the bomb. On the sea, the "Fuzhou" was making a frantic maneuver to evade it, and the first two bombs to fall fell on the sea behind the battleship, and then two bombs fell on the sea outside the starboard side of the battleship. The "Fuzhou" successfully evaded the attack. This could not be considered luck, the main reason was that the captain's evasion orders were very accurate, and the battleship's anti-aircraft guns forced the British bombers to disperse their attacks, reducing the hit rate.

But it was the two bombs that landed on the starboard side of the battleship that exploded on the ground that brought a new threat. Both bombs exploded beneath the surface of the sea, creating a high column of water. The water column blocked the firing range of two anti-aircraft guns in the middle of the starboard side of the battleship, and at this time, four "mosquito" bombers with aviation torpedoes were approaching from the starboard side of the battleship! It took more than ten seconds for the water column to fall, and those ten seconds were enough for the four bombers to drop torpedoes. As a result, by the time the anti-aircraft gunners again saw the target on the starboard side, the four bombers had already dropped their torpedoes and turned out of the battle without any damage. It's also because the bomb exploded under the surface of the sea. As a result, the battleship's ground lookout was not able to judge in time four aviation torpedoes approaching the ground at high speed under the sea surface!

At 8:48 a.m., a torpedo attack siren sounded on the battleship, and the lookout spotted the approaching battleship's torpedo at the last moment, but it was too late. The torpedo would hit the battleship in ten seconds, and within that time it would not be possible for the "Fuzhou" to make any effective evasive maneuvers, not to mention the battleship's angular velocity, and how many degrees and how far it could run in ten seconds. At that time, the battleship captain needed at least 5 minutes for both the steering room and the engine room to react after giving the command to turn. It then takes several seconds to turn the rudder or increase or decrease the power output of the main engine. That is, before being hit by a torpedo, the "Fuzhou" did not even have time to react!

The first torpedo grazed the stern of the battleship, and it was the only one of the four torpedoes that missed.

The second torpedo hit about a quarter of the ship's length from the stern. This is exactly the ground drive shaft room behind the battleship's engine room, that is, the thruster room on the far right side of the battleship." The ground thrusters of the "New Provincial Capital" class battleships do not need to be operated by people, and the ground space of the cabin is very large. This partially weakened the torpedo ground damage and did not cause casualties. However, it was this torpedo that finally caused the No. 4 thruster of the "Fuzhou" to completely fail, and the battleship could only continue sailing with three propellers.

The third torpedo hit about a third of the length of the ship from the stern and about 25 meters from the second torpedo. This is the engine room of the fourth ship of the battleship, and it is one of the thickest places in the underwater armor belt of the battleship. In addition, there is a special anti-torpedo isolation chamber on the outside of the engine room. Usually, this isolation tank is filled with heavy oil, and at that time, half of the fuel on the ground of the "Fuzhou" had been used. Therefore, most of the isolation tank is used to play the role of ballast. This also happened to have the effect of anti-torpedo, the thunder head blew through the battleship's landlord armor, but most of the explosion energy was absorbed in the anti-torpedo isolation cabin. In the end, only a large hole was opened in the side wall of the engine room, which caused a rapid influx of seawater, and the No. 4 steam turbine had to temporarily stop working. Because the four good thrusters behind him had failed, the captain quickly ordered the No. 4 steam turbine to be shut down, and let all the boiler soldiers go to participate in the damage pipe repair, and quickly plugged the loophole, so that more seawater did not pour into the No. 4 engine room. Thus controlling the ground roll angle of the battleship.

The fourth torpedo hit point was about a third of the way from the bow of the ship, just below the conning tower, behind the ammunition compartment of the B turret. The underwater armor is also the thickest place on the battleship, and there is also an anti-torpedo isolation compartment behind the armor, followed by the battleship's 2nd motor compartment on the ground. The motor compartment is mainly used to supply power to the battleship's ground radar, radio and other electronic equipment. The torpedo blew through the main armor and opened a crack in the bulkhead of the motor room about one meter long and about 10 centimeters wide. The sea water flooded the motor compartment within five minutes, and the officers and men inside escaped in time, and at the same time closed the watertight door to prevent the sea water from pouring into the adjacent ground compartment. This loss is not large, there are two main power compartments on the "new provincial capital" class, as well as a backup power compartment. Just make sure that there is a main power bay and a backup power bay generator that continues to work, then you can provide enough power to the ship. Therefore. After the loss of one of the main power compartments, the repair work of the "Fuzhou" on-board ground damage management was not affected.

After being torpedoed, the "Fuzhou" lost a quarter of its ground power, and its speed suddenly dropped from 31 knots to 26 knots. Moreover, in order to control the course of the battleship, it was necessary to reduce the rotation speed of the No. 1 spiral, and at the same time set the right rudder of the battleship at a fixed ground angle. In the end, the "Fuzhou" was only able to sail at a speed of 22 knots. The angular velocity of its steering to the left is also reduced by more than half, and its agility is greatly affected.

That's when the disaster began. The third squadron of Mosquito bombers also successfully broke through the fighter-ground interception. At about 8:53 a.m., the battleship "Fuzhou" approached. At this time." The speed of the "Fuzhou" has been reduced to about 24, and the captain is trying to control the course of the battleship, so its speed is still decreasing. Because of this, the "Nanjing" in the rear caught up in these few minutes, and the distance between the two battleships was shortened from about 5 li to only 3 li, and the "Nanjing" could already provide cover for the "Fuzhou" with large-caliber anti-aircraft guns. Other than that. The two cruisers responsible for covering the "Nanjing" were also able to help the "Fuzhou".

At 8:54, the speed did not work. It was also necessary to continue to reduce the speed, and the captain of the "Fuzhou" ordered the release of the smoke screen. Then the two cruisers in the escort area also began to release smoke screens, hoping to cover the battleships with smoke screens and avoid enemy bombardment. But at that time, the wind force reached 4 at sea, and the speed of the "Fuzhou" was 20 knots. The smoke that had just been released was quickly blown away, and it didn't provide much cover at all. What's even worse is that it was the "Fuzhou" that began to release a smoke screen, which made the British bomber pilots judge that the battleship was about to die, and they refused to let it go easily, and as a result, they even brought the fourth "mosquito" bomber squadron over.

The third squadron attacked with Mosquito bombers without success. When approaching the "Fuzhou", it was attacked by two battleships. The four heavy cruisers were hit by anti-aircraft shells with heavy anti-aircraft fire, and at least 12 bombers were hit by anti-aircraft shells before they could drop their bombs, and they were able to successfully enter the bombing channel and drop their bombs, and then escaped. In the end, only 2 bombers dropped bombs over the "Fuzhou". However, because the bombs were dropped too far, the two bombs deviated from the target and landed on the sea several hundred meters away from the "Fuzhou."

The fourth squadron of Mosquito bombers entered the ground almost at the same time. At that time, the anti-aircraft guns on the six battleships were all dealing with the bombers in front, and these 18 bombers were all in, as if they were carrying torpedoes instead of bombs, which did not attract the attention of the anti-aircraft gunners on the battleship. It was not discovered until the six bombers in the lead were less than 1 nautical mile away from the "Fuzhou", but at this time the anti-aircraft gunners had to divert the target, and there was not enough time.

These six bombers approached until they were less than 500 places away from the "Fuzhou" before dropping their bombs. And then almost flew over the battleship's mast. This distance is already within the shortest torpedo throw distance. And 6 bombers dropped not torpedoes, but bombs.6 1000 bombs first fell on the sea, and then bounced up like a splash, and after bouncing off the sea three times, 3 of them hit the "Fuzhou" above the starboard waterline. This is the "ricochet attack", in the Pacific theater . Medium bombers on both sides of the war had attacked the battleship in a similar way, and this time it was the turn of the RAF ground bombers to use this method against the battleship "Fuzhou".

The three bombs hit the "Fuzhou" almost simultaneously, and the battleship was immediately enveloped in gunsmoke. At this time, the medical officer had just bandaged Gu Zhenyun's wounds, and when he looked towards the "Fuzhou", his heart was also cold, could this battleship still hold on? Sea Soul Volume 22 Victory Route Section 73 There is no escape