The fierce battle between the Second Squadron under the jurisdiction of Tang Zhen and the Royal Navy's Fast Fleet in the waters south of Guam, judging from the tactical arrangement of the two sides at the beginning, was completely a tentative operation initiated by the Chinese Navy, but Lord Dieters was obviously not willing to let this Chinese fleet move around, taking advantage of the superiority of his own high-speed battleships, he obviously felt that he must teach the Chinese a full lesson!

But after the two sides were entangled and fiercely fought, Lord Dieters soon realized that the direction of the battle had completely deviated from his initial prediction, and an expected siege battle quickly evolved into a chase between the two sides on the vast sea, and after nearly five hours of mutual fire, it was not the Royal Navy, which had the advantage in numbers, that opened the situation first......

The two sides continued to shoot at each other, although the Royal Navy had an absolute advantage in the number of warships, but it was unable to turn the advantage in the number of warships into a decisive result, and the only hits and several close misses on both sides did not form a real result, which made Lord Dieters make a new decision!

However, the change in the situation on the battlefield clearly exceeded the expectations of the British...... The Shanxi battleship fired two rounds of rapid fire at 12:18, the first round of salvo projectiles was widely distributed, and did not pose any direct threat to the battle cruiser Jianqiang who was in the range of the opponent's target, but then, less than 55 seconds later, the second round of joint salvo fire from the Guangzhou and Shanxi directly covered the battlecruiser Jianqiang in high-speed advancement like a divine help.

The steel storm set off by 20 13-inch and 13.5-inch main guns immediately broke out with amazing lethality, and Tang Zhen, who was standing in the command tower of the Guangzhou, was pleasantly surprised to see a huge black cloud rising in the middle of the Jianqiang battle cruiser in the distance, slightly behind the position, and almost at the same time, the shooting officer reported the shooting judgment of the enemy's straddle fire, which means that in addition to the shell that directly hit the Jianqiang battle cruiser, it is likely that there will be a near-miss result!

At the same time, Lord Dieters, who was looking down at the telegram on the battleship George V, also heard the exclamation of the fleet staff officer, at this moment, from the location of the George V, because it was separated by the three capital ships of the Second Fleet under the jurisdiction of Tang Town, it was not as easy to observe the battle patrol formation further away as Tang Town, but it was still easy to determine that the battle patrol was shot by the Fortitude.

This news also made Lord Dieters even more surprised by the tenacity of his opponent...... This was completely beyond the scope of consideration as the commander of the Royal Navy fleet, and in an instant, Lord Dieters seemed to be more determined in his previous judgment, and he must seize this opportunity to severely damage the Chinese!

"Report the loss of the Fortitude Patrol immediately!" Lord Dieters slapped the telegram in his hand on the chart table while pointing to another series of large red cross signs, "Give the order to Major General Austin to attack immediately!" ”

"General, are you sending all the destroyers?" The staff officer on the side handed the drafted telegram to the officer, but did not forget to remind Lord Dieters.

Lord Dieters didn't respond immediately, but looked at the charts, and after thinking for a moment, "Except for the 2 F-class destroyers, the 1st Destroyer Fleet is following Rear Admiral Austin to participate in the attack!" ”

The tense atmosphere The ticking of the octagonal clock in the Commander Tower seemed to be clearer in the rumbling cannon, and after just one minute, Major General Austin's reply had been delivered to Lord Dieters...... Chinese is desperately entangled here, but in the end it still shows flaws...... Thinking of this, the veteran of the Royal Navy smiled slightly.

But the good mood lasted less than half a minute, and in the distance, at the end of the black clouds that the Chinese battleships were constantly ejecting, a series of violent explosions suddenly sounded...... It's not the rumbling sound of a salvo!

The continuous sound of explosions also greatly surprised Tang Zhen, who was staring at the battle patrol of the Strong, a few minutes ago, the accurate joint salvo of the Guangzhou, the shooting officers of the Guangzhou and Shanxi played a round of superb cooperation, from the C gun position of the Guangzhou, the armor-piercing projectile hit the middle and rear position of the opponent's hull, and the lookout post observed the black cloud rising from the bullet point, judging that the shell must have penetrated the protective armor.

It is a pity that the Fortitude Patrol did not show any collapse immediately after being shot, and it turned and broke away at the first time, which led to the subsequent round of salvos that did not work, but the results came so suddenly, just when he thought that the British had escaped, a series of black clouds suddenly erupted again from the rear side of the Strongman Patrol, which was maneuvering at high speed.

Martyrdom without suspense...... Tang Zhen also had to admire his luck at this moment, even the battleship Guangzhou, which had strong armor and as many as 500 watertight isolation compartments, the explosion caused from the inside of the hull was a deadly threat...... The Fortitude Ranger, as a representative of the Royal Navy's second-generation battle cruisers, is strong in terms of speed, not armor.

"Prepare to turn, pursue the Strong, and take the opportunity to sink it!" Tang Zhen almost jumped up and gave a new order, after closing the distance, the Guangzhou, which has almost the strongest armor and firepower in this era, is enough to completely blow up the opponent, and the worst result is to fight to eat a shot, and then give the opponent a fatal blow, provided that it catches up!

Previously, for the two British battle cruisers, they had to face the loss of the speed advantage of the Chinese battleships, which directly led to the struggle between the two sides, the capital ships of the second squadron under the jurisdiction of Tang Zhen could not effectively implement tactics, but the British continued to use the speed advantage of the battle cruiser to seize the T-shaped top, and they had to deal with this dilemma and continue to maneuver, which also directly gave the four British dreadnoughts chasing behind more opportunities, so when the strong appeared weak, desperately suffered some damage, Tang Zhen also had to break this deadlock... …

For the commander of the Fortitude Battle Cruiser, Major General Mikay, today is definitely a bad luck day, the Fortitude Battle Patrol did not have the first ship of the two British Battle Cruisers on the right flank, but followed the Invincible Battle Patrol in front of the battlefield maneuver, which means that it was hit by the opponent's salvo before, and it is very likely that the opponent's earlier salvo target was the Invincible in front, and he just followed the maneuver route into the opponent's artillery coverage area!

The problem is that this heavy 420-kilogram armor-piercing projectile hits the horizontal armor belt at the back of the middle, although the strong also uses the technology of nickel-chrome carburized steel armor from the Far East, but the thin 51mm horizontal armor belt is impossible to resist the bombardment of the 13-inch main gun.

After easily penetrating the horizontal armor belt, after smashing through several 6-inch waterproof compartments, the armor-piercing shell changed direction, turned to the rear and tore a 102mm rapid-fire gun magazine on the lower layer, but did not explode in the magazine, but continued to smash into the bottom compartment of the battleship along the bomb supply pod, and exploded randomly.

The initial explosion only damaged several watertight cabins on the right side of the rear bilge of the Strong, and caused a fire, the fire spread very quickly, but it was not fatal, but when the damage tube arrived, it was unfortunate to find that the fire accidentally caused the explosion of a group of propellant packets near the bilge that were ready to be hoisted through the pod, and almost all the damage management team members who rushed to it were scorched!

By the time the second wave of damage pipes rushed to help, the raging fire had already burned from the bilge along the armor-piercing bomb supply pod to the rapid-fire gun magazine in the middle level, causing an even more astonishing series of explosions!

By the time Rear Admiral Mikay, the commander of the battleship, realized that the problem was out of control, the fire from the bilge was spreading to the main ammunition compartment under the two 305mm guns in the rear...... The side effects of the detonation also showed up quickly within minutes.

The Fortitude Patrol fully considered the protection of bilge power, so of the four boiler compartments owned by the battleship, 3 were located in the bilge position below the main gun emplacement of the battleship B, and the other one was located in the bilge position below the C gun embossment.

Fortunately, the outer armor of the boiler compartment was quite strong, and the fire only caused the boiler to stop, not to explode......

The bad situation of the damage management made Rear Admiral Mikay crazy, but the lookout post reported to him that the news that the Chinese fleet had caught up, but he almost collapsed directly, and the speed of the battleship had quickly decreased from 26 knots to less than 21 knots, and the loss of speed was absolutely fatal for a battle cruiser with only 8-10 inches of main armor, especially in the face of the most powerful Chinese battleships of this era.

"Report, the Lord told us to get out of here and move closer to them!" The anxious Rear Admiral Mikay waited for the life-saving straw and followed the activities of the Grand Fleet, which was obviously the best choice at this time!

At this moment, the three Chinese battleships that were rapidly approaching opened fire suddenly, immediately enveloping the Stronghold battle patrol that was struggling to turn in artillery fire. (To be continued.) )