The fatal deceleration of the battleship Kentucky originated from the armor-piercing shell that penetrated the deck from the Scharnhorst Heavy Cruise, and the Chishach-class battleships have adopted a large number of closed isolation cabin designs, but after all, this is the earliest design of the United States before the dreadnought, so the isolation cabin designed at the beginning is far from the pattern of today's dreadnoughts, and the water leakage caused by the explosion of the bilge quickly poured into the middle two compartments of the battleship.

The huge impact force of the explosion destroyed the closed layer between the adjacent compartments, causing the bilge to be filled with a large amount of seawater in more than ten minutes, but this fatal problem was not discovered by the damage management team at the first time, and the influx of seawater extinguished the flame of the explosion in the bilge, but the smoke in the closed compartment was not until the seawater poured into the boiler area on the other side, and Rear Admiral Fitt received the report of damage to this critical battleship.

The direct problem caused by this is that the displacement of 12,000 tons of the former dreadnought suddenly increased nearly 1,000 tons of ballast, although the damage pipe has been repaired with all its might, but in a short period of time it is simply impossible to achieve the effect of reducing the water accumulation...... Rear Admiral Fit eventually made the risky decision to reduce the speed of the ship by two more knots at the loss of one knot, in order to ensure a speedy solution to this big problem...... He also counted on the battleship to continue the return journey of almost 200 kilometers below!

However, this long-term consideration obviously could not solve the big trouble ahead, and the queen-level battle patrol who got the opportunity played another round of rapid three volleys at 12:31 after closing the distance to 12,000 meters after making a single continuous shot with an interval of only 5 seconds. Fully grasp the location advantage and the Spee's fleet has been fighting in a high-pressure environment for nearly three months. Finally ushered in the result that made Old Man Spee happy......

First round salvo. The firing officer was pleasantly surprised to observe a straddle shot at the bow of the USS Kentucky and a near-miss, but unfortunately, the straddle shot flew over the empty foredeck and smashed into the water on the back, and the close-miss shot drilled diagonally into the water, which did not play a role...... But then in the second salvo, the six finally hit a beautiful coverage, and a huge black cloud suddenly rose from the middle back of the battleship Kentucky.

"Hit the bridge of the enemy ship! Start a fire! The lookout officer immediately reported aloud excitedly, and a red fire on the enemy ship in the distance was clearly visible in the black smoke of the sky. This immediately made the bridge of the Empress battle cruiser highly excited, and the two rounds of rapid firing hit the coverage point perfectly, and during this period, although the Yankee's main gun counterattacked once, the shells did not know where to hit......

Obviously, the own side has fully grasped the initiative, and the firing officer immediately gave the order to launch at full speed, "Maintain the speed of the voyage and fire 7 rounds of rapid fire!" ”

"Deflection of enemy ships...... Angle 45 degrees!" The officer in the observation position loudly reported the sudden movement, which immediately triggered another observation and observation operation in the command tower.

"The speed of enemy ships is decreasing...... Hit points observed. The fire is expanding! ”

The continuous reports completely stimulated the combat power of the Queen's battle patrol. Old man Spee stood straight in front of the narrow observation window, the prey in the distance had already shown its last fatigue, and the next question was only how to annihilate the opponent, and there was no suspense about the battle, but for the fleet commander, today's raid was obviously only the first stop of the US West Coast tour.

A few hours later, the entire West Coast of the United States will be looking at its coastline in panic, fearing that its fleet will launch a deadly bombardment from the unprotected sea, but the only thing that can stop them will be the supply of fuel and shells for the next 15 days! Fuel is not a big problem, according to the neutral country agreement, you can go to China or South American neutral countries at any time to burn coal, and even intercept coal ships or merchant ships of belligerent countries.

But ammunition is indeed a big problem, and the support given by the Chinese is obviously only an occasional act, so striking an important target obviously must be carefully selected, and he immediately turned around and walked into his lounge -

In the middle of the night on November 12, 1910, the news of the appearance of the Spee fleet on the West Coast of the United States has spread all over the world, the flagship of the West Coast Defense Fleet stationed at the San Diego Military Port Kentucky was found stranded in the reef area on the north side of Catalina Island, the battleship with 14-inch protective armor was bombarded by at least 10 large-caliber heavy guns before it ran aground, but it was not the Queen Patrol that was the first to enter the battle that gave the Kentucky battleship a fatal blow, but the Hans Patrol that followed the pursuit.

The main gun of the Kentucky was pointed at the battle patrol of the Queen, so that the commander Rear Admiral Turrell had no pressure, and only fired 7 rounds of salvos, and directly hit 2, including a 405 kg armor-piercing projectile, which directly penetrated the 250mm armor belt at the tail of the battleship Kentucky, and caused a mechanical failure of the twin-shaft propeller at the rear of the battleship Kentucky.

Of the 30 officers and more than 300 soldiers, including Rear Admiral Fit, only the Preston escaped with serious damage and the remaining three were sunk in the waters north of Catarina Island......

After learning the news, the commander of the US Pacific Fleet, who was operating in the South Pacific and around Australia, Edward Edward? Vice Admiral Abor immediately sent a telegram to the whole fleet, ordering Commodore Lucius of the First Fleet to immediately abandon the search around Australia and rush to the west coast of the homeland at full speed, while he himself led the Second Fleet, which was searching for the enemy in the South Pacific, to sail along the coast of the Americas to Santiago at full speed.

On the 13th, the Royal Navy's Second Indian Ocean Squadron under the command of Lord Dieters was also ordered to sail to the west coast of the United States 9,000 kilometers away with the American fleet......

To the surprise of the United States and Britain, the Chinese Navy also announced on the 13th that it would carry out maritime search and rescue exercises with the Colombian Navy and the Chilean Navy in Panama to deal with possible maritime accidents in the Pacific region...... However, the scale of the exercise is not too impressive. The main force of the fleet is only composed of one Chang'an-class battleship and one Tiankui battle cruiser. In addition, it includes 2 supply ships and 8 destroyers.

On that day the United States was returning to the Pacific Fleet on the west coast of its homeland. Obviously, far beyond the naval strength of the countries in the South Pacific at this moment, the two detachments under the command of Vice Admiral Abor have gathered 2 Delaware-class dreadnoughts, 2 South Carolina-class dreadnoughts, and 7 Virginia-class and New Jersey-class dreadnoughts.

However, Admiral Tang Qingshan, who organized the South Pacific naval exercise that day, still announced in a very high-profile manner that China will ensure the stability of the entire Asia-Pacific region and will never allow any maritime military confrontation between countries to affect the stable trade between countries!

Naturally, Washington has no interest in official Chinese diplomatic and military performances in South America. Now that the biggest problem of the United States is rapidly fermenting on the West Coast, following the destruction of the West Coast garrison fleet, the old man Speey has obviously fully understood the weakness of the United States at the moment, and the huge Spee fleet has been split into three independent detachments, each commanding a capital ship and one or two light cruisers, which are commanded by Spee, Melkel, and Turrell respectively.

From November 13 to 15, in just three days, all the gunboats and torpedo boats of the U.S. Continental Fleet and Coast Guard were no longer visible on the entire West Coast, nearly 400 kilometers from San Diego to Santa Barbara. More than 20 military ships and nearly 50 American merchant ships were sunk.

The news quickly detonated the domestic media, which put pressure on President Taft and Secretary of War Stimson. On the 16th, when the Grand Fleet, thousands of miles away, was unable to rush to its aid, Vice Admiral Albert, under pressure from the White House, ordered the remaining 10 gunboats, old large torpedo boats, and light destroyers in the San Diego military port to counterattack.

Under the strict orders of Vice Admiral Albert, these American warships sneaked out of the military port in the early morning of the 16th and tried to attack the German light cruisers blocking the harbor, but the result was weak protection and outdated torpedoes, and more importantly, the garrison of the San Diego military port did not have any actual combat experience at all, and the result turned out that the attack was a complete farce.

Although the German detachment blockaded the San Diego military port during the day, in fact, after nightfall, it was also worried about a torpedo attack, so it had already withdrawn, and after these American destroyers and torpedo boats attacked, the officers and soldiers who had no experience in night battles did not know how to look for the Germans at all, and if they found the Germans, it would not be a good thing for them, so these gunboats that attacked that day hurriedly left the port and hurriedly returned, only to have an unexpected oolong on the way back.

Both detachments mistook each other for the German fleet in the dark of night, exchanged heavy fire and exchanged torpedoes, until they both fled back to port, only to find that two ships were missing...... When the German light patrol came to cruise the next day, they accidentally picked up dozens of American sailor prisoners at sea, and then the farce of the previous night was revealed.

However, these were obviously only small episodes in the plan of the old man Spee, and the light cruisers of the Emden and Leipzig then acted as patrols on the west coast of the United States, and from the 16th, Carlsbat, Long Beach, Santa Monica, and Santa Barbara on the west coast were bombarded by German naval shells, and the port facilities were seriously damaged, but more seriously, the panic of the people.

But the real devastating destruction suddenly struck on the 19th......

San Francisco Bay, 600 kilometers away from Santa Barbara, is the premier heavy industry base on the West Coast of the United States, as the only United Steel shipyard on the West Coast that can carry the construction and maintenance of battleships, suddenly encountered a heavy shelling of German warships that broke into the bay, including two Queen-class battle cruisers, two Scharnhorst-class heavy cruisers All the heavy guns, in just 20 minutes, 150 13.5-inch artillery shells and more than 60 high-explosive shells of various types of 210mm or less were poured into the 15-hectare West Coast heavy factory.

The light patrol of the Bremen, which was following the main fleet, easily completed the indiscriminate bombardment of the visible targets in the harbor, and to the slight surprise of the old man Spee, in the entire San Francisco Bay, there was no organized counterattack at all, and he could not even see the military activities that obviously belonged to the US military. (To be continued......)