The artillery shells whistling by both sides swept across the sky, and the smoke of gunpowder had just dissipated, and Brigadier General Stehl, who was holding the telescope tightly, finally saw the good phenomenon he was expecting, and he immediately shouted a new order to the microphone, "Keep course, speed!" ”

The shooting officers of the battleship Mississippi chose to calibrate the sequential firing of the main guns on one side of the standard, and the prediction of impact and deviation at such a long distance was a difficult challenge for technical officers, requiring high-quality observation and empirical judgment, and it was impossible to master without long-term training, let alone in the tense atmosphere of wartime!

This time, it seems that the god of luck has come, and Major Fez, who served as a shooting officer, was pleasantly surprised to find that the first round of unilateral main gun calibrations made by himself based on experience, in which the shells of the B gun position fell less than 400 meters away from the target, and then pulled closer by more than 100 meters, with the coverage of the Mississippi's barrage, it can almost be identified as a near miss, which is definitely the best result in his naval career. Pen ~ fun ~ pavilion www.biquge.info

"Load immediately, reset the ...... near the calibration"

"Measuring the Rate of Change of Distance......"

"Perform the next round of wind deflection parameter reset!"

"30 seconds countdown! Half salvo on the left! ”

A series of orders were given quickly, and almost at the same time, the Ryukyu fired a half-salvo that was already whistling, and the shells swept across the sea to the right in front of the battleship Mississippi, smashing out a triangular coverage area that deviated significantly by more than 500 meters, which made Commodore Stehl also breathe a sigh of relief.

The Mississippi, with a main gun projectile weighing 380 kilograms, has ballistic stability at long distances that is obviously better than a small tube weighing only 130 kilograms, and the U.S. Navy also carried out a series of modernizations before the war, and the battleship Mississippi upgraded the Dreyer MKII integrated fire control, although due to the lack of precision instrument manufacturing, the American factory did not have the ability to independently improve and design fire control, but this did not affect the introduction of a complete set of assembly from the United Kingdom.

According to the caliber of the main gun of the USS Mississippi, it has been fully able to achieve long-distance combat at a distance of 18,000 meters, of course, the USS Mississippi is obviously not a full-weight dreadnought, and the barrage coverage of the 3 turrets cannot be compared with the 5 main turrets, and the hit rate is naturally much worse, but in the previous training of the US Navy, it has also been convinced that it is enough to participate in the long-distance battle line bombardment of the Grand Fleet.

Judging from the current combat situation, after continuous warm-ups, the battleship Mississippi is obviously in good shape, and although the Chinese cruiser on the opposite side has many gun barrels, Commodore Stehr completely understands the weakness of the other side, and the gun barrels of more than 200 mm cannot cause fatal injuries to the Mississippi at all, but a hit of the Mississippi may paralyze the opponent.

The only thing that now puzzles the American general is...... What the hell do the Chinese want to do!

Just when Brigadier General Stehl was considering these puzzling questions on the battlefield, the Ryukyu took the lead in the second round of half a salvo just 20 seconds after the first round and a half salvo, relatively speaking, the larger the caliber of the main gun, the slower the loading, but in fact, in the early stage of the calibration, the test is more of the ability of the artillery crew to quickly calibrate, even if a good shooting officer conducts a half salvo, will consider different shooting parameters, rather than uniform parameters.

At this moment, on the Mississippi, the red light of the Dreyer fire control platform has just flashed for less than 5 seconds, that is to say, from the last round of calibration fired by both sides almost at the same time, the Mississippi needs at least 45 seconds to recalibrate the firing parameters and wait for the battleship to roll horizontally for firing, which is the time to fully propose the loading of the guns of both sides, after all, after half a salvo, the other half of the turret is still loaded with shells......

Brigadier General Stehl couldn't help but be quite surprised by this comparison, even if the opponent's artillery was discharged at the same speed as his own, after excluding the nearly 18 seconds required for the shells to fly 15,000 meters after the first round of firing, it took Chinese less than 15 seconds to complete the recalibration and carry out the second round of half salvo...... Even the American destroyers, which also use small tubes, have never seen such efficient gunnony!

Of course, he had no time to consider this difference in gunnery now, because right in front of him, one of the half-salvos from the USS Ryukyu whizzed directly past the stern of the USS Mississippi at high speed, and then smashed a towering wave on the surface of the sea less than 300 meters away, while the other two shells landed on the right side of the USS Mississippi.

This sudden situation almost made the American officer of the commander of the battleship USS Mississippi jump, and at 15,000 meters, the opponent's two and a half salvos fired a terrifying straddle shot...... If there was a Chinese battleship of the same class as the battleship USS Mississippi on the opposite side, Commodore Stehr might have immediately ordered a full speed turn to evade, after all, in naval gunnery drills, a target straddle fire is almost equal to a direct hit.

"General, are you going to maneuver to evade!" The staff officer on the side had already rushed over to report with a nervous expression.

Commodore Stell stared at the Chinese cruiser spewing black smoke in the distance, giving him not much time to think about it, and almost without guessing, he could be sure that the triple turret installed on this Chinese cruiser must be equipped with a high-performance Chinese large-caliber rapid-fire gun, and the Mississippi's second-stage main gun is also 203mm, which is absolutely impossible to hit more than 13,000 meters with high efficiency.

But there were still almost no doubts, he immediately rejected the staff officer's suggestion, as a senior officer from the West Point Military Academy, he fully agreed with the law of war exchange, there is no victory without risk, the superb artillery skills displayed by the Chinese on the opposite side are more worthy of his risk for victory, although the battleship Mississippi may be hit, but the Mississippi is a battleship!

"Keep course and finish the school shot!" Brigadier General Stell insisted on his judgment without hesitation, looked at the warning lights of the fire control platform that were flashing one after another, and after waiting for two seconds, he gave a new order again, "Order the second main gun to shoot too!" ”

"General, the fire control platform cannot complete the ......guidance of two caliber main guns at the same time," the shooting officer was obviously a little surprised by this order, and immediately raised doubts.

"Free Fire!" Brigadier General Stehl interrupted his subordinates' questions, and expressed his opinion without hesitation, the tonnage far exceeds that of the opponent naturally means more armament, in addition to the two twin 203mm secondary main turrets, the Mississippi also has 8 180mm side-chord guns, but the caliber of the side guns is not small, but the barrel is much shorter, and it cannot support the artillery battle at 12000 meters away, and the secondary main gun participates in the current artillery battle, although it is somewhat reluctant, but considering the possibility that a hit may also make the opponent fatal, He didn't hesitate to bet on it.

The second round of calibration fire from the USS Mississippi and the third half-round of the USS Ryukyu again at the sound of the officer's loud tactical orders, and the main turret sticking out from the side of the side erupted in a burst of exhilarating cannon flames, and the commanders of both sides almost held their breath as they stared at the slowly moving target in the distance.

Just a dozen seconds later, the observing officer gave Brigadier General Stehl the disappointing news, the first round almost missed the bullet, but the second round of three shells, the closest to the target, also deviated by more than 600 meters......

"What's going on?" Brigadier General Stehl turned his head and shouted loudly, he also served as an artillery officer, so he naturally understood artillery skills...... In particular, the deviation in long-range artillery strikes can not be explained by one or two reasons, but he still can't help but ask the artillery officer.

Major Fez's expression was a little panicked, the result of such a school shot was obviously too alarming from the level he showed in the first round just now, but he obviously couldn't confirm the reason immediately, he just ordered a new loading task in a row, and after waiting for a few seconds, the observing officer finally discovered the problem......

"General, Chinese is maneuvering in a lateral Z-shape...... Predict the maneuver lateral distance of more than 700 meters...... Now the distance is 14,500 meters, and it continues to close! ”

This news immediately made Major Fez start to go crazy, with range, speed measurement, wind deviation, course, distance change rate and other parameters to achieve long-range artillery Dreyer fire control, the important factor to achieve long-distance hit targets, lies in the precision of the fire control system and timely measurement data conversion, when the two sides are in a relatively stable position, and optical ranging can be easily realized, Dreyer fire control can show a good artillery hit.

But on the contrary, once the sea conditions are bad, or the target is turning and changing speed anytime and anywhere, Major Feth knows much better than most people on the battleship whether Dreyer Fire Control can control the gunnery...... Having lost accurate mapping data, Dreyer Fire Control has its own control of the firing parameters at the time of shelling, which can almost only be achieved by himself with experience!

In the rumble of the second main cannon that was firing freely, he jumped up and rushed to the observation position, and gave a loud order to the two survey officers who were sweating profusely at the moment, biting their ears and giving a loud order, and the two officers were at a loss when they heard it, as if they had received an incredible task, and at the same time, Major Fez gave the order for the third round of school shooting.

Almost at the same time, on the Ryukyu, Lin Yongsheng issued an order to continue to maneuver at full speed to ensure that he seized the T-top firing position, but in fact, Colonel Fez's judgment that the Ryukyus entered the Z-shaped maneuver did not conform to the status quo, and the Ryukyu was indeed constantly changing distances, but it was not a mechanical Z-maneuver at all, but to use the speed advantage to seize the advantageous firing position and avoid encountering the full fire coverage of the Mississippi......

The huge advantage of the Tenglong integrated fire control design concept has played an amazing effect at this time, although the position, distance, and even wind deviation data of the two sides have changed, but, in less than 1 minute, the Ryukyu once again fired three and a half volleys, although the tube of the triple main turret is a little small, but the advantage in the rate of fire and loading is incomparable.

When the Mississippi fired a round of passable calibration results in the third round and a half salvo, the Ryukyu had already fired the first round of nine main guns after continuous calibration, and at this time, the distance between the two sides was again reduced to 14,000 meters, and the whistling shells swept past the right front of the Mississippi and densely landed in the waters less than 300 meters of the US ship.

Without waiting for the Mississippi to shoot the fourth round of school firing, the Ryukyu directly responded to two more rounds of salvos, and finally achieved results in the third salvo, two 130 kg cap-piercing shells hit the Mississippi's conning tower and foredeck at a large elevation angle of nearly 70 degrees, facing the 9-inch carburized armor on the top of the conning tower, the armor-piercing shells fired from the 210mm gun barrels, after flying 14,000 meters, the kinetic energy disappeared greatly, only blasting less than 1 inch crater on the surface of the armor......

Another armor-piercing projectile hit the deck 10 meters in front of turret A at a large elevation angle, and the 65mm double-layer horizontal armor belt was easily penetrated, and the armor-piercing shell exploded violently, immediately tossing a cloud of flames several meters high and a deep crater more than a meter wide in the bow of the USS Mississippi! Then, several people came over and poured the fire indiscriminately, and after a few moments, the fire gushing out of the second-floor isolation chamber was extinguished.

At this time, Brigadier General Stell received another piece of news that worried him a little...... A Chinese plane had just skimmed the clouds overhead, just in time to be observed by the lookout. (To be continued.) )