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Chapter 1634 One-sided naval battle

Led by four 8,000-ton cruisers converted from merchant ships, the "Khao Yai," the "Corboren," the "Ayutthaya," and the "Thong Yai," the Siam Navy was supplemented by eight old destroyers, six frigates, four coastal defense ships, and four torpedo boats, plus a number of gunboats and supply ships, and swooped down on Qiangdao (present-day Gechang Island) and swooped down on the waters of South China. Pen ~ fun ~ pavilion www.biquge.info

The Siamese fleet was tasked with searching for and destroying all South China warships from Kampong Son Bay to the mouth of the Mekong River, bombarding the South China naval base near the coast with naval guns, as well as army stations and positions.

In the 15,000-meter sky, a high-altitude radar airship, which is almost integrated with the blue sky and white clouds, silently monitors the Siam Navy's every move.

In the waters of Kood Island to the south, a large fleet is heading north.

This fleet included three battleships, the "Victory" (formerly the "Kerber" dreadnought), the "Nanhai" (the former "Ocean" dreadnought) and the "North Sea" (the former "Paris" dreadnought), the "Honor" (formerly "Dunkirk") and "Glorious" (formerly "Strasbourg") battle cruisers, eight cruisers including "Weiqing", "Li Guang", and "Huo Quai", and 16 destroyers, including the Red River (formerly the "Mogador"-class "Volta") super destroyer. This was the first attack of the South China Navy, and in order to destroy the combat strength of the Siam Navy in one fell swoop, the Supreme Command adopted the method of goshawk fighting rabbits with all its might, and the naval commander Cheng Guang personally commanded the battle.

In the southern sky, six squadrons of bombers, under the cover of six fighter squadrons, flew over the Cardamom Mountains and headed for the sea where the Siam Navy was located.

At two o'clock in the afternoon, a water reconnaissance plane ejected from the coastal defense ship "Ayuthaya" in Siam discovered a huge warship formation in Nanhua.

Looking at the sea of the Gulf of Siam, which stretches for more than 20 nautical miles, large-tonnage warships abound, at least five warships have a displacement of more than 20,000 tons and a caliber of more than 300 millimeters of main guns, and there are more than 10 warships with a displacement of between 8,000 tons and 5,000 tons, and the caliber of their main guns is more than 200 millimeters.

But soon, the red military flag fluttering high made the pilot understand that this was clearly the fleet of the South China Navy that the navy needed to deal with when it went south, and the opponent did not evade it, and actually took the initiative to find the door.

Calm down a little, the pilot couldn't help but shudder! Let a fleet that is at least half the tonnage behind its opponent attack the main fleet with five battleships and a large number of cruisers?

Crazy, really crazy!

The pilots in charge of the reconnaissance could hardly imagine the disastrous consequences of the Siamese Navy crashing head-on into this huge fleet.

In order to save time, the pilot of the reconnaissance plane did not even dare to fly back to the fleet, and the frigate's slow crane lifted the plane from the sea and reported it to the top layer by layer, but chose to fly directly to the Siam Navy's military port on Qiang Island.

When the officer on duty at the base heard the pilot's personal report, his face changed drastically, and he repeatedly asked to verify the news, and immediately reported this astonishing information to the Admiralty through the airwaves.

The South China Navy with five battleships and several cruisers? How is this possible? Secretary of the Navy Tanlong. Marshal Navasavat was suspicious, and at the same time ordered the southbound naval fleet to immediately deploy in the waters south of Qiangdao to seize the top of the T-shape, and at the same time asked for help from the air force.

After several years of development, the Siam Air Force has now possessed 48 Mitsubishi 97 bombers, 96 Nakajima 97 fighters, 12 Hayabusa fighters, 68 Martin B-10 bombers, 108 "Curtis" Hawker III destroyers, and 140 old "Chances. Vought "V-93 destroyer.

It is precisely because of the huge number of warplanes that the Siamese government feels that it will not lose too much to South China in air supremacy, so it dares to start a war brazenly.

Loud sirens rang out from Siam's air bases in Qiangdo, Rayong, Sattahip, and Bangkok. The Siamese fleet took off one after another and flew towards the sea south of Qiang Island.

At a quarter past two o'clock, the appearance of an S3 reconnaissance plane marked with the flying fox logo on its wings caused a huge panic to the sailors of the Siam fleet who were deploying it, and the air raid sirens sounded for the first time in this fleet. For the Siamese, how can it not be terrifying that the An Jiajun planes that are flying overhead are the legendary ones that devoured the main French fleet deployed in Annam?

As they flew over the Siamese fleet, the pilots of the An Jiajun were so pleased with the panicked scenes on the decks of the warships that they whistled happily. In addition to being equipped with a 7.62mm caliber aircraft, the S3 high-altitude reconnaissance plane did not carry aerial bombs, and the threat to the warships was almost zero, but the Siamese navy obviously did not have much experience in anti-aircraft; when the reconnaissance planes circled over the Siamese ships, many of the secondary guns, machine guns, and anti-aircraft machine guns on the warships began to fire at the air in a chaotic manner, and many of the secondary guns fired not scattered grenades against air targets, but ordinary shells against surface ships.

The pilots of An Jiajun constantly pulled up the planes, and circled high above the head of the Siam fleet, and the situation of the entire Siam fleet was in full view.

After about five or six minutes, the officers on the Siamese battleship woke up like a dream and stopped this blind anti-aircraft shooting, but soon, an even greater panic came, and in the southeast sky, an overwhelming group of warplanes suddenly flew over the Siamese fleet, and the terrible air raid sirens sounded over the sea.

"The fleet does a serpentine maneuver! The secondary guns of all the ships were replaced with grenades, and once the planes of Nanhua lowered their altitude, they spared no effort to shoot at them! Machine guns and machine guns are in the air together, pressing the enemy aircraft as much as possible and forcing them to drop bombs at high places! ”

Standing on the bridge of the flagship Thonburi coastal defense ship, Vice Admiral Nai Ba Yoon, commander of the Siam Naval Fleet, turned pale and gave a loud order, and the naval staff officers, who had been trained by the British and Japanese, quickly transmitted Nai Pa Yun's order to all ships over the radio. Siamese warships quickly built up their air defenses and fired lifeless into the sky.

When the group arrived in the waters south of Qiangdao, the bomber squadrons did not attack at the first time, but circled in the air to find targets. Among the dozens of Siamese ships, four huge 8,000-ton cruisers naturally attracted the most attention.

These four cruisers, converted from merchant ships, look quite scary, with towering turrets, numerous anti-aircraft weapons, and amazing displacement, but in fact they are shelf cargo, with a bright appearance, and it has the weaknesses of slow speed, weak armor, and poor survivability that modified ships usually have, and they are inferior to coastal defense ships, frigates, and old destroyers that are far smaller than it, and only dare to sail in the near sea. At the beginning of March and 6, after the four ships were renovated at the shipyard in India, they sailed back to the Sattahip Naval Base along the coasts of the Bay of Bengal, the Andaman Sea, the Strait of Malacca, and the Gulf of Siam.

In the dense rain of bullets, the fighters dispersed, doing air alert, five bomber squadrons quickly assigned objects in the air, as the main force of the bombing B2 bombers roared down from a high altitude, the Siam Navy's anti-aircraft fire was also fierce enough, there were three B2 bombers could not dodge, were hit by the rain of anti-aircraft bombs, the volley burst out of brilliant sparks, together with the pilots turned into ashes, but the bomber group was too dense, nearly 100 fighters continued to reduce the altitude, the target entered the effective range, The bombardier sitting in the back seat pressed the bomb button hard, the magazine popped open, the bomb fell, and the fuselage of these bombers was pushed upwards by an invisible force, and the pilot immediately pulled back the control stick, and the roaring fighter plane almost brushed the top of the battleship and pulled it up.

Most of the 250-kilogram and 500-kilogram armor-piercing and anti-personnel shells became near-misses under the rapid evasion of the ship, and the splash was as high as more than 10 meters, and a small part directly hit the ship. In the rumbling explosion, the battleship that was hit was almost shrouded in shrapnel, flames, and a "mist" formed by the splash of water from near-miss bullets from the bow to the stern.

To the surprise of all the pilots of the An Jiajun, but everything was reasonable, the first to resist the bomb attack was actually the four cruisers.

Due to the large target, it is extremely unfavorable for air defense, and at the same time, the armor of the deck is too thin, the armor-piercing shell drilled straight into the inside of the hull, and the moment the bomb exploded, the four ships like papier-mâché, the bow or stern vibrated violently, as if a huge spring was installed under the water, and half of the body was almost lifted out of the water, and at the same time, a huge wave of fire rushed out of the center of the hull, rising hundreds of meters high, and then made a huge sound, and the hull began to sink slowly.

The two old destroyers could not dodge and were hit by anti-personnel shells falling from the bombers, the anti-aircraft guns and machine guns suddenly fell silent, and the ships rose with billowing smoke, and the remaining ships were terrified, twisting their hulls and desperately trying to evade.

At this time, 18 Mitsubishi 97 bombers, 8 Martin B-10 bombers, 26 "Curtis" Hawker III destroyers, and 16 old "Chance destroyers" took off from Qiangdao. Vought "V-93 destroyer arrived in operational airspace.

The Siamese Air Force used the "V" formation taught by Japanese instructors - the original intention of the Japanese to teach this dense tactical formation was that Siamese pilots had no experience in air combat, and through such a formation they could reach the maximum observation angle and at the same time use wingmen to cover the rear of long planes.

In practice, however, the wingman pilots of this formation had to be very careful, and their main focus was on maintaining a formation distance from the long aircraft, and they had no time to pay attention to the rear; The long plane thought that there was a wingman in the rear to protect it, and it was reassuring, but it was often not until it was bitten by the opponent's fighter and opened fire that the tail behind it was discovered, and the result was naturally tragic.

When maneuvering maneuvers such as sharp turns, the pilot has to spend a few seconds in an air battle to warn the wingman to be prepared, because with such a close distance, a collision can occur if you are not careful. When a large group of planes maneuvered under the leadership of the captain, although it looked spectacular, it was pure showmanship and vulnerable.

The Anjia Army Air Force also adopted the "V" formation at the earliest, but in successive encounters with the Japanese army, it explored another set of more advanced and practical formations -- a two-plane one-line horizontal formation with two planes separated by 200 meters.

The air battle that took place in the Gulf of Siam largely decided the fate of the Siam and South China fleets, so the pilots of both sides blotted together all their spirits and went all out to deal with it.

The A26 and A27 fighters, which are responsible for high-altitude interception, and the old biplane fighters of the Siam Air Force are the first to face off.

Needless to say, the Anjia Air Force had an absolute advantage in fighter performance, the pilots were far superior to the opponents, and the tactics used were also more advanced than the opponents. Vought "V-93 destroyer without any losses of its own.

Immediately afterwards, the 2nd Squadron and the 3rd Squadron concocted the same method, and one after another "Curtis" Hawker III destroyers and "Chances. Vought "V-93 destroyer crashed into the sea.

The fighters of the 4th and 5th squadrons, biting the bombers of the Siamese Air Force, took advantage of the speed advantage and turned them into exploding fireballs one by one.

The "Curtis" Hawker III destroyer can be called a model of biplane, and the Chinese Air Force was heavily equipped in the early days of the Anti-Japanese War. Although the performance of this fighter is far behind that of the A26 and A27, it is still not to be underestimated in air combat. The Siamese pilots obviously got the true inheritance of Little Japan, and their flying skills were still good, so they didn't care about maintaining formation at this time, and began to fight alone, through continuous diving, circling, and hand-to-hand combat, in order to confront the fighters of the An Jiajun, and the main target was the bulky B2 bomber.

So, a cat-and-mouse drama was staged.

Over the Gulf of Siam, rolling and diving in the air can be seen almost everywhere, long or short hissing and machine guns, machine gun fire, mixed together, one after another fighter planes can not care about the formation, the most primitive catch and fight has become the most effective way to solve the problem, every few tens of seconds there is a fighter dragging smoke into the sea, the vast majority of which are Siamese fighters, but occasionally mixed with A26, A27 fighters and B2 bombers, the battle situation is extremely fierce.

Just when the air battle entered **, the main fleet of South China appeared on the horizon in the southeast.

"Report to the commander, Siamese ships have been found in the northwest sea, and the fighters of the enemy and us are fighting in a group, and the situation is unknown!"

When the navigator reported the situation to Admiral Mitsu, commander of the Navy, Nakko was standing on the bridge of the battlecruiser "Honor", the flagship of the fleet, observing the sea through a telescope. He immediately looked to the northwest, vaguely saw the shadow of black smoke, and immediately gave an order:

"The ships immediately went into combat mode! This is the first battle of our South China Navy, and we hope that the officers and men of all fleets will go all out to fight this good start! ”

As the battle alarm sounded one after another, the officers and sailors who were sleeping in the cabins jumped out of their beds as fast as they could, opened the hatches, and rushed to their respective combat positions. The labyrinthine and winding passages of the warship were immediately filled with the sound of hurried footsteps, and after only a few minutes, they were empty again, except for the repeated battle alerts on the radio.

On deck, the huge main turret moved slowly, the muzzles pointing in unison to the northwest and changing as the ship's orientation changed.

This action has been done more than 100 times in practice, but in the face of actual combat tests, it still makes people's blood boil and their palms sweat. Deep in the ammunition compartment below deck, the sailors waiting here give orders to load armor-piercing or high-explosive shells into the loader. At the other end of the lifter, the gunners were always ready to complete the final baton of the relay race.

After converging from the sea off Kampong Son Bay, the three fleets sailed in a standard battle formation, and without adjustment, they were able to enter the battle directly, and one by one, the huge ships, headed straight for the Siamese fleet near the south of Qiang Island.

A quarter of an hour later, entering the range of the capital ship, Cheng Guang gave the order to open fire.

In the majestic thunder, a long burst of fire erupted from the muzzle of the gun, and a huge sound could be clearly heard even by the pilots flying the fighter planes at an altitude of thousands of meters. The first heavy cannon fire of the capital ships was slightly separated by a slight gap in between, and only the special sound of heavy shells cutting through the air was left on the sea.

More than ten seconds later, an even stronger thunderclap was heard on the distant sea, which was the sound of a cannonball falling into the sea and exploding. The young officers and sailors of the An Jiajun could even imagine how the sailors on the small warships owned by the Siamese would react to these large-caliber shells.

The Siamese navy was obviously not willing to sit idly by, and quickly responded with the sound of artillery, but under the constant harassment of the bombers of the An Jia Army, the shells fired by the Siamese were not accurate.

With the increase of experience, most of the officers of the fleet were able to judge from the momentum of the shells when they exploded, and it was obvious that the other side was armed with 120mm, 100mm and 80mm guns, which was far worse than the naval guns equipped with the Nanhua battleships.

By this time, the distance between the two sides had been reduced to eight thousand meters. Cheng Guang was somewhat surprised to observe the situation of the Siamese fleet with a telescope, the legend that the four 8,000-ton cruisers had disappeared, and now the main force of operations was the coastal defense ships, destroyers and frigates of the Siamese Navy with a displacement of about 2,000 tons. Shells of this caliber simply cannot pose a threat to capital ships with armor thicknesses of more than 300mm.

"Boom-"

After the second salvo of main guns, the sub-squadrons concentrated the main guns of the capital ships and cruisers and destroyers to attack the destroyers and coastal defense ships of the opposing side, while the secondary guns were used against the small gunboats, torpedo boats and frigates.

Five minutes after the exchange of fire, a Siamese destroyer was the first to sink.

This unlucky destroyer, in the bombardment of the fighters, suffered heavy damage, this time was hit by two main guns with a caliber of more than 300mm at the same time, the huge armor-piercing shells directly pierced the turret, deep into the ammunition depot below, a violent explosion occurred, the hull was torn apart from the middle, and sank in a huge wave of water.

Although the Siam Navy had gathered more than 40 warships, there were no capital ships that could threaten the safety of the fleet, and although those cruisers, destroyers, and small torpedo boats tried their best to shoot torpedoes one after another, they were all detonated before they could get close under the blockade of machine guns and anti-aircraft machine gun barrages, and there was no threat.

Another violent explosion was heard, and a torpedo boat was hit by the triple 203mm main guns of the cruiser "Li Guang", which was approaching at high speed.

"Hit, okay, that's all!"

Vice Admiral Yan Kaitai, commander of the First Fleet, could not wait to praise the firing commander of the "Li Guang" through the radio.

"Oh also!"

At this time, the gunners of the "Li Guang" who were sweating and loading shells in the turret of the triple 203mm main gun also received the news of the hit on the enemy ship from the gun commander who was in charge of directing and observing through the turret rangefinder, and shouted happily.

But the joy was celebrated, and the movement of the hand was not slow at all, and another shell was sent into the turret by the hoist, and in a few moments, the shell, which was almost a man high, was filled into the chamber, and as the cartridge was also filled, the gunner quickly closed the gun.

Amid a deafening roar, another round of shelling began.

After the shells were fired, the gunners opened the gun doors as usual, and with the influx of residual gases from the propellant in the gun chamber, the temperature in the narrow turret rose rapidly, and the exhaust fan in the turret rotated indefinitely, expelling the exhaust gases reserved in the gun chamber and then pouring in fresh air from outside, but even so, the working environment of the gunners was still one of the most difficult combat positions on the entire battleship.

At this moment, the hull of the "Li Guang" shook violently, and the gunners in the interior of the turret almost lost their balance and fell to the floor. In less than two seconds, an even stronger tremor came, and the gunners looked at each other with a gloomy look on their faces. The experienced French artillery commander waved his hand disapprovingly and said in broken Chinese: "That's right, guys, we were hit, but don't worry, the caliber of the Siamese shells is too small to pose a threat to us!" ”

The gunners' faces quickly regained their composure, and when another shell was lifted up from the bottom ammunition compartment by the lifter, the gunners were fully engaged in their work.

At this moment, the turret of the "Li Guang" was pitch black, and just now an 80mm shell hit the turret, but it was bounced off by the thick armor of the turret, and the shell immediately fell into the sea and exploded, and the white water column was more than ten meters high.

"Li Guang" is designed and manufactured by Huaqing Society at the Amway shipyard on the west coast of the United States, with a standard displacement of 8,000 tons, a full load displacement of 10,500 tons, a total length of 180 meters, a width of 19.5 meters, driven by a 75,000 shaft horsepower turbine steam engine, the main armor belt is 124mm, the deck armor is 51mm, and the Siamese 80mm caliber cannonballs, and there is no real threat to the "Li Guang".

On the contrary, every round of shelling by the Anjia Navy made the Siamese Navy feel very uncomfortable when it fled in confusion, and from time to time there were warships billowing smoke.

While defending the air, the Siamese ship group fired high-explosive shells and armor-piercing shells at the pursuing South China Navy, accelerating its flight northward. The gunners, who were in a mess, barely took any more aim, hurriedly pulled the gun rope, and by the time the data of the ship's rangefinder reached the gunners, the positions of each side had already moved hundreds or even thousands of yards.

"Buddha, ......"

On the starboard side of the "Thonburi" coastal defense ship, which was the flagship, a group of sailors in the starboard battle position screamed out in a loud voice, and many people even covered their mouths with their hands; on their starboard side, the "Yegong" coastal defense ship, which was equipped with four 120mm guns and a twin 20mm cannon ordered from Japan's Mitsui & Co., Ltd., had just carried out a relatively neat salvo fire at the South China Fleet, and in an instant it was shrouded in huge explosive flames, and the dazzling fire made it difficult for people to face it squarely.

Due to the enormous power of the explosion, the shock wave quickly shook the coastal defense ships "Thonburi" and "Ayuttaya" not far away, and the sailors felt as if their warships were suffering from a hurricane.

When this shaking gradually weakened, the middle and front of the light coastal defense ship with a displacement of 1,400 tons were nowhere to be found, and the armor-piercing shells of the Anjia Navy exploded inside the battleship after penetrating the front armor of the battleship, instantly detonating the ammunition depot under the main turret in front of it. These splashes were not provoked by struggling sailors who fell into the water, but were produced when various objects that were thrown into the air by violent explosions fell.

In this kind of instantaneous and violent explosion, only five of the 208 sailors on board the "Night Gong" survived, and they were swimming helplessly on the surface of the sea at the moment.

Looking at the sea from the air, the explosion of the "Yegong" coastal defense ship was like a fireworks display held on the sea. While evading the pursuit of Siamese fighters, An Jiajun's bomber group flew quickly over the Siamese fleet, occasionally diving downward, dropping bombs one after another, and two destroyers capsized in a violent explosion.

"Boom-"

Vice Admiral Nai Ba Yun, commander of the Siam Navy Fleet, was hurriedly commanding the fleet to avoid air raids, when suddenly the sound of distant explosions caught his attention. Without even using a telescope, Nai Ba Yun clearly saw a huge ball of fire rising from a battleship more than 100 meters away, and under the combined attack of the large-caliber naval guns of the South China Fleet, the coastal defense ship "Ayutbaya," which was the sister ship of the "Thonburi," finally suffered a fatal blow.

Nabayan felt sad in his heart, he knew that such a violent explosion could only be caused by the combined effect of armor-piercing shells and the ammunition of the battleship itself, and it was inevitable that the "Ayuthaya" would be blown apart, and the chances of the ship's crew surviving were very small.

Although the Siamese artillery skills were almost unsightly, the warships of the South China Fleet were still hit by shells one after another, but compared to the Siamese, the South Chinese battleships did not have to worry about how much damage the opponent's armor-piercing shells would cause to their own warships, and under the intensive and accurate fire of the South China Fleet, the Siamese destroyers and torpedo boats had no way to rush to a close enough distance to launch torpedoes.

However, in the melee, the destroyer "Jinsha" rushed too far forward, and a Siamese 120mm armor-piercing shell hit directly, and the turret at the tail of the battleship was blown away by a cannon, and more than a dozen gunners inside were killed on the spot, and thick smoke rose from the South China Fleet for the first time, and the "Jinsha" immediately shifted its attention to extinguishing the fire and repairing it.

At this time, a new wave of fighters of the Siamese Air Force arrived over the warring sea, and the fierce fighting continued.