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The commander of the second detachment of the French Far East Fleet, Laroy, was also completely helpless at this time, the boiler had been pressurized at full strength for almost an hour, if it continued like this, it might be possible to damage the power system, but the speed was close to 17 knots, and the armored cruiser behind was still hanging unhurriedly, and round after round of shells fell from the sky. ⑤???? Read the latest chapters of the book

And after that battleship, at least 4 battleships were following at full speed, and they were not much behind, and he could even predict that if he slowed down slightly, he might encounter a close group beating, but he didn't plan to accept the baptism of artillery fire Ah The two French battleships started to move forward side by side, and the rotating gun emplacements distributed on both sides in the center of the ship played a big role, and at this time they could even attack backwards at the same time.

Xu Shoushan, who was in hot pursuit, was also very angry at this time, as the latest and fastest cruiser of the Nanyang Naval Division, from the engagement to the present, he only hit the enemy ship with one shot, although that shot was very accurate, but the luck was really bad, smashed into the stomach of the French battleship and smoked, and it was silent.

"Liu Ye, where has your kid's training level been on weekdays, I'll count it for you, it's already the first round of shelling" Xu Shoushan viciously stabbed the officer who was observing.

However, it was obvious that Liu Ye didn't buy it, and looked up and replied, "My lord, the wind is not small today, and the boat is very turbulent, I have observed it, and the location of the landing point is okay, but it is ...... Pretty much luck."

Xu Shoushan snorted dissatisfied, and continued to command the battleship to move in line change, looking for a suitable position for the attack, the French had a lot of mén cannons aimed at him, although at this distance, the opponent's accuracy was ridiculously different, but he didn't have the idea of eating cannonballs.

The Nanyang Naval Division fleet, which followed closely behind, consisted of 501, 601, Chaoyong, and Yangwei forming the first array, while the two ironclad ships "Huashan" and "Hengshan" led the team, and the slower warships slowly followed behind.

Seeing that the two French battleships actually broke through, Lu Han, who commanded the operation, couldn't help frowning, the xìng energy of these two battleships was obviously beyond his expectations, and the speed was even faster than his own flagship, obviously, it was definitely a strategic failure to let the two French battleships escape in this way.

Immediately, a new order was issued, and the two clippers 701 and 601 quickly accelerated to intercept each other, and 501 pursued with Chaoyong and Yangwei, as long as Bī forced the other side to turn to avoid the battle, then it was completely possible to take advantage of the difference in the straight line to shorten the distance between the two sides, and then effectively launch an attack.

And the commander of the "Palop" armored cruiser, Colonel La Roy, saw the other party's actions, and immediately understood that the fish died at this time, and the other battleship in the queue in front of the cat easily surpassed his own speed, and the other party had no intention of slowly exhausting it

At this time, the direction of progress has been pressed diagonally by the two battleships of the other side, and there are only two options, one is to fight to the death at close range, so that you can continue to throw off the battleships behind; The second is to turn, looking for opportunities to break through, not in close combat, but facing the danger of being flanked by the front and back.

There was almost no time to judge, Colonel La Roy stared fiercely at the two battleships in front of him, the other party hid such a powerful battleship, the damn Rear Admiral Miller didn't even know it, and he always talked about the other party's flagship at the military meeting, so that he was chased to a desperate situation by the other party. ⑤???? Read the latest chapters of the book

After all, at a distance of more than 5 kilometers, to hit a battleship moving at full speed, the gunner's suzhì is a key, luck also plays a great role, the Chinese shells have been falling around the "Palop", several shells are close at hand, but none of them hit, Laroy's luck is really good.

The shelling of the two French battleships, because it was close to the maximum effective range, the ballistic error was also large, and the Qing battleships had been using the speed advantage to change positions, so compared with the opponent's landing point error, the gap was not small, which also shocked Colonel La Roy.

Either you die, or I live, since the other party wants to forcibly cut off his way back, then use this opportunity to close the distance and fight to the death, Laroy knocked down the command platform hard, and gave a loud order, "Order, the bow of the ship forward, approach the other party, prepare to surprise the two intercepted enemy ships in front of you, and break out of the encirclement"

As soon as the words fell, it was obvious that the luck that had been with him was strangely used up, and the three mén naval guns on the opposite side ** emitted thick black smoke, and the shells whistled, and one of the shells hit the forward bow of the ship impartially, and the thin iron sheet on the surface of the ship in the middle of the bow was obviously not enough to block the 220 kg shells, and the shells drilled directly into the deck before a violent explosion occurred. ,

Arranged in the middle of the foredeck, two mén gun silhouette 120mm speed shè guns, one mén was directly overturned, and the other mén was also shaken around. The two groups of French soldiers behind the two 120mm speed shè gun silhouettes, the hull of the ship that was directly lifted out by the gas làng, screamed and fell into the sea, and the unlucky ones, after being hit by the fragments, kept twitching their hands and feet like toads pinned in the real yàn room, and the deck was in a mess

It's really his grandfather's bad luck, Colonel La Roy's eyes are about to pop out, and when he just wanted to fight with all his might, he broke his head, and the secondary cannon in front was completely ruined, but fortunately, the problem was not too big, there was a small cannon on the other side of the ear cannon position, and the rotating turret in the middle also played a stable role.

"Open the gun"

Following the counterattack of "Palop", another cruiser of the same class "Malodi" also pointed at the same target - the 701 ship with rumbling guns, obviously this big guy with three mén heavy guns made them very unpleasant, this way to chase, faster than themselves, the gun barrel is longer than their own, it is really depressing.

Seeing that he had become the target of two enemy ships, and that the other party was ready to fight with 8 cannon tubes, Xu Shoushan naturally would not give the French this chance, and after the distance between the two sides was shortened to about 4,500 meters, he immediately increased his speed, maintained the current distance, and exchanged views with the French.

And his position was just right in front of the French fleet, so that the French would either deflect about 30 degrees of course, or they could only attack with a single-seat twin 240 heavy gun on the right side of the center. The latest and fastest update of this book comes from du58.

Xu Shoushan can fully estimate the other party's decision, the 501 ship, Chaoyong, and Yangwei all have a speed slightly higher than 16 knots, and the speed gap between the new French ship is very small, and the French will definitely not sail sideways, in that case, they will soon be caught up by several ships behind, and they are naturally unwilling to take risks due to the consequences of being attacked before and after.

Therefore, maintaining the current situation is almost the only choice for the French, in that case, they will lose the firepower of the front main gun, and the French will lose the combat power of 4 gun tubes on one side.

Colonel La Roy was also furious at this time, the other party's old fritters, and this perverted knapsack shell shell, was born to make up his mind to bully people with speed, and he had no choice

Fortunately, the distance between the two sides is now a little closer, and I don't know what the other side thinks, but the distance is shortened by 500 meters, and the probability of hitting the other party is greatly enhanced.

The soldiers on the 701 heavy patrol are like clockwork, tirelessly completing the standard actions of lifting, loading, and hoisting and loading, and every two rounds of shè strikes, the shè strike officers will adjust the shè strike parameters, and soon, the two sides are three rounds of each other's shè completion officers are also excited, this is their perfect show in front of the whole fleet.

"Die, French......" the soldier on the gun emplacement roared

This time, the god of luck began to beckon Xu Shoushan, and the low hit rate of the previous dozen rounds definitely set a record for the 701 ship shè strike group, but their steady play and tenacious struggle finally ushered in the dawn of victory.

In the fourth round, the French scored a good round, and even one shell fell into the sea almost against the side of the battleship, but the table of the 701 ship was more eye-catching, two shells rose into the air, one missed, and the other hit the outer armor of the bow of the cruiser "Palop".

The bow of the ship does not belong to the key protection part, the steel plate in this position is only 50mm, at a distance of more than 4,000 meters, the 220 kg heavy gun is naturally very light yì torn armor, and then drilled into the thin deck at the front end, and finally penetrated the two layers of bilge, which made an earth-shattering explosion.

The power of this explosion was much more amazing than the previous one, the entire bow of the ship was completely torn apart and torn apart, and at the same time, the explosion ignited something, and from the damaged deck, a large amount of thick black smoke immediately appeared, and there was a dull blasting sound.

La Roy was completely unable to fire at this time, and immediately ordered a slight adjustment of direction in order to avoid the next round of shelling, this sea maneuver, which must be familiar to the fleet commanders of this generation, and ordered the two officers to take people to deal with the alarm in the bilge at once

However, the 601 ship, which had been unsuccessful in front, suddenly came up from the left side, and it was obvious that Chen Mo had no intention of being a good spectator at all, and he took advantage of the gap between the French and the need to reload after the cannon, and immediately broke into close to the other party, preparing to shorten the distance and launch the shelling. ,

"Report to the Colonel, another light cruiser on the left flank has been posted...... "Immediately an officer observed the movement here and reported loudly to Colonel La Roy.

La Roy was stunned for a moment, turned the telescope and looked this way, this is obviously a small-caliber artillery cruiser, the other party has not fired a single bullet from beginning to end, obviously because of the lack of shè Cheng, at this time I see that I have been shot, and I want to come up and pick up the leak? A cruiser of this class, fast and thinly armoured, was obviously too expensive to deal with with heavy artillery.

"Major Sù Thomas, he is responsible for directing the 120mm artillery and Haggaeus machine guns on the left flank to counterattack, keeping the heavy artillery on target, and resolutely crushing the enemy in front of him" Laroy slapped the table and made a decision without hesitation.

"Boom, boom, boom......" another round of shè was fired, and this time, the French finally got lucky, and the armor belt of the stern of the 701 with a concentrated shell did not have any fatal effect except for blowing up the lifeboat on the side of the ship and causing a small fire.

Noting that after the two sides completed the mutual shè, the 601 ship was very clever and approached a few hundred meters, and the distance between the two sides was slightly more than 3000 meters, Chen Mo noticed that the speed shè guns on the other side had all pointed at him, but they did not open fire, obviously, it was not yet the effective shè of the other side

He smiled, waved his hand, turned his head and asked the officer next to him, "Have you changed to Type I speed shells?"

"The pipe belt, it has been changed a long time ago, just waiting for your order," the officer's face was excited, "pipe belt, give them a few rounds of shell baths, right?" ”

"Order, at a distance of 3,000 meters, throw me shè bombs with all my might, don't be stingy" Chen Mo smiled, French, let you cattle, rely on your own ship is bigger and the cannon barrel is thicker, dare to come and spread wild, how can I let you see today, what is called artillery fire.

After the loud sound of the heavy artillery, Colonel La Roy looked at the landing point of the shells in the distance and shook his head helplessly...... That's a lot worse

At this time, he heard the sound of a continuous "bang bang bang" from the left flank, and then ...... He found that several shells flew over and scattered around the battleship, and a large number of them hit the ship's side armor, and the explosion raised a cloud of black smoke, but it was naturally difficult for this caliber of shells to penetrate the more than 100 mm armor of the armored ship.

However, he was surprised that he arranged for Major Thomas to organize a counterattack, but he was indifferent at this time, and when he was about to ask, the naval guns on the light cruiser in the distance had already gone crazy ** flames, and it was obvious that the first round of shè was carried out, and patches of white sè smoke continued to rise from the deck of the battleship, which was very different from the black sè smoke when the French battleship was hit by the high-speed shè guns......

And the next situation, he was even more dumbfounded, except for a few shells fell into the sea, the other four or five shells all hit his battleship, and suddenly the front and rear decks, side chords were enveloped by the sound of explosions, 40 pounds of shells, after being reloaded with TNT bombing, the power increased greatly, and more than 20 damage managers who were dealing with the warning on the front deck immediately fell to the ground.

Seeing that the battleship was attacked, the French soldiers in the left flank gun frame no longer considered the question of whether to enter the shè process, and immediately launched a counterattack, originally they judged that the other party did not enter the shè distance, at this time, a counterattack, they found that their judgment was completely accurate, the farthest shell of the speed shè gun on their battleship was still hundreds of meters away from the opponent...... This is really outrageous, how can the Chinese hit us

Naturally, no one came to answer the questions of these French soldiers with stunned expressions, and some only had the second round of rapid shè guns a few seconds later, and all the 4mén twin 120mm fast shè guns on the 601 ship were put into the attack, and in just two minutes when the French loaded the heavy guns, twelve rounds of nearly 100 shells were poured at once.

Although the 120mm speed shè gun could not penetrate the 100mm armor of the French battleship, it could easily penetrate the 10mm horizontal armor, and after a baptism, the entire deck was in a mess.

And the whole deck that could burn, the wooden components under the torn deck were ignited by the violent explosion, and in order to facilitate the shèring, some of the shells piled up by the French soldiers behind the gun shaft became deadly time bombs, and from time to time they exploded in the raging flames, which made the damage management team members who came to fight the fire tremble.

However, the armor of the bridge of the French was thick enough, and the shells that hit the bridge did not have much effect, and in the dense fire, only one magic shell rushed into the cockpit through the window, almost causing a strike on the cruiser "Palop". ,

When Colonel La Roy came back to his senses and ordered the heavy artillery to be turned against Chen Mo's 601 ship, he had already slipped away, and at this time, Xu Shoushan finally waited for the long-awaited results, and after six rounds of exchanging shès, a shell fired by the 701 ship hit the middle deck of the front of the cruiser "Palop" again, and after penetrating the deck, it hit the deck of the bilge.

Immediately tore a large hole with a diameter of more than one meter at the bottom of the battleship, and this sudden damage was not enough to guide the cups of this new battleship, because the "Palop" class cruiser already had a large divided water compartment, even if one or two cabins were permeable, the buoyancy of the battleship was completely enough to continue sailing.

However, this time it was very unfortunate that the location of the permeable water happened to be in the boiler room of the ship's key protection, and the rapid influx of seawater quickly poured into the boiler room, leading the two boilers to turn off immediately, and then the speed of the ship dropped significantly, and when Colonel La Roy received the report from the damage management team, he immediately realized that he was finished......

The change in the speed of the Palop battleship was immediately noticed by Lu Han, and now he could find an opportunity to beat the water dogs, under the siege of more than a dozen mén heavy artillery, after two rounds of Qishè, the Palop battleship had been hit several rounds and was dying, while another French cruiser "Malody" began to flee to the open sea to the west under the desperate cover of the "Palop".

Seeing that victory was in sight, the officer in charge of the lookout on the 501 ship suddenly found that the 701 ship responsible for the interception task at the front hung an early warning flag, and it was obvious that the threat did not come from the big fish in these two nets, Lu Han immediately ordered the whole team to assemble and start marshalling according to the original detachment, and the 701 ship, which was the vanguard, was not idle, taking advantage of the moment when the "Malodi" was desperately breaking through, it pursued from the flank, and knocked out several small gun positions in the stern of the opponent's ship with one shot.

However, at this time, a faintly discernible black smoke had appeared on the sea level in the distance, and it was obvious that a large fleet was coming in full force......