"The battleship Delaware is slowing down, and the Nebraska is turning left at a large angle and yawing!"

"No American destroyers were observed!"

As the destroyer Heyuan successfully fired two flares again in the distance, Tang Zhen stood at the observation window of the commander tower filled with smoke and listened very calmly to the battle situation reported by the officers, and a smile appeared on his face inadvertently.

At 8:35 p.m. on the night of July 24, the battleship Delaware, having lost more than 50% of its power and its speed had been reduced to 15 knots, voluntarily gave up its tactics of detachment, and even turned to the direction of the bow of the ship, and began to take the initiative to bombard the battlecruiser Sirius, which was closely following the battleship Nebraska.

But this was enough to force the Sirius to abandon continuing to bombard the USS Nebraska at close range, while at the same time, the Nebraska was throttling at full speed to the southeast of the USS Delaware......

"The Nebraska is evacuating?" A few minutes later, Tang Zhen, who got the observation, also stood in the lookout window with some surprise, and the raging fire ignited by the battleship of the battleship Delaware in the distance was very clear in the dark night, but although Han Cheng had fired 3 beautiful high-hit salvos before, it obviously took time to sink a battleship with 10-inch armor and nearly 400 watertight compartments!

While Tang Zhen was thinking about this issue, the staff officer on the side reported loudly, "General, General Sun Ping is calling!" ”

Tang Zhen stared at the direction of the U.S. fleet in the distance, just stretched out his hand to take the telegram, he didn't read the content of the fact that he actually guessed that the battle patrol Sky Wolf commanded by Sun Ping, this kind of pursuit and beating the water dogs, was originally a tailor-made mission for the battle patrol, and the content of the telegram was exactly the same as he guessed, the Sky Wolf battle patrol requested to break away from the formation to pursue the Nebraska battleship!

Among the formations, the battleship Dayu launched earlier is the only one with short legs, after all, it has been almost 20 years since it was launched, although it has been modernized, but the transformation period is also the period of domestic military control, mainly to enhance the protection ability and fire control artillery, rather than power and ship speed, the Chinese Navy has been hanging Pacific countries, skirmishes, and there is no need for this old ship to attack.

On the other hand, the powerful Sirius-class battle cruiser is an evergreen in the navy, especially after a series of modernizations, the original firepower and good speed of the battle cruiser can fully undertake almost all naval tasks, especially after the original 13.5-inch main gun double diameter is increased from 40 to 45, the power has increased greatly, at least from the combat power has the ability to fight with the dreadnought.

Standing in front of the chart, the entire battlefield situation has long been clear at a glance, the 25-knots speed of the Sirius is enough to complete the flank pursuit of the Nebraska battleship, but the Dayu has no advantage in speed at all, it is obviously difficult to complete the flank outflanking, in terms of combat power alone, the 6 13.5-inch main guns of the Sirius have a complete advantage in firepower against the 4 12-inch main guns of the Nebraska plus 8 8-inch secondary guns.

And in terms of the huge advantage of the Chinese Navy in fire control and night combat training, he also has enough confidence, but although the battleship Nebraska is weak in attack, the nickname of the US Navy's Iron Turtle is not nonsense, and in terms of protection capability alone, in the case of 1V1, it is not easy to sink the opponent when the Sirius wants to avoid damage as much as possible.

"General, there are still several American destroyers whose situation is unknown, I suggest that General Sun be informed......" The staff officer on the side also came over with the report to make a suggestion to Tang Zhen, which is the duty that the supervising staff officer must perform at all times, "If you want to pursue, I suggest that the third destroyer detachment assist General Sun in launching an attack!" ”

In fact, this is only the first step in the strategy of the detachment, and the intensity of the battle behind is probably far greater than tonight, and at this time, the officer in the telegraph room ran in again, "General, I received a telegram from the theater headquarters!" ”

The appearance of this telegram made Tang Zhen immediately make a decision, "Immediately send a report to the Sky Wolf and Dayu, and concentrate fire to destroy the battleship Delaware!" At the same time, send a telegram to General Lu Zhiyuan, asking him to join the fleet by tomorrow morning! ”

Less than 3 minutes after the new order was issued, the battleship Shanxi, which had already fired six consecutive salvos without success, fired a beautiful straddle shot at the battleship Delaware, and an armor-piercing projectile directly hit the towering command tower of the battleship Delaware, and a black cloud surged up from the middle of the battleship, completely enveloping the huge area in the middle of the Delaware.

Even if the bridge conning tower with an 11-inch main armor belt was hit by a 370-kilogram armor-piercing projectile, it would definitely be a catastrophe, but this time, the god of luck seemed to favor Brigadier General Lucius, probably because the angle of the armor-piercing shell hit by the cap did not penetrate the armor belt at all, but only exploded violently on the surface.

But even so, in the middle cockpit near the explosion point, the huge impact force still brought devastating damage, and several officers, including the first officer, were directly rushed to the wall by the air wave and were seriously injured, but fortunately, the second officer Colonel Baker took over the piloting of the battleship in time, which prevented the battleship from getting out of control, but this obviously did not change the fate of the battleship Delaware.

Just one minute later, the Sky Wolf and Dayu, who were in the waiting position of the battle line, completed their rapid calibration and joined the siege of the Delaware, and the situation immediately changed completely......

The battleship Delaware counterattacked violently with the Sirius as the target, which was immediately observed quickly, and at this moment the Delaware can counterattack normally There are still 4 guns, however, Commodore Lucius obviously did not take the sinking of the Chinese battleship as the first purpose, but carefully kept his distance, and the huge damage caused by the 2 armor-piercing shells that were hit before has not been effectively damaged.

Just 4 minutes later, the battleship Delaware, which was not only stubbornly resisting, had already found that it had quickly fallen into the coverage area of the Chinese battleship's artillery, even if Commodore Lucius kept adjusting the course at a small angle, it would not help at all, and he immediately got a report - the two Chinese battleships were closing the distance!

He immediately rushed to the lookout window, and in the deep night in the distance, a series of cannon flames rose into the sky, burning most of the sky, and it was completely impossible to distinguish the location of the enemy ship with the naked eye, however, Commodore Lucius was naturally not an ordinary person, and the gun flames of the battleships in the second and fourth sequences of the opponent were indeed closer than the other two.

"Prepare to reset the target and shell the second series of enemy ships!" Lucius almost did not hesitate at all, and immediately issued a new battle order, there is no doubt that the front and last positions in the battle line are generally the new warships with high combat power in the fleet, and he was hit by these two battleships respectively, which shows that the threat is huge.

But at this moment, with a violent tremor in the dark, Lucius flew up like a leaf in the wind, and out of the corner of his eye, he glanced at the observation officer Lufis who was at the observation post on the left, his mouth wide open, but he did not seem to make any sound, and his hands holding the telescope were now only two clouds of flesh and blood.

And all kinds of report papers and sundries in the command tower also appeared on the ceiling in an instant...... A sharp pain came from his lower back, and he lost consciousness all at once.

This beautiful salvo was fired by the battleship Canton, which had not been harvested for a long time, and the salvo of 10 shells formed a perfect hinge shape, holding the battleship Delaware in the middle, and the fatal one was an armor-piercing shell from the A gun position, and the shells hit the towering command tower of the battleship Delaware.

This time the battleship Delaware obviously did not have the previous luck, the shell hit the front of the vertical armor at a large angle, the shell penetrated the armor at least 200mm or more, if the angle was not a little larger, it was completely possible to penetrate the armor of the conning tower, even so, the huge kinetic energy brought by the violent explosion caused several times more powerful than the last hit.

You must know that when an explosion on the surface of the armor, at least more than half of the impact force is diffused by the air, so the damage caused is relatively limited, and the power of the blast wave is greater, but the explosion that is cut into the steel armor, the impact is absorbed by the steel armor that cannot be compressed, and the huge kinetic energy directly damages the armor belt of more than two meters on the side of the command tower.

If it weren't for the fact that the steel armor hadn't been broken through in the end, it would have been estimated that the entire command tower would be full of bones, but the huge impact still shook Brigadier General Lucius away, and when the military doctor rushed into the command tower, it was a mess inside, Brigadier General Lucius slammed into the mapping table, and fainted directly, and only half of the other dozen officers, including the shooting commander, could still stand up.

This suddenly caused the command system of the battleship Delaware to almost collapse, and when the officer who had recovered his strength went to inform the second mate, Colonel Baker, the battleship Delaware, which had been completely caught in artillery fire at this moment, was shot again......

This time, the main turret of the D gun position was directly opened by a 13.5-inch armor-piercing bullet fired by the Sirius battle cruiser, and the shell directly penetrated the 9-inch armor on the top of the turret at a large elevation angle, and after sweeping everything in the turret, the hatch and top of the rear of the turret were completely destroyed by the explosion, and the entire turret was also tilted nearly 30 degrees in the violent explosion, completely destroyed.

When the second officer, Colonel Baker, who had just taken over the piloting of the ship, rushed to the command tower, he had already inherited an almost insoluble situation, and the only thing he could do was to continue to carry out the order of Brigadier General Lucius - to immediately counterattack the Chinese warship closest to him!

On the battleship Guangzhou, Tang Zhen had already left the lookout window, and in just 20 minutes, the battleship Delaware was already a sea of fire, and at this moment it was no longer the night that affected the observation, but the thick smoke billowing on the opponent's battleship, and the speed of the US ship had dropped from the previous 15 knots to less than 12 knots, which showed that the bottom compartment of the battleship had also been seriously damaged.

The battleship Delaware is still fighting back unrelentingly, the 10 main guns of this powerful American dreadnought have been destroyed more than half, and the remaining two twin main guns and useless small-caliber secondary guns are still useless counterattacks, but the ending is no longer in suspense, and what he wants to care about at this moment is obviously the telegram from the theater command in his hand! (To be continued.) )