The darkness before dawn is undoubtedly the deepest moment, and the German, French and British fleets, which have already met each other, naturally understand that a decisive battle between the two sides is inevitable, and the change of the situation is very delicate for both sides......

Vice Admiral Spee's this daring fleet attack, he was not afraid to take the huge risk that a soldier should take, but for the large-caliber main guns of the French battleships, as a senior admiral, he would not treat the other party as a paper tiger, any 300 kg shell, there is no doubt that it has a devastating strike effect, especially for the fleet that has been breaking the fleet, he did not intend to regard this battle as the end of his Far East operation.

Looking at the sky gradually whitening in the eastern sky, and nearly 10 rounds of salvo firing turned out to be unsuccessful, which has completely exceeded his expectations, when the Queen-class battle cruiser was training in the bay of Tomini in South China, the salvo hit rate at a distance of 11000-13000 meters even exceeded 10%, considering the various adverse effects of the wartime situation, but at this moment, after the two Queen-class battle cruisers fired 10 rounds of calibration and salvo fire, nearly 120 shells actually missed.

Lieutenant General Spee realized that time was running out to give himself a full blow, "turn the rudder 10 degrees to the right and close to 11,000 meters!" ”

Almost at the same time, Rear Admiral Raymond issued the same order aboard the Martel, "Turn the rudder 15 degrees to the left and close the distance with all your might!" ”

Rear Admiral Raymond was even more worried than Vice Admiral Spee, and until now, the French fleet had not figured out how many warships the Germans had come, and. From beginning to end, the opposing side had only 3 battleships to exchange fire with themselves, but. The combat power displayed by these three warships alone already made him feel unbearable.

The battleship Martel, which was of the former dreadnought, did not have any advantage over the new dreadnoughts of this era in terms of armor, after all, among the new battleships that had just entered service today. The battleship Martel, which uses the technology of surface carburized steel armor that is widely licensed from China, and has 250-320mm main armor, uses only the Harvey steel armor that was popular earlier.

The Germans never laid out battleships in the Far East. But the two battleships in front of him at this moment had 6 large-caliber guns, and he was very sure that the caliber of the opponent's main guns was more than Martel's 305mm guns. This is almost conclusive. The two German battleships must have been new battleships, or battle cruisers...... And Rear Admiral Raymond is almost 100% sure that this should be a new type of warship that the Chinese factory has just delivered before the war!

The salvo of 8 main guns on the battleship at the end of the opponent's sequence did not worry Rear Admiral Raymond too much, there was no doubt that it was the German Scharnhorst Heavy Cruiser, the Germans had two heavy cruisers of the same class, and the other was probably waiting for fighters in the dark...... A small error in judgment on this point. It's not to blame Rear Admiral Raymond, after all, the Gneizenau is indeed indistinguishable from Scharnhorst.

Where the French fleet suffered. To a greater extent, in terms of fire control system and training, the Martel battleship was equipped with a shooting commander, which could effectively strike targets within 10,000 meters, but above 10,000 meters, the error rate increased greatly.

Compared to the 10 rounds of fire between the heavy guns, the Gneizenau Heavy Cruiser, who joined the battle group immediately after the battle patrol, had been in the battle group for a full 15 minutes, but the Gneizenau's 210mm rapid-fire main gun fired only 12 volleys, which was completely inefficient for the rate of fire of the main gun of 3 rounds per minute, and his goal was to follow the Martel's Metz light cruise.

Since the 150mm and 104mm naval guns of the light cruiser of the Metz were simply unable to hit targets 10,000 meters away, they had been maneuvering at a speed of 27 knots to avoid the zigzag curve of the salvo to close the distance with the heavy patrol of the Gneizenau, and did not often counterattack, which caused the trouble of observation and calibration of the German ships.

At 5:30 a.m., eight 210mm, 45 times the diameter main guns followed by the 13th round and a half salvo, and the firing officer predicted the maneuvering position of the French light cruiser, and fired a rapid full salvo of four rounds in one minute, and finally broke the deadlock, and a 210mm high-explosive shell accurately hit the 150mm twin main gun on the foredeck of the Metz light patrol at a distance of 8,500 meters.

After a long-distance attack of 8,500 high parabola, the kinetic energy of this 140-kilogram high-explosive bomb with a discharge speed of 610m/s has actually suffered a great loss, but the position of hitting the main gun in front of the Metz is really tricky...... The Metz light cruiser is also a 4500-ton armored ship, although the tube of the 150mm twin front main gun is not large, but the frontal armor of the entire turret is also 180mm thick, but the armor on both sides of the turret is only 100mm, after all, when attacking, the chance of hitting the side of the gun cover is really minimal.

But this time, the Metz, which was maneuvering in a zigzag shape, did not consider counterattacking in such an unreachable position, and the front main gun was not pointed at the opponent at all, but was directly smashed through the 100mm thin armor belt by this 210mm high-explosive shell, and as a result, several 150mm shells stacked in the turret were also directly killed in the violent explosion.

The French officers and soldiers inside turned into a wisp of green smoke directly in the violent explosion, and the entire turret also bounced up on the spot like a stuffy jar because of the violent explosion, and the huge energy smashed into the turret like a heavy hammer, and the back of the turret was directly opened in an instant.

The soldiers who hurried to extinguish the fire were very unlucky to encounter another round of martyrdom, and were swept down on the spot, and when the series of explosions was over, a huge cloud of fire rose from the foredeck of the Metz, completely exposing the light patrol that had been concentrated in the dark in the night in front of the three huge warships, which was obviously too desperate......

After the light patrol of the Metz was hit, he immediately gave up the idea of continuing to attack closely, and quickly turned to try to get closer to the battleship Martel, but the commander of the Gneizenau, Colonel Sillet, seized this opportunity very decisively, and almost only 15 seconds later, 8 210mm rapid-fire guns immediately poured 5 rounds of 40 high-explosive and armor-piercing shells on the Metz exposed to the fire.

At a distance of more than 8,000 meters, the Germans played a perfect round of training, in just one and a half minutes, hit 3, nearly missed 2, 3 hit shells, the ghost even sent 2 still smashed on the foredeck, the French who rushed to damage the management again ploughed a piece with shrapnel, the deck became a sea of fire, for a time, the Metz was full of mourning.

Another armor-piercing projectile very simply pierced the main armor belt at the back of the Metz, and then penetrated the coal bunker under the rear armor plate for reinforcement protection, and then the 150-kilogram armor-piercing projectile changed direction, straight through the thin 25mm armor belt of the two cabins, and finally landed very accurately in the power compartment at the back of the battleship.

To the relief of the officers and crew of the Metz, the armor-piercing charge was only 20 kilograms of TNT explosives, not 50 kilograms of high-explosive shells, so the explosion only blew a large hole of more than 2 meters in the bottom plate of the ship...... But even this huge water inlet was already a big trouble, and what was worse was that the explosion directly caused the main drive shaft of the Metz to shift, which directly led to a rapid decrease in the speed of the battleship.

By the time the Metz desperately escaped to Martel's side, the speed of the battleship had plummeted from 27 knots to 17 knots, and the water ingress in the bilge and the fire in the front compartment made the battleship have to sail away from the battlefield, otherwise on the battlefield at this moment, the Metz with a candle is undoubtedly a live target.

The result of the heavy patrol of the Gneizenau obviously made the flagship Empress and the Hans patrol of the same class quite faceless, and Lieutenant General Spee's eyes glared and tried to put some pressure on the shooting officer, but although he closed the distance a little, at 5:37 the Empress followed up with one round of school firing and two rounds of rapid firing, and fired a cross shot at the Martel that he was also quite looking forward to, but, obviously, Lieutenant General Spee's luck today was obviously a little bad.

The cross-firing shell, it was really magically only across the back deck of the battleship Martel, close to the freeboard and smashed into the sea behind the battleship, this result, so that the gunners of the two Queen-class battle cruisers were embarrassed, you know, the 343mm heavy gun reserve ammunition is 50 rounds, today Niu X coaxed out to raid the opponent, and actually hit 14 rounds of 0 hits super results, which is nearly one-third of the ammunition...... God knows how!

Vice Admiral Spee's face became darker and darker, the artillery battle was fought to this extent, and then put pressure on the shooting officers, it was estimated that they would also collapse, and when he was thinking about how to boost morale, the battleship Martel, which was constantly maneuvering in the distance, had an accident!

The previous straddle projectile obviously frightened Rear Admiral Simon, and the stupidest naval officer would understand what it meant to straddle fire, and it was definitely the favor of the god of luck that he didn't give the opponent's shell penetration, so he immediately ordered to turn and distance himself...... Seeking results also requires a life!

However, just as the order was given and the battleship turned at a large angle, a deadly alarm bell sounded from the side lookout, and an officer rushed into the command tower like crazy, "Report, left...... Spot the torpedo track! ”

Rear Admiral Raymond rushed to the port side of the conning tower, and when he looked at the sea illuminated by artillery fire, three dazzling white tracks had suddenly appeared on the left side of the battleship Martel, and the nearest torpedo was less than 50 meters away......

"Right full rudder ......"

The battleship Martel turned at full speed, but apparently could not change its fate!

Rumble......

A soaring column of water rose from the back of the battleship Martel! (To be continued......)