At 8:11 p.m. on July 24, although the Canton was continuing to close, it did not reach the distance expected by the fleet commander, but after continuing to calibrate the firing, Han Cheng seized on the omissions in the continuous evasive movement of the battleship Delaware, and the battleship Canton fired a shocking round of long-range rapid salvo strikes.

The fierce salvo of 10 13-inch guns at 16,000 meters really startled Brigadier General Lucius, who had been struggling for a long time, and despite the loss of 3 destroyers, he temporarily found measures to deal with Chinese artillery flares did take effect, at least, it is difficult for the flares fired by the Chinese now to completely expose the 2 US battleships.

What is difficult to dispel is Commodore Lucius's fear of Chinese naval gunnery, he is almost the commander of the two battleships with all his might, at least, the strong survivability of the battleship can still give him the last confidence, and, at least in the previous more than half an hour of pursuit, the battleship Delaware did successfully avoid the enemy's shelling repeatedly, although he also understood that the other side did not carry out full artillery fire at all...... But at least, the American fleet seems to have found a way to continue to survive!

In the darkness, only the cannon flames that tore through the night could be seen in the distance, and the projectiles that came with the rumbling and whistling still completely shattered Brigadier Lucius's final expectations in a short period of 20 seconds......

When the violent explosion broke out, the coffee cup in front of Brigadier General Lucius suddenly bounced to a height of 2 feet, and slammed into the observation deck in front of him at a rapid speed, and was shattered in an instant.

The 370-kilogram armor-piercing projectile fired from the B gun position of the battleship Guangzhou achieved an accurate hit on the battleship Delaware at a critical moment and at a critical juncture, and the shell almost hit the top armor belt of the main turret of the D gun position at a large angle of 60 degrees, and the 8-inch carburized armor on the top layer of the turret of the battleship Delaware obviously failed to resist the cap-piercing shells with abundant kinetic energy.

The huge warhead easily tore through the armor and smashed into the closed main turret of the D gun position, and the fragments of steel armor that were torn apart in an instant directly harvested the lives of seven or eight American soldiers in the turret, and the only surviving American shooting officer was lucky to avoid the attack of the fragments, but he was surprised to see the bomb suddenly shattered on the cabin board, and a black shadow rushed directly down the deck.

What's that thing that smashes down? As a shooting officer, he obviously knew very well, but before he could react, an earth-shattering explosion had erupted in the bomb channel, and the ultra-high temperature explosion flames erupted directly from the bomb channel, instantly vaporizing all the carbon-based creatures in the turret.

To make matters worse, the explosion of this armor-piercing shell also ignited the ****** of the other 2 sets of turrets suspended in mid-air, which is undoubtedly a major operational mistake of the US Navy******.

But this mistake was obviously fatal, the main gun armor-piercing shell fired by the battleship Guangzhou was only 60 kilograms of explosives, but the two groups of ****** that were ignited at this moment were more than 400 kilograms, although the ****** and the blasting explosives loaded with the warhead were not the same, but the huge destructive power produced by the explosion of explosives of this order of magnitude still surprised everyone.

The main turret of the D gun position was installed on the armor belt nearly 2 meters high from the deck, but the huge power of the explosion blew up the entire turret from the battleship's armor belt in an instant, and the upper part of the turret weighing nearly 200 tons flew out like a leaf in the wind, smashed a 150mm secondary gun frame on the left side of the gun emplacement, and fell heavily into the sea.

Almost at the same time, the entire D gun emplacement erupted like a huge crater, and the horizontal armor belt on the surface of the hull shattered by the blast air flow reached tens of square meters...... And that's just a superficial loss!

The huge impact force of the explosion, along the direct bomb passage to the bilge, unscrupulously tore more than 20 nearby compartments, up to 10 inches thick compartment armor, but also completely unable to resist the amazing blasting power in the small space, up to 1,000 degrees of blasting fireworks ignited everything nearby that could be melted and burned.

But the most fatal injury did not damage the hull of the battleship by blasting, and the huge explosion directly damaged the transmission gearbox of the steam turbine on the left side of the bilge, which caused the battleship Delaware with 3-shaft drive to directly lose one-third of its power and stall rapidly!

This was not the only result of this salvo of the battleship Canton, in the first salvo, another armor-piercing shell exploded close to the foredeck of the battleship Delaware, and the explosion point was only less than 5 meters away from the battleship Delaware, if it were not a matter of luck, this was definitely a more deadly hit under the waterline.

The huge underwater impact caused by the explosion made the starboard side of the battleship Delaware seriously permeable, and this problem was not taken seriously at the first moment, after all, the impact of the detonation of the D turret completely covered up this more hidden damage!

Brigadier General Lucius couldn't help but be taken aback when he saw the tail of the battleship, which almost looked like a melting pot, and it was clear that he had no more options than to deal with it with all his might......

It's just that this time fate suddenly played a joke on him, in less than 20 seconds, when the continuous explosion of the D gun position did not stop, the Shanxi battleship that followed the Guangzhou battleship to launch the shelling also fired a round of high-quality shooting, 10 bombs roared, directly in the Delaware battleship from the Guangzhou battleship left front of the salvo coverage area, one of which was less than 100 meters away from the bow of the Delaware battleship.

Commodore Lucius, who was taken aback, naturally would not sail the battleship into the salvo coverage area of the other side, and the order to deflect the course to the left that was originally going to be issued directly stopped for this reason, and after a moment of hesitation, the ghost made the god almost turn the order to turn 10 degrees to the right, although he did not understand how he was hit by the Chinese again, but Brigadier General Lucius was obviously convinced of the necessity of maneuvering!

When the battleship Delaware hurriedly executed the turning order, bad luck struck again, and the second round of rapid salvo fire of the battleship Canton made another surprise hit, and this time the hit directly destroyed all the previous plans of Commodore Lucius!

The armor-piercing shells fired from the A gun position of the Canton successfully hit the front of the two cage lookouts in the middle of the battleship Delaware's hull again, and the 370-kilogram armor-piercing shells almost effortlessly penetrated the 4-inch horizontal armor, and the second cabin was the secondary gun bay of the battleship Delaware, which had been hit once earlier in the artillery battle, but the loss was not large.

But this time, the armor-piercing shell did not explode in the second-floor gun compartment, and directly penetrated several layers of horizontal armor belts in a row, and smashed into the bottom bilge of the battleship, and finally the armor-piercing shell smashed very accurately at the door of the boiler room where the bilge was densely protected by 10-inch armor plates.

However, this obviously could not save them at all, and the fragments produced by the explosion could not destroy the armor of the boiler room, but it directly swept through almost all the exposed facilities near the boiler room in the bilge, including more than a dozen boiler room sailors, and worse, the high temperature of the explosion ignited the heavy oil barrel at the door of the boiler room at the same time, and the fire borrowed the oil potential, almost in less than 1 minute, most of the compartments in the middle of the bilge were burned into high-temperature ovens.

This also includes the bilge boiler room with the hatch open, although it has strong armor protection, but it cannot stop the boiling flames with the help of the burst fuel jet, in just half a minute, the Americans in the boiler room have already suffered most casualties, and the heart-rending cries for help from the microphone make the officers in the command tower almost collapse.

The damage management officer immediately gave a death order, and even did not hesitate to remove the personnel, including the deck damage management team, and rushed down to the bilge, any kind of damage to the boiler room was not only a loss of power, but also the 14 high-pressure water-tube boilers inside could definitely detonate a large explosion that would completely shatter the battleship......

But the immediate problem at this moment was that the explosion near the boiler room immediately caused damage to the steam delivery pipes, which directly led to another rapid decline in the power of the battleship Delaware! When, 1 minute later, the second salvo of the battleship Shanxi was smashed head-on, the bilge officer reported to Brigadier General Lucius what had made him even more worried.

The fire had blocked several passages into the bilge, and the boatswain's suggestion to Lucius at this moment was to immediately open the bilge inlet, first use seawater to extinguish the fire, and then seek to solve the problem of the boiler room, but this plan is obviously also extremely dangerous, once a large amount of seawater enters the boiler room, it will still bring devastating consequences.

After weighing the pros and cons, Brigadier General Lucius did not approve the fateful plan, but instead ordered the water jets to open the passage...... But he obviously also knew that it would take time, and at this moment, the salvo that the two Chinese battleships in the distance were constantly launching, time was the most scarce thing for him! At this moment, the battleship Nebraska, which was immediately following the battleship Delaware, apparently also saw the dilemma of the flagship.

Although the Nebraska battleship is also being bombarded by the Dayu and Sirius battle cruisers, however, compared with the Guangzhou and Shanxi battleships equipped with 10 main guns, the 6 main guns of the Dayu and the Sirius are largely more like the configuration of pocket battleships, so in the continuous firepower output, although it once hit the Nebraska battleship, the overall hit was not as good as the two main battleships.

At 8:27, the **** captain sent a telegram to the flagship, proposing that the Nebraska battleship be broken off to buy time for the flagship to lose time, but was immediately rejected by Commodore Lucius, and at the same time, Commodore Lucius sent a new order, ordering the Nebraska battleship to quickly get out of the battle, and he will be responsible for the task of blocking the pursuit of the Chinese battleship and buying valuable time for the Nebraska to break away.

In the face of this order, the captain also knew very well the desperate situation of the American fleet at this moment, the serious stall of the battleship Delaware, he naturally observed it, and the fire in the tail of the battleship was a sign of serious damage to the battleship, Commodore Lucius made a decision as the commander of the fleet, he naturally understood that it must be the battleship Delaware, the situation was completely difficult to be optimistic!

But even if the battleship Delaware was willing to block the Chinese fleet, in fact, the chance of escaping was still very small, and the task of tracking at sea was not undertaken by the battleship...... (To be continued.) )