A huge black cloud rose from between the two iconic cage lookouts of the battleship Delaware, and the sky was filled with fire, mixed with various debris ejected by the explosion, and rushed dozens of meters into the air......

Sima Jian approached the altitude of 300 meters and dropped two 320-kilogram aerial bombs, one of which almost clinged to the right front deck of the battleship Delaware, smashed into the seawater, and then exploded violently 3 meters below the surface of the sea! However, this 320-kilogram bomb is a Type II armor-piercing projectile, and the charge is enough for 120 kilograms, which is not much less than the warhead of a 430mm torpedo.

It is a pity that the angle of the bomb into the water is a little worse, and the explosion point is nearly 7 meters away from the right chord armor band of the battleship Delaware, although the underwater explosion caused a huge impact, but for the American Iron Tortoise with a thickness of 11 inches on the side armor belt, it did not exert its power at all, and only formed a huge pit with an inverted angle of 15 degrees and an area of several square meters on the surface of the armor, with a low-intensity water leakage in the No. 7 anti-sinking compartment on the starboard side of the battleship.

However, another 320mm bomb that hit 4 meters in front of the conning tower, between two huge chimneys, caused huge problems for the battleship Delaware......

This 320-kilogram bomb almost easily penetrated the 4-inch horizontal armor belt of the battleship Delaware, and then directly hit the T-shaped ear turret bracket between the battleship Delaware's C main turret and the command tower!

The Delaware-class battleships produced by the Newbridge Shipyard adopted a new main gun layout of the U.S. Navy, with three ABC 305mm twin guns arranged at the bow of the long ship, and two other 305mm twin guns arranged in a cascading structure at the stern, and between the stacked C main gun position and the bridge command tower, there were two chimneys and two cage watchtowers, considering the very spacious space between these four useless large columns. In addition to the addition of 12 120mm broadside rapid-fire guns, the US Navy designers once again used their imagination.

Four T-shaped piers were erected to provide additional weapons platforms, and several small-caliber guns were mounted on top of the T-shaped piers to counter broadside and aerial threats...... There are undoubtedly various rationalities to this design, which gives a wider view than the 120mm secondary gun mounted on the main armor belt on the side side. It can effectively increase the artillery coverage of the side secondary guns on approaching targets.

But it is clear that the Americans' obsession with piling up firepower led to a huge cup that nearly buried the battleship Delaware......

The 320-kilogram bomb was smashed down at an altitude of more than 300 meters, and the speed of reaching the deck had exceeded 150 meters per second, and the huge impact force smashed through the two 6-meter lifeboats in the middle of the battleship, and then effortlessly cut through the 150mm armor belt covered by the top of the middle side gun emplacement, and then caused a violent explosion in the 120mm side gun chamber of the No. 3 port side of the battleship Delaware.

The M3 bomb, loaded with almost 210 kilograms of high-performance explosives, exploded in a gun chamber of less than 10 square meters. Almost instantly, the entire U.S. shooting team evaporated, and the huge blasting force directly blew up the entire auxiliary gun room into a large smashed can, and even worse, the auxiliary gun room was originally set behind the heavy armor of the battleship and was fully protected by the main armor belt of the hull, so the gun crew did not expect that they would open the can. Therefore, there were no less than a dozen shells piled up in the gun chamber.

After a series of martyrdoms. The billowing black smoke from the explosion and the items directly ignited in the middle of the battleship almost completely obscured the anti-aircraft gun emplacements and lookouts of the battleship Delaware in the middle, raising a huge column of fire of more than ten meters, which made the US troops on the exposed gun emplacements around them panic......

The two Hawk dive bombers that followed Sima Jian naturally did not waste this golden opportunity, and swooped down on the target that was falling into chaos in just two minutes in just two minutes. Four bombs were dropped on the middle of the battleship Delaware at altitudes of 400 and 450 meters, respectively.

Due to the almost complete lack of fire from the middle of the battleship, although the bomb height was slightly higher than that of Sima Jian, the two fighters still achieved amazing hits, and two of the four aerial bombs directly hit them, one of which smashed very accurately on the main turret of the battleship Delaware. Despite the fact that the front of the turret had more than 11 inches of armor, the smooth-top 7-inch carburized armor apparently failed to withstand the onslaught of more than 300 kg of bombs.

The aerial bomb was directly embedded in the thick armor belt on the top of the turret, and the explosion of the blasting part was violent, because the hit part was a little off the periphery of the turret, and it failed to lift the top of the huge turret, but the huge impact generated by the blasting still shattered the steel armor inside the turret and the adjacent blasting position, and the steel flying everywhere directly created a pile of minced meat and broken limbs like a steel knife.

What's even worse is that the huge heat generated by the explosion is poured directly into the turret along the cracks created by the explosion, and in the suffocating exhaust gas and high temperature, the life in the C turret is harvested in more than ten seconds!

Another bomb once again bloodied the middle of the battleship, which was in dire straits, easily smashed through the top armor that had just been damaged by the explosion, and did not get under the deck of the battleship, but exploded directly on the upper deck, as a result, the huge energy swept through a large group of American soldiers who hurried to try to damage the damage, and then the height of the flames in the middle of the battleship climbed five or six meters again.

Commodore Lucius in the commander tower of the battleship Delaware was obviously lucky, in order to install five twin 305 main guns, the battleship Delaware increased the center of gravity of the battleship in consideration of the huge weight of the turret, and finally had to cut the cabins on the upper floor of the battleship, including the conning tower, resulting in the low and ugly conning tower of the battleship Delaware.

As a result, the second round of explosions caused a wave of air that seriously injured most of the officers who were observing in the command tower, and Brigadier General Lucius ran out of the command tower because of great concern about the situation of the first bomb explosion, prepared to assess the damage in time after the damage control operation was completed, and miraculously escaped the second round of air raids, which can be called a lore.

When the five Chinese bombers quickly pulled up, Brigadier General Lucius, who ran back to the command tower to face a room of disabled officers, was almost about to explode, this unheard-of, dive-down bombing from overhead, completely shattered the few luck he relied on, only the first round of attacks from the Chinese, and his proud Delaware dreadnought had been hurt.

What made him even more unacceptable was that on his three battleships, in fact, only the battleship Delaware was additionally equipped with a 37mm cannon of the Gaoping dual-purpose anti-aircraft machine gun, but judging from the raid just now, this kind of anti-aircraft weapon favored by the US Navy has completely become an ornament, and the gun position firing officer is completely unable to complete the anti-aircraft shooting at a large elevation angle.

On the contrary, the battleships Nebraska and Louisiana, which did not have additional anti-aircraft firepower, were unharmed by a dive bomb dropped by a Chinese fighter plane...... The outcome of the war can only depend on luck, and this is definitely not an outcome that the military can accept.

"Immediate damage management, report all losses! Report to General Abel about the threat of Chinese fighters! ”

"Order the destroyer formation to move closer to us and provide anti-aircraft fire! Close the distance between melee ships to 1000 meters! Prepare to provide cross-to-air fire cover! ”

"Report to Admiral Abel immediately, we turn to the north, get rid of contact with the Chinese fleet, and ask the main fleet to reinforce as soon as possible!"

Commodore Lucius burst out all his tactical energy almost instantaneously, and at this moment the Chinese fleet must be rushing towards him, and the first hand played by the other party is almost a lore for himself, which is completely unacceptable, but he has to accept the reality, but he immediately found the best response plan he could get......

At this moment, there was another commotion on the chaotic battleship Delaware, and an officer rushed directly into the command tower and shouted loudly: "General, a Chinese fighter has been found in the southeast position of the fleet!" ”——

Sun Xingguo held the flight control stick steadily, and he staggered with Sima Jian's team for a while, and when he flew out of the clouds, he accidentally found that he had deviated from the direction, and after coming back in a small circle, he unexpectedly found that he had run to an excellent attack point directly south of the target American fleet, as for the target of the attack......

The American battleship with billowing black smoke looks like a soft persimmon that can be pinched casually! It seems that although Sima Jian's attack was successful, it did not achieve the effect of destruction, which is definitely a big bargain......

"Brothers, follow me!" Sun Guoxing howled excitedly in the cockpit, and then made an attack gesture at his wingman, and the first one pressed down the nose of the plane and pounced! (To be continued.) )