Counterattack. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 info

We're going to fight back.

Every sober or half-drunk Russian sailor on the battleship repeated this order, carrying it out with practical action, feverishly firing shells of various calibers at the targets chosen by the rear admiral. Their fighting spirit is irrefutable, but their hit rate is still unimproving.

Not a single shell came close to their target. In fact, the vast majority of shells fell into the sea, and only a few hit the hull and deck of the Mikasa, and all of them were far from its bridge.

Vizofort was furious, but helpless, the gunners' accuracy was not the result of one or a few commands that could be changed, and if they did not have the ability to match, they could only pray for a miracle.

He felt as if his good fortune had been exhausted.

"We're all going to die here." Wizofutte's face turned pale, "How many more shells?" ”

Without an immediate answer, the Chief of Staff took a moment to verify the answer to the question, and the result was both expected and disappointing to him.

His expression darkened. "There are eight more shells per main gun, and the remaining ammunition for the eight-inch secondary main gun is less than thirty rounds per gun."

"We won't last a few minutes."

"Dozens of minutes." The chief of staff gave a more reliable figure in his mind, but did not say it.

That doesn't make any sense. Unless the naval battle can be quickly ended within this time, the result will be the same: the old and weak shore defense battleships of the Baltic Fleet are nothing more than targets capable of moving and returning fire, and once the three American-made battleships run out of ammunition, the Japanese will completely destroy the entire fleet like targets.

It's just a matter of time.

"What should we do?" Wizofert asked in a low voice. The chief of staff thought of the result, and he thought of it as well.

"I'm not sure yet, general......" The chief of staff was silent for a moment, and then made a bold suggestion that surprised him himself: "Maybe we should get closer." Get as close as you can and keep the Japanese battleships in close to face-to-face range - so that we have the opportunity to drop all the remaining shells on them. ”

Wizofort thought of a predetermined battle plan that had been abandoned because of his orders: wait until the Japanese fleet approached within five thousand meters before starting shooting. He began to feel that the chief of staff's new plan seemed to be some kind of bolder and crazier copy of it.

"How close are you going to go?" He asked.

"I said it, get as close as possible, three thousand meters, two thousand meters, general, the closer the better."

"Are you crazy?" "At such a close distance, we might be able to drop all the shells on the Japanese, but they can also hit us all, and our battleships simply can't withstand that kind of blow." ”

"At least we can inflict more serious losses on the Japanese. And the level of protection of the Japanese battleships was not much higher than ours, our ships could not withstand a blow, and theirs was the same. The chief of staff insisted on his opinion. This is his last card, and if it doesn't work, then the fleet is left with only two options: surrender, or sink.

"We have no better way, win or die." He shouted.

"No...... Colonel, even if I give that order, the captains will not necessarily carry it out...... Frankly, I doubt anyone will execute it. Vizofort was pessimistic and convinced of his predictions.

"We'll have to try, General."

The Chief of Staff requested. Just then, a sudden burst of artillery fire exploded under the bridge, and a loud roar drowned out his voice. He opened his mouth, ready to repeat what he had just said, but Vizofort had already heard the most crucial part, "Give it a try." With little else to lose, he finally decided to take the risk and try the chief of staff's tactics.

Vizofort turned to the sergeant who had once passed orders to the chief of staff. "Give a signal to order the fleet to follow the 'Eagle' and approach the Japanese fleet ......"

"And ordered a ceasefire on the Borodino and Alexander III." The chief of staff added, then said to the rear admiral: "We must conserve ammunition. ”

Vizofort nodded. "Do as the Colonel says."

The sergeant hesitated, but nevertheless carried out the order. A few minutes later, the battleships of the expeditionary fleet began to approach the Japanese Combined Fleet.

Yuzaburo Kato and Shinyuki Akiyama were whispering about the situation on the battlefield — with Cox in their own voices, and they didn't want the columnist to join the conversation automatically — and then they noticed that the heavy artillery fire that had enveloped the Mikasa disappeared. The two immediately ended their conversation and turned their gaze to the Lucian fleet.

The next second, they assessed the tactics the fleet was taking: a reckless move, but one that was well timed. The combined fleet has not yet completed the turn and cannot respond immediately to its actions. The Lucians could do so by closing the distance between the two fleets, drawing the combined fleet - and themselves - into a more dangerous battle.

"The Lucians are going to take a gamble." Yuzaburo Kato said.

"Can't give them a chance." Akiyama Shinyuki proposed, "Concentrate your fire on the Lucian flagship, sink it or force it to change course." ”

"Do you think it's a danger to let the Lucians get close to the fleet? But I think that would be more dangerous for the Lucians, whose shore-defended ironclads simply could not withstand the direct fire of large-caliber shells at close range. Yuzaburo Kato looked relaxed, but his gaze had already reached Heihachiro Togo. Whatever actions the fleet was going to take, it was his decision.

Heihachiro Togo's right hand was already raised.

"The fleet accelerates its turn." He commanded.

A staff officer walked away, and Mayuki Akiyama leaned in. "Your Excellency, I request that the Lucian flagship be concentrated against it—"

"There's no need, Akiyama Shosa." Heihachiro Togo interrupted him, "Our firepower is fierce enough, the Lucians may not be able to achieve their target, and besides, their actions are beneficial to our army. ”

"But—"

Heihachiro Togo interrupted him again. "The task of our army is to completely destroy the Lucia expeditionary fleet. If the distance between the two fleets is shortened to near face to face, our gunners will have a higher chance of hitting and destroying their targets more easily, and the Lucians will lose the chance to escape. ”

"That's right!" Cox interjected very appropriately, "Admiral Togo is right, no matter what the cost, we must not let the Russians slip away, not a single one. ”

Akiyama Mayuki wanted to give the annoying rice country columnist a roll of the eyes, but the admiral was looking at him, and he could only suppress this impulse back to his heart, bow to Heihachiro Togo, and then retreat to Yuzaburo Kato.

"I want to stuff that Mi into the chamber and shoot it out." He whispered to Yuzaburo Kato.

Yuzaburo Kato smiled and didn't say a word.

Akiyama sighed and looked back at the Lucian fleet - the artillery fire had not had the desired effect, and despite the fact that it was dense and violent, and that fleet had caught fire on several Lucian battleships, it had come closer.

It seemed like an unchangeable process - almost ten minutes later, Akiyama realized that his prediction had come true.

"Two and a half thousand meters away, General."

"Do you want to keep closer, Colonel?" Vizofort expected to hear a negative answer. In order to get as close as possible to the Japanese fleet, his flagship had become devastated, the hull was riddled with bullet holes of different sizes, and there were serious losses in personnel. He even felt that it was a miracle that he had not been blown up into the sky by a single shell.

But will miracles always exist? Wizofort was skeptical.

The same goes for his chief of staff. As much as he wanted to cut the distance to less than two thousand meters, he also knew that no captain was willing to carry out an order that increasingly looked like suicide.

"We can break the silence, General." "If our gunners still can't hit the target at this distance, then we can only see it as God's will," he said. ”

"God will bless Russia, and he will bless the Russian Navy." Wizofort said, with a hint of insincerity.

After waiting another second, he gave the order.

With an inevitable delay, the Eagle's front guns erupted with a piercing roar, and two flames erupted from the muzzles, expanding and spreading, and finally turning into two dazzling balls of superheated gas.

Wizofert looked at the Japanese flagship expectantly, hoping to see a magnificent explosion on its bridge. Unfortunately, the shell still missed the target, the first shot grazed the bridge of the battleship, and the second hit its chimney.

The Rear Admiral looked away in disappointment - he had completely lost faith in the battle.

His actions caused him to miss the beginning of a swift explosion, but his chief of staff saw it: without warning, a flash of fire suddenly flashed in the middle of the battleship, starting as a small blob, and then spreading to the sides, causing one explosion after another, a chain reaction, and finally, engulfing nearly a third of the battleship.

Wizofort quickly turned his head and watched in amazement at the strange explosion, watching it develop and then end. He cast a questioning glance at the Chief of Staff.

"I don't know why, General." "However, it seems that our luck has not completely disappeared......"

Luck, luck, and luck, always luck. Vizofort didn't know whether to be happy, or sighed that he had nothing but luck. However, he felt that he might still have a chance in this fight.

On the Mikasa, the situation has become chaotic. (To be continued, if you want to know what will happen next, please log in to the www.qidian.com, more chapters, support the author, support genuine reading!) (To be continued.) )