July 30, 1919, Atlantic, Celtic Sea.

The Celtic Sea is a sea area in the Atlantic Ocean, located south of Ireland. To the east, the Celtic Sea connects the St. George's Strait, the Bristol Strait and the English Channel. Located at the intersection of the English Channel route, the sea route between the United Kingdom and Ireland, the Strait of Gibraltar to Western Europe, and the North America to Western Europe route, the Celtic Sea is the key point of sea traffic in the eastern North Atlantic. The Celtic coast is beautiful and there are many ports. The "Celtic Sea" is named because it connects the southeastern coast of Ireland, the southwestern coast of Wales, the Conwall Peninsula of England and the Brittany Peninsula of France, all of which were traditionally inhabited by Celts.

No one would have imagined that a sea battle that would affect the course of world history would be staged in this beautiful sea.

At this moment, the two fleets are advancing in parallel in a direction of 30 degrees in the direction of crossing each other.

On the right is the Chinese fleet. On the flagship battleship "Republic", various signal flags flew high, although in this era, radio technology helped to ensure communication between comrades even in the absence of signal flags in naval battles. But the Navy still relies on traditional signal exchanges.

At the moment of the upcoming decisive battle, in addition to the traditional "Z" flag, there is also a special brown checkered flag flying high on the "Republic". This was the signal flag that Betty had put up temporarily, and only Betty, the dead Jellico, and Evans, who remained in London, kept the signal flag.

Twenty-six years ago, in their youth, when they served together in the Mediterranean Fleet. Their common mentor, the first day of the era of the Royal Navy of the British Empire, George? That signal flag raised by Lieutenant General Tryon at the last moment of his life! A semaphore flag that has been banned in the Royal Navy!

"AT Tactics! attack―team attack! Betty threw a punch and yelled loudly.

attack―team attack!

That was the first Sir Hamilton, George? The crystallization of Vice Admiral Tryon's lifelong learning, in the era when there was no C3i command system, the most sophisticated and complex formation attack tactics, the advanced attack tactics banned by the Royal Navy!

Six battleships of the "Republica" class, at almost equal intervals, were inclined to the right in a trapezoidal shape, and in front of them to the left were the German battlefleet, which began to turn to the right at high speed and pulled out huge gaps and arcs.

For the extremely demanding AT tactics, the captains of each ship now personally stand at the helm position and rudder, and they want to insert themselves into the enemy's battle line meticulously.

"Listen to me! Start turning left! Directions confirmed! Five, four, three, two, one, turn left 10°! Betty was reading a stopwatch herself. In a neat rhythm, the six giant battleships began to adjust their bows, and began to align with the gap between the lines of the German fleet in an arc similar to that of the German formation.

At this time, the six "Republican" class battleships of the Chinese fleet had basically been transformed from a column to a horizontal formation, which was extremely risky. In front of the enemy formation, they will attack the enemy for a period of time only with the front main guns. And the German fleet was basically effortless, getting the "T" position sent by the Chinese!

"Second left turn, left rudder 5°, five, four, three, two, one, left turn!" The Chinese fleet was largely spread horizontally to the right of the Germans.

"Not good! They are going to be interspersed! "Lut was puzzled from the very beginning when he saw the strange maneuver of the Chinese fleet, and the second time the opponent came with another such turn, Lut understood at once!

"All artillery, 10000 yards covered on the starboard side!" At this time, regardless of the hit, a steel wall should be formed with artillery fire on the right side, and all artillery fire capable of firing up to 10,000 yards will be fired wildly to the right side.

At the speed of the "Republic" class battleship's 33-knot burst charge, the turn from 14,000 yards to 10,000 yards was inserted in less than 10 seconds. In an instant, the "Republic", which was the first to reach the 10,000-yard wall of fire, was instantly surrounded by countless fireballs, followed by the "Mingzhuo", then the "Constitution", and then the ......

Bearing the heavy onslaught of large and small caliber artillery fire from the left and right, and risking being broken by the enemy at any moment, Betty could only hold on to a handle tightly, and the sound of the dense explosion, like an earthquake, made it impossible for him to stand alone. Xu Zhenpeng's hand holding the steering wheel was already white, and he forced himself to stand as firm as he could and hold the steering wheel.

"7000 yards!" The telefinder's report came out of the loudspeaker, and Betty, who was standing solemnly at the front of the bridge, reached out and rubbed the sweat droplets oozing from her head, and suddenly turned to one side with a fierce expression: "This ship is aimed at the second ship of the enemy column, shoot freely!" The ships began shelling to the left! ”

"Bounce - 27 yards to the right, left - "

Led by the "Republic", the other five battleships correspondingly passed through the gap between the German battleship formations.

"All artillery with full fire, free fire!" Soon the Chinese fleet was inserted into the gap between the German fleet, and the secondary guns of the Chinese battleships were all American-made 5-inch rapid-fire guns, the rate of fire was a storm, but more than 10,000 yards were basically lethal. Now the spacing between the two rounds is not 1000 yards, the main guns have no firing range, and the crazy artillery fire of the Chinese fleet instantly turned the superstructure of the Germans into a hornet's nest!

However, the thick-skinned German battleships did not care about the bites of these "mosquitoes".

"Hurry, hurry! Three or four more hits will be out of bounds! The gunners were shouting.

Stormy 5-inch shells quickly "plowed" the German battleship above deck.

"The whole team follows the flagship and turns left 8 compass points together!"

Soon six battleships of the "Republica" class crossed the German battleship formation, and now they were going to quickly turn around and again pass through the German formation. A huge battleship is not a car, and in order to perform such a 180° rotation, it needs to run out of a reserved position in the opposite direction.

After dragging a distance of tens of 10,000 yards back and forth, the Chinese fleet turned to the right again, and the six battleships of the column turned 90 degrees to the right at the same time.

"All artillery turn right! Two rounds of rapid fire! "The gunners grabbed the communication horn and yelled!

As soon as [***] turned, the assault speed of the German fleet was imperceptibly slowed down. At this time, the price paid by the Chinese fleet was not light, and the superstructure of the six ships of the "Republic" class from beginning to end could be said to be full of holes.

"Correct the course and turn 10° to the right!" The Chief Navigator shouted.

The Chinese fleet, which was to the left of the German fleet, began to force the Germans to turn to the northeast.

When Betty's flagship "Republic" finally rushed out from the starboard side of Lot's column to the left position, the artillery battle between the two ships had lasted for more than ten minutes.

"It's ragnarok!" Shen Honglie stood on the bridge of the No. 2 flagship "Constitution", and at this time, the shells of the two sides on the sea were like meteor showers.

"Herald! Team shifts firepower! In a one-on-one attack of the enemy's opposing column fleet, the 'Reader' and 'Nation' broke away from the formation and turned right 2,000 yards, slowing down to attract the firepower of the 'Byrne' class! Betty gave another fatal command.

This meant that the two Republic-class battleships at the very end of the formation would withstand artillery fire from the enemy's six Byrne-class battleships.

Two against six!

Betty had to do this, the main fleet of the British and American navies was approaching at full speed, and he had to stop the Germans with all his might, otherwise the sacrifice of the Americans, the sacrifice of the Chinese fleet, everything would be in vain!

"I wonder how long such a fight can last!?" Betty took off the hat he wore with his crooked surname.

The nearly half-hour between the two fleets was a nightmarish moment. But this is not the end of the nightmare, on the contrary, the nightmare has just begun.

Patches of milky white firefighting foam were piled up all over the deck, and the thin steel plates turned outwards and the twisted deck gun mounts were still emitting green smoke from one by one. Bullet-riddled chimneys spewed black smoke from large and small breaches, leaving black marks on the outer wall of the bridge towering between the conning tower and the foremast. Inside the bridge, with his bare sweat-stained and shiny head, Xu Zhenpeng was gritting his teeth to accept the bandaging of the ship's chief medical officer, while the two staff officers who looked fairly intact were bending over and sweeping the broken glass all over the ground. Xu Zhenpeng wanted to die at this time, and he decided to carry out this order from the beginning, he didn't expect that he would suffer heavy losses, but he didn't expect it to be such a hell scene on earth.

The Chinese fleet was in a bloody hell at this time, and the German fleet, as an opponent, was also uncomfortable, and the 16-inch guns of the "Republican" class battleships were not vegetarian.

"General, the Byrne is flooded!" Captain Frank reported the damage to the fleet to Lut as soon as possible. Within 10 minutes of engagement, at least 15 16-inch bombs swept across the ships of the German battlefleet, including the flagship "Kaiser Wilhelm". The fire engulfed the entire superstructure of all the ships, and more than half of the exposed 88-mm rapid-fire guns and anti-aircraft gun mounts were destroyed. A shell that hit the lower part of the rear mainmast of the "Byrne" shattered all the portholes of the bridge, causing more than half of the reserve staff of the fleet command on the rear bridge of the "Byrne" to be killed or injured -- including Vice Admiral Bent, the reserve commander of the fleet, who fell to the ground during the shock, causing his forehead to come into close contact with broken glass and bleeding profusely.

The "Frederick the Great", which was in the second position of the fleet, was the main target of Betty's tactics. Within 8 minutes after the 12 rounds of the ship's main guns were fired, more than 8 rounds of 16-inch shells were eaten: the No. 2 chimney was pierced by one of the shells from the middle, and a large amount of waste smoke leaked out of the huge hole, hindering the work of the rear rangefinder; Most of the steel pipe of the main support of the emast was blown off, and it was crumbling under the barely support of the two side braces of the triangular structure, and the personnel of the emast observation post were forced to evacuate; The bow and stern part of the ship that the main armor belt does not extend to is deformed and seeped into the hull due to continuous critical hits at the waterline; And the fire, which was even more ferocious than the reserve flagship "Byrne", surrounded the bridge three layers inside and three layers outside - but the Germans with iron nerves still stubbornly resisted the enemy's attack and did not withdraw from the battle column.

"We have four more battleships than our opponents, and we must repel them before we can fight our way out!" Admiral Ruth had already bitten his lips, and the blood was running down the corners of his mouth to his chin, but he didn't feel any pain at this point.

At this time, the loss of personnel of the Chinese fleet was almost at the limit, and the ships temporarily requisitioned cooks, military bands, and engineers and gunners who were not necessary to participate in the damage control, and finally controlled the fires in various places before the fleet turned around for the third time and prepared to seize the position of the German ship "Wilhelm the Great". At the same time, each ship quickly accommodated the wounded and the dead, and temporarily deployed its crew according to the prior combat replenishment plan to ensure the normal effectiveness of key departments and posts.

Whether it is a coincidence or the expectation of one side, at this moment, the fleets of the two sides are strangely in a parallel straight line. These two long snakes, spitting fire and spitting smoke and just straightening their bodies, are a battle line made of the most powerful weapons ever made by mankind - battleships!

Yes, there is nothing wrong with the battle line, even if it is a noun used in the Age of Sails.

Carrying six "Byrne"-class "Reading" and "Nation" to the death, the sacrifice for the whole fleet is unimaginable. Although the armor protection of the "Republican" class battleships was the pinnacle of this era, the distance had been reduced to about 10,000 yards, and there was no difference between the lethality of 406 mm and 380 mm. The 5-inch secondary gun positions on both sides of the battleship had long been in shambles, and most of the superstructure had been knocked out. On the deck from the bridge, the fire was still fierce, and from time to time there were secondary guns and ammunition crackling and exploding. But they couldn't stop the sailors carrying hoses and sledgehammers rushing to the deck like ants whose nests had been flooded, spraying seawater, shooting foam, hitting rails, and knocking on the deck. He didn't care that in the next second, he might be blown up into unrecognizable pieces by an enemy bullet that hit the surface of the ship in an instant.

With continuous grappling, the speed of both sides has dropped to 24 knots. It is surprising that in the face of an enemy almost twice as large as themselves, the speed of the "Republic" class battleships has not slowed down, and in fact, the most complete crew of the "Republic" class battleships is now the engine room. Since the beginning of the war, the two sides have fired at least 1,000 shells at each other, and at least one or two hundred rounds have hit the opponent, and not a single shot has penetrated the engine room of the "Republican" class.

"We're going to drive these two-headed vultures back to the French coast! Accelerating again to 33 knots, deflecting two compasses to the right, we rushed ahead of their pilot! Betty, who had just woken up, took over the command again from Xu Zhenpeng, and with a salvo just now, a 403-mm shell pierced the No. 2 bridge of the "Republic", and Betty was seriously injured and unconscious on the spot. Now, Betty had strapped herself to a chair, and the bandage around her abdomen was still oozing blood.

Lut has no choice but to fight with Betty now. If before this, Lut still had the luxury of getting rid of Betty's entanglement, then now it is a way to Huashan, kill Betty's fleet and escape.

"Keep in touch with the enemy, we are parallel to them, duel!" Ruth ripped off the collar he had been buttoning up, like an angry vulture!

Outside the bridge window of the "Republic", orange flames flashed, the hull shook, and the sound of guns swept across the deck. Stirring Betty's eardrums, another volley was struck.

Betty unconsciously silently counted seconds in her mind, and sure enough, in the interval between the next salvo, the opponent fired at least two rounds of shells, 4 rounds each, apparently using a half-salvo method - that is, each salvo only used the barrel on one side of the turret, and the next round used the other side, so that the time between each salvo could naturally be reduced. However, since the number of projectiles per round is only half of that of a full salvo, the probability of a single round of projectiles should theoretically be inferior to the latter. But now it's too close, and any bullshit theories don't work, and almost every shell is a bullet biting flesh.

Betty now has no need for any theory, and has no intention of weighing the pros and cons of a full salvo or a half salvo, and his ship has become the battle line of "the strongest battleship fleet in history". Maybe the next moment, you can see the main formation rushing in the distance, and maybe there will be a big explosion of death right away!

"God...... it! Betty thought indignantly.

Suddenly. A low, strange, devouring roar sent a chill down Betty's heart. The distance is very close, and this is on their own battle line. A frightened and terrifying scream was heard from the speaker: "The 'Constitution' in the back...... The B turret exploded! ”

On the battleship "Constitution", Shen Honglie, who was reclining on a steel navigation chair, carried an officer's saber and supported his already unstable body. Half of the young staff officers were also bandaged like Shen Honglie.

Shen Honglie endured the burning pain in his head: "Can anyone tell me how the damage to this ship is?" What is the situation with the ship in the back now? ”

Everyone looked at each other, but in a few seconds they reacted together, and when they boarded, they rushed to the flybridge protruding on both sides of the mainmast, scrambling to look in the direction of the stern, and a few two or three people also raised signal flags and communication lights, and directly asked the ship behind.

"The B turret of this ship is completely destroyed, the ammunition compartment is filled with water, and the right side auxiliary gun is completely destroyed!"

"The Spirit of Liberty was hit by 4 bullets, some of its secondary guns were damaged, and a fire broke out near the rear mast......"

"The 'Reading' was hit by 5 shots, the stern was flooded, the rotation mechanism of the A turret was faulty, and the two 5-inch auxiliary guns on the starboard front were damaged......"

"The 'Nation' was hit by 6 bullets, the starboard side secondary gun was completely extinguished, the B turret was penetrated and caused an internal fire, and the ammunition depot was filled with water......"

"The 'Ming Cook' was hit by 5 bullets, the bow and stern were flooded with a lot, the rear mast collapsed, and the C turret could only use the left gun ......"

"Sure enough, it is the strongest and most advanced warship of the German Empire...... It won't be long before you fight hard like this, not to mention that the two ships behind will block the six "Byrne" "......"

The situation with the flagship of the Chinese fleet, the "Republic", is also not much better than that of the "Constitution".

(To be continued)