About twenty nautical miles northwest of here, Lu Hai, who was standing in the command compartment of the Taishan bridge, was even more nervous than Natal, and he and the main force of the navy were cruising here, waiting for the opportunity to enter the battle.

Operational planning is very risky, and the slightest mistake can lead to the failure of the plan, and the most demanding thing is time. All sides must launch an attack at the exact time in accordance with the requirements of the plan in order to inflict the heaviest blow on the enemy.

First of all, the reconnaissance detachment had to find the main force of the expeditionary fleet in the fastest possible time, and then the submarine group carried out a harassing attack to force the battleships of the expeditionary fleet to concentrate, and then the airship group of the air force bombed it. Neither the purpose of the attack of submarines nor airships is to sink enemy warships, which is also unrealistic, their purpose is to disrupt the formation and rhythm of the expeditionary fleet, to cause the enemy to panic, and then the main fleet to attack.

Now it seemed that the plan was going well, and Lu Hai ordered the fleet to speed up, move closer to the battlefield, and seize the advantageous position. The main fleet, consisting of two Wuyue-class battleships, 12 Nanhai-class cruisers, and 30 Guangzhou-class destroyers, is about to face the challenge of nearly 100 warships of the expeditionary fleet. Lu Hai did not expect to be able to completely annihilate the expeditionary fleet, as long as it was routed, or the expeditionary fleet's losses reached a certain level, such as more than half of the losses, he could force it to retreat, so as to win the naval battle.

At 9:45 a.m., 15 airships of the airship group hiding above the clouds appeared over the battlefield, but there were still mistakes in the implementation of the plan, and only half of the 30 airships successfully reached the target, and the airships of the 2nd airship group encountered bad weather with strong winds and rain during the flight, and two of the 15 airships crashed, causing the second group to delay time and not reach the target at the planned time.

Before the departure of the expeditionary fleet, it was proposed to add anti-aircraft weapons to the battleships, but it was not approved. There are many reasons for this, and there is no precedent for China's air force to attack the sea. Moreover, the navy bosses do not think that toys like airplanes can pose a threat to warships, and the bombs they can carry are too small to accurately hit battleships in navigation. As for airships, it is even more unlikely, the British Navy has done experiments, carrying bombs through airships, and the accuracy rate of attacking stationary targets on the ground is less than one percent. That is, less than one in a hundred bombs can hit the target, not to mention the threat to a moving battleship. Limited by its performance, airships are unable to reduce their altitude to the desired bombing altitude when bombing, and their speed cannot keep up with the speed of the battleship.

In addition, the installation of anti-aircraft weapons on a warship is bound to have an impact on the superstructure of the warship, and in reality, every position of the warship has its role, and the installation of anti-aircraft weapons will lead to a decline in the warship's combat capability against the sea, and the gains outweigh the losses.

On top of that, countries do not yet have an effective anti-aircraft weapon. There was no suitable anti-aircraft ammunition. The military revolution led by China is advancing rapidly, but the progress of technology and the realization of industrial production take time, and countries do not have the perverted plug-ins like steel bases, and can only climb the technology tree little by little.

So after seeing the airships floating in the air, which were larger than battleships, Natal couldn't think of how to deal with the challenge of those airships for the time being, if he adjusted the formation again, he might be attacked by submarines, and if he kept in formation. Bombs dropped by airships could have landed on battleships. The dilemma of the choice in Natal will be uncertain. The Chinese airship has already arrived at the attack position.

Before the expeditionary fleet leaves the range of the airship, the airship brigade has fifteen minutes to attack, during which time there is no need to worry about the hit rate and no need to worry about being attacked, as long as the ammunition it carries is dropped.

Fifteen airships covered the sky over the battleship detachment, and three airships, side by side, were the first to arrive in the predetermined airspace. After slowly descending to the bombing altitude, the ammunition compartment under the gondola was opened, and five heavy bombs fell with a whizz. The first wave of attacks worked surprisingly well, and the expeditionary fleet did not let the battleships evade the airships, making the bombing more effective than expected. Even in the pre-war exercises, there was no such good ending.

Thirteen of the fifteen bombshells in the first wave fell into the sea between the battleships, and the waves washed the battleships after the explosion, and one of the two bombs that achieved the results hit the French former dreadnought-class battleship Gaul, which was launched in 1896 and had a displacement of about 12,000 tons, with a complex upper deck and two 254-mm guns in the front and rear of the ship.

The bombshell dropped by the airship hit the amidships of the Gaul, penetrated the upper deck and exploded in the boiler room, unleashing the enormous power of the aerial bomb in a small space and blowing the battleship in two. The rest of the battleships did not even have time to save the officers and men on the Gaul.

Another bombshell hit the Captain Centurion, which was replenished from the British Far East Fleet, and the battleship survived the bombardment of the anti-aircraft guns on the shore of Guangzhou, but did not block the blow of the aerial bombs. The bow of this battleship with a displacement of more than 10,000 tons was hit by a bomb, and the battleship seemed to be hit by a heavy hammer, and the bow of the ship suddenly sank a few meters, and then exploded violently, and countless parts hit the adjacent battleship, causing a secondary attack effect, just like a small-caliber artillery shell attack.

Sea water poured in from the bow of the Captain Hundred, causing the stern of the ship to lift up in a short time, and ten minutes later sank vertically into the sea.

Natal was dumbfounded by the power of the bombshell, and before the advent of aerial bombs, even the shells of the main guns of battleships of the largest caliber could not reach the power of bombshells. The aviation armor-piercing projectile dropped by the airship was 600 kg of aerial bombs with a loading factor of 15 percent, that is, a charge of 90 kg. This figure is quite appalling, the high-explosive and armor-piercing shells fired by the 406-mm main guns of the American Iowa class battleships have a charge of about 25-28 kg; The Taishan main gun has a high-explosive charge of 64.2 kg and an armor-piercing charge of 18.8 kg, which is very far behind the aerial bomb.

So as long as it rubs against the battleship, the aerial bomb can cause huge damage to it, and it is normal for Natal not to understand, if it were not for the distance between the two battleships of more than five hundred meters, it is estimated that the battleship closest to each other would also be overturned by the blast wave.

Before the second wave of airships descended to the bombing altitude, Natal ordered the battleship detachment to disperse immediately with a sound that burst the eardrums of others, and if this continued, all the battleships would be sunk by the airships! He didn't know that those two bombs contained too much luck factor, and he only saw two of the dozen bombs hit.

The battleships that finally received the order immediately dodged according to their own ideas, and at this time there was no time for the staff officers to arrange the formation and front and rear order, so they could only rely on the battleship's own instinct.

The problem was that the previous formation caused the battleships to be too concentrated and dense, and the twenty-three battleships, fifteen supply ships, hospital ships, etc., were crowded together, and the distance between them was about 500 meters, so it was difficult to maneuver effectively. Experienced captains try to keep their ships from colliding with other ships, and they pray that they don't fall on their heads because of the deadly bombs overhead.

The fifteen bombs of the second wave of bombing all missed, which was like a normal hit rate, but the bombs still achieved results, the queen hospital ship ran into the Italian Navy Admiral San Bon class Veneto battleship in a panic, the queen hospital ship was hit and sunk by the 10,000-ton ship, and the battleship Veneto also suffered some damage.

The third wave of bombardment began five minutes later, and the battleship group looked even more disorganized, with several battleships coming together for the same course. It is not so easy for these 10,000-ton giant ships to turn around and maneuver, especially if they always have to pay attention to the threat overhead.

The battleships on the inside wanted to disperse to the periphery, and there was confusion among the battleship groups, and the cruisers and torpedo boats on the periphery were also thrown into confusion because of the outward movement of the battleships on the inside. In the best case, the whole detachment acts together under the constraints of the detachment commander, but more often it is the actions of the battleships but individuals, and the mutual communication between the fleets is more cumbersome, and the instructions conveyed will also be unable to be executed due to the confusion of the ships. This is still the best navy of Britain, France, Italy and other countries, if this situation is put on the Chinese navy, without those advanced communication equipment, it will only behave worse.

The third wave of aerial bombs also did not hit the target directly, but one of the bombs exploded fifteen meters on the starboard side of the British battleship Solemnis, and the shrapnel and shock broke through the armor near the waterline of the Solemnity and blasted open a water intake about three meters in diameter. The 15,000-ton ship, which was launched in 1902 and had been tilted 35 degrees to the right after the damage management personnel had completed the blockade, was moored at sea, and completely lost its combat capability. After the war, the battleship was towed back to Zhanjiang Port by the Chinese Navy, and after simple repair, it was sent to Guangzhou as a patriotic education base for opening to the outside world.

In the three waves of bombardment, two battleships were directly sunk, one battleship was slightly injured, one battleship was seriously injured, and a hospital ship sank. The expeditionary fleet suffered heavy damage before encountering the main fleet of the Chinese Navy, the number of battleships was reduced to twenty, and the revenge operation had not yet begun, and the morale of the officers and men was greatly damaged by this attack.

Natal was also blaming himself, if he had given the dodge order at the first time and organized an effective mobilization, he could have avoided being hit by the bomb. He found that the bombs dropped by the airship were completely inaccurate, and as long as he was prepared to dodge in advance, he could avoid being hit. It was only because he was afraid of the threat of submarines that he did not give the dodge order until the second wave of attack, and the officers and men could not dodge in an orderly manner in the panic, which caused damage to the three battleships. (To be continued.) )