"Your Excellency, the King Kong is broken. Pen × fun × Pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 info We can't get in touch with the flagship! The words of the communications staff officer made Kondo Nobutake purse his lips unconsciously. It's just the start of the war, which has lost a capital ship, not to mention the loss of even the commander of the fleet. Nobutake's heart was suddenly clouded.

"Is there any lighting contact?" The captain of the Yamato, Takayanagi Yoshiba, asked loudly.

"Light contact has been made, but there has been no response from the King Kong." The words of the communications staff officer made the hearts of all the officers in the bridge sink. In fact, through the porthole of the bridge, they could see the battleship burning like a volcano in front of them. In this case, what kind of light connection will not work.

"Raise my commanding flag." After a moment of silence, Nobutake Kondo spoke in a deep voice.

The King Kong is finished, and there is no news from Takasu Shiro, but the battle must continue. As the highest-ranking officer in the entire fleet at this moment, Nobutake Kondo must take on the responsibility. Raise the commander's flag and take over command of the battlefield.

"Order all ships to speed up their turn and form a battle line as soon as possible to launch a counterattack against the Ming army." Kondo Nobutake had no other choice at this time, but hoped to regroup as soon as possible. Now it's completely sent to the door one by one to die.

The Japanese army began to accelerate its adjustment. Although the battle damage of the King Kong brought them a great shock, it was far from the extent that they gave up.

At this time, the Japanese still had a numerical advantage of 10 to 8, and they also had super battleships Yamato and Musashi. Almost all the Japanese officers and soldiers were in the passion of fighting to the death for the future of the country and the nation, and their morale was very high. And it wasn't affected too much.

Fighters on the battlefield are fleeting. Wang Haibo, as a standard soldier, will never let go of any fighter.

After destroying the Kongo, he quickly ordered the target to be shifted, concentrating his fire on the Haruna, a battleship of the same class that followed behind the Kongo.

The Kongo's loss of control caused it to leave the battlefield, giving up the Haruna in its wake. Moreover, the raging fire ignited by the King Kong also reflected the figure of the Haruna. Under the double lock of fire control radar and optical sight, Haruna, who was inadvertently sold to his teammates, quickly followed in the footsteps of his sister ship. Completely incapacitated and turned into a floating scrap iron ship. After dawn, it was sunk by a destroyer of the Ming Navy.

After destroying two battleships in succession, the Japanese naval fleet finally realigned its battle line. Two long battle lines were drawn from each other at a distance of about 12,000 kilometers, and both of them were moving in a southeasterly direction at a speed of about a dozen knots. Of course, you still have to spray each other.

After losing two warships in succession, the Japanese fleet still had a numerical advantage of 9 to 8, but it was not as obvious as before. The battlefleets of both sides pulled out two long battle lines and began to fire at each other.

The Ming Navy took the lead with four cutting-edge provincial capital-class battleships, and the corresponding opponents were Kirishima, Hiei, Ise, and Hyuga, four old Japanese battleships. This is because the Japanese army was led by the seven old battleships.

The four mountain-class super-dreadnoughts in the rear faced Fuso, Yamato, Musashi, Nagato, and Mutsu. The Yandang Mountain at the rear, a sister ship of Nagato and Mutsu. The Taihang Mountain against the Fuso, while the Wudang Mountain against the Jiugongshan is the Japanese Navy's super battleships Yamato and Musashi!

In the dim darkness of the night, the warships of both sides continued to spit tongues of fire. The orange cannonballs pierced the sky like Spitfire meteors and smashed into the opposing warship.

The four cutting-edge battleships of the Ming Navy are very strong. The new long-barreled guns of 400 mm caliber were enough at this distance to penetrate any of the armor belts of the four old ships opposite. Moreover, the soft back cap armor-piercing projectile used by the Ming Navy has a chiseling ability and explosive power far exceeding that of the Japanese army, and it is combined with advanced fire control radar. Almost every round of shots will result in a hit. And every hit was an unbearable pain for those old battleships.

At 2:24 a.m., a 400-millimeter armor-piercing projectile fired from the Shenyang accurately hit the frontal armor of the Kirishima's No. 1 turret.

However, the frontal armor of the turret with a thickness of only 280 mm could not withstand the armor-piercing shell fired from more than 10,000 meters away. The frontal armor was torn apart without incident, and the shell drilled directly into the turret and exploded. At the time, the turret was preparing for firing, and the shells and cartridges were piled up inside the turret.

At this time, unless the Kirishima had a big burst of luck, and this armor-piercing bomb was a dud, no one could save the battleship.

Duds may or may not appear in any shelling. It is clear that Kirishima ran out of luck and this is not a dud.

There was an earth-shattering bang, a huge light and torch that illuminated the entire battlefield, and the Kirishima exploded.

In order to facilitate the delivery of ammunition, several thick sealed doors between the interior of the Kirishima No. 1 turret and the main ammunition compartment below were not closed. When the armor-piercing projectile penetrates the turret and detonates the ammunition in the turret, the enormous force penetrates directly into the main ammunition depot in the bilge. Subsequently, the volcano erupted.

The explosion at the main ammunition depot was so powerful that the Ming Marines and the Japanese defenders on Ryukyu Island could see the flames from far away!

The Kirishima was destroyed, turning into a cloud of skyrocketing flames and thick black smoke. The entire battleship was blown in two with the main ammunition depot as the center, and it didn't take long for it to disappear into the sea.

The three battleships Hiei, Ise, and Hyuga did not last long. These old super dreadnoughts basically have little room to fight back in front of the new battleships of the Ming Navy. Whether it is the 360 mm main gun of the King Kong class or the 356 mm main gun of the Ise-class, it is difficult to pose much threat to the heavy armor of the new battleship of the Ming Dynasty at this distance.

Most of the Japanese shells were hit in the water, and it was difficult to penetrate a small number of shells that hit the new Ming warships. At most, it will add some scars to the Ming battleship and destroy some external equipment and secondary artillery. But the main guns of the battleships of the Ming Navy have nothing to fight in the past. And the Ming also had the help of fire control radar, which was much higher than the Japanese Navy in terms of hit rate.

After a fierce artillery battle lasted for more than twenty minutes, the turrets on the Hiei were all silent, and the battleship quickly turned away from the battlefield after a raging fire.

In the end, the Hiei was not able to return to the Japanese mainland. On its way back to its homeland, the last Kongo-class battleship was attacked by a Ming Navy submarine and sunk with four heavy torpedoes.

The Ise, on the other hand, was repeatedly penetrated through the waterline armor, resulting in serious water leakage, a rapid decrease in speed, and was beaten into a sieve by the fire of many Ming warships. He then tried to withdraw from the battlefield, but gave up on the way because of the defeat of the management. Later, it was sunk by a torpedo fired by the famous Japanese Navy gun Wang Ye Branch.

The same fate happened to the Ise's sister ship, the Hyuga. After being crippled, the Hyuga followed her sister ship in an attempt to exit the battlefield. However, because the rudder was damaged, the boiler compartment was destroyed, resulting in an explosion and loss of speed. In the end, the ship had to be abandoned. In order to prevent the battleship from falling into the hands of the Ming Navy, it was finally sunk by a torpedo launched by the Nozo Branch.

So far, seven old warships of the Japanese Navy have died one after another. In the eyes of the Japanese, the incomparably powerful battleships did not last more than an hour under the combined attack of new technology and new warships.

The old armor could not withstand the new, high-powered armor-piercing shells. The outdated main guns were also unable to penetrate the armor defenses of the new ships. What made the Japanese even more desperate was that their vaunted training was so weak in the face of the new sighting equipment.

The Japanese artillery hit rate was about 1 or 20 percent, which was already a remarkable achievement in traditional naval warfare. This shows the level of training of the Japanese Navy. However, the hit rate of the Ming Navy, which used fire control radar, was more than double that of the Japanese army!

If you hit me in one shot, I'll give you two back! And this is again in the case of inferiority to the opponent in terms of firepower and armor defense. How can this be fought?

The battle at the front was one-sided, and the battle at the back was similarly close to one-sided, but it was the other way around, and it was the Japanese who had the advantage.

The four super dreadnoughts of the Ming Navy have a slight advantage over the Fusang in addition to the Taihang Mountain. The other three super dreadnoughts struggled against the four cutting-edge warships of the Japanese Navy. In particular, the Yandangshan with a single ship against the Nagato Mutsu sisters.

When the four new provincial capital-class battleships in the front violently attacked the old Japanese warships, the Yandangshan held out for 20 minutes under the siege of 16 410-millimeter guns of the two ships of Nagato Mutsu. Several large-caliber shells lost their combat effectiveness and caught fire, and then tried to withdraw from the battlefield.

The injuries of the Yandang Mountain were too severe, and a large amount of water ingress caused the battleship to tilt badly. After the captain ordered the water to be filled in the opposite direction to restore balance, the battleship sank as a whole, and the deck was no more than a meter or two from the sea.

In this case, the captain had no choice but to give the order to abandon the ship. The Yandang Mountain eventually sank to the platform. It is about 120 nautical miles northeast of Bay Island.

As for the Wudang Mountain and the Jiugongshan, the two old super dreadnoughts against the super battleship Yamato-class, although they were able to avoid being hit by a 460 mm cannon at the beginning of the war by luck, luck will always run out. When the Ise withdrew from the battlefield, two battleships were hit by 460 mm guns one after another.

The Yamato-class super battleship, which was pinned on by the Japanese Navy, was indeed very powerful. Solid armor was difficult to penetrate by old 380 mm caliber guns. And the 460 mm caliber cannon they are equipped with is like wearing paper against the old battleships of the Ming Dynasty.

After being hit by four armor-piercing shells, the Wudangshan was again pierced by an armor-piercing bullet fired from the Musashi. This time it blew up the ammunition depot of the Wudang Mountain. The Wudang Mountain was quickly broken in two and sank to the bottom of the sea after a violent explosion.

Similarly, the Jiugongshan did not last long. After destroying three turrets, the Jiugongshan voluntarily withdrew from the battlefield and was eventually rescued back to China. However, because the damage was too serious, the Jiugongshan was changed to a training ship by this = and withdrew from the naval establishment.

At this point, the strength between the two sides has returned to the level of 5 to 5. Then comes the king-to-king showdown! (To be continued.) )