Philadelphia is a city with a long history, the first parliament and even the capital was in Philadelphia, before 1800, but with the change of times, the capital has moved to the vicinity of Washington, D.C., because Philadelphia is located between New York and Washington, D.C., so its geographical location is very important.

The purpose of the process is not to attack Philadelphia itself, which is about the same distance from the Atlantic Ocean as Philadelphia is from New York, so it is basically impossible for the battleship to intervene unless the battleship enters the river.

Not to mention the United States, a big country with sufficient countermeasures and a large number of warships, even if it is an ordinary country, it is a very dangerous thing for warships to go deep into the river, unless it occupies an absolute advantage and destroys the entire fleet of the other side, otherwise, no one will dare to do this.

Fortunately, Cheng Biguang's purpose is only to attack the vicinity of Dover Bay, the Philadelphia Shipyard, at the beginning of the 20th century, the shipyard has not entered the scope of the city because of the expansion of the city, mostly on the outside of the city, the Philadelphia Shipyard, is a heavy industry enterprise with a long history in Philadelphia, compared with the developed finance and shipping of New York, it has unique conditions, it is one of the largest shipbuilding bases in the United States, and a large number of battleships and capital ships were built here.

The stability of the internal waterways of Dover Bay, the wide waterways, including the proximity to New York and the well-developed railroad, became an excellent advantage for the Philadelphia shipyard, and with the support of the British, he even overtook the old New York shipyard to become the shipyard with the most warships.

The first goal of the sneak attack fleet is to attack New York, after the New York strategy is excellently completed, there are several alternatives in the plan, the Philadelphia shipyard is more dangerous, but under the reconnaissance of the reconnaissance plane, the surrounding ships are in another direction, from New York to Philadelphia, the straight-line distance is only less than 150 kilometers, but if you go around Dover Bay, this distance will be at least doubled, it seems to be very close, in fact, Cheng Biguang has a lot of leeway, as long as the speed is fast enough, it can completely hit and run.

Compared with several other targets, the Philadelphia shipyard is actually the best target, because the warships under construction are huge, and 6 of the capital ships currently built for the United States and Britain are built here, at this time, 4 of them have completed most of the work, more than 9 percent of the construction has been completed, and the remaining 2 ships have at least 6 percent of the completion.

New York was attacked, as if a huge alarm bell sounded, the United States began to strengthen the defense of various ports, but unfortunately the east coast of the United States, there are too many ports, the United States was independent from the British colonies, 13 regions, all close to the coast, as the earliest development of this area, the port is also a standard configuration, among these ports, some are stronger, some are even weakened because of the mobilization of warships.

Compared with other places, Philadelphia itself is a military port, stationed a whole fleet, and because of the relationship between the military port and the shipyard, their land batteries are the latest, built 3 years ago, such a place, the defense, is much stronger than other places, in the eyes of the Americans, the other side only has 4 capital ships, maybe it can sneak attack the port that is not very fortified, but really compared with the military port, it is absolutely not good, Philadelphia here, even if it has been transferred, At present, there are at least 70 warships of all sizes, and six of them are more than 10,000 tons.

These warships, many of which are former dreadnoughts, may be inferior to the Emperor-class head-on, but how can they go head-on, just use naval guns and land-based batteries.

However, their main location is on the inside, that is, in the river, separated from the shipyard, this is for security reasons, and it is also an inherent tradition, perhaps in the eyes of the US military, they have just attacked New York, and Philadelphia is so close to New York that it is impossible to cause an attack.

In Cheng Biguang's view, the battleship will have to confront the battleship, although the loss to Wall Street is great, but there is not much impact on the war heritage of the United States, only a shipbuilding center like Philadelphia is the most suitable object.

It was also night, under the premise of no fortification, quietly approached Dover Bay, compared to other bays, Dover Bay was relatively calm, near the estuary, it was even calmer, only the watchtower was lit up, but it could not cover all the sea, four Fantasy class approached the mouth of the river, and then brazenly launched a surprise attack on the military port.

The reconnaissance plane clearly included the situation near the shipyard, all of which were included, especially the most obvious batteries, but the protection of the Philadelphia shipyard was not low, in the most critical place, there were 12 batteries, all kinds of cannons of more than 12 inches, 108 guns, and many warships, no matter how strong Cheng Biguang was, it was impossible to attack freely like New York, after all, 4 ships, even if he used up all the shells he carried, they might not be able to clean them all up, in Cheng Biguang's order, Just attacking the key 30 guns and forcibly opening the way to the port with a jump, it is a free attack.

Eight submarines also took advantage of the chaos to enter the key places of the port, and began to carry out indiscriminate attacks on those battleships that were anchored in the sea and had not yet been completely activated, and near the mouth of the river, although the battleships could not enter, the submarines could break in, as long as they were fast in and out.

According to the loading speed of submarine torpedoes, 30 minutes, 48 torpedoes, the whole attack lasted 1 and a half hours, a total of almost 150 torpedoes, those ships, under the attack of artillery fire and torpedoes, finally did not leave the military port, with the perfect defense of the military port, and the sacrifice of many small boats, 6 more than 10,000 tons of warships, 4 were saved, but the other warships, but lost most of them, including several cutting-edge cruisers, although only 4800 tons, It is not a giant ship of 10,000 tons, but this cruiser, with a fairly high technical level, fast speed, sharp artillery, and a large number of air defense, is the main youth training of the future US Navy.

After a chaos, the siren sounded near the shipyard, Cheng Biguang successfully broke down the defense of the Philadelphia shipyard, and began to attack freely, the Philadelphia shipyard was too big, coupled with the previous consumption, it was impossible to completely destroy Manhattan like New York, but they chose to attack mainly, 6 battleships on the slipway were the biggest targets, and 12 10,000-ton heavy cruisers and some cutting-edge light cruisers under construction, as well as many equipment workshops and the like, even including the shipyard's technical dormitories, and its equipment represent the hard power of the shipyard, but the personnel and technical personnel represent the soft power of the shipyard.

From the beginning of the attack, to the end of less than 2 hours, in fact, for the attack on the shipyard's slipway, that is, less than 1 minute, this time more decisive, large-caliber naval guns, almost regardless of the cost of the attack, two rounds a minute, with a total of 48 48 battleships, in just 30 minutes, 3000 shells were fired, these are large-caliber armor-piercing shells, for the battleship in the middle, it is not easy to hit the target, but for fixed targets, especially the shipyard is so obvious that the target is attacked, with an extremely high hit rate.

Armor-piercing shells may be for battleships, armor-piercing effect is not good, many times, but also need angle and position matching, but for the slipway of the ship, it is much easier, most of the slipway ships, are simple structure, these tough, born from the Queen Elizabeth class of strong warships, in the slipway, without the installation of artillery and the necessary armor, directly penetrated, armor-piercing shells penetrate the vital parts, high-explosive shells attack to destroy the surface, 3000 shells, evenly distributed, Directly turned this piece of shipyard into a sea of fire, and after 30 minutes, after confirming that the battleship and most of the machines on the slipway and the dock were all killed, Cheng Biguang walked away, leaving a messy scene.

This is a vivid sneak attack war, the time to start the war, around 11 o'clock in the evening, this is the most exhausting time for people, even if the United States suffered a sneak attack, Philadelphia is far away from New York, and deep in the interior, plus the Philadelphia shipyard, not as well-known as other shipyards, the United States and never imagined that Cheng Biguang's fantasy class would choose such an opportunity to attack, neglected protection, not only 40 minutes later, it was only organized to counterattack, but most of the warships were sunk by submarines, In the chaos and darkness, high-speed warships simply did not dare to protrude from the estuary.

Even the telegram to the Admiralty asking for help was sent one and a half hours after the attack began, which greatly delayed the time, and Cheng Biguang also knew that this was an absolutely dangerous place, and it was impossible to stay for a long time, so when attacking, he considered all this in detail, and the faster he broke through the defense, the better, and even in an hour, after tilting 3,000 rounds of artillery of various calibers to the shipyard, when he finally left, he fired 250 incendiary bombs, so that the shipyard was completely buried in the fire, and then he left.

In just 2 hours, even if the United States reacted at the first time of the attack and sent a battleship in New York, it was impossible to intercept Cheng Biguang, from the vicinity of New York to the Gulf of Dover, at least more than 300 kilometers, according to the speed of the battleship at 35 kilometers per hour, it would take more than 9 hours, this is still high-speed driving, this is night, with the example of the previous submarine sneak attack, before there is enough protection and security, no warship dares to go out, let alone a 2-hour attack, I didn't report until the last half hour, and half an hour was enough, even if I arrived, it would only be a mess. (To be continued.) )