"The time has come for us. "I saw the reddish lagoon lit by the bright artillery fire, and looked at the American warships panicked in the lagoon under the illuminated night.www.biquge.info Huang Chengjie put down the telescope in his hand, took a deep breath, and shouted loudly, "Accelerate and rush in!" ”

At this time, the two American destroyers that were originally guarding the entrance to the lagoon had left the entrance due to the sudden shelling of the defenders, and were engaged in a fierce battle with the defenders, so they did not pay attention to the entrance to the lagoon at all.

The main force of Task Force 57 in the open sea was dozens of nautical miles away and did not approach Kiribati at all. When Huang Chengjie took two torpedo boats and a destroyer to burn the boiler to the fullest, and the speed soared to the peak and rushed into the lagoon, the Americans didn't notice them for a while!

The scene was too chaotic. Everywhere there were fire-shooting cannonballs piercing the night sky and huge columns of water constantly rising, and all the warships were busy dodging or returning fire. Who has time to pay attention to the sea dominance that they have firmly grasped at this time?

Americans' carelessness and complacency are not the only ones. They believed that they had the full initiative and that the defenders were powerless to resist. They even drove logistics ships like the Clemenceau into the lagoon to supply the Marines at close range.

When the Ming warships broke into this chaotic land like ghosts, the Americans were going to be in bad luck.

The lagoon in Kiribati is large and contains not only the 3rd Cruiser Squadron of Task Force 57, but also a large number of logistics supply ships and landing vessels. The eyes of so many boats and the people on board finally found the large, two, small and three black shadows approaching at high speed. Although the alarm was raised, the situation was very chaotic and communication was very poor, and it was difficult for the Americans to react for a while.

"Hit that big one!" On the bridge of the Shuangliu, Huang Chengjie's face was as calm as water, and he ordered in a deep voice. It was a one-shot deal for his fleet, and he had to choose his target carefully. Torpedo loading was very cumbersome, and he simply could not have a chance for a second attack.

It's just that now the scene is chaotic and the fighter plane is fleeting, and he can't have the opportunity to choose a target slowly, so he can only choose in the simplest way, that is, to fight a big figure.

The 3rd Cruiser Detachment of Task Force 57 consisted of the heavy cruiser USS Tuscaloosa as the flagship, four light cruisers and one destroyer. The most conspicuous of these is naturally the Tuscaloosa, which has a displacement of more than 10,000 tons. And there is an even bigger figure not far behind the Tuscaloosa, and Huang Chengjie naturally chose his target on them.

"Enemy attack?!" Commander of the 3rd Cruiser Squadron aboard the USS Tuscaloosa, Will Brown. Brigadier General White looked incredulous. He threw himself to the porthole, looked at the small figures who were rushing at high speed in the distance, his eyes were slightly distracted, and he whispered to himself, "How is it possible?" Where are the Ming warships around here?! ”

Being attacked by someone in a state of chaos is probably the last thing any soldier wants to face. Unfortunately, this is the dire situation that Americans are facing right now.

"Steer out of the way! Fire! The captain of the Tuscaloosa shouted as he commanded his ships to stay out of danger. But it was too late. The Shuangliu and his two little brothers rushed towards the Tuscaloosa in a rain of bullets that were getting denser and denser, and fired all the torpedoes in one go when they were less than a kilometer away.

The Shuangliu was a standard destroyer with two penta-mounted heavy torpedo tubes mounted on it. Huang Chengjie never thought of using artillery against the Americans, and his killer weapon was torpedoes.

The Ming Navy is the world's largest navy, and its reputation and strength have been maintained for hundreds of years. With sufficient military spending and resources, Da Ming never knew what it meant to be economical. Their torpedo boats were actually completely different from the small near-shore ships of the Americans or Europeans, they were only called torpedo boats, and were not regarded as regular fleet warships by the Ming Navy.

The torpedo boats of the Ming Navy are more like a shrunken destroyer, or a high-speed frigate is more suitable. These torpedo boats, with a displacement of up to several hundred tons, can make long-distance sea voyages and are also equipped with four twin torpedo tubes.

It is completely different from the torpedo boats of several tens of tons, which are widely used by the navies of those allied countries. Because the Ming Navy has huge overseas interests and vast territory on a pan-global scale, small ships are of little significance to the Ming Navy.

The two torpedo boats, Shuangliu and S417 and S559, turned and released their torpedoes when they rushed to a distance of less than a kilometer from the Tuscaloosa. Then the three warships, which had been extremely brave, rushed towards the American warships near them at a faster speed. They're going to crash the ship!

It was too close, and the Tuscaloosa didn't really have time to get up to speed. Because this is a lagoon, not a vast sea. If you are too fast, you may run aground or collide with your own friendly ship. Therefore, when the torpedoes on the Shuangliu came rushing in, the American officers and men on the Tuscaloosa could only close their eyes in despair.

The hull of the Tuscaloosa is nearly 180 meters long, and with such a huge body, there is no way to dodge the twenty-eight torpedoes that flew in a dense fan-shape!

"Boom, boom, boom!!" The Tuscaloosa, with a displacement of up to 10,000 tons, was hit five torpedoes in a row! Not to mention a 10,000-ton heavy cruiser, even a new battleship will vomit blood until it has to cough up its lungs.

The Tuscaloosa's broadside armor was only 130 millimeters thick at its thickest, where could it withstand such a fierce attack? The violent explosion completely damaged the entire structure of the battleship, and within a few minutes the battleship broke into several pieces and sank into the lagoon.

The Tuscaloosa included the commander of the 3rd Cruiser Squadron, Will Brown. None of the 868 crew members, including Brigadier General White, escaped alive, and all of them were carried to the bottom of the lake by the huge suction generated by the sinking of the battleship. Not to mention anything else, for Huang Chengjie and his fleet, this result alone will completely recoup the capital. And that's not all.

The lagoon on Kiribati is huge, but it can't compare to the vast sea. Dozens of U.S. Navy ships are parked here, resulting in the close proximity of the ships to each other, and the phenomenon of overlapping positions has appeared.

After the twenty-eight torpedoes fanned out, many of them sped past the front and rear sides of the Tuscaloosa, and pounced on the many American warships behind the Tuscaloosa. The largest and most obvious of these is the hospital ship Clemenceau, which is only a few hundred meters away from the Tuscaloosa.

The cruise ship-turned-hospital ship was hit by two torpedoes as it swerved in a panic, and a huge column of water soared higher than the mast. This is just an ordinary cruise ship, how can it resist a powerful torpedo attack? The ordinary marine steel plate under the waterline was quickly torn to pieces by the powerful force of the explosion, and the huge gap caused the raging sea water to pour into it frantically.

It is absolutely impossible for this kind of ordinary cruise ship to set up dense watertight compartments in the ship like a military warship to improve its sinking resistance. Such civilian ships look large, but the built-in defenses are very vulnerable, especially in the face of torpedoes, which are a big killer.

The hospital ship could not be saved due to a large amount of flooding, and soon the ship rolled over and was directly caught on the sea. Almost all of the more than 1,000 crew members on board and the hundreds of wounded who were brought aboard sank to the bottom of the lake. The wounded and paramedics were largely in the medical compartments below deck, and there was no time to escape when the ship was attacked.

In addition to the Tuscaloosa and Clemenceau, one of the unlucky eggs was torpedoed and sunk during the attack. The name of this unlucky guy is William. D. USS Portal.

In another time and space, the warship that had become 'famous' for firing torpedoes at its own president was sunk in this way just after it was commissioned to participate in its first naval battle, which is worthy of its reputation as a ship of doom.

The main reason why so many results can be achieved in a single attack is the terrain of this battlefield.

Huang Chengjie is the commander of the local fleet on the island of Kiribati, and he knows everything about the water ripples in this lagoon. The optimal depth and speed are calibrated before the torpedo is fired. Coupled with the relatively concentrated concentration of ships and logistics ships of the Third Cruiser Detachment, a coherent arrangement and a little luck, Huang Chengjie achieved major results.

It's not over yet. When the flagship was hit, the surrounding U.S. warships were all in a panic, although many ships had turned their bows and fired fiercely at Huang Chengjie's ship, but there were still many ships who did not understand the situation, and kept sending telegrams and signal lights to ask what was going on. And the situation on the battlefield is changing rapidly, where is there time for them to identify them one by one.

Huang Chengjie, who was determined to die, led his fleet to ram into an American destroyer not far away that had not yet figured out the situation, and even flashed the signal light of inquiry towards the Shuangliu. The Fletcher-class destroyer, the Waldley, didn't understand what was going on until it was hit by the Shuangliu and two torpedo boats!

Eventually, this rare naval battle in the lagoon on the island of Kiribati ended after more than ten minutes. After the Shuangliu collided and sank with two torpedo boats, the terrified US warships were still inexplicably shelling each other because of the dark sky, because they lost their unified command, because they were disturbed by land artillery fire, and because they shelled each other for various reasons.

More than a dozen U.S. warships fought fiercely with each other for nearly 20 minutes before they gradually calmed down. A brave assault that inflicted heavy damage on the U.S. Navy. This is a war for the brave. (To be continued.) )