The Schahn sisters and the Deutschland, the three ships joined forces to sink the Hood and Prestige, and the German fleet, which felt that it had made a lot of money, had no intention of entanglement with the British cruisers, and they were unwilling to entangle with the remnants of the opponent's ships that had killed and lost the red eyes, and began to withdraw from the battlefield at full speed.

The Hood and Prestige were sunk in less than fifteen minutes, and the only remaining battlecruiser captain of the Counterattack took over the duties of the flagship.

So far in the naval battle, except for a bunch of cruisers that relied on the advantages of fast rate of fire and more bombs, and were blinded by more than 20 guns of the Shane sister ships in the night battle, the accuracy of the three capital ships was really miserable, the reputation hit zero eggs, Hood only had one hit, the counterattack was slightly better, and two hits: one bullet hit Shane's oil tank, and after penetrating the first layer of 85 mm thick quilt cap armor, it was blocked by the second layer of armor, although it caused some damage to the hull, but it was harmless. And the oil tank has long been used up due to wear and tear, and it is empty.

Another bullet hit the front of Shane's knapsack turret No. 2, but was blocked by its armor more than 430 mm thick, and the shell bounced directly on the turret, the biggest impact was that the shock caused damage to the internal structure of the turret, which increased the deviation value of the gun in the following long-range artillery battles, affecting the accuracy of the hit.

Other than that, the three ships got nothing.

However, the three ships can live that long. It's just too lucky. Although both the Prestige and the Hood were unlucky enough to die from the breakdown and explosion of the secondary gun ammunition depot, their poor armor would be broken down by a 406 mm gun hitting the main gun ammunition depot, in fact, any part of their body 406 mm shells could be easily penetrated.

It is now 1939, under the influence of the Shane-class "battle cruiser", none of the three ships of the Hood have been improved to thicken the armor, not because they don't want to, but the Royal Navy thinks that it is better not to add it: because no matter how much the armor is thickened, the armor of the three ships from the battle cruiser is also the same as that bird, and it still can't block the sixteen-inch shells. Instead, it loses its original speed. At that time, I will really meet the Shane-level "Battle Patrol". Then we will face the embarrassment of not being able to fight and run away - another reason that cannot be said is that there is no money, the fiasco of China's intervention in 1935 did not hurt the British Empire lightly, and the British Empire was "harvested" by Germany, the United States and the Soviet Union and suffered heavy losses, and the British Empire was even weaker than in history. When faced with the threat of a Shane-class "Battle Cruiser". When the Royal Navy requested further improvements to the old ship. Congress simply can't come up with the money.

And the biggest problem of the German ships was that there was a problem with the fuse of the shells of the 406-mm guns, and the sensitivity was too low, and the night naval battle hit the opponent's shells. Five of the rounds were all duds or detonated too late.

After the Hood was sunk, the Counterattack continued to chase the German fleet with red eyes, completely forgetting that the balance of strength between the two sides on the battlefield had been reversed.

At this time, the Scharnhorst, the lead ship of the German fleet, had suffered a lot of eight-inch shells, and the ship's auxiliary facilities were not lightly damaged, although for Shane, who had the soul of the ship, this damage did not affect its artillery battle. But with a large number of British cruisers approaching, Hannah didn't want to play a game of dodging torpedoes either.

So she commanded the fleet to take the initiative to withdraw from the battlefield, preparing to rely on her advantage of being faster and the main guns hitting far and hard, and then playing a "drag knife".

The German ship turned not led by Shane, and the follow-up warships followed the turn, but Hannah's order was given, and the whole fleet turned together. What formation becomes meaningless at this moment. In the process of turning to evacuate, the sister ships of Shane deliberately fell last to attract the gunfire of the British ships in order to protect the vulnerable friendly ships from going first.

So far, almost all the firepower of the British ships has been concentrated on the two ships of Scharn, and the Scharnhorst has been the most concentrated. Fortunately, it was dark and the distance was long, and even with the help of flares, the hit rate of the eight-inch and six-inch guns fired by the British ships was surprisingly low. The thick-skinned and rough-skinned Shane ships can still withstand it. In order to protect the crew, Hannah even ordered the ship's exposed lookouts, surveyors and other sailors to hide under the protected deck as much as possible, until even the 128mm secondary guns stopped firing, and only nine main guns were still firing.

In the final moments of the German ship's departure, the Counterattack remained unyieldingly biting behind it.

For the next seven minutes, the Gunnay fired at the Counter-Attack, which seemed to have only the Shane in its sights and continued to fire shells at it, while the Shane ignored it completely. By this time, the Scharnhorst had distributed the fire of the three batteries to several approaching British cruisers, and all the shells had been replaced with blasting shells, and the task of sniper counterattack had been given to the Grensenau, where Linhan was located.

In the last seven minutes of the artillery battle between the two sides, the Avant-garde fought hard for five minutes, and finally hit the rear of the Shane, but this shell was still blocked by the thick armor of the Shane "Battle Patrol". However, the Counterattack itself was hit by three shells in five minutes by the sudden outbreak of character, one of which directly penetrated its two forward turrets, and caused a fire, almost burning to the ammunition depot, forcing the Counterattack to urgently fill the ammunition depot to avoid a catastrophe, while another shell hit the bow deck of the ship, blowing most of the bow to shreds, and one bullet hit the underwater part of the ship's hull, causing countless floods. The Avantgarde, which had suffered a heavy blow and greatly reduced speed, reluctantly gave up the pursuit in the fifth minute and turned to avoid the shells. In the process of evasion, when the Ge Ji finished the last blow before the bombardment against the Counterattack, another shell hit the Counterattack, this shell hit its aft deck, broke through the side and entered the water, causing the hull to enter the water again.

After this heavy loss, the counterattack stalled, and its maximum speed was only twenty-three knots, and the entire fleet followed

Actions dragged down by it will be severely affected.

"That guy has been castrated by us, and at most until dawn tomorrow, which is his death."

Lin Han's Ge Ji sent such a message to the Shane by radio voice, and for the sake of secrecy, Lin Han spoke in Wenzhou, which was difficult for foreigners to understand.

Hannah understood Lin Han's intentions, and in the rest of the time, the six turrets and eighteen main guns on the two broken ships were all replaced with blasting shells, and the British cruisers that were pursuing and wanted to be struck by lightning continued to dump shells. The hull of the ship was shattered by a near-missable bomb, and the remaining British cruisers that entered the water and stalled reached four.

During this period, there were also British ships desperately forcing to launch torpedoes, but under the guidance of the two, the two ships easily avoided them.

The night battle, which broke out at 2 a.m. on 1 December, lasted 40 minutes, and ended with the German fleet sinking two cruisers, one armored aircraft carrier, one heavy cruiser, three light cruisers, and several cruisers. The broken Shane sister ships, relying on their 406 mm guns and their own high speed, forced back the British ships that were delusionally struck by lightning, and took the initiative to temporarily withdraw from the battlefield.

However, the German assault fleet did not go far, and having gotten rid of the lightning attack of the British cruisers, the sister ships of the Scharn, regrouped in the sea near the British fleet, adjusted their formation, and prepared for another battle, where they were located, which happened to be stuck on the course between the opponent and the main British fleet.

The British highway was going too fast and too far, and now the distance between it and the main fleet was as much as 210 kilometers. Even if the main fleet behind burns out the boilers, it will not be possible to get here before dawn. And the original high-speed fleet, dragged down by a number of warships in the fleet with varying injuries, the high-speed fleet also became a low-speed fleet, unless they planned to abandon it and flee on their own.

Lin Han and Hannah did not take credit for the purpose of replenishing the guns on the counterattack, which had already been seriously injured. In their view, the benefits of sinking several British high-speed cruisers were far greater than that of an old war cruiser. Both Hood and Prestige were sunk, and now the badly damaged Counterattack became the last high-speed battle patrol in the hands of the Royal Navy. If the badly injured ship were to remain on the surface, it would become the biggest drag on the Royal Navy's high-speed fleet.

In the eyes of Lin Han and Hannah, the seriously injured Counterattack is already meat in their mouths. As soon as it dawns tomorrow, the two German ships that are lying in ambush nearby will immediately dispatch their carriers and planes to make up for them with torpedoes and heavy bombs to make up for the last shot. The Royal Navy's main fleet was still 200 kilometers away, and due to the constraints of distance, even if both sides took off at the same time, the closer German ships would be able to deliver a fatal blow to the Avantgarde before it arrived.

The reason for not killing the Counterattack was to keep him alive so that he could drag down the entire fleet.

At 3:35 a.m., the regrouped German fleet turned around and came back. This time, both sides, both psychologically and in terms of strength, the identity of the hunter's prey has been clear.

As long as the British wanted to keep the battered battlecruiser Counterattack, the entire high-speed fleet would be in a very dangerous state for this purpose.

At this time, only the rear main gun could still be used, and the two front main gun batteries, one of which was damaged by the Grid, and the other was also ineffective due to the water filling of the ammunition depot, and the maximum speed of the whole ship could only be driven to 23 knots. Not only him, but there were as many as four cruisers in the fleet in a similar state, with a maximum speed reduced to more than 20 knots, and a heavy cruiser that had eaten a 16-inch shell head-on was almost paralyzed, and its speed dropped to 15 knots, in addition, a light cruiser was wounded too deeply by a 406 shell and had too much water in the channel, and the foredeck was almost touching the sea level, and it was facing the choice of abandoning the ship.

In this way, the Shane sisters led an almost complete fleet to kill the horses, and at once the battered battleships were driven to the edge of the cliff. (To be continued......)

PS: I will only be home tomorrow, and I can only change 3,000 words today

This year's Spring Festival at home is really not peaceful, and a lot of things have happened. Hi.