Sukhoi could not be said to be dissatisfied with the first two rounds of air strikes, but he certainly had regrets, he wanted to achieve greater results, and wanted to prove that the air force could solve the two most powerful fleets in the world on its own. So he was determined to take the last chance and get it before Basilev.

Sometimes, however, the more anxious you are, the worse you are. It may be that Sukhoi's impatience has affected the pilots' performance, or it may be that the pilots are physically and mentally exhausted by the continuous sorties, and the last sortie of the Air Force is still not satisfactory.

The first to attack the British was still the dive bombers, the only remaining 12 capable Lenin 1 in groups of two, dived towards the five Queen-class and the Counterattack at the rear of the British fleet, and the 250-kilogram aerial bombs whizzed down at an angle of nearly 60 degrees, blooming on the surface of the sea with brilliant white splashes.

However, although the huge column of water was terrifying, it was only terrifying, and all 12 aerial bombs were missed, none of them hit, and the nearest one was 100 meters away from the enemy ship. All in all, the dive bombers on which Sukhoi had high hopes disappointed him, and with the results of the battle, he reluctantly strafed the enemy ships twice and then left the battlefield.

In fact, the pilot cannot be blamed entirely for this, Sukhoi himself is also responsible for this. In order to maximize the results, he used the remaining dive bombers evenly and attacked six targets in groups of two, which is honestly not very likely from the perspective of probability alone.

It may be that Sukhoi was deceived by the close to 50% hit rate of the dive bombers in the first round of attacks, thinking that a team of two would always hit one shot. Who knows, but it's all zero eggs!

Of course, even a dive bomber can still hit a 50% accuracy with a blind dog's eye. It is also unlikely that all enemy ships will be destroyed. The reason is very simple. The Queen's horizontal defense was excellent in those days. Although 76 mm horizontal armor was not enough in World War II, the problem of blocking a bomb below 300 kg was not particularly big.

In other words, even if each Queen-class eats one aerial bomb, I am afraid it will not hurt its muscles and bones, and it is very likely that it will still maintain more than 7% of its combat effectiveness. And the queen of seventy percent combat effectiveness is also very terrifying!

Therefore, Sukhoi's calculation was wrong from the beginning, and the most pragmatic approach should be to let the remaining six dive bombers attack two targets in a team, so as to not only ensure the accuracy of the bomb drop, but also ensure that the enemy is completely killed. It's still the same old saying. It's better to cut off one finger than to hurt ten fingers, 12 plus dive bombers, don't say sink two queens, even if it's good to sink one!

Unfortunately, Sukhoi missed the opportunity, and the dive bombers failed to inflict little damage on the Queen. Of course, this is not to say that Sukhoi's air force came in vain, in fact, their attack did have extraordinary significance for the direction of this naval battle, and from a certain point of view, they changed the outcome of the naval battle!

Why? Very simply, the strength of the two sides on the sea is half a catty to eight taels, and Basilev's fleet may not be able to bargain for anything in front of the five queens. If you want to divide the victory and defeat with real skills, even if Basilev wins, I'm afraid it will be a miserable victory!

And a crushing victory was completely meaningless for Basilev. He also counted on a powerful navy to prop up the coastal defense of the Soviet Union, and if it was defeated all at once, what would be the difference between it and the Red Navy in history?

Basilev certainly didn't want such an outcome, so what Sukhoi and his lads did next made a lot of sense. When the dive bombers left the battlefield in a hurry, 40 torpedo planes entered the battlefield and began to attack the five queens on the sea in a formation of four.

As mentioned earlier, the Queen's anti-aircraft firepower is really not to be said, it is equivalent to an ornament. Therefore, the torpedo machine completed the bomb dropping without any harassment, and for a time the white strips were pulled out of the sea, and the torpedoes dropped from the air formed a large net, and the five Queen-class ships were the dying and struggling fish in the net.

It is still necessary to emphasize that the performance of aviation torpedoes in this year and months really cannot be said to be good, at least Sukhoi, who was watching the battle on the side, had the urge to hit the wall, and these torpedoes were either thrown off, or there was a problem with the bathymetry, and some simply went in an S shape at sea. Anyway, let's put it this way, none of the 40 torpedoes hit the target!

Outrageous, isn't it? Sukhoi vomited blood in the cockpit, but after vomiting blood, he could only obediently fly back. Anyway, on the way back, this cargo was probably thinking: "The first thing I did after I went back was to shoot the group of grandsons from the Quartermaster Department, what kind of torpedo is this Nima!" ”

Sukhoi's air force came in a mighty way, but they returned dejected, and no matter who thought they had done a useless job, they did not inflict any casualties on the enemy. But is that really the case?

Not really, it's best to be able to kill or kill enemies on the battlefield. However, if you can't kill the enemy directly, it's not a good idea to interfere with the enemy's chances to create zào for your teammates. Now, for example, Sukhoi's air force is tantamount to completing an assist.

As mentioned before, the Queen-class was a perfect battleship in World War I, with strong enough firepower (8 doors and 381 guns), fast enough speed (theoretical maximum speed of 25 knots), and strong enough armor (the main armor belt was 330 mm to 152 mm thick). Achieving this goal at the level of a normal displacement of 27,500 tons can only be applauded by the designers).

Anyway, if I had to choose the best battleship of World War I, I would definitely choose the Queen-class. However, Agthius has weaknesses, and the queen level naturally can't avoid having shortcomings. And the shortcomings are hilarious, it's a bit like Achilles' heel.

The Queen-class was designed with a new tail rudder, a semi-circular rudder that later proved to be a real failure, with a rather poor rudder performance. For example, in the Battle of Jutland, when fighting with the battle cruiser formation, the Queen-class failed to keep up with the two large-angle maneuvers of the battle cruiser in front. Later, when facing the High Seas Fleet alone, the Warweary was completely stuck due to a rudder failure, and the ship went around two big circles in front of the High Seas Fleet before adjusting its direction, but fortunately, the Queen-class defense was strong enough, otherwise it would not be able to go back.

Let's put it this way. Because of the rudder. Queen-class maneuverability. In particular, the handling is not good (or worse) when steering at large angles. And as we all know, when dodging torpedoes, it is inevitable to maneuver at a large angle, so although the formation of five Queen-class ships was not hit by torpedoes, the formation was completely broken up in this round of attacks!

Maybe some comrades think that it's just that the formation is scattered? What's the big deal? Hehe, this question is not sloppy at all, since the beginning of the bloody game of war in human beings, formation is extremely important. It is not without heroes like Zhao Zilong who fight alone on the battlefield. But the results achieved are definitely limited compared to the team.

Especially in naval battles, formation is extremely important. Even now, efficient and accurate changes in formation at sea are the criteria for evaluating officers. Especially back then, in the era when it was necessary to seize the advantageous shooting position, the formation was extremely important.

Let's put it this way, in the twenties and thirties, the U.S. Naval War College did research on how to deal with an opponent with speed superiority (the battleships of the U.S. Navy are all heavy artillery tortoiseshell ships, all of which swim slowly, while the potential enemy Royal Navy and the Japanese Navy both have a large number of battle cruisers or high-speed battleships, and how to deal with an enemy with speed superiority is a major topic for the U.S. Navy). After constant exercises and discussions. The U.S. Navy came to the very collegiate conclusion that maintaining formation and using efficient steering was the only way to counter an enemy with speed superiority.

In layman's terms. In a regular battle (where both sides are traveling in the same direction), when the enemy with speed advantage accelerates to seize the T-head, the side without speed advantage must immediately follow the steering to avoid being hit one by one.

This is the No. 1 combat plan summed up by the U.S. Naval War College in 1902, which ideally solves the enemy's tactics of encircling from the bow of the fleet. However, in 1907, in a new exercise, the Blue Fleet did not choose a frontal battle, but chose an anti-navigation battle (that is, a tactic in which the two sides are in opposite directions, and the side with the speed advantage preempts the T-head from the tail of the enemy fleet).

Based on this experience, the War College came to the conclusion that in the absence of speed superiority, if you want to avoid being surrounded and beaten, you must maintain a state roughly parallel to the ground fleet. That is to say, whether the enemy is encircling and grabbing the T from the bow direction or from the stern direction, if your fleet does not have speed, then quickly follow the steering, the faster the better!

It seems that the War College has perfectly solved the problem of speed, but when it comes to practice, I find that it seems that there is no difficulty at all in following the steering, but it is not easy to really do it well.

After all, not all battleships have exactly the same technical level, for example, some battleships have a large turning radius, while some are small, turning at the same angle, some take a long time, and some take a short time. And in this way, the battle line was torn apart.

This is a big problem, and in order to solve this problem, the US Navy has developed the No. 2 combat plan after a lot of research and discussion. To solve the problem of steering, this battle scheme broke down the battle line into a number of small columns, each consisting of warships of similar performance. When the fleet commander orders the turn, each squad will make a separate turn based on the actual performance of the formation, and after completing the turn, it will form a complete battle line to meet the enemy.

There are two reasons why we want to talk about the research of the US Navy, the first is that formation operations are really very important and cannot be sloppy at all, and the second is that the steering performance of the ship is really important. Sometimes a battleship with poor rudder efficiency will really die.

Obviously, these two queen classes are all in place, and it will take time for their formation to be disrupted by air raids, and it will take time to regroup. And in naval battles, time is really precious! Just when the Queen-class formation was in disarray, Basilev arrived with his main fleet!

Just now, the three British battle cruisers were happy to bully the four half-lame German battle cruisers, ready to happily pick up people's heads, but who would have thought that they would hit the iron plate in the blink of an eye. Hold down by ten battleships and blow a blast!

The first to hit the Prestige and the Counterattack, these two ships are really thin-skinned buns, and the 152 mm main armor is really paper in front of the 305 mm and 380 mm main guns. It was worn in minutes.

First, a 305-mm armor-piercing shell opened a large opening of about 10 meters in the bow of the Prestige, and then the main gun of the Counterattack was hit head-on by a 380-mm shell, but fortunately, the quality of this armor-piercing shell was not very good. It was blocked by the cannon shield and then bounced off and exploded. Otherwise, this time you can take the life of the counterattack. But that's the case. The second turret of the Counterattack was also scrapped. The ship's firepower was lost by a third.

After this round of shelling, the three British war cruisers suddenly made a stir, turned around and ran away without saying a word, and Basilev chased after them, and the shells beckoned to the British as if they didn't want money.

It really rained down like bullets, and scared the little liver of the British into a flutter. After five rounds of shelling, the Tiger was unlucky at the rear, and the Baden fired a perfect salvo. The Tiger tail gun took a hard hit, and the weak rear part of the top of the turret took a shot.

The 380mm armor-piercing bullet easily tore through the 64mm armor and made it all the way to the ammunition depot. With a loud bang, the stern of the Tiger burst into a bright and dazzling fireball, which rushed upwards into the sky, like a small sun!

The stern of the Tiger broke completely and sank to the bottom of the sea in less than five minutes. And the first half of the hull that stood stubbornly on the surface of the sea was also in a rather bad situation. The sea water poured into the hull of the Tiger along the fracture. Even if the captain ordered the sealing of a watertight door, it would have no effect. With the engine room completely submerged in seawater, the Tiger's power was completely lost, and the power outage caused the pumps to stop working.

The sea poured more and more, and gradually the bow of the Tiger was forced to rise. The crunching metallic sound makes the scalp tingle. As the angle of inclination grew, almost no one could stand on the deck.

"Abandon ship!"

With the captain giving the order to abandon ship. The sailors rushed into the sea with their hands in a hurry, looking like dumplings. However, the order was given a little late, and after the order to abandon ship, the Tiger lasted only five minutes. Five minutes later, with a thud, the battlecruiser plunged into the ocean floor in a sideways motion.

The Tiger was bounced from it to sink for no more than 10 minutes, and there were very few sailors who could get away with it. And the Prestige and Counterattack, which ran a little faster than the Tiger, were not much luckier. The two brothers were constantly hit by large-caliber shells, and flames kept coming out of the hull, billowing black smoke like goblins.

After a few volleys, the rear main cannon of the Prestige was blown up, and if it hadn't been for the timely order of the gunner, I am afraid that he would have ended up with a chrysanthemum split like the Tiger. The back half of the Counterattack was filled with flames, and the sound of explosions was like roasted beans. Fortunately, ammunition depots were not affected.

When the British cruiser was violently beaten, the five queens were still nervously regrouping, and by the time they completed the formation and rushed to the battlefield, the prestige and counterattack were already crippled, and the two brothers staggered away from the battlefield with their tails between their legs, which means that the five queens will face twice as many enemies!

"Hoo ......"

Basilev sighed lightly, and although he still didn't like Sukhoi, he had to admit that the kid had done him a great favor. If it weren't for the air force to disrupt the formation of the five queens and give him the opportunity to destroy the enemy's battle patrol, the battle that followed would probably be quite difficult.

Of course, it's not an easy time either. Because the five queens are fierce rivals!

The first to engage the Queen-class were Bavaria and Baden, two of Germany's most advanced and elite battleships built to fight the Queen, who finally ran into their fateful enemy after missing the Battle of Jutland.

To tell the truth, the Bavarian class has no advantage in the face of the queen, the firepower is half a catty, the speed queen has the advantage, and the defense of Bavaria has a slight advantage. Overall, if it's one-on-one, it makes sense to win and lose.

However, war is never a heads-up, and it is undoubtedly a foolish act to compare the performance of a single weapon, and war has always been the power of the system. The highest master is not the side that holds a large number of advanced weapons and plays heads-up, but the side that can unify a large number of miscellaneous weapons into a whole to exert the combat effectiveness of the system.

In a sense, it is better to save 3,000 lives as a whole than high-tech who can only fight alone. It has to be said that the British have an advantage in this aspect, the Queen-class they have used for a long time and have completely mastered the performance of the ship, while the Russians, on the contrary, are halfway monks, and a few months of training are not enough for them to give full play to the full combat effectiveness of the German-made warship.

So at the very beginning of the battle, the two Bavarians and the two King-class that followed behind were suppressed by the British. The British hit the salvo accurately, constantly making straddles, constantly forcing Basilev's fleet to turn.

Basilev did not have a speed advantage in the first place, and his constant forced maneuvers deprived him of the opportunity to seize the advantageous shooting position. He did have many ships, but in the artillery battle, he was beaten by the British.

The book says that here we have to mention the two sets of tactics summarized by the US Navy. When implementing the No. 2 battle plan, the Americans discovered that an overly large formation is sometimes a burden, and the commander's ability is limited, and it is almost impossible for one person to command one or twenty warships to line up in a battle line for a decisive battle. If you do, the chances of a mistake are very high!

The American study found that a commander commands a maximum of four warships, which is the most reasonable, and the efficiency is greatly reduced after four ships. Undoubtedly, Basilev encountered this kind of problem, ten battleships lined up in a line, the formation was quite long, and to put it mildly, the last wingman could not be seen from the direction of the lead ship. That is to say, Basilev, who is at the forefront of the formation, has no way to command the battleships at the end of the formation, and the battleships at the end of the formation say that they are participating in the war, but they are actually playing soy sauce! (To be continued......)

PS: Bow and thank you to Comrade hzwangdd and Comrade Juventus!