The cannon roared, the light burst out, and the giant meteor-like cannonballs continued to roar and fall from the sky, stirring up a majestic column of water and a blazing explosive fireball. Accompanied by the strong tremor of the earth shaking and the earth-shattering loud noise, the armor steel plates of the US warships all cracked and shattered under the thunderous bombardment of the thunder and artillery fire of the day, and then burst into the surroundings along with the surging waves of air and a large amount of shrapnel. The sea breeze blew and burned the flames of Xiong Hao, which were hundreds of meters high, into the air, and hundreds of officers and soldiers were sprayed with blood and rain, and their deaths were unbearable.

After nearly 20 minutes of engagement, the interceptor fleet left behind by the American forces was completely defeated under the heavy artillery bombardment of German battleships. The first echelon composed of 2 William-class super battleships sank the Iowa without suspense, and 15 500-mm huge bombs hit it successively; With the exception of the 7 shells that landed in non-critical areas, the remaining 8 shells were fatally damaged. Following the brazen tearing of the frontal armor of the B turret, the 439mm turret of the C turret was also pierced by a thunderbolt; The explosive power of the 60kg charge directly pushed the 1,730-ton turret off the seat, and the bomb delivery and water pressure mechanism in the shaft melted and twisted into a useless piece of scrap metal. Immediately afterward, the power room and generator room of the Iowa were also destroyed: the turbine collapsed, the boiler burst, the motor rotor broke and flew away in 7 ⊙, the battleship dropped sharply in a violent tremor, and a large area of cabin lighting and auxiliary machinery stopped functioning. From a distance, the battleship, which is more than 270 meters long, looks like a burning island, and stands out against the roaring blue waters.

Despite the excellent professional ability of the U.S. soldiers, they were powerless to stop the initial penetration of enemy shells through their ships. Finally. A shot in the water tore through the underwater protection of the battleship. Straight into the bilge under the B turret where the propellant was stored. More than 70 tons of live wave propellant exploded in an instant under the sweep of the high temperature and scorching waves. The resulting 100 times more destructive power than the incoming shells directly triggered the total destruction of the bow ammunition depot. The German lookouts only saw a large amount of gray-black smoke and bright yellow fire suddenly rising from the inside of the target, and then the entire first half of the hull burst out like carbon milt; In less than three minutes, the enemy ship completely disappeared into the sea. Witnessing this moment, Scheer seemed to travel back in time and space to the magnificent naval battle of the century 25 years ago; On that occasion, the British battleship was also turned into a very sublimated fireworks under its own artillery fire, and that hearty victory is still remembered by Scheer to this day!

In the following ten minutes, brilliant fireworks continued to be violently set off on the sea. Three large American cruisers became the most tragic victims of this behemoth encounter, and they were soon blown up by large-caliber heavy guns as they led the charge of the destroyer fleet. A total of more than 3,600 officers and men, almost all of them sank with the ship. Under the tight defense of German frigates, the Americans' decisive assault on the German battleships did not achieve any results, and they themselves lost as many as 9 destroyers. Some of the clever American sailors had already put on life jackets and jumped into the rough sea to avoid enemy fire, and then waited for the other side to rescue their prisoners.

"Boom!" Another fatal assault occurred in the American fleet. The battleship Wisconsin was detonated by a 430-mm shell from the Bismarck, which was located above the engine room, and although the shells below 40 mm were not at all harmful to the battleship, the explosion from the base of more than 200,000 rounds was still fatal. The flames and waves of fire and lightning rushed to the rear main artillery ammunition depot, during which the US soldiers had no time to make any response. The German lookout saw the stern of the target shoot a wave of destructive fire, and then the bow of the ship was raised, and it was rapidly lost into the sea at an angle of 90 degrees; In a short time, the battleship, which cost more than $100 million, was completely history. Of the more than 1,800 officers and men on board, only three survived.

"The fleet re-accelerated to 30 knots, and we can't let those American aircraft carriers escape from our eyes!" Seeing that the three American battleships lying in front of him were already two sunk and one was damaged at this moment. Scheer no longer fell in love with the war, but continued to choose to reluctantly pursue the opponent's aircraft carrier. Since our fleet won a decisive victory in a very short period of time, those US aircraft carriers that ran away at a speed of 21 knots did not go too far, and are still in the detection range of their own shipborne radars, and the next thing is much simpler. Now he can already conclude that these US aircraft carriers must have undergone some irreversible changes, so that they can only run at this speed at present, and if it were not for this, the US artillery fleet, which is absolutely inferior in strength, would not have fought to the death with him!

Since the most powerful main force had been defeated, the remaining American ships did not launch any more senseless suicidal attacks on the German fleet, and the German fleet was soon able to adjust course and pursue the American aircraft carrier at full speed in the direction of the escape. The huge speed advantage of 9 knots is enough to make the two sides quickly close together at a speed of more than 250 meters per minute; Only more than half an hour later, the figure of the US aircraft carrier reappeared in front of the sea under the black clouds in the distance. At first, the officers and men of the US aircraft carrier formation thought that it was their own ship, and their hearts were full of surprises of thwarting a strong enemy and surviving a desperate situation, but when the whistling sound of large-caliber shells suddenly pierced their ears, they realized that these spokesmen of death were now close at hand!

For the current US fleet, their situation is extremely embarrassing: the aircraft carrier, which is designed to speed at 32 knots, cannot increase its speed at all due to injuries, and even the most effective escape weapon against the enemy in a two-dimensional artillery battle - smoke canisters - is now exhausted, and it is simply unable to cover the lightning strikes of destroyers and the retreat of aircraft carriers. In the previous battles, in order to survive the siege of a large number of aircraft groups, the US aircraft carriers and destroyers spared no expense in using smoke canisters and created a surging sea fog that enveloped the aircraft carrier and the surrounding area. Especially in the battle before entering the storm zone, the U.S. fleet began to pull smoke before the opposing planes appeared, using up all the remaining stocks at once. According to their plan, they would withdraw straight after this wave, taking advantage of the wind and rain area and the upcoming night to disengage from contact with the other party, but they did not expect to meet the opponent's heavy artillery fleet in a narrow way!

"It's enough for each ship to be loaded with high-explosive shells to deal with these lightly armored targets." Scheer said with a smile on his face.

Contrary to most people's imagination, high-explosive shells also have some armor penetration, and the Gain shells retain a considerable amount of kinetic energy when hitting the target, even when the projectile is weak and lacks a cap, it can still penetrate thin armor. At present, the high-explosive bombs equipped with German battleships use a fuse at the bottom of the bullet and are equipped with a lightweight quilt cap on the warhead, which has a significant armor-piercing improvement compared with the traditional warhead fuse without a cap high-explosive bomb. Although the charge coefficient of this shell is slightly inferior to the latter, it is a completely meaningful performance trade-off. Since the German Navy will fully transition to the air in the post-treaty era, and will no longer build ships with guns with a caliber of more than 128 mm in batches, it is necessary to increase the penetration depth of high-explosive shells on battleships in order to effectively resist the enemy's new heavy cruisers. This kind of shell has a certain depth of penetration and has a charge much higher than that of an armor-piercing shell, which is an excellent weapon for the current slaughter of barbarian aircraft carriers.

Seeing that the German battleships were attacking him like mad tigers, the commander of the American aircraft carrier in despair ordered to open fire on the sea near him, in order to interfere with the observation of the opponent through the column of water stirred up by the shells. However, the U.S. aircraft carriers also abandoned the idea of heavy artillery a few years ago, and the Essex class is now armed with only 127mm guns with the same firepower as destroyers, which make a splash like a pocket fountain in front of the palace. After blocking another wave of torpedo assaults, the German battleship went straight to the sea less than 10 kilometers away from the American aircraft carrier, and the sailors on the American aircraft carrier could clearly see the black barrels aimed at themselves, and then suddenly erupted with dazzling blood-red light......

"Boom! Rumble! "The deck exploded, the cabin burst open, and the explosion was so violent that it seemed to break the aircraft carrier from it. At the current close range, the German battleships hit 15% of their shelling, and on average each battleship would have a good chance of hitting each salvo. In less than five minutes, the four US aircraft carriers were ignited by the fierce bombardment of the other side, and even the wind and rain could not weaken them in the slightest. The hangar where the planes were parked was set on fire, and in the noisy flames, the remaining warplanes were burned to the skeleton, and a large number of pipelines, passages, and cabins were swept away by the ruined red flames, and countless people died from suffocation, burning, poisoning, and shrapnel flying vertically and horizontally. A huge cannonball struck the island on the starboard side of the aircraft carrier, and the entire five-story steel building collapsed like a mountain collapse, rolling and collapsing in the bursting and shattering of the load-bearing steel, and stirring up huge waves in the sea. These heretics who used the warplanes to do evil everywhere finally ushered in the shameful end they deserved: in the roar and roar of the Huanghuang cannon, all around them were blown to pieces, and the falling heavenly fire and the endless waves that poured into the sky as if they were about to burn out were the best portrayal of the situation of the US officers and men on these aircraft carriers.

In the midst of the fire and natural punishment of the tsunami landslide, the "Franklin" aircraft carrier was the first to fail, and its inclination angle gradually exceeded 45 degrees, and then it capsized sharply like a dead fish. The moment its hull turned sideways, a huge cheer erupted from the German battleship; If in the future someone asks what the battleships have to say in this war, they just have to answer that they have sunk enemy aircraft carriers with naval guns, and that is enough! (To be continued......)

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