"Boom!" The earth-shattering explosion roared, like the founding immortal thunder at the beginning of chaos; Unprecedented waves of fire roared and raged, tearing at the nearby steel bulkheads. Although there is not enough oxygen to fuel the combustion, its devastating explosion is by no means capable of any current ship! The Minotaur's hull shook violently, and the underwater hull on its starboard side exploded like a balloon, and countless tons of seawater poured in, extinguishing the raging fire burning in the ammunition depot in an instant! The battleship, which was more than 15,000 tons, began to tilt sharply to the right, and in less than two minutes it was completely upside down on the surface of the sea, and the propeller spun weakly in the air for a moment, and then sank with the battleship into the vast blue ocean.

The whirlpool rolls angrily, and the waves churn. All kinds of debris were scattered all over the sky, and they fell on the nearby sea like a torrential rain, and the water splashed in all directions. A large amount of wood debris floats on the surface of the water, floating and sinking with the waves; The oil stains are spread out and reflect the colorful luster in the sunlight. Because the speed of the Minotaur's capsizing was too fast, the whirlpool of currents generated was irresistible, and the officers and men on the ship had no chance of escaping at all: except for one lucky person who was thrown into the sea dozens of meters away by the air wave of the ammunition depot, all 755 officers and men on board sank with the ship! The smoke was billowing from the Gneisenau, and there was already jubilation at the moment, because they had sunk the Minotaur!

"That's it?" Shi Pei looked at the calm sea in the distance, and said in disbelief. He raised his binoculars and looked into the distance, and saw that there were only four warships left in the British fleet, and that the slender ship with four chimneys was left. Only one is still sailing. After repeated confirmations. The corners of Spee's mouth finally hooked up a smile of ecstasy. In the battle between the battleloads, it was really necessary to use 11-inch heavy artillery to achieve the best results.

"General, isn't it time for us to go back?" A voice pulled Spee back from his excitement to reality. He turned his head to look at the face of the captain of the Scharnhorst, Ellensson, "You just said that our mission is to contain the opposing battleship, so as to create an opportunity for the Gneisenor to use its 11-inch cannon. Now that it has done this job brilliantly, we can consider taking it as soon as we see it. ”

Shi Pei nodded slightly. Sink an enemy Minotaur-class armored cruiser. It has already exceeded the mission of the attack ordered by the Admiralty in Berlin; In the current situation, it is natural to leave this battlefield quickly while the power of the two ships on the patrol side is still intact. Although Manila was Germany's most well-established military port in the Far East, with large dry docks large enough to accommodate the Schaun-class patrols, it was not possible to repair any damage. Once the boiler, turbine, main gun and other critical subsystems are damaged, they can only be maintained by relying on various spare parts or new parts shipped from the country. At this moment, Germany was already in a state of war with Britain, and it was almost impossible for German merchant ships to break through the blockade of the British fleet and ship these things from the mainland!

The sea breeze is blowing, and the alarm bells are ringing. In the up-and-down flipped signal flag, the Scharnhorst, with a displacement of more than 15,000 tons, began to make a rapid turn. The main gun in the bow lost its firing range. The two main guns in the stern of the ship began a salvo to continue to keep the British battleship under fire suppression. Although Shi Pei couldn't help but feel a little regretful when he chose to retreat when his artillery combat capability was basically intact, he clearly knew in his heart that only by preserving the combat effectiveness of these two warships was the most effective way to best contain the maritime power of the Entente. If he chooses to fight the British, even if he can sink one or two more British cruisers, he will suffer heavy losses from the opponent's 12-inch guns; And once the Entente side launched a landing operation against the Philippines during the repair period of the warships, not only would they be powerless to stop it at sea, but the two seriously injured warships lying in the dock would have no chance to escape!

On the battleship Grudge, Rear Admiral Chris's pupils were red, and his eyes were about to split: only ten minutes after the two sides started the war, the Minotaur was instantly sunk by the Germans, which was completely different from the script he had planned! In the battle between the loading and patrolling, the Germans, with their 11-inch cannons, did not fall behind even in the case of one enemy and two enemies, and even directly destroyed one of their own large loading patrols; In this case, it is like ...... It's like you're fighting an opposing battlecruiser!

"The Germans seem to be preparing to retreat!" Suddenly, the voice of the mast-mounted lookout was heard from the microphone. Chris was stunned, and hurriedly grabbed the binoculars and looked away, only to see the two German battleships slowly turning in a rising column of water, and he could no longer see the front main gun of the target.

"General, what should we do now?" An adjutant asked Chris. When the people in the command tower heard this, they also turned their eyes to the central fleet commander, hoping that he could give a strategy that could change the current situation on the battlefield. Before the battle, all the British sailors were in high spirits, and the 3-2 numerical advantage convinced them that there was no suspense about the victory; But the current situation is that he was hit by the opponent's 11-inch cannon one after another, and even the ship was sunk! And even the Grudge, which was sturdy and heavily armoured, was not lightly damaged by the blow of 4 shells at this moment; At present, it is already the German fleet that has the advantage on the battlefield!

"The Germans must not be allowed to return to their bases like this." Chris spoke slowly, but his words were unusually firm, "We finally had a chance to seize these two German warships, and if they were allowed to escape easily, the sinking of the Minotaur would be completely meaningless." We also have this trusty vendetta, her armor is strong enough to defend against German battleship shelling, and its 12-inch cannon is enough to deal a fatal blow to the Germans! Send a signal to the cruisers to continue their close-range attacks on the target enemy ship! ”

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With Chris's thunderous shout, the four 12-inch guns of the Vendetta once again rushed out of the fierce fire waves and scorching winds, and the waves of gunpowder smoke surged vigorously in the air, and were soon blown away by the sea breeze. Since the German battleship had deviated from its original course, this salvo was lost without any suspense. On the other hand, the four shells fired from the main gun at the tail of the Scharnhorst also landed in the area two hundred meters away from the Hudge, violently hitting the whistling and rushing jets of water. At this moment, in front of Chris, the Shannon, which had shortened the distance to 5 kilometers, finally exerted the power of its large-caliber secondary gun; Coupled with the two scum protection cruisers that the German ships had no time to pay attention to, the Gneisenau was subjected to a rain of bullets that swept the deck!

"Boom! Rumble! "Gneisenor was hit by shells one after another, the deck exploded, the bridge collapsed, the sea of fire rose more than ten meters high, and the billowing smoke rose far higher than its mast. A 9.2-inch shell slammed into the gun shaft, and the violent explosion directly blew up a 150-mm secondary gun with a twisted barrel, while the other secondary gun next to it was also stuck by a large piece of shrapnel and could not maneuver. The compartment exploded, shrapnel flew sideways, and in the few minutes of turning, the Gneisenor was hit by more than a dozen shells from three British cruisers, which had not had time to take care of before, and every time a flame of fire exploded on the Gneisenau, the British battleship would resound with cheers.

"Great, that's what I did!" Seeing this scene, Chris's originally solemn and lost mood became a little more uplifted. Judging from the previous battle situation, although the German patrol was equipped with 11-inch cannons, it took advantage of long-distance battles; However, once the two sides get closer and start competing in shell projection, they are far from being opponents of the Royal Navy. Thinking of the unfortunate sinking of the Minotaur just now, Chris's heart was full of regret and regret: if the battleship had not sunk in the process of approaching the Germans, the situation on the battlefield would have been different!

Debris is scattered, broken walls and ruins. In the smoke of fire billowing from the stern of the Gneisenor, no one noticed that its Catherine's main turret was quietly spinning. At the top of the mast at an altitude of 40 meters, a Zeiss rangefinder with a baseline of 3 meters has firmly locked the huge 150-meter-long body of the Shannon; At a distance of 5 kilometers, this world-famous precision rangefinder has an error of only 50 meters at most. After communicating with the central fire control room, a group of firing numbers was passed into the "Catherine" turret surrounded by smoke; When the horizontal pitch was adjusted, the two 283mm cannons let out an earth-shattering roar!

"Boom!" With a loud sound that shook the sky, the starboard side of the Shannon suddenly exploded into a huge fireball with a radius of nearly ten meters, surging waves and dancing shrapnel rushed into the sky. On the Gneisenau, the two cannons emitting the smoke lowered their muzzles, and the German sailors began to reload them with all their might; In countless peacetime trainings, they did not complete this task in more than 30 seconds.

Half a minute later, another roar that resounded through the sky suddenly burst out. A 283-mm armor-piercing shell thunderbolted through the 200mm armor on the front of the secondary turret on the starboard stern of the Shannon, exploding in it. The Minotaur class has five single-mounted turrets on each side, and this practice of dividing eggs into as many baskets as possible can effectively reduce the number of gun losses in battle, but it also greatly increases the probability of the turret being hit. And due to the tragic fire and damage of the British battleship, the flames of the explosion in the turret will go straight through the open blast door to the ammunition depot at the bottom!

A moment later, a huge firework that had never been seen before rose on the surface of the sea. (To be continued......)

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