Soot billowed and the waves gushed into the sky.

After some maneuvering, the two Turkish battleships broke the waves in the southeast, one after the other; The four torpedo boats, like loyal hussars, formed a bronze wall behind them to defend the main force. Although the Turkish captain of the Khairedin had no intention of engaging the Russian fleet, the actions of the Sultan Selim had already made him a tiger. With the shrill alarm bells, a group of brown-skinned, bearded sailors ran to their posts; The four main turrets rotated quietly to the sound of whining, and every half minute they made small adjustments according to the number reported by the fire control console.

Because the naval battle in pursuit of a hit was different from the previous shore bombardment, which had no target in the past, the Turkish battleships did not launch an artillery attack from a distance of 20 kilometers, but inserted themselves from an oblique angle in the direction of the Russian fleet, constantly closing the distance between the two sides. In the Zeiss rangefinder, which magnified the target dozens of times, the Russian fleet also gradually turned from a small dot into a barely recognizable outline. The Turks, who have been enemies of Russia for hundreds of years, have long been familiar with the ships of the Russian Black Sea Fleet: in the eyes of the Turkish lookouts, the five capital ships of Yevstafi, St. John, Potemkin, the Three Saints, and Rostislav are among them!

Seeing this, Eckman could no longer contain the joy in his heart, and burst out laughing in the command tower, causing the staff officers next to him to look sideways. One of the main reasons why dreadnoughts can form an overwhelming advantage over the dreadnoughts is that in addition to the fact that all-heavy guns can achieve the ideal strike density at a distance far beyond the effective range of the dreadnoughts of the ex-dreadnoughts, its huge leap in fire control is also one of the main reasons. It's like a person with 1,000 degrees of myopia carrying an automatic rifle. It's the same as playing against a trained professional sniper: although the range of an automatic rifle is quite good. But the final result is unlikely to be suspenseful!

"Target No. 1 is at a distance of 14,000 meters. Bearing 343! The high-pitched voice of the lookout came from the microphone. Without hesitation, Ecoman grabbed a nearby microphone and gave the order for the shelling in a loud voice. In the majestic twin 350mm turret, the German sailors had locked the closed gun locks; The moment the red light bulb on the top of the turret lit up, a loud sound like the sky was shattering suddenly exploded in everyone's ears!

"Boom!" The bow and tail of the Sultan Selim once again burst out with four majestic flames like a red dragon soaring into the sky, and its tremendous momentum made the blood boil for every German sailor who witnessed it. After a short time, four thick columns of water rose in front of the Russian fleet, and the silver waves rolled into the air at a height of nearly 40 meters. Although the first round of shots did not make a hit. But this was entirely to be expected by Eckerman; The main mast lookout, located at an altitude of 52 meters above sea level, is quickly calculating the average impact point of the four shells from the landing point of the four shells, and then transmits the correction to the central fire control room below. At a distance of 14 km, the error generated by the German Zeiss 4.5-meter baseline rangefinder is completely within an acceptable range.

Not long after, the battleship "Hayreddin" also burst out with its own earth-shattering roar, and the purple and red flames of light roared and erupted, and its momentum was also majestic and thrilling. This dreadnought, completed in 1911, is equipped with 8 Skoda 45 times diameter 305 mm K10 main guns, which are commonly equipped with the capital ships of the German and Austrian navies: this gun can shoot 450kg hard cap armor-piercing shells from the breech at a speed of 800 m/s, which is absolutely the best in the same class of naval guns. At a distance of 15km. This gun could easily feed shells into the ammunition depots of five decrepit Russian ships.

Artillery fire roared, and water jets spewed into the sky. For the decisive battle of the fleet during the First World War. 14,000 meters was still a relatively remote location, and the German officers and men on the Sultan Selim had only been training for two months, which was far from being one with the battleship, resulting in the loss of the battleship's first eight half-salvos. It was the Turks who were the first to hit: a 305-mm shell roared like a meteorite and slammed into the single 203-mm secondary gun in the forward port side of the dreadnought "St. John". The armor-piercing projectile with excellent performance tore through the 203-mm armor of its frontal without any suspense, exploding inside the turret.

With a shattering explosion, the entire turret exploded from within; Twisted steel and shattered shrapnel flew into the air, instantly sweeping six or seven Russian sailors into a pool of blood. The heavy 203-mm gun was lifted into the sea dozens of meters away like a toy, splashing a huge white splash. In the center of the explosion, seven or eight human flesh and blood stumps were scattered everywhere, their stomachs and intestines were rolling, and their brains were gurgling; Billowing smoke and blazing fire rose from the ruins, scorching, stinking and suffocating. The only thing the Russians were thankful for was that the 305-mm shell, which destroyed the turret, did not cause the ammunition depot to detonate, and the St. John was still able to move at 16 knots.

When the distance between the two sides approached 10,000 meters, the 305-mm L40 main guns on the Russian forward dreadnoughts scrambled to open fire, and a displacement column was raised around the two Turkish battleships. However, the Russian shells were completely inaccurate, and according to the German observers' own estimates, their average impact points were at least 800 meters away from the actual position of the ship. In fact, this phenomenon is completely reasonable: without improving fire control, the normal engagement distance of the ex-dreadnought is generally around 4,000 meters, and not more than 5,000 meters at most; Historically, when Fisher created the dreadnought, its estimated engagement distance was only 7,000 meters. At the current distance of 10,000 meters, where can these old dreadnoughts have any accuracy? Even if the two Evstafi-class dreadnoughts completed in 1910 had relatively sophisticated fire control, the inherent disadvantage of only 4 main guns in gunpowder was a huge defect that could not be made up!

In the mainmast observatory of the Sultan Selim, observer Mueller is anxiously gazing at the sea in the distance with a guò rangefinder. In all the previous shots, the ship's artillery fire did not hit, but the group of barbarian Turks who had to kneel down and shout Allah every day took the lead, which undoubtedly made every German sailor belonging to the world's second navy feel disgraced. A huge jolt came from the soles of his feet, and Muller knew that it was another half-salvo from his own battleship. He held his breath, his eyes motionless at the scene in the optical rangefinder; Within twenty seconds, four huge columns of water rose like towering clouds. Seeing the four staggered columns of boiling water, Muller suddenly felt blessed and shouted loudly into the microphone in the central fire control room: "The main gun landing point deviates from the target 147 azimuth 450 meters, and the firing parameters are corrected as soon as possible!" ”

"Boom Boom ......" accompanied by a strange noise, a set of parameters is calculated from the fire control machinery; The gunners then informed all four turrets of the new parameters, and the thick barrels slowly rotated. The red light was on, thunder roared, and four shells flew through the sky. Not long after, the Russian battleship "Potemkin", which was in the lead, suddenly burst into a huge cloud of fire waves, and its momentum was so fierce that it was more than three percent more powerful than the previous hits of the Hayreddin! Seeing this, Mueller waved his fist excitedly; And in the bridge dozens of meters below, the German sailors were also thundering!

The cheers of the Germans meant the suffering of the Russians. The 350-millimeter bomb cut through the Potemkin's amidships deck in an impartial manner: the shell shattered its less than 40 mm horizontal armor and burrowed directly into the boiler compartment. The explosive power of 20kg of high explosives instantly destroyed the boiler power of the former dreadnought. Steel pipes burst, furnace fires poured out, blazing high-pressure steam erupted, and fiery soot particles poured out: the entire boiler room became a purgatory. The Russian stokers toiled in it were either pierced by exploding shrapnel, confronted by the steam that spilled out, or directly covered in flying fiery carbon particles...... Flesh and blood were peeled off, screaming and screaming, as terrible as hell.

Thick black smoke mixed with blazing steam billowed out of the shocking hole in the deck of the Bojiangjin. The Russian ship, which had lost its power source, slowed down at a speed visible to the naked eye when it boarded, and finally floated on the sea, unable to move forward again. For all the German officers and men aboard the Sultan Selim, the 13,000-ton Russian Dreadnought was already in their pockets: they only had to kill the target according to their usual training and send it into the sea in a few salvos!

After receiving the news of the complete destruction of the power of the Potemkin, the commander of the Russian fleet, Kaznov, was bleeding from his heart: even after the Yevstafi-class was put into service, the former dreadnought, which was completed in 1903, was the absolute workhorse of the Black Sea Fleet. However, just over ten minutes into the battle, it had suffered a near-devastating blow, and the possibility of returning to base was infinitely close to zero. What made him most anxious was that the battleships of the Turks were always at a distance of 8,000 meters from him, and the accuracy of his own dreadnoughts at this distance could only be described as miserable. wanted to close the distance, but the Turks did not let him do so at all. The opponent's speed is as high as more than 20 knots, far better than the old dreadnought of the ships in his hands with a maximum speed of only 16 knots; In response to his current straight advance, the Turks are making the most correct response to keep their distance!

"Order, the torpedo boat unit immediately attacks the enemy!" Kaznov turned his head abruptly and said loudly to the herald beside him. Although the Turkish fleet has not yet received a single hit, it is far from his previous assumption of "suppressing the enemy's secondary artillery fire"; But at present, it is already ready to fly, and it has to be sent! (To be continued......)

PS: Thank you for the lonely heart of the book friend in the wandering, PT cat, recommender 77 monthly pass support, and the eternal F4U, zhouyu1976's tip~~~~

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