PS: Thank you for the monthly ticket voted by the book friend "Chest Penetrating Injury", and ask for a recommendation vote ^_^ again

What was even more unbelievable to the Vice Admiral was that the captain of the Duke of York reported that the enemy's shells had first penetrated the horizontal armor and then penetrated into the boiler room before exploding. How can there be such a terrible armor-piercing ability?

As mentioned above, Hu Weidong has specially designed two types of artillery shells for the German Navy, in order to distinguish them from the commonly used armor-piercing blasting shells and high-explosive shells that basically have no armor-piercing ability at all, the German Navy named the reinforced armor-piercing projectiles used to deal with thick-armored targets as C-type shells, and the high-sensitivity fuze armor-piercing blasting shells used to deal with thin-armor targets as D-type shells. Among them, the manufacture of C-type shells requires a large amount of tungsten, and the cost is extremely high, and the weight of 381mm caliber C-type shells is more than one ton, and its cost is conceivable, even Germany, a first-class power on Shijie, is unable to produce in large quantities, especially after the outbreak of the European War, the British Royal Navy also blocked sea traffic, and the Soviet Union was too ugly to eat, so that Germany has basically stopped importing tungsten from China, and can only obtain limited production from tungsten ore in the Pyrenees (Note 1). Therefore, it became very unrealistic to create a 381mm caliber C-type projectile.

However, the Mustache was furious that the British Prince of Wales had escaped the battle of the Danish Strait, and the German Navy took the opportunity to offer to produce C-shells for the main guns of the two Bismarck-class battleships, which was approved. But even so, tungsten is too precious for Germany today. Therefore, a total of 100 large-caliber C-type shells were produced in a month, and the cost of one shell was as high as more than 200,000 US dollars, which is hundreds of times that of ordinary armor-piercing shells of the same caliber.

For the time being, the mustache only agreed to produce so much, and if it worked well in real combat, he would consider asking Krupp to increase production. The two Bismarck-class battleships were thus allocated 50 each, and only 24 were allowed to go to sea each time, i.e. 3 for each main gun. This amount was not enough even for the test firing of the correction parameters, but the Germans were not willing to waste such an expensive special shell on a calibration that was basically impossible to hit the enemy ship, so Krupp specially designed a correction shell with almost exactly the same ballistic characteristics, this kind of shell used a steel shell with a lead-filled structure. Its total weight and center of gravity distribution are very similar to those of the 381mm C-type projectile. However, due to the fact that even the density of lead is much worse than that of tungsten, this correction projectile had to be designed as a solid bullet without a charge, which is also the reason why the "Tirpitz" battleship hit the enemy ship with a "dud" during the previous school firing

In the test firing, the 280mm caliber C-type shell can easily penetrate more than 300mm of high-quality carburized steel armor at a distance of 20 km. And the 381mm caliber is naturally even more terrifying. And because this shell is heavier than ordinary armor-piercing blasting shells. The ballistic curvature is naturally higher, and therefore the threat to horizontal armor is greater.

The first shell of the Tirpitz to hit the target easily penetrated the thick horizontal armor of the battleship Duke of York at a distance of about 21,000 meters, and then penetrated into the boiler compartment and exploded violently. The scorching steam overflowed, and the British naval officers and men who could not avoid it let out a scream like killing pigs, and the fire caused by heavy oil was not easy to extinguish, but fortunately, after the heavy oil caught fire, it was not as easy to explode as gasoline, otherwise the consequences would be even more unimaginable. But even so, the complete scrapping of the one-axis power caused a significant decrease in the speed of the battleship, which undoubtedly significantly increased the hit rate of the enemy ship's guns.

However, due to the extremely fast rate of fire of the German artillery, when the "Tirpitz" fired the second salvo, the shells fired in the first round were still flying in the sky, so the hit rate did not increase immediately, but one of them still hit the target, this C-type shell hit the lower waterline of the bow of the battleship Duke of York, and exploded a large hole with a diameter of several meters, and the turbulent sea water suddenly poured madly, causing the stern of the battleship Duke of York to be significantly upturned, and the speed of the ship was greatly reduced (mainly because of the damage to the streamlined shape of the bow, And the attitude of the stern also has a certain negative impact on the speed. ）。

The displacement capacity of the King George V-class battleship was extremely strong, although such an injury was not light, but as long as the response was reasonable, the problem was not very big, but the Duke of York had just entered service, and the officers and men on the ship were sent out without having time to run in, and as a result, some mistakes were inevitably made, and in such a fierce naval battle, these mistakes were enough to kill them

The Duke of York was one step late in draining, causing the bow to sink almost below the surface of the sea, and in order to avoid capsizing, the captain was forced to order the stern to be filled with water to balance, and although the tilt eased, the speed of the Duke of York dropped again. At this time, a steam turbine suddenly suffered a serious failure and stopped working, so that the Duke of York had only half of the power available for a while, and the maximum speed dropped to less than 15 knots, which was almost like a live target in a naval battle

And because at this time, the Germans used C-type shells to shoot the third round, which was also zuihou, but the highest hit rate in this naval battle, hitting three shots at once, although one of them was a dud, but for the battleship Duke of York, which has now been heavily damaged, two 381mm caliber C-type shells are enough to kill

One of them hit and pierced the relatively weak (in fact, 150mm-thick) top armor of the Duke of York's No. 1 main turret, and after penetrating it, the shell survived, and penetrated the protective deck and burrowed into the ammunition depot of this main turret, causing a violent explosion that resounded for ten miles. Even for battleships, the detonation of the main turret ammunition depot was generally enough to sink it into the sea, but the superior defensive power of the King George V-class battleship was once again on display, and although the first half was completely enveloped in smoke and fire, the Duke of York still stubbornly floated on the surface. But even so, the Duke of York's main turret No. 1 had been completely destroyed, which cost it 40% of its main gun fire

Note 1: In fact, it is not small, due to the exploration of Chinese geologists, the output of tungsten ore in the Pyrenees is much larger than in history, more than half of the current tungsten ore production in China [including the Indochina Peninsula], but this production is enough to be enough, but it is still a "waste" (only the Chinese army can be equipped with a large number of high tungsten alloy armor-piercing bullets). (To be continued......)