While the Rotterdam was scrambling to cope with the first wave of lightning strikes, under the cover of two light cruisers, the second group of lightning strike troops also successfully entered the attack position! At this time, the fire of the middle and rear secondary guns on the combatant side of Rotterdam had been completely suppressed, and the rate of fire and rotation of the main guns were obviously not able to cope with the attack of 3 torpedo boats at the same time! Three torpedo boats launched an attack formation and rushed over quickly! 9 torpedoes will be fired in a fan, which is absolutely fatal for an armored cruiser at close range!

FACED WITH THIS SITUATION, THE DUTCH SAILORS DID NOT HESITATE TO BRAVE THE DENSE RAIN OF BULLETS TO RUSH TO THE DECK TO OPERATE 47MM OR 57MM MACHINE GUNS TO COUNTERATTACK, BUT IN THE FACE OF THE RAIN OF HOWITZERS AND HIGH-EXPLOSIVE SHELLS, WAVES OF FIRE REPEATEDLY SWEPT ACROSS THE REAR DECK OF THE ROTTERDAM! A large number of Dutch officers and soldiers were dismembered by heavy fire, or beaten into a sieve or charred by heavy fire after leaving the bunkers. A large number of machine guns and machine guns arranged in the open air have long been shattered by heavy artillery fire. So it seems that the Rotterdam is doomed this time! But at this moment, the Varyag, which had been ridiculed by "Silent Jack" as a lack of work, suddenly became powerful!

This Russian armored cruiser, which had been fighting with the Tianjin since the beginning of the war, suddenly left the Tianjin, quickly adjusted its sailing, and even did not hesitate to disrupt the formation, and used its sideline full of secondary guns to aim at the Chinese Navy's lightning strike unit that was in the last sprint! At this time, the Varyag's sudden burst of fire instantly intertwined into a fire net, completely blocking the offensive line of the three torpedo boats, and the shells that rained on the sea clearly told everyone who was the real protagonist in this battle, and a torpedo boat had not had time to turn and dodge. It was hit by a 6-inch shell in the boiler compartment, and in the constant spray of water mist and gunsmoke, the battleship stopped. Then it was overwhelmed by a rain of bullets like flying locusts. After an explosion, it completely disappeared from the sea.

This accident made the Huaxia fleet feel a little helpless, the two light cruisers tried to use dense lateral secondary artillery fire and the Varyag to shoot, who knew that the Varyag would rather withstand the attack of the Tianjin, but also to cover the flank of the Rotterdam, when the 6 10-inch main guns turned around, the powerful 227KG shells finally made the two Huaxia light cruisers retreat! After a puff of smoke was released. Two light cruisers covered two torpedo boats and began to withdraw from this battlefield!

It is different from the desperate assault of the auxiliary warships of the Russian-Dutch Navy. The light warships of the Huaxia Navy put more emphasis on flexibility and efficiency. In the current situation, the forced assault of the remaining torpedo boats will not do anything, at most it will be delayed for a few minutes. And in the big picture. The situation on this battlefield has completely turned to the side of the Russians. The task of the auxiliary fleet is to delay the collapse of the fleet, and the officers and men of the Chinese Navy are not afraid of death, but it is meaningful to die. Auxiliary ships are indeed consumables, but consumables must also be used at the right time!

Under the cover of the smoke canisters of two light cruisers. The Huaxia Naval Lightning Strike Formation turned away from the lightning strike on the Rotterdam. But unexpectedly, the two mine-strike ships did not withdraw from the battlefield, as usual, but turned around and rushed towards the last Dutch armored cruiser, the Sealand! And the two light cruisers tacitly aimed the secondary gun group on the side of the ship at the Sealand Province, which was struggling with the two Garibaldi-class armored cruisers!

The four capital ships in the Dutch Navy are indeed excellent, the seven-provincial fast battleships are second only to the Longtai-class fast battleships, and the Rotterdam-class armored cruisers are firmly in the strongest position for the equipped cruisers, even if they fight with the Scharnhorst-type pocket battlecruisers. However, at medium and close range, in the face of the dense secondary artillery fire of the two Garibaldi-class armored cruisers and the extremely incendiary picric acid high-explosive shells, the Seven Province armored cruisers did not break their bones. But the surface of the ship has also been burned to the ground! Especially the secondary gun position, or destroyed by the opponent's 10-inch gun. Or it can't be used because of fire and smoke. At this time, although the Seven Provinces relied on a huge protective area to ensure the integrity of the main structure, but in terms of combat effectiveness, I am afraid that in addition to a few main guns that can still be used, there is really not much left, and the entire superstructure is beaten into a huge torch, and thick smoke and flames fill the entire hull.

And after the Huaxia Lightning Strike Team withdrew from the battlefield with the help of smoke, the next target was the Sealand Province, which was struggling in artillery fire and flames! Under the fierce artillery fire of the two light cruisers, the Sealand Province was a very large torch with a few firewoods! In the face of the sudden fierce blow, the Sealand Province finally couldn't stand such a high-intensity deck washing blow, and finally decided to evacuate, and just when it changed course to evacuate, two torpedo boats rushed up, in the face of these two assassins with sharp blades, all the remaining firepower of the Sealand Province was quickly mobilized, the 10-inch main gun kept spitting deadly flames, and the huge shells hit huge water columns next to the attacking torpedo boats! One of the shells exploded 5 meters outside the side limit of a torpedo boat, and the energy generated by the violent explosion produced a large number of high-pressure bubbles in the water, with a huge amount of shrapnel, directly hitting its fragile hull with thousands of holes, and in less than half a minute, this small battleship capsized because of too much water.

The last remaining torpedo boat finally fired three torpedoes, two of which were dodged by the Sealand, and the last one rushed straight towards the hull of the armored cruiser Sealand, and it was about to hit! But at a distance of about 10 meters from the other side, this torpedo, which carried too much hope, actually exploded in advance! To tell the truth, sometimes the torpedo is really unreliable, what is thrown into the water and the steering gear is broken, what explodes early, what does not explode, and what goes halfway to the bottom of the sea by sinking to the bottom of the sea is really endless! In World War II, the probability of problems with 93 oxygen torpedoes thrown into the book was as high as 3 percent, and the probability that the US imperialists' submarine-launched torpedoes would not explode was even higher than 5 percent! So this torpedo didn't blow up, in fact, there was no fuss! As for high-tech gadgets such as magnetic fuse torpedoes, they are even more prone to malfunction.

However, although it exploded in advance, the explosion of nearly 100 kilograms of explosives at a distance of less than 10 meters still brought great damage to this armored cruiser, and the anti-torpedo is not only an armored partition and a subdivided compartment, the key is to have enough longitudinal, that is to say, the empty compartment and liquid tank of underwater protection should be large enough, the former is used to accommodate high-pressure bubbles, and the latter is used to slow down the impact of debris after the explosion. Fortunately, the underwater protection of the Seven Provinces is relatively strong, although the thickness of the vertical body is not as good as that of the battleship, only less than 2 meters, but fortunately, there are subdivided compartments to restrict water entry, and it is also a close combat not a bump, so the battleship was not sunk, but the violent explosion still opened a large hole of about 4 square meters and countless small holes under the side of the ship, and the battleship inevitably had a serious tilt, and the tilt angle was as high as 12 degrees! This is the angle of inclination of the other side with the water injection balanced!

As the smoke slowly cleared, the Varyag and Rotterdam, who had seen what was happening behind them, quickly turned to rescue the battleship, which had been badly damaged but was still saved. As for the initiators of this incident, the only remaining torpedo boat and 2 light cruisers fled in disgrace, and of course, the two Garibaldi-class ships also slipped away immediately, these two big men were not something they could deal with. Looking at the two semi-armored cruisers of the Huaxia Navy that were regrouped in the distance, although the silent Jack was unwilling, he did not decide to pursue.

The reason why it is called two and a half warships is because in addition to the Tianjin that has been playing Taiji with the Varyag and the Weihai that hid behind the most black gun for the Sealand Province, the Lushun has been beaten to a broken state, and the intensive close-range battles have made the Sealand Province pay a heavy price, so the Lushun with it, and the tonnage is only 8500 tons, of course, it is even worse, in several close-range shots, the side chord of the Lushun was broken by the other party several times, although relying on the dome armor to ensure that it was not lit firecrackers, But at this time, whether it is water ingress or mechanical damage, this battleship has reached the limit, if the Sealand Province has been beaten into a torch, then the current Lushun is just a wreck that can float on the water at a speed of 14 knots, in addition to part of the power can still be used, whether it is the turret, fire control, or electrical equipment and servos, etc., have been destroyed, and there is no value for repair!

But fortunately, the Russian armored cruisers at this time did not have the idea to trouble them, the Rotterdam had to help its own ships of the same class out of danger, and the Varyag obviously could not pick two and a half! Therefore, this Russian armored cruiser can only watch from a distance at the Huaxia construction team that is breaking away from one another, and then silently play soy sauce on the side! In a short period of time, for various reasons, although the armored cruiser detachment of the Russian-Dutch Navy had the advantage, it could not continue to expand the results, and only when the Sealand Province carried out emergency treatment of the side chord, and this time would take more than half an hour.

"Let's just let you live a little longer." The silent Jack said as he looked at several scarred Chinese Navy armored cruisers in the distance and the auxiliary warships behind them. For the rich experience and flexible tactics of the Chinese Navy Jack is still deeply admired, although the other side has one more pocket fast battleship when the battle, but in general there is still a large gap in the strength of the two sides, if according to the normal arrangement, even if the front of the capital ship can ensure a short period of balance, then the Russian-Dutch Navy 4 cutting-edge patrol can definitely quickly clean up the Huaxia patrol formation, but after more than two hours of fighting between the two sides, the powerful Russian-Dutch fleet still failed to gain an overwhelming advantage, This really embarrassed Jack!

However, Jack knew that he would not wait too long, and at this time, the battle situation between the 4 capital ships directly under Essen and the Huaxia Navy was also relatively clear! The winner of this war belongs to the powerful Russian-Dutch navy after all!

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