Overall, the Spanish is not bad, after all, it was built relatively late, and some more advanced technologies were used, such as all-oil small boilers and new steam turbines. In terms of armor protection, the Spaniard's side chord has a 12-inch 16-degree inclination angle, and the height is also half a meter higher than that of the Moltke. THE NOSE AND TAIL ARMOR BELTS ARE 100MM, WHICH IS ENOUGH TO WITHSTAND THE ATTACK OF 6-INCH GUNS. At the same time, the protection of the secondary gun is also better, but there is no gun gallery, so the protection of the non-key parts is poorer. Because it had to fight in the Atlantic, the endurance and stability requirements were higher than those of the Moltke, and the displacement of this class of battleships eventually reached 28,000 tons. The maximum speed is 26.5 knots. Although the ability to fight hard is not as good as the foreign trade battleships of Huaxia, but in the case of heavy losses of the fast battleships on both sides, the mid-range cargo is almost dead, and the high-end cargo will not shoot lightly, these three fast battleships are still quite threatening!

In the British fleet, except for the Queen Elizabeth class, which can stabilize the three Spanish-class battleships, the remaining new Amsterdam-class fast battleships of the Dutch and the only two remaining battlecruisers of the British are no match for the three Spanish-class fast battleships. Of course, there were quite a few in the Entente fleets that could pick them out. But the Iron Tortoise and the Revenge class of the United States are too slow, and as long as the Spaniards do not seek their own death, the probability of being killed in the vast Atlantic Ocean is really not very large. As for the Queen Elizabeth-class battleships? The speed was a little worse, and it was impossible for the British to transfer such an important battleship lightly!

The three Spanish-class battleships were like agile jaguars, though they couldn't go head-to-head with behemoths like lions and elephants. However, it can take advantage of the high speed to lightly cull hyenas and wild wolves. More importantly, the Spanish fleet had the best opportunity to be unaware of the Spanish mutations. They even thought that such a small country would not dare to take the initiative to challenge the Entente, or that they underestimated Spain's determination to defend its colonies. And by the time Spain finally declared war on the Entente, the Spanish fleet would have arrived in attack positions ready to attack Saint-Nazaire!

August 10, 1917. The world is in chaos again. At 8 a.m. on the same day, the Spanish ambassador to the United Kingdom, on behalf of his country, demanded the return of Gibraltar to the British. Naturally, this was rejected by the British government, and at 10 a.m. the Spanish delegates submitted a declaration of war, claiming that Spain and the Entente were already at war. And at 12 noon on the same day. Three huge figures appeared in the sea near Saint-Nazaire! The Spanish flag, with red and yellow as the main color, was waved in the wind, trying to show their identity to the other party. And at this time, the French in the port of Saint-Nazaire had not yet received the news that the two countries had gone to war!

In history, the strategy of declaring war first and then starting immediately in the 2nd war of the book was smashed. But this plane was perfectly replicated by the Spaniards. When three Spanish-class battleships appeared outside the harbor and aimed their huge 14-inch guns at the port facilities and docks in the distance, the French were stunned, they really did not expect that the port of Saint-Nazaire would be attacked by the opponent's large warships! And what is even more tragic is that it is not only the port of Saint-Nazaire that is powerless to defend itself against such an attack. Even all the warships on the west coast of France together can't deal with these 3 super dreadnoughts! All the French front-line large and medium-sized ships were in the Mediterranean. And this blow of the Spaniards almost chose the most vulnerable henchmen of the French Navy, and came ruthlessly!

"Leave the supplies on the batteries and the warehouses alone, and concentrate your fire on Dry Dock 3, where there's a big guy. The best time to take out a battleship is while he's repairing it! Count Spee said loudly. The fledgling Houthis also ordered the Spanish and Alfonso XIII to concentrate their fire on the Brestany in the dry dock No. 3. A minute later, the Alfonso XIII fired the first shot of Spain's entry into the war! 4 HUGE FIREBALLS ERUPTED FROM THE MUZZLE, AND A SHELL WEIGHING 600+ KG CAME OUT OF THE MUZZLE WITH AN INITIAL VELOCITY OF MORE THAN 2 TIMES THE SPEED OF SOUND AND FLEW TOWARDS A DISTANT TARGET!

Half a minute later, four huge plumes of smoke rose into the air. After a simple correction, the two battleships began the second salvo. For a time the entire dry dock No. 3 was covered with flames and the shock wave from the explosion, and the French did not even have a chance to release the smoke screen cover. SEVERAL 240MM AND 12-INCH SHORE GUNS BEGAN TO FIRE AT THE SPANISH FLEET IN THE DISTANCE. However, it was immediately suppressed by the main guns of the James I. Without interference, the two Spanish capital ships quickly achieved results. A shell slammed into the side chord of the Brestany, penetrating the hull from the upper deck and igniting the flammable and explosive materials remaining in the cabin. The sky-high fire rose from the hull in an instant, the fire and black smoke mixed with all kinds of debris flew into the air under the action of the updraft, several shells hit the poor battleship in succession, under the repeated impact, the Brest has been tilted at a small angle, and the equipment used to fix the hull has also suffered some losses in the ferocious shelling. And that's just the beginning!

Another shell hit the tower crane next to the dock, and the powerful semi-armor-piercing bullet lightly blew the tower crane dozens of meters high into two sections, while the steel weighing hundreds of tons smashed towards the Brestany battleship in the dock under the action of its own gravity! This is more deadly than any shell, like dominoes, the weight of hundreds of tons of steel smashed on the flagship of the French Navy, under the action of huge thrust, the battleship finally fell, towards the side wall of the dock next to it, more than 20,000 tons of battleship smashed straight on the side wall of the dock more than 200 meters long. The violent impact even knocked more than a dozen tons of steel plates into the air! Tons of concrete blocks were knocked down. smashed on the inclined hull. With the violent impact, the huge hull twisted and fractured under the action of strong external forces, and the entire target area was soon enveloped in flying debris and smoke. A tsunami-like sound was then heard in the distance from Dock 3. When Count Spee and the others heard the thunderous sound, almost everyone knew that the ship was finished!

"It's time for the warehouse and the berths below." For the success of the shelling just now, Count Spee was very satisfied, the first task was completed, then the rest was to fight as much as possible, in the face of the merchant ships of various tonnages moored in the harbor and the mountains of various supplies piled up on the warehouse, the three Spanish battleships showed their fatal fangs! The French were not indifferent, and while shelling the Brestani, an old armored cruiser of the French Navy with 4 destroyers tried to launch a lightning strike on the Spanish fleet outside the harbor, but soon, in less than ten minutes, the James I let the French Navy know what it means to chop melons and vegetables! The French armored cruiser did not even have time to bring the opponent into the range of its main guns when it was hit by three 14-inch shells, one of which directly penetrated the ammunition depot of the poor battleship. With a violent explosion, a fire dragon tens of meters high erupted from the amidship of the battleship. And the remaining destroyers were directly hit by secondary guns and anti-lightning guns. In the end, he was unwilling to turn into a pile of wreckage. At this point, there was nothing left to stop the Spanish fleet, except for a few shore guns!

Faced with a fixed surface target, the accuracy of the three Spanish-class fast battleships was surprisingly high, and under the projection of more than 10 tons per minute, the entire port of Saint-Nazaire was quickly turned into a sea of fire. The ship anchored at the berth broke its anchor chain and tried to sail out of the port without guidance, but this attempt to escape proved to be an even more stupid approach, with a cargo ship with a displacement of at least 15,000 tons struggling to get out of the berth, and even crashing a speedboat in the process of rushing to escape. As it slowly navigated the main channel, the España, which had been attacking on land, suddenly aimed its guns at the merchant ship.

"Very well, in this position, as long as he is sunk, the passage in and out of the port of Saint-Nazaire will not be unobstructed for several months." Count Spee was waiting for this opportunity, and simply destroying supplies and port equipment could not completely render this port useless, after all, in the face of the world's first-class port, the three Spanish-class battleships still had fewer shells. The Spanish class had 100 rounds of ammunition per gun, only half of which were high-explosive and semi-armor-piercing shells used to attack targets on shore. And you can't use all the non-armor-piercing shells, after all, some of them will have to be left to deal with the possible Allied fleets. Armor-piercing shells for battleships and semi-armor-piercing shells for mounted cruisers are more effective. So when making the plan, Count Spee gave each cannon an indicator of 25 to 30 rounds, and then left!

Gently I went, just as I came gently, what a meaningful poem, the Spaniards came gently, but when they left, they left all over the ground! The entire port of Saint-Nazaire was baptized by thousands of large-caliber shells and medium-caliber artillery within two months, and the amount of material lost in the harbor warehouse was measured in 10,000 tons. The sudden entry of the Spaniards into the war caught the Entente by surprise, and after the first blow, the Spaniards did not think of going back at all, but turned to the northwest and rushed towards the North Atlantic transportation line that was related to the life and death of the Entente! And along with these steel behemoths rushed to the North Atlantic, there were more than a dozen light cruisers and camouflage assault ships of various kinds, as well as at least 20 ocean-going submarines. They will stab the deadly and fragile veins of the Entente!

"It won't be long before we can hit the sea transport of the Entente hard. Before the American fleet enters the Atlantic, we will be the most powerful storage here! Count Spee assured the Houthis that for the time being, it seemed that there was really nothing left in the whole ocean to stop them!

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