PS: Thank you for the monthly ticket cast by the book friend "lhq101", tomorrow I will go to Shanghai to attend the 10th anniversary party of college graduation, for two days, my grandfather's advanced stomach cancer surgery has just been removed, it is difficult to say to what extent it can be recovered, but it is inevitable to visit Nantong from time to time, there are not many manuscripts in stock at present, in order to avoid the situation of breaking the change, there is only one change a day on the weekend of this week, and I hope you will forgive T-T

At 7 o'clock in the morning of the same day, when the "H" fleet was still 50 kilometers from Toulon, the French radar in Toulon spotted the huge "H" fleet. The commander of the French fleet in Toulon was Jean. After Admiral Soulr knew that it was the British fleet, he immediately realized that the other party was coming with bad intentions, and immediately gave an order to prepare for battle, but because it took time to start the fire, the warships in the harbor were still blocked in the Toulon Bay, but the French officers and men in the harbor quickly returned to their combat posts to prepare for battle, and at the same time knew that it was very disadvantageous to be blocked in the harbor to fight. General Souls ordered the capital ships (Note 1) to rush out immediately, and immediately sent a telegram calling for help to the French air force at several nearby airfields.

Although the French Navy was given 6 hours to sink the ship, at the beginning the British ships aimed their cannons at the French warships in the harbor, and Vice Admiral Somerville received a reply that the other side refused (in fact, even if the French did not reply for the time being, as long as the French warships began to accelerate outward, he would still order fire). Immediately after that, five battleships were ordered to fire at the French warships in the harbor, and carrier-based aircraft on the decks of the three aircraft carriers in the rear of the fleet also began to take off.

The two faster battlecruisers of the French fleet in the harbor, the Strasbourg and the Dunkirk, were the first to rush out, and the two old battleships, the Provence and the Brittany, departed. The main force of the fleet is the three powerful Richelieu-class battleships, but no matter how powerful the battleships are, they are still easy to kill without enough auxiliary ship protection

The flagship that rushed to the front of the British ship column (not the flagship of the entire fleet, but only the flagship of the battlefleet. The battleship King George V opened fire first, followed by the USS Revenge and the USS Resolve. At this time, the most advanced British ships were only less than 15 kilometers away from the port, so in the first round of shelling, one large-caliber shell hit the French Strasbourg, which was the most forward, but the armor-piercing shell fired by the King George V was only an embarrassing 356mm because of the main gun caliber, although it hit the main turret of the battlecruiser Strasbourg. However, it failed to penetrate its 360mm thick frontal armor. The British officers and sailors on the ship couldn't help but hate the ship's designer, a battleship's main gun could not penetrate the battlecruiser's turret armor at a close range of less than 15 kilometers, what did they think when they designed this battleship?

However, they immediately realized that although the King George V's main guns were on the small side, the turret armor of the enemy ships was indeed far superior to that of the battle cruiser (Note 2). Because even the armor-piercing shells fired by the 15-inch (381mm) main gun of the battleship Resolve failed to penetrate. However, as the distance between the two sides continues to close. It's always breakable

Soon other warships also took part in the battle, and the Strasbourg was only a battlecruiser after all, under the fire of a whole five battleships. Soon it was shot in a number of places, among which the weakly defended main gun fire commander was destroyed and it basically lost the ability to fight back, and then another 15-inch armor-piercing bullet pierced the ship's No. 4 main turret, causing a violent explosion, which tilted the giant ship with a full load displacement of more than 35,000 tons, and received a devastating blow after another salvo of the British battleship, due to the martyrdom of the main ammunition depot, it was blown into several pieces, and the wreckage flew into the sky, and some sank directly to the bottom of the sea, Almost all the French officers and men on board were killed

After completing the correction of the shelling parameters through two salvos, the rate of fire of the main guns of the five British battleships was fully exerted, and the more intense artillery fire quickly overwhelmed the sister ship of the Strasbourg, the Dunkirk, the armor of this battlecruiser was slightly thinner than that of its sister, coupled with the closer distance between the two sides and the higher hit rate of the British naval guns, so it appeared to be even more unbeatable, and it was completely destroyed in just 3 minutes, leaving only a useless hull shrouded in fire and smoke, from which constant explosions were heard, less than 10 minutes later, The entire hull of the ship was submerged in seawater, and the British warship had already killed two French capital ships without even a single shell

However, compared with history, the French navy with radar warning in this time and space had more time to prepare, so when the huge guns of the British battleships turned to the French flagship Richelieu battleship, although the French 7 battleships had not yet fully added up the speed, but finally there were warships that fired the first straddle shot, and the parameters of the main guns were also corrected one after another, and the naval battle of Toulon Bay also entered a climax

The confrontation between a total of 12 battleships between the two sides set a new record since the Battle of Jutland, and if calculated in terms of actual combat effectiveness, it is more likely to be the largest naval battle in human history. In the heat of battle, the flagships of the two fleets were naturally "taken care of" the most, especially the British King George V, which was significantly larger than the other British battleships, and it was difficult not to attract attention. However, after being hit by a series of large-caliber shells from the French, the officers and men of the ship, who had previously scolded the designer, sincerely rejoiced that the King George V was too strong

Note 1: If the non-capital ship rushes out alone, it can be killed with a salvo, so it is better to find a shallow place to sink yourself, on the one hand, you don't have to die, and there is hope to fish it up and repair it after the war. But the capital ship is different, even if it can be salvaged and repaired, the cost is very high, and it will take at least a few months. Besides, at this time, the French warships in the Toulon military port were mainly capital ships, and there were only a few auxiliary ships in total

Note 2: Due to the lessons of World War 1, the few battlecruisers in World War II generally greatly strengthened their armor, but because of the limitations of the basic design, they inevitably left fatal flaws in some aspects, but in terms of key reinforcement, they were comparable to the strength of the battleship's armor, the main turret armor of the Dunkirk-class battlecruisers was like this, and it was relatively balanced, the British Hood was more extreme, its other armor could be compared with the battleships, but the horizontal armor was about as thin as the light cruiser, Therefore, he was particularly afraid of aerial bombs falling from high altitudes and large-caliber armor-piercing shells from a long distance, and it was because of this that Bismarck detonated the ammunition depot from a distance and sank (to be continued......