The rapid sinking of the Hood put the young battleship Prince of Wales in a difficult situation of fighting alone, and the snow had stopped at this time, which was undoubtedly more beneficial to the Germans, who were the best in the world in optical sighting instruments, but the British Royal Navy officers and men on the Prince of Wales were undaunted, they bravely rushed to the enemy, stared at the battleship Bismarck and fired continuously, and finally hit the target for the first time in the fifth salvo. However, the Bismarck, whose armor performance and even the thickness of the armor in key parts were greatly strengthened compared with history, did not suffer any substantial damage, and the Prince of Wales was quickly counterattacked by German ships.

After two rounds of test firing, the battleship Tirpitz, which had adjusted the fire control parameters, hit the "little boy" for the first time in the third salvo against the Prince of Wales, and the 900-kilogram armor-piercing shell completely destroyed the bridge of the Prince of Wales (historically, this shell did not explode, but in this time and space, due to the great progress of the industrial management system of various countries [Hu Weidong's credit], the reliability of the fuse has been greatly improved, and the dud rate has been greatly reduced, and the Prince of Wales is also a tragedy), 17 people, including the captain Leach, were killed on the spot

After the death of the captain, the officers and men of the battleship Prince of Wales soon took over the command of the warship by the first mate after a brief period of confusion, but his first order was to flee. This was not because of the cowardice of the first mate, but because the destruction of the bridge not only killed the captain and 17 other people, but also destroyed the radar and command on the battleship Prince of Wales, if the battle continued. Naval guns can only rely on the observation and fire control system of each turret, and the accuracy of shelling will inevitably decline significantly, and there are only a handful of combat cases in history in which the main gun can still hit the enemy ship after the command instrument is destroyed, which is enough to explain the problem. In this case, if the first mate still orders the officers and men of the ship to fight to the death, it will not be bravery, but stupidity

In the process of turning around, the battleship Prince of Wales was hit several times by large-caliber shells from German warships, and the third salvo of the battleship Bismarck's main gun hit the middle part of the waterline of the battleship Prince of Wales, and the shell penetrated the weak armor here (Note 1) and exploded violently. Ignited an oil depot and caused a large amount of water. The Prince of Wales was suddenly filled with fireworks, and the hull was slightly tilted due to the flooding, and even though the British warship had a super displacement capacity, the maximum speed of the Prince of Wales quickly dropped to 26 knots.

And in the 4th salvo of the battleship Tirpitz another shell hit the enemy ship. Armor-piercing shells burrowed into the secondary fire control room of the Prince of Wales. But unexpectedly did not explode (no matter how good the quality of the shell fuse.) It is also impossible not to have a single dud. and let it escape.

At this time, the Prince of Wales finally turned its course completely, but at this time the Bismarck received another volley of shells. One of the armor-piercing shells hit the stern waterline and drilled into the hull to explode, but because there were no vital parts nearby, it did not cause serious damage, but only increased the displacement pressure of the Prince of Wales and further decreased the speed, but because of the progress of the displacement work, the maximum speed of the Prince of Wales returned to about 26 knots after a few minutes, and the fire on the ship was under control by this time, even the German Navy, as their enemy, could not help but admire the training of the British Royal Navy.

Seeing that the battleship Prince of Wales had turned around and accelerated its escape, the three German warships that were unwilling to let it run away quickly turned to pursuit, but in this way, the fire control parameters had to be readjusted, and at the same time, because it was the bow of the ship against the enemy, the rear main guns of the three German warships could not play a role, and the firepower was suddenly halved, and at the same time, the enemy naturally reduced the bomb surface with the stern of the ship, which further reduced the already low hit rate, The Prince of Wales' later main gun attack on three German warships encountered the same dilemma. So for the next few minutes, neither side was able to hit the enemy ship, but considering that the Prince of Wales was the fleeing side, and its 356mm guns could not threaten the Bismarck-class battleships at a distance of more than 20 kilometers, it was clear that the Germans were more depressed

But even so, it was not an easy task to escape, because the speed of the two Bismarck-class battleships was already a little faster than that of the Prince of Wales, although only a little, but it was enough to bite her and slowly close the distance, especially if the radar of the Prince of Wales was destroyed

Even after the formation of straddle fire and the determination of fire control parameters, the hit rate of the German naval guns was still far from comparable to that of the previous side-chord bombardment, and the battleship Prince of Wales, who was bent on fleeing, also released a smoke screen to cover itself, forcing the three German warships to switch to radar-guided shelling, and the hit rate dropped again, so that after three or four salvos from each of the two battleships, only one 381mm armor-piercing shell hit, but this shell fired from a distance of about 18,000 meters showed an unbelievably terrifying penetrating powerIt directly pierced through the 406mm thick frontal armor of the rear main turret on the battleship Prince of Wales, and exploded in the main turret, although it did not cause a violent explosion enough to destroy the entire battleship due to the excellent anti-explosion design of the ship's main turret, it was enough to completely disable the main turret, and it would have to be dragged into the shipyard for overhaul for more than a month.

As the distance between the two sides gradually narrowed, the hit rate of German naval guns gradually increased, and the stern of the battleship Prince of Wales became a serious disaster, and two large-caliber shells were hit by one after another, but fortunately both hit the water part, so that a large number of water did not enter the water, and the rudder of the vital ship was not destroyed

Note 1: Due to the limitation of the buoyancy of warships, the armor becomes thinner the lower the waterline, so in history, Japan has specially designed special shells to attack the parts below the waterline, that is, the "Jiuyi" type and the later improved "one" type underwater ballistic optimized armor-piercing projectiles, but in actual combat, because they can hardly hit any part, they have not played a role. However, in history, the Prince of Wales was really hit by Bismarck's large-caliber armor-piercing shell in this part of the Battle of the Danish Channel, but fortunately this shell did not explode (in other words, if the quality of the German Navy's fuse in history could be better, the result would have at least doubled.) But in this book, thanks to Hu Weidong's help, the quality of German fuses has been greatly improved, so it is difficult for the Prince of Wales to have such good luck again (to be continued......