Of course, Shen Honglie's correct command also contributed to it, and the naval veteran considered that although there were obviously more enemy planes rushing towards the Dingyuan, the armor protection of the Dingyuan was also far above the Zhiyuan, so he ordered all the anti-aircraft weapons on the ship to give priority to the Zhiyuan ship, and as a result, almost all the Japanese planes that bombed the Zhiyuan ship were shot down, and the Zhiyuan was lucky to only suffer two 400-kilogram bombs. Although the Dingyuan was hit by more than 20 400-kilogram bombs (if you want to rely on the battleships of the dreadnought era after the bombs are sunk alone, you must have at least 800 kilograms of armor-piercing bombs, if it is a semi-armor-piercing bomb or a high-explosive bomb, the requirements are higher, and four or five hundred kilograms of bombs are useless, no matter what type they are, because they can't even penetrate or blow up the armor outside the ammunition depot), but a battleship is a battleship, if you don't consider the damage to the hull caused by torpedoes before, On the contrary, the degree of damage was slightly less severe than that of the Zhiyuan

The reason for this situation is largely because the devil's Jihua this time was completely suddenly thought up, and the Seoul airport at that time had neither the torpedo bombers that posed the greatest threat to large warships (the people were army aviation), nor the heavy bombers capable of carrying 2-ton bombs (at this time, there were only two or three hundred in Japan), so they could only send out all the dive bombers, hoping to make up for the lack of power by relying on numbers, but they made big mistakes in a row, and first the enemy was punished. Then it was chaotic because of the shock of the enemy's powerful anti-aircraft fire, coupled with the impact of inconvenient air communication. The devils not only dispersed the bombing Liliang, but also foolishly used more planes to bomb battleships that they could not sink at all, and as a result, under the destruction of the powerful anti-aircraft fire of the two Chinese warships, they could not even give full play to their numerical superiority, and forty or fifty army aviation planes were completely lost in vain

Although two air defense victories were achieved, the injuries of the two large warships became more and more serious, and it is difficult to say what the combat effectiveness of the 150 new Soviet aircraft was. Therefore, the Chinese army did not dare to say that victory was in sight; On the Japanese side, first of all, the morale suffered a serious setback, and the losses were really not small. In addition, most of the planes in the Japanese fleet came from Seoul, and because of the limited range, they did not dare to fight for a long time. Therefore, I am also worried. In this suffocating balance, both sides invariably chose to withdraw their troops. But then again, both sides made such a choice because they both had killer weapons in their hands that could decide the outcome of the battle

On the Japanese side, the three battleships of the devil have not been damaged in any way so far, and the North China Air Corps has more than 500 aircraft, among which the only one that can pose a substantial threat to it is the 2-ton heavy bombs carried by a dozen Type 97 heavy bombers, and with the average hit rate of high-altitude horizontal bombing, they want to sink a battleship (if one shot. It must hit the ammunition depot right in the middle, otherwise a few of them may not blow up heavily, and the average hit rate of bombs thrown at normal altitudes will be less than 10%. You have to have good luck against the sky, and once you drop all these bombs. The devil fleet has no scruples, but can go straight to Qingdao and solve the problem once and for all. As for the two warships of the Navy, the threat to the enemy is even smaller, considering the difference in the quality of the officers and men of the two and the difference in the performance of the ships (the performance of the Kirishima is similar to that of the Dingyuan, but the armor and firepower of the two Nagato-class ships are not comparable to the Dingyuan. ）。 Even if the two warships were intact, they would definitely lose if they fought to the death with the enemy's three battleships, not to mention that both ships had suffered a lot of damage now?

Although China's dozen Type 97 heavy bombers can sink a battleship at most according to normal probability, as long as they have not dropped the bombs, the deterrent effect will always exist. Considering the important position of the Nagato-class battleships in the hearts of the Japanese, there is no reason why Yoshida Zengo is not prudent, and now the Japanese base camp is actually not as anxious as it was at the beginning to take Qingdao, as long as the many field airfields in Luda and other places are completed, Japan can once again gain complete air supremacy on the Shandong Peninsula, coupled with the continuous increase of the army's troops in Weihai, not to mention that Qingdao is at your fingertips at that time, even the largest enemy of the empire, the Chinese 15th Group Army, can be completely solved once and for all

China is now the weaker side, and the navy has been rebuilt with great difficulty, Shen Honglie naturally will not take face too seriously, he first ordered the fleet to retreat, and at the same time told his comrades in the sky through the radio that as long as the devil does not chase, this battle will end here. Yoshida Zengo, who was relieved to be relieved, but the Japanese fleet just did not pursue, but did not retreat immediately, because there were still many comrades and pilots who had fallen into the water on the sea and needed to be rescued. And the devil's fleet also followed the protection for a while before returning one after another, to be honest, they were more nervous than the officers and men of the navy

If we only look at the results of this battle, the Third Fleet of the Republic of China, which had just been rebuilt, won a brilliant victory, sinking many Japanese ships and shooting down dozens of planes, while its own two warships returned "safely", and the casualties were only one-seventh or eighth-of-the-enemy of the enemy. However, the first battle of the Third Fleet also paid a great price, and the Zhiyuan was particularly seriously injured, although the Qingdao Shipyard (Note 1) was able to repair the hull, but the four scrapped 240 gun barrels could not be repaired for the time being, and because China could not build it now, and there were no naval supplies captured in the original occupation of Qingdao, it was also impossible to find a suitable one. If this problem cannot be solved, even if the Zhiyuan is repaired, it will only have half of its combat effectiveness

The problem of the Dingyuan is even more serious, although the damage is lighter than that of the Zhiyuan, and the main guns and other important parts are not a big problem, but the problem is that Qingdao now has only one 10,000-ton dock, so the Dingyuan, a giant ship with a displacement of more than 30,000 tons, cannot be repaired at all. Even if Hu Weidong began to prepare for the construction of a larger dock after the occupation of Qingdao, it can be estimated that according to the normal schedule, it will take at least a year and a half to complete, not to mention that the devil may not let you succeed in building it

Note 1: Here is an apology to the reader _ I wrote it wrong, at that time, Qingdao's ship repair yard and shipyard were actually a factory, called "Qingdao Shipyard", which can produce small ships of several hundred tons, and has the ability to repair 10,000-ton giant ships, I made a mistake in the information I first saw, and I didn't know it was wrong until I recently saw a commemorative article in Qingdao City......)

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