Li Siping thought for a while and finally understood the truth, because of the unique "sharpening" effect when penetrating the target, when dealing with high-performance high-quality armor, the penetration ability of the depleted uranium core is much stronger than that of the tungsten alloy bullet core, and the advantage is even greater than that of the armor-piercing blasting projectile that does not use the sub-caliber long-rod core to concentrate kinetic energy, but the depleted uranium alloy shell-piercing projectile is used to attack targets with relatively weak defense but sufficient longitudinal depth, such as the huge hull of a thin-armored warship, "sharpened" However, the effect will deplete the depleted uranium core in advance, and the penetration ability is not as good as the tungsten alloy core and the larger armor-piercing blast projectile, which can better maintain the mass and kinetic energy of the core despite being "passivated".

The reason why the depleted uranium alloy shell-piercing projectile that cannot explode can cause so much damage is also not unrelated to this, because the powdered depleted uranium will burn violently at high temperatures, so when the depleted uranium core penetrates the hull of the British warship, the depleted uranium powder that has been abrased is immediately ignited by the high temperature generated in the armor-piercing process, which is equivalent to where the core penetrates, it will lead the fire to wherever it goes, and the effect is not even comparable to the real incendiary bomb.

However, just a few salvos can make a 10,000-ton heavy patrol lose its combat effectiveness, and it also has a lot to do with the shortcomings of British warships in fire prevention and fire fighting. In this era, warships were generally accustomed to using water to extinguish fires after fires, but the blazing flames ignited by depleted uranium were not afraid of water, and the high temperatures it produced could even melt steel, and the number of chemical fire extinguishers equipped on British warships was insufficient and were generally used as a second choice, and when British sailors used them, the fires were often too large to extinguish. In addition, it is worth mentioning. Under normal circumstances, warship fires are first burned outside, even if the fire caused by the explosion of armor-piercing blasting shells after penetrating the hull of the ship must only be limited to a part of the adjacent compartments, and the fire like depleted uranium shells that cause a line inside the warship is unheard of by the officers and men of the British Royal Navy, which inevitably causes panic and confusion among many people, thus further reducing the efficiency of fire extinguishing, and the task force can hit more than one depleted uranium shell on the Kent, and the Kent is on fire everywhere, It was even more difficult to contain the fire, so the Kent eventually sank when the fire detonated the ship's ammunition depot

"This is probably the so-called blind spot, right? It seems that you can't take it for granted at any time. There is still a big difference between speculation and actual combat. Only by putting more weapons into actual combat can we fully uncover their true value and discover those overlooked flaws in the design", Li Siping, who figured this out, couldn't help but sigh, but then his heart suddenly moved. "Since it is thought that depleted uranium shells, which are not suitable for attacking non-heavy armor targets, can exert such a great effect. So will even the teacher think that the cloudburst bomb that is not used in naval battles will surprise us? ”

Not to mention how Li Siping will test his ideas in the future. For now, the task force was a big victory, but for the British. The almost complete destruction of the Far East Fleet is tantamount to great bad news, and the British army in Singapore was deeply stimulated at the first time, and the army could not do anything about the Chinese who were still at sea, but the fighter pilots of the Air Force were red-eyed and took the initiative to carry bombs to avenge the dead comrades. On the one hand, the British governor of Malaya feared that this crushing defeat would lead to his impeachment by Parliament, and on the other hand, he considered that even if the air force lost some aircraft, with the presence of the Singapore fortress, and the Chinese fleet without a landing force, it would not be possible to pose a substantial threat to Malaya.

To the surprise of the British, the previous bomber group attack on the Chinese fleet failed to achieve any results except for a little ammunition reserves of the Chinese, but this time the fighter cameo bombing mission, the effect was much better, although this was only relatively speaking

"The speed of the fighter is too fast, far more difficult than the old planes before", Ye Fei fiercely snuffed out the cigarette butt in his hand and thought solemnly. The speed of the fighter is too fast to hit, which means that the task force needs to consume more anti-aircraft shells, which is very fatal for a fleet that has been out for almost a month and has already consumed a lot of ammunition. And I don't know what the British aircraft designers thought, their main bombers had a small bomb load (the Mosquito and Lancaster that entered service later had a large bomb load, I don't know if it was overkill. But their latest Spitfire is capable of carrying 500-pound (230 kg) high-explosive bombs, which is about the same number as the Japanese Navy's dive bombers, and the older Hurricane fighter can carry two, although this will greatly reduce its endurance, but it is no problem to bomb the Chinese fleet, which is not very far from Singapore

"Fortunately, our warships have specially strengthened their air defense capabilities, not only air defense weapons, but also the thickness of horizontal armor far exceeds the average standard of heavy cruisers on Shijie, otherwise this time it would be really miserable." , Shen Honglie said with palpitations after the war.

Rao is so, under the concentrated bombing of the British fighter pilots, the heavy cruiser Zhiyuan, which is the flagship of the fleet, still has a steam turbine that has a serious failure and can no longer be used, although the maintenance personnel have tried their best, they have not been able to repair it, so that the maximum speed of the Zhiyuan, which has dropped a lot, has been further reduced to only 25 knots, which has opened a big gap with the Jingyuan ship, and on this slow "turtle speed", many types of battleships can catch up

As a precautionary measure, the flagship of the task force was temporarily replaced with the Jingyuan, which is still intact today, and important personnel, including naval commander and political commissar Ye Fei, ammunition expert Li Siping, and even most of the combat backbone, were also transferred to the Jingyuan, leaving only the minimum necessary personnel on the Zhiyuan to reduce the risk as much as possible.

However, the commander of the fleet, Shen Honglie, insisted on staying on the command of the Zhiyuan, and he believed that although the Zhiyuan was injured, its combat strength was basically still there, but now that the backbone of the battle had been drained so much, if there was no senior commander in charge, the morale of the officers and men on the ship would be difficult to guarantee. After hearing this, Ye Fei immediately said that he was the leader of the navy, and the effect of staying in charge was better, but Shen Honglie said, "I am already old (Shen Honglie is 57 years old at this time), and you are still very young (Ye Fei is 25 years old at this time), for the future of China and the navy, if you want to sacrifice, you old men must come first, you young people must live well!" (To be continued......)