"General Spee, Scharnhorst's mission is to achieve results in the shortest possible time with absolute firepower superiority at close range! We must not be afraid of casualties, otherwise we will hesitate and hesitate. Then the entire fleet will be destroyed! Before the war, Liu Guanxiong repeatedly said to Count Spee. It can even be said that this layout is prepared for the Scharnhorst, if the Scharnhorst is directly confronted with the Armstrong, even if it can last for a while, but after the last 5 old-fashioned cruisers were cleaned up by the Russians, the capital ships of the Huaxia Navy will definitely not be able to stop it, so Cheng Biguang and others decided to make a risky move, let the Taipei with thicker main armor replace the Scharnhorst, and then let the Scharnhorst destroy an enemy patrol as soon as possible. The Scharnhorst is facing the weakest capital ship of the Russian-Dutch fleet!

Therefore, after defeating the opponent's torpedo boats, under the leadership of the Scharnhorst, a total of 5 armored cruisers deviated to the left and quickly moved closer to the opponent, and locked the combat distance at 5 to 6KM! At this distance, the Huaxia Navy and the Russian armored cruiser formation launched a fierce firefight, and the 9 10,000-ton warships sprayed a scorching rain of bullets and poured out towards each other!

It has to be said that the Russian Navy, which fully adopted the new 10-inch 50L main gun, has made an astonishing increase in transmittance. 32 10-inch guns, each gun is fired twice per minute, and one shell is 227KG, then the main gun fire of the Russian cruiser alone can shoot up to more than 16 tons of ammunition! Although the Huaxia Navy had one more warship, it was still suppressed on the scene. Don't look at the last two Garibaldi-class armored cruisers 2 to 1. However, for the rough-skinned Dutch Patrol, the outdated 10-inch 40L gun could not do much damage to its 10-inch thick main armor belt, while the Sealand's main gun could easily penetrate all other positions of the Garibaldi class except for the main armor and main turret!

At a distance of 5200 meters. The Sealand Province first concentrated fire on the armored cruiser Arthur, which was directly opposite it! A 227KG shell was sprayed out at close range, and the high muzzle velocity combined with the close range and the reasonable fire control made the Dutch have a very high hit rate at close range! After only two minutes of firefighting, the Arthur was hit by 2 main gun shells. One of them easily shredded a 6-inch gun gallery. The 6-inch guns weighing more than 5 tons inside were blown to pieces, and the flying shrapnel would not only kill all the officers and soldiers in the gun gallery, but also pierce the next door, and the fire spread along the broken corridor. The overly dense arrangement of gun emplacements affected the adjacent gun gallery. And another shell hit the bow of the Arthur, removing a piece of the beautiful flying scissors!

The Weihai did its best to support its friendly ships. Four 10-inch guns, three 6-inch guns, and two 4.7-inch guns fired wildly at the rear deck of the Sealand, except for the 10-inch guns, which used armor-piercing shells. All the remaining secondary guns are attacked with high-explosive shells, and the most vulnerable armor belt of the Sealand Province is also 4 inches! The 6-inch gun is difficult to penetrate, so it is better to suffocate the opponent with a high-explosive shell fired from the secondary gun! At this time, the armored cruiser Sealand Province, which was attacking the Lushun with all its might, did not suppress the Weihai, and even the secondary guns lost their firing range due to the angle problem. without interference. Weihai has achieved a result that is no less than that of the shooting range!

In the second round of salvos. A 10-inch shell hit the aft deck of the Sealand, and after successfully penetrating the upper armor belt, it was blocked by the dome above the servo, although the thick dome armor blocked the blow. But the loud tremors still loosened the backboard, and the flames of the explosion began to spread out of the upper deck, red tongues of fire and smoke rising from the breach. A group of damage management team members ran along the tunnel towards the place where the shell was hit, but the shell did not hurt the vital point and did not cause water ingress. It was just a fire, and the Dutch were not nervous. Some even light pipes for themselves. In their opinion, it is just a matter of spraying with a water hose and a fire extinguisher.

But a catastrophe that fell from the sky made this easy task an impossible one! A 10-inch shell from the Weihai once again hit the stern of the Sealand! And it's also on the road that the Dutch damage management team has to go through! "At that time, I only felt the floor under my feet jump like an earthquake, and then a huge weapon came in from the front, and the entire damage management team was instantly smashed into a ball of flesh, and when I walked over with a shudder, I found a shell more than half a meter long in the aisle, but fortunately he did not explode!" So said one of the surviving Dutch naval non-commissioned officers.

In the face of this extra-large dud, the Dutch cleaned it up, and it was not cleaned up, the weight of 227KG was very difficult to carry, and God knows when this dud exploded! However, when they saw the damaged warhead, the Dutch still had the courage to go up and clean it up, generally speaking, the fuse was on the warhead, and since the fuse had been destroyed, then eighty percent of the shells would not explode. When the Dutch bomb disposal personnel were bold enough to go up to dispose of the shell, a piece of shipbuilding steel fell from the ceiling and smashed into the back of the shell, and then under the shocked gaze of the Dutch, another damage management team and bomb disposal personnel were reduced to ashes with a violent explosion! The warhead is really broken, but this shell is an old bottom trigger fuse, and the fuse of the shell is not in front, in the back!

The Sealand Province, which had eaten 2 heavy shells and countless medium-caliber shells in a row in the tail, really couldn't continue to calmly maintain the full attack power of the Weihai, this time it was lucky, these two shells did not cause much damage, but the passage to the rear deck was completely broken. However, if the Lushun continues to fight, if the wheelhouse is really destroyed with one shot, the Sealand Province will already step into the ghost gate with half a life, and the Dutch will not dare to use the dome armor in the rear and the shells of the Huaxia Navy to compare who is harder! In desperation, the Sealand was forced to use the four main guns in the rear to suppress the Arthur, and the Sealand was almost tied with the two Garibaldi-class armored cruisers after the fire was dispersed.

Just when the battle between the three cruisers behind was at a stalemate, the armored cruiser Rotterdam bravely stuck to it. Engage in melee combat with the PISA-type armored cruiser Dalian. Silent Jack! This was the title given to the first captain of the Rotterdam by later generations of naval enthusiasts. The admiral's insight and decisiveness in wartime, as he was also a part of the battle for sea power in Southeast Asia. One of the few truly good generals on the Dutch side. He was the first officer other than Essen to see the hidden danger of the Dutch fleet!

The Sealand did not destroy the Lushun when it began to gain the upper hand, under the threat of the Weihai. The Sealand Province was forced into a lengthy artillery battle with the opposing side. And the Russian battleship Varyag in front of him, how to say it, actually gives people a feeling that they can't work! It is no wonder that the Varyag kept as much distance as possible from the Tianjin, and all attacks were carried out under the premise of self-preservation, and the hull constantly changed direction slightly to avoid the shells coming from the opposite side, and it is no wonder that the Varyag had only 6 inches of armor. At a distance of 6KM, it is really uncertain whether it can withstand the fire of the 10-inch 45L main gun! So in the eyes of this Russian captain, it is the best choice to wait for others to open the gap if he does not have a problem!

"Now I'm on my own." He looked at the Sealand Province, which was in a bitter battle. and the Varyag, which "swims but does not hit", and then looks at the Rurik, which was violently beaten by the Scharnhorst. The silent Jack suddenly had a feeling that the heavens were about to descend and the people were also in charge! And Jack, who was silent at the moment, made the first important decision in his life, that is, to rush up and fight the Dalian in hand-to-hand combat!

Relying on the super penetration depth of the 10-inch 50L main gun, coupled with the main armor belt up to 10 inches thick. The Rotterdam inquiringly suppressed the Dalian that caught the opposite one. What's more, there are not many secondary guns in Dalian! Faced with the rushing Sealand, Dalian was forced to turn half a compass point to the left to keep its distance. At this time, the battle behind is a bit in the direction of chaotic warfare, some battleships want to get close to the opponent, some battleships want to stay away from the opponent, the battle column has become crooked, and the 2 Dutch lightning strike ships that sprint with the Sun Rotterdam make the Dalian have to maneuver to dodge the upcoming attack! The battle formations of the two sides were instantly chaotic!

The 16 10-inch guns of the two warships fired fiercely, and in the face of the two Dutch mine-striking ships, a light cruiser of the Huaxia Navy stepped forward. Cut into the battlefield from the flanks to attack the mine-strike ships to provide cover for the Dalian while advancing on the opponent. Fired heavily with the ship's 7 6-inch guns, while the Dalian was after stabilizing its position. With the help of the fire control system, the firing of the six main guns gradually became more accurate. Both sides hit their opponents almost simultaneously, and a shell from the Rotterdam successfully pierced the upper armor belt of the Dalian and opened a large hole in the amidships, and the Dalian also turned one of the Rotterdam's 6-inch guns into scrap metal. The two sides went back and forth and there was a tie for a while.

But the tie on the scene did not last too long, the light cruiser of the Chinese Navy tried to lean in to launch torpedoes after easily solving the two thunder strike ships, but it was indeed a bit difficult to strike the ultimate armored cruiser with a complete firepower with a light cruiser alone, at a distance of about 4KM, the Rotterdam suddenly turned its gun and fired several rounds of salvos at the cruiser! In the meantime, the light cruiser, which was sprinting rapidly, suddenly raised a pillar of fire more than ten meters high, and the single-mounted 6-inch gun was instantly torn to pieces, and even the gun gallery and bomb supply equipment under it were dug out and thrown into the sky. Immediately, another cannonball pierced the belly of the prey like the claws of a lion, and this fatal blow directly paralyzed the power of the light cruiser by half! High-pressure water vapor mixed with debris and blood mist erupted from the breach with an area of up to 10 square meters, and puffs of white smoke covered the entire battleship, and the light cruiser, which was still menacing just now, instantly turned into a dead fish, floating weakly on the sea surface.

However, in this short period of a few minutes, the Dalian caught the destruction, and without interference, the old battleship gave the opponent several heavy blows! WHEN COLONEL JACK WAS SMUG THAT HE HAD CLEANLY DESTROYED A LIGHT CRUISER ON THE OTHER SIDE, THE LOUD NOISE FROM THE BOW MADE JACK FROWN SLIGHTLY, ONLY TO SEE A BURST OF SMOKE COMING FROM THE SIDE OF THE ATURRET IN THE BOW, AND A HUGE BREACH LOOMED UNDER THE THICK SMOKE AND FLAMES, OBVIOUSLY, AN ARMOR-PIERCING BULLET JUST NOW HIT THE SIDE ARMOR OF THE TURRET THAT WAS NO MORE THAN 120MM THICK, NOT ONLY BLEW THE 10-INCH MAIN GUN INSIDE INTO TWO PARTS, BUT ALSO TURNED THE LOWER GUN MOUNT AND LOADER INTO A PILE OF SCRAP METAL. All the Dutch officers and men fighting in half of the turret were killed. BUT FORTUNATELY, THE SHRAPNEL WAS BLOCKED BY A STEEL PLATE UP TO 50MM THICK BETWEEN THE TWO GUNS, AND THERE WAS NO LOSS ON THE OTHER SIDE.

Another shell hit the turret of the C turret, and this shell did not penetrate due to the angle, but the violent vibration was transmitted to the turret through the steel plate, and the bomb machine was instantly stuck! The last shell shaved off half of the Rotterdam's chimney, and the billowing smoke rose from the middle shot, enveloping the entire control tower. At this moment, the high quality of the Huaxia Navy was undoubtedly revealed, and in just a few minutes, the firepower of both sides almost reached a level. Silent Jack's idea was good, but it didn't achieve his goal, at least at the beginning, he didn't manage to defeat the Dalian in a short time.

The Varyag was playing Tai Chi with the Tianjin, and the captain of the Varyag tried his best to keep the distance between the two sides at more than 7KM, even at the expense of tearing the entire formation apart. If the Rotterdam-class armored cruiser has an absolute advantage over the PISA-type armored cruisers of the Chinese Navy on the battle line, then the Rurik Type 2 armored cruiser has at most partial advantages compared with the PISA-type armored cruisers, with stronger guns, but there is a certain gap in protection, and the thickness of the side chord armor is 2 inches different. PLUS THE 120MM SECONDARY GUN IS INDEED NOT AS POWERFUL AS THE 6-INCH SECONDARY GUN. Therefore, the advantages of this class of warships are very limited.

The two sides continued to spit out this tongue of fire at a normal combat distance, and in the case of the Tianjin several close attacks to no avail, in the face of this slippery and loach-like battleship, the Tianjin, which has reached 10 years old, is really unable to get up, but it is okay, at a distance of 7KM, with the dominant fire control, the Tianjin is also a contact with the Varyag.

"The training level and quality of the Huaxia Navy are significantly higher than those of the Russian and Dutch sides, and although the Tianjin armored cruiser has been reequipped with a new 11-inch 45L naval gun, the artillery servo and loaf engine are still relatively backward. The average rate of fire is about 1.75 rounds per minute, while the 10-inch 50L main gun used by the Russian battleship on the opposite side is a new design, and its peak rate of fire is more than 2 rounds per minute, coupled with the advantage in the number of guns, the projection volume of the Russian battleship is more than 4% higher than that of the Chinese Navy, but at this distance, the hit rate of both sides is about the same. A German naval observer, after carefully comparing the hit data of the Varyag and Tianjin, wrote in the report.

Although the three ships of the Russian-Dutch combined fleet had the advantage against the four ships of the Chinese Navy, no one was able to break the deadlock in a short period of time, and the two sides basically fought a tie in the first 20 minutes of the battle. In terms of the number of hits, the two sides are basically equal. The Russian-Dutch navy, which occupies the projection advantage, does not have a more brilliant performance, at least on the big picture, the Huaxia Navy seems to have stabilized the situation, and what really determines the outcome of the war depends on the contest between the behemoths in front!

Thanks to Book Friend 1 The Melancholy of Love 1 and Hoodman for their monthly ticket support~~. Today I recommend the last half of the day, send a big chapter to ask for subscription, ask for support~~~. Thank you for your side position. (To be continued......)