At this time, the Japanese formation was led by the Ra, followed by seven destroyers, so when the Yura began to return fire, the destroyers behind it did not join the battle due to the angle. At the very beginning of this night battle, it can be said that the Kokang and Yura are heads-up.

With two 140 mm guns in the bow and two other 140 mm guns on either side of the bridge, it is theoretically possible to have four guns in the bow hemisphere. However, it must be noted that this is just a theory. In fact, the Yura could not always return fire with four main guns, because of the Japanese 5,500-ton light cruiser's painful main gun arrangement.

Truth be told, the design has a strong World War I experience, with two 140mm single-barreled main gun turrets on the bow centerline arranged back-to-back, with one muzzle facing forward and the other rear. In other words, the firing range directly in front of the door where the muzzle is pointed at the stern of the ship is restricted. Not only was the range of this main gun limited, but the two main guns on either side of the bridge were also unable to fire at the other side of the ship.

All in all, the Japanese 5,500-ton light cruiser was a light cruiser with a strong World War I legacy, and apart from its fairly good seaworthiness, there wasn't much worth mentioning in the 1940s.

After the battle, Yurisic recalled: "The firepower of the enemy ships was not very strong, and at most three main guns could fire at our ships, and most of the time only two main guns took part in the battle...... And the eight main guns of our ship can rain bullets and rain all the time......"

Nishimura Shoji also recalled: "The enemy's fire was fierce, but the gunnery was not good! ”

Why did Nishimura Shoji say that the Kokang was not good at gunnery? The reason for this was that in the first five minutes of the artillery battle, the Kokang fired a lot of shells, but none of them hit. What's worse is that there are fewer straddles. What's going on? It stands to reason that the performance of the Kokang, which is equipped with a gun-sighting radar, will not be so bad!

Yes. The Kokang's gun-sighting radar accurately locked on the Yura, but the Red Navy's radar always faced a problem during the Battle of Midway - it was not adaptable. The Red Navy's radar is more adapted to a cool and dry environment, and the humidity and temperature of the sea area where Midway is located are very different from the established combat environment of the Red Navy, so there are always more or less problems.

For example, at this time, the radar of the Kokang didn't know what was going on, and the ranging error was a bit outrageous, so it was normal for the Kokang to miss the opponent. Of course, Yurisic was not aware of this problem at the time, after all, he could not see in the dark. The observation post could not see where the shells had landed, so he had to blindly follow the wrong instructions of the fire control radar.

It was the Venerable on the other side that really helped him discover this problem, and she was slightly behind the Kokang at this point. Although Captain Burkic had been waiting for orders from above, the Honorable was ready for battle, and its fire control radar was staring at the Yura. The Venerable soon discovered that the Kokang's shooting was outrageously off, and her fire control radar accurately caught the Kokang's shells, with an average firing error of about 500 meters, which was simply a cannon.

"Comrade Yurisic, what the hell are you doing?" Burkic couldn't stand it anymore, "Where are your cannons aiming?" All the shells were about five hundred meters away! ”

That's when Uurisic realized that he had been pitted by unreliable fire control radar again. He hurriedly ordered manual correction of the error and asked the radar soldiers to solve the problem as soon as possible. After the war, when the Dare was renovated, it was discovered that the problem was caused by the moisture of the radar circuit. It took some of the circuits to replace and everything was back to normal.

As the battle continued, the Kokang's lame performance gave Nishimura more confidence, and he ordered the fleet to continue its brave assault and prepare for lightning strikes, while also ordering the gunners to work harder to give the American ghost animals a little color as soon as possible.

Yes, in these few minutes, not only did the Kokang not open its beard, but Yura also did not achieve any results. It's just that Yura's performance is quite normal, firstly, it has no radar, and it has to rely entirely on the human eye to solve problems, and secondly, Yura has fewer artillery to participate in artillery battles, and it is not easy to achieve results.

At this time, the distance between the two sides was only about six thousand meters, and at this moment, the battle finally became fierce, first of all, the Murayu followed by the Yura, and the Murayu also began to fire intermittently, and the Noble also ended the sit-in and began to speak, and began to fire fiercely at the Yura.

Nishimura recalled: "Another enemy cruiser also opened fire, and the fire was also fierce, and at this time I had to think about whether to continue the assault or immediately launch a torpedo. ”

The firing of the Noble made Nishimura Shoji realize that the "American Animal" had woken up, and it was easy to suffer unnecessary losses if he continued to attack forward, but what made him depressed was that only three "cruisers" could be seen in this sea area, and where did the other ships of the American Animal go?

It was too normal for Nishimura Shoji not to see the main force of the Red Navy, the formation of the Red Navy task force was very scattered at that time, and Kuznetsov immediately realized the seriousness of the situation after receiving Kokolin's notice, and on the one hand ordered the Minsk and Kiev to move at full speed to open up the distance from the enemy, and on the other hand, ordered four battle patrols and heavy patrols to support Kokolin's small formation. As for the rest of the light patrol formations, they shrank to the aircraft carriers at Kuznetsov's request and escorted the retreat of the two aircraft carriers.

Kuznetsov knew that the Japanese were very good at night fighting, so he did not plan to risk two precious aircraft carriers, and it would be more cost-effective to take the aircraft carriers out of danger and solve the problem with planes after the distance. To be honest, Kuznetsov really hopes that there will be more pilots at night, so that at night the aircraft carrier will not be an ornament.

The only thing Sukhoi and Kuznetsov could do at this time was: "Catapult four Ro-2s to figure out the situation of the enemy behind." ”

The Yura and the Kokang were still firing fiercely, and the gunners on both sides were holding back their strength, both trying to kill each other. The first to fire was the Yura, and the four 140-mm guns in the bow of the ship seized the fleeting opportunity to finally open fire in unison, and four 38-kilogram grenades flew over a distance of more than five kilometers and landed around the Kokang, one of which accurately hit the bow of the Kokang.

In Yurisic's words: "A fireball rose on the foredeck, the bridge shook a little, and soon they told me that some of the cabins on the foredeck were flooded. There were casualties. ”

The damage management team of the Kokang quickly arrived at the scene. After some emergency repairs. Holes were plugged and stagnant water was emptied. It should be said that the blow of this bomb to the Kokang was minimal, and it did not affect the next battle at all.

According to Yurisic's recollections, this was due to the fact that the Japanese had less powerful ammunition, and their 140-mm grenades were inferior to the 152-mm grenades of the Red Navy. It should be said that there may be a factor in this regard, because the Japanese 140-mm naval gun projectile is indeed much lighter than the mainstream 152 (38 kg vs. 45 kg), and the reason why the Japanese developed ammunition of this caliber is that the Japanese Navy is worried that the ammunition will be damaged in real combat and can only be transported by manpower. And for the dwarf devil, the 45-mm ammunition weighing more than 152 kg looks too heavy. Therefore, it is simply adapted to the national conditions of the country, reducing the caliber and reducing the weight of the bullet.

Of course, objectively speaking, there is no qualitative difference between 140 mm ammunition and 152 mm ammunition, the difference in power is not large, and the performance of Japanese 140 mm naval guns is still good. Yurisic felt that the damage was not significant, and that the good design of the destroyer Kokang, and the damage resistance and damage management facilities were reasonable, which caused this illusion.

After Yura had made the hit, the Kokang quickly returned to the Japanese, with eight 130-mm guns firing a fierce salvo. The Russian 130-mm naval guns were not to be underestimated. Why? As mentioned earlier, the Japanese 140-mm naval gun projectile weighs 38 kilograms, while the Red Navy's 130-millimeter naval gun projectile weighs about 33.5 kilograms. The difference between the two sides is about four kilograms. Let's put it this way, among the mainstream 5-inch (127 mm) class guns, Maozi's 130 power is really quite large (the French 130 power is also good).

So don't look at the type of ship and tonnage, the Yura seems to be a line higher, but in terms of actual combat effectiveness, the Yura may not really be able to beat the Kokang. And soon this manifested itself. The Kokang used the Honor's gun-aiming radar to correct the error, which was regarded as making up for that fateful shortcoming, and was hit again and again in the subsequent counter-fire.

The first 130 mm grenade hit the A turret in the bow of the Yura, and the grenade easily tore through the gun shield (only 20 mm thick, only shrapnel in my heart) and then exploded inside the turret, killing all the gunners in the turret in an instant, and almost igniting the pending shells in the turret.

This shell also interrupted Yura's good firing trend, and there was a full three-minute pause before Yura began to fire back again. The reason for this was that the billowing smoke obscured the view, making it difficult for the Japanese to see the location of the Kokang.

In these three minutes, the Kokang made persistent efforts, although it did not directly hit the enemy ship again, but a few near-missed bullets made Nishimura Shoji in the bridge break out in a cold sweat, and a cannonball almost flew over the bridge, and he could feel the friction between the projectile body and the steel plate on the surface of the bridge, and thanked Amaterasu that the fuse of this shell did not work, otherwise with the poor armor of the Yura bridge, it was really not enough to do anything (51 mm).

After that, several shells fell on the left and right sides of the Yura, which fully shows that the enemy's fire control equipment has locked on the Yura, and if it continues to rush forward, I am afraid that there will be no good fruit to eat. Seeing this, Nishimura Shoji gave up continuing to struggle and chose to turn the rudder and launch a torpedo.

"Prepare for a lightning strike, aim at the enemy heavy cruiser, prepare, put!"

The so-called heavy cruiser was actually the Murmansk air defense cruiser, and at this time she finally came into the eyes of the Japanese more clearly. In the eyes of the devil, the direction where this heavy patrol ship is located should be where the enemy's main force is, and firing torpedoes in this direction should be a drama!

The Yura immediately began to turn the rudder and turned the huge hull sideways, and the sailors in the middle of the hull immediately began to get busy, and the 8.8-meter-long torpedo tubes began to rotate slowly, driving two Type 93 acid torpedoes aimed at Murmansk.

Nishimura Shoji watched nervously at the preparation for the lightning strike, and he could launch the torpedo with just a little more angle, at this point he could not say that he was not nervous, but he was convinced that the powerful spear torpedo would definitely be able to send the beautiful animals to feed the fish.

On the bridge of the Kokang on the other side, Yurisic, who was holding a telescope and watching the Japanese ship's every move, quickly noticed the enemy's movement, and it was too unusual to turn at this time, considering that the Japanese Navy focused on lightning training, so he was very sure that the enemy was preparing to launch torpedoes.

"Notify friendly ships and watch out for enemy torpedoes!"

Actually, it doesn't need to be explained by Uurisic. Both Brkic and Kokorin knew what the Japanese were trying to do. So one side ordered the observation post to pay attention to the situation on the sea surface. The other side began to fire more violently. In the eyes of the Russians, it would be fine to take you down before you launch the torpedo.

Three Red Navy ships, including the Murmansk, fired with unprecedented intensity, 28 130-mm naval guns constantly sprayed tongues of fire, and shells rained down around the Japanese ships.

Nishimura recalled: "The enemy's artillery fire was unprecedentedly fierce, and the water column and shrapnel from the explosion made the hull clang, and I couldn't help but feel anxious. ”

Nishimura Shoji was too correct in his prediction, and the destroyers Mura Rain, May Rain, Haruyu, and Yutachi were following the torpedoes of the flagship Yura. These four destroyers belong to the Bailu-class destroyers. With a standard displacement of 1685 tons and a maximum speed of 34 knots, five five-year 127-mm guns (two twin-packed, one single-barreled) and two quadruple 610-mm torpedo tubes are installed.

That is to say, these four destroyers can project 32 ninety-three torpedoes at one time (the Bailu class was originally equipped with nine-zero torpedoes, but considering that the nine-two 610-mm torpedo tubes seem to be able to fire ninety-three torpedoes, and at this time the ninety-three torpedoes are already the main torpedoes of the Japanese Navy, and it is unlikely that the backward nine-zero torpedoes will be used in a major battle like Midway), it should be said that the lightning strike ability is still relatively strong, if the Japanese ships really let the Japanese ship launch more than 32 torpedoes in one go, Nako Colin's small team is probably more than lucky.

Fortunately. Kokorin's formation artillery fire was strong enough that the Kokang fired at the Yura with all its might (in fact, it shouldn't have shot the Yura). Because the lightning strike ability of the Yura in this era is not as good as that of the destroyer), the Noble is attacking the Murayu, and as for Murmansk, it is concentrating fire to attack the Spring Rain.

In the fierce artillery battle, the first to hit is the spring rain, after all, the firepower of Murmansk is too strong, 12 130 mm naval guns are no joke, especially the fire control radar of the Murmansk is no problem, it firmly locks on the spring rain, and then continues to spray the rain of bullets.

In an instant, the Spring Rain was overwhelmed by shells, and in just three minutes, the ship was hit by six shells, most of which were concentrated in the middle of the hull. First, the lifeboats and 40-mm machine guns under the chimneys in the front and rear were torn to pieces, and then the two Type 92 quadruple torpedo tubes were also directly hit, and soon eight powerful oxygen torpedoes were detonated.

The violent explosion nearly leveled the middle of the Spring Rain's hull, and even the mainmast behind the bridge was affected, swaying in the sea breeze for several minutes before collapsing. The explosion caused a fire more importantly, and from a distance, the Spring Rain looked like a torch burning on the sea.

However, the Spring Rain did not sink quickly, and its officers and men still tried to save the warship despite heavy casualties, and the two twin-mounted main guns in the front and rear of the Spring Rain tried to continue firing, but they were quickly dumbfounded by the Murmansk's rain of bullets.

Facing the raging Spring Rain, Nishimura Shoji felt heavy for the first time, this battle may not be as simple as he imagined, the firepower of the beautiful animal is becoming more and more fierce and more unreasonable, and it is almost beyond imagination. This made Nishimura Shoji very puzzled, but the Great Japanese Navy has also gained the ability to fight at night through nearly 20 years of hard training, and has never heard of beautiful animals playing like this, is it really lucky?

If it wasn't luck, then how on earth did they fight so accurately with the Great Japanese Navy? It should be said that Nishimura Shoji still put gold on his face, judging from the situation after the war, the hit rate of the Red Navy on that night was higher than that of the Japanese, and it was not just one line higher, but much higher.

Of course, the Japanese, who relied purely on the human eye, did not perform badly, they used their eyes to fight the radar of the Red Navy, and although they failed in the end, they were still honored.

Kocolin later recalled: "The Japanese were very accurate, especially when they entered the five kilometers, and the hit rate was amazingly high. My cruiser was hit at least five times! ”

Thanks to the designers, the defense of the Type 40 air defense cruiser is first-class among the 7000-ton cruisers, and how thick is the hull side armor of the Japanese Oyodo-class light cruiser, which is two thousand tons heavier than the Type 40 air defense cruiser? 60mm CNC steel. And what is a Type 40? It's 90 mm. Although 90 mm armor is nothing compared to the heavy cruisers of Japan and the United States, compared to the heavy cruisers of Great Britain, France and Italy, this is the level of defense of heavy cruisers.

It may be that the 140-mm guns of the Yura with 90 mm armor are a bit insufficient, but the 127 mm naval guns of the Japanese are enough. Of course, this is not to say that Murmansk is not damaged at all, that is impossible, but that the damage is at a level that Murmansk can accept and continue fighting.

Compared with Murmansk, the two destroyers of the Red Navy are not so comfortable, they don't have a few taels of armor, they all have to rely on small bodies to resist, for example, the Honor, the torpedo tube on the middle deck was knocked out, fortunately the torpedo has been shot off before, otherwise this is also a fire.

As the Japanese gradually completed their turn, the most intense time on the battlefield was approaching...... (To be continued.) )

PS: Bow and thank you to William the Dead, Kiss Ink the Ghoul, Rustic Duanfang, Southern Wanderers and Comrade Juventus!