Just when the Essen fleet and the fast fleet of the Chinese Navy were fighting, the 6 Russian battleships and the 4 battleships of the Chinese Navy started a standard battle line engagement! If only in terms of the number of artillery, the Russians still have a slight advantage, and in terms of numbers, the Russians have an advantage, but in the case of 6 ships surrounding the opponent 4 ships, Russia is still at a disadvantage!

The two Longxing-class battleships played the role of the mainstay, and with the help of the two solution rooms, the ship's 12 main guns were divided into two gun groups in the front and rear to fight against the two Russian dreadnoughts at the same time, while the two Longquan-class battleships were to deal with the remaining two Russian battleships. Before the engagement, because considering that it was a 4-ship formation, and the combat effectiveness of the Longxing-class was higher than that of the Longquan-class battleships, the two Longxing-class battleships were at the head of the team and the other two Longquan-class battleships were behind. In the beginning, Makanov also tried to concentrate fire on the Longxing, the flagship of the Huaxia Navy, and the battleship Alexander and the Eagle on the opposite side. But in the ensuing battle, the two battleships did not overwhelm their opponents due to the numerical superiority of 16 main guns!

The backward ranging and settlement seriously affected the rate of fire of the Russian capital ships, and in order to ensure that the main armor belt of their battleships could withstand the enemy's main artillery attacks, the Russians had to keep their distance. As early as the last Sino-Russian war, when Russia found that its 12-inch heavy guns could not even penetrate the 6-inch Krupp hardened armor, the Chinese Navy's artillery of the same level could penetrate 8-inch armor at the same distance! And this is undoubtedly a nightmare for the Russian-Dutch Navy, and now. The nightmare continues, and when the Russian Navy becomes complacent about equipping itself with a new type of armor-piercing shell, they find that the effective penetration depth of the other side is still far stronger than their own! So the Russians must keep their distance!

And that's how it turned out. The two Russian battleships didn't perform well together against the Longxing-class battleships! More importantly, although the Longxing-class battleships did not have an armor belt, because the height of the armor belt was high enough, reaching a height of 4 meters, which was difficult for most battleships to reach at that time, coupled with the low drystring, the hull side chord of the entire battleship was basically under the protection of heavy armor, and then the result was that the Russian shells exploded in addition to a piece of hull. It didn't work.

"All important parts of this battleship are protected by heavy armor, and you can destroy its superstructure, you can destroy its secondary guns. But it was impossible to shoot shells into its turrets or the power compartment of the ammunition depot, and our guns bombarded its sidestrings again and again, but it didn't do much to the steel behemoth except to leave a broken black hole in the sidechord hull. Afterwards, Makanov commented on the Longxing-class battleship, and his mood at this time was very similar to Japan's fear of Dingzhen. No matter how you fight, it can't be broken. Not only is it not bad, but the opponent's counterattack is also very fatal!

The two Russian battleships that fought the Longxing did not hit each other, and as a result, the first shell smashed on the deck of the Eagle, and this shell finally exploded in the upper part of the power compartment dome after penetrating 2 decks in a row! The energy generated by the violent impact and explosion acted directly on the not very thick armor plate, although the shells could not penetrate it, but the rear of the armor plate still cracked, and the Russians did not have the idea of adding an anti-spall layer behind the horizontal armor, and countless fragments flew directly down the ceiling of the power compartment. Although the boiler was not destroyed, the dense debris still severed part of the pipeline. The steam that erupts from the power chamber fills the entire power chamber with high temperature and pressure water vapor.

Subsequently, although the two Russian warships repeatedly hit the Longxing, they did not have much impact on the beast except for a shell that destroyed the secondary turret. Even if the main gun hit on the turret causes the gun to malfunction temporarily, it can be repaired or used as a backup soon afterward. Therefore, in the half-hour-long battle, the two Longxing-class battleships did not suffer much damage, and because of the reason of one or two, the damage of the Longxing to the two Russian battleships after dispersing firepower was relatively limited, after all, the firepower density was much worse.

The 4 Russian battleships and the 2 Longxing-class battleships in front of them fought back and forth, and the two Longquan-class battleships in the back completely suppressed the remaining two Borodino-class battleships, especially the Retvizan battleship opposite the Longteng, which was hit by the sharp firepower and accurate artillery fire of the Huaxia Navy. The half-salvo of 10 guns, with 5 shells per round, almost brought the battleship's firepower to an excellent level, and there was some justification for Vittorio and others to insist on using twin main gun turrets. In just the third round of design, the Letvizan was trapped, and then with the fourth round of shooting, the Dragon accurately hit the Russian battleship, which was already heavily flooded!

"Fortunately, the shell hit the front of the hull." A Russian officer said as he looked at the billowing smoke rising from the front of the ship's hull. The water intake near the front waterline did not have a great effect on the battleship, but balanced the weight of the tail because the weight of the front was a little larger! But then, the Dragon's successive hits made the Russian battleship completely despair! The 10 heavy guns continued to spit a deadly rain of bullets in two shifts, and the Retvizan's maneuverability was already greatly reduced due to the flooding, and in the ensuing engagement, a large number of shells hit the non-core area of the hull, which further reduced the balance of the battleship! And with the destruction of one main gun, the Russians gradually lost the ability to fight back!

"Damn it! Our turret layout is too close! Looking at the two main guns in front of him, which had been stuck, the Russian captain said sadly. Just a minute ago, a shell penetrated through the upper armor belt, and after shattering less than 6 inches of armor, it continued to fly, destroying several compartments in succession and then exploding on the upper deck, the shell did not penetrate this deck, but the violent explosion caused the deck to deform! And the deck deformation directly led to the deformation of the two artillery gun rings connected to it! The deformation of the gun ring directly caused the turret rotation mechanism to freeze! With two turrets destroyed in one shot, and the loss of the main gun in the previous battle, the Retvizan lost almost all of its firepower!

Then the Dragon Teng successfully entered the rhythm of killing dogs, and the undisturbed Dragon Teng sent a 12-inch heavy cannon shell to the Leetvizan, and the flames and smoke caused by the successive explosions covered the entire ship. If nothing else, the ship may sink because the fire is out of control or because it thinks there is too much water. At this time, Makanov naturally couldn't sit idly by and watch a dreadnought sink again, so he concentrated a few mine-striking ships to release smoke to cover the fleet and pull away. The Huaxia Navy also chose to suspend firing because the muzzle smoke did not dissipate due to long-term high-speed firing. Shortly after the avant-garde fleet separated, the main fleets of both sides also stopped firing at each other and reopened the distance, as if the two boxers needed to take a break and continue the fight after a while.

The Essen fleet did not complete its mission, and the Makanov fleet was also at a disadvantage in the fight with Yang Yonglin. The long and fierce fighting has actually brought this fleet to the brink of collapse, and the Makanov fleet is okay and will be able to hold out for a while, but the Essen fleet is now running out of fuel! The performance of the two seven-provincial fast battleships just now is just a return to the light. True, the battleships of the seven provinces really did not suffer much damage, but the ammunition reserves have fallen to a dangerous situation! The gun with the least reserve of all guns has only 20 base ammo! In other words, if the exchange of fire exceeds half an hour, the battleship of the seven provinces is likely to directly turn into a toothless tiger! After all, the Essen fleet had already fought with Cheng Biguang before this!

"The fleet is no longer able to break through the encirclement of the other side again, the ammunition of the seven provincial fast battleships has bottomed out, and the remaining battleships are seriously damaged. There are very few auxiliary warships left. "After the failure of the breakout, Essen quickly sent a telegram to Makanov. After a major battle between the two sides, the Russian fleet was already at an overall disadvantage. What is certain is that if nothing else, then when the Chinese Navy attacks again, it will be the end of the Russian Navy! The Russian fleet can run out of a few warships Makanov does not know what to do, but one thing is for sure, if the Chinese navy is ready to fight, the Russian navy will no longer have the ability to fight a decisive battle after this battle! As for the rest of the time, the Russian fleet remained in the harbor either as a presence fleet or as an attack ship to fight guerrillas, and in any case could not be used as a decisive force.

If ordinary people were faced with this situation, they might have been helpless a long time ago, and it was still very early before dark, and the offensive of the Huaxia Navy might be launched in the next minute. But now the boss of the Russian fleet is Makanov, a veteran who has fought with the Chinese Navy 3 times and has been dealing with since 10 years ago! The name of the first person in the Russian Navy was not given for nothing!

"It's not hard enough!" Looking at the scorched fleet of Essen in front, Makanov quickly calculated. This breakthrough operation must not only have speed and firepower, but also hardness! This is like in ancient wars, when it came to the last time, the decisive force that could really break up the opponent's infantry phalanx was the heavy cavalry, although the light cavalry could provide sufficient firepower output, but in the face of the infantry phalanx with complete defense and heavy infantry and a large number of spearmen and crossbowmen, it was still not enough.

And the Essen fleet is this problem, the two seventh-level fast battleships are hard enough, but the battleships in the back are really too watery, so the result is that the seventh-level fast battleships rushed out of the ground and stuck the ones behind! And the current situation is that after there are no auxiliary warships, I am afraid that it may become a luxury for the seven provinces to break out of the army, and as for the back, there is no need to think about it! So it is no longer appropriate to use the Essen fleet as the spearhead of the charge. In other words, if Makanov wants to run out of the city, he can no longer count on the Essen fleet!

Thank you for the monthly ticket support for the book friend recruitment, and the evaluation vote of the book friend Southern Old Wolf ~~. (To be continued......)