Chapter 126: The Pursuit of the Southern Indian Ocean (II)

Compared with the various fears and gains and losses of the chief of staff of Shen Chongde in the rear headquarters, the "Blue Mermaid" women's fleet in the Indian Ocean is full of energy, ambition, and high spirits, fully demonstrating the adventurous spirit of their newborn calves who are not afraid of tigers. Pen × fun × Pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ

-- Just as every guy who gets a big steel toy like a battleship can't help but pull it out and shoot a few shots.

Strictly speaking, this time in the southern Indian Ocean, the monster farming monster fight is indeed a novice village mission with extremely low difficulty and risk - the opponent is just a group of desperate transport ships and auxiliary ships, running very slowly, although it is somewhat equipped with a little self-defense firepower, such as a few heavy machine guns or a few guns, but in the face of the attack of regular warships, such armed strength is actually no different.

However, although the ships of Japan's "Blue Mermaid" women's fleet are all cutting-edge, the quality of the personnel is too poor, and even such a downwind battle that is purely a beating of weak chickens and dogs in the water has produced a lot of ridiculous leaks, which makes the gold content of this victory fade more and more.

First of all, the Kaohsiung cruiser, which was handed over to the girls to pilot, fired a continuous salvo of nearly 100 cannons at a freighter at a long distance just after entering the firing range, but none of them hit, not even a single shot missed, and the enemy ship was always unscathed...... But in the end, the freighter was so frightened that it took the initiative to stop the ship with a white flag.

Then there was the battleship Musashi, which was the flagship, and before it could break out of the Strait of Malacca, a boiler explosion and pipeline leak occurred, causing a fire on the spot, killing and injuring nearly 100 people, and the entire ship was without power for nearly 20 hours...... had to anchor on the spot and stop the ship for emergency repairs, and the command system became a mess.

Then there was the heavy cruiser Nachi, who had not considered the tide while pursuing a cruise ship heading north to India, and unfortunately caught the low tide, only to run aground on the beach, and now collapsed in the sandbar of the Pauk Strait waiting for rescue...... I hope that before help arrives, I won't be attacked by the Indians on the shore.

The most humiliating of all was the destroyer Sunny Wind, which was killed by an armed merchant ship that was armed with a heavy 203 mm gun in the stern, and hit the bridge wheelhouse of the Sunny Wind with one shot, and another shot damaged the boiler engine of the Sunny Wind, so it took the opportunity to slip away at full speed. What's even worse is that the Sunny Wind, which lost power and was paralyzed on the sea, did not wait for the rescue of its own people first, but unfortunately encountered the British destroyer Vixen, and was sent to the bottom by a torpedo, and the crew soaked in the sea for a day and a night before being fished up.

However, the British destroyer Vixen did not escape far before it was besieged by four other Japanese destroyers and sank in a mine.

And what scared the chief of staff of Shen Chongde into a cold sweat even more was the distress of the battleship Yamato, the "national idol......

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In the equatorial waters southeast of the Maldives archipelago, a fierce sea and air battle is underway.

The screech of the descending dive bombers, the thud of the anti-aircraft bombardment, and the shouts of the sailors weaved together on the deck.

Miss Minami Satoka, the acting captain of the Yamato, who was wearing a snow-white uniform and wearing a golden tassel on her shoulders and a gorgeous saber at her waist, looked up with a blank look at the US "Kalsia" dive bombers and Avenger torpedo planes numbly. The battleship Yamato, which circled around his feet, rolled and twisted nimbly, and launched one fierce and fearless attack after another on the Yamato and the destroyers escorting it.

With a little youthful skill and indomitable courage, these US naval aviation units withstood the frantic fire of the Japanese battleships' anti-aircraft guns, constantly adjusted their flight altitude and angle amid the roaring sound and dazzling firelight, and threw a series of black dots on the sea filled with gunsmoke, and then suddenly climbed up and disengaged...... The strings of black dots that fell from the fuselage quickly exploded into huge flames, and the long impact points exploded into a long wall of flames. Huge waves of sound and walls of flames obscured all the noise and color of the sea, enough to describe it as earth-shattering.

Although the Japanese fleet's anti-aircraft fire network was also unusually blazing, it was like an erupting volcano, and one after another American planes fell like meteors. However, the US fighters, who were eager for revenge, still went forward one after another, like moths to a fire, and rushed towards the Yamato!

--Previously, after Miss Minami, who was the acting captain of the Yamato, led the ship into the Indian Ocean, she did not pay attention to those small fish and shrimp at all, and focused on the biggest prey in this pursuit: the flagship of the Eastern Fleet of the British Royal Navy, the battlecruiser "African God of War" Prestige.

This is because, according to the accurate information obtained by reconnaissance satellites, the US and British forces have not yet deployed any aircraft carriers in the Indian Ocean, not even the kind of escort aircraft carriers that have been converted into cruise ships. Therefore, Captain Minami Satoka boldly led the magic version of the nuclear fusion-powered battleship Yamato and the two escort Shimakaze-class destroyers without the cover of the aircraft carrier naval aviation, and clung to the prestige...... And in the end, in the equatorial waters south of the Maldives archipelago, managed to bite the tail of the battlecruiser Prestige.

It is a pity that although it is true that the Allies do not have any aircraft carriers in the Indian Ocean today, and the entire Indian Ocean route is in a state of closure, the air base in the Maldives Islands in the heart of the Indian Ocean has accumulated a full thirty squadrons of fighters and bombers because the Allies are retreating from the North African and Middle East fronts! Originally, these planes were intended to be transferred back to China, but now they can be used to besiege the Yamato.

-- Although more than half of them were Army aircraft and had no training in attacking ships, they were all experienced pilots who had been withdrawn from the front lines in North Africa, the Middle East, and Europe, and were able to fight a war even after hanging bombs and torpedoes. Not to mention that there are at least four squadrons of HNA veterans left......

So, in an instant, the offensive and defensive momentum reversed, and the battleship Yamato, commanded by Miss Minami Satoka, changed from a hunter to a prey before it could fire a single cannonball at the outlaw Prestige...... The first thing that came to mind was a Catalina seaplane, hovering far away from the horizon. Captain Minami didn't care much about this, and just continued to chase after the Prestige. But then, an urgent warning came from the rear radio: a huge group of attack aircraft had taken off from the Maldives islands and was rushing towards the Yamato!

Minami Satoka, who had not yet experienced the test of a real hard battle, suddenly panicked, and had to quickly give up the pursuit of the Prestige, turn around and retreat east. However, even the magically modified nuclear-powered Yamato-class battleship, which can drive at full speed to 42 knots, still can't outrun the plane...... Shortly after the Yamato completed its U-turn, the Allied aircraft group that had taken off from the Maldives was already roaring towards it, launching a series of dive attacks!

The battle for the Maldives began with a salvo of 460 mm guns from the No. 3 turret in the tail of the Yamato - firing aircraft with the Yamato's 460 mm guns was a great invention of the Japanese Navy. To this end, the Japanese army specially developed a three-type anti-air bomb, also known as a burnt shotgun or a firecracker bomb, in the vernacular introduction is a flowering bomb, a cannon out of the explosion of countless fragments, it can be said to be an all-round attack up and down, left and right, the effect pursued is not armor piercing or explosion, but directly paste your face. And it is not a conventional metal shrapnel that is dispersed, but a burning bomb rich in various chemical combustion substances, and every time a three-type anti-air bomb is fired, a huge meteor shower will explode in the air, like a brilliant firework blooming.

However, behind this dazzling fireworks, there is a danger that can be fatal. After each Type 3 anti-aircraft bomb explodes, it can split into thousands of fragments, or thousands of small incendiary bombs, turning a large area of the sky or sea into a sea of fire in an instant.

What's more, each bloom of the salute could theoretically clear a large area of enemy bombers or torpedo planes - in the years of World War II, at least in the early stages of World War II, bomber formations were not like modern military jets, and in order to avoid collisions, the planes had to be separated from each other very far apart. On the contrary, due to the small size, slow speed, and poor equipment of the aircraft at that time, many of the early models of fighters and bombers did not even have radios, and air commanders relied on gesturing and flags to issue orders. Therefore, in order to allow the pilots to gesture to each other and even hear each other's voices, the fleet at that time was tightly packed when the formation set out for the battle, and it would only disperse when it was about to enter the battle.

And each three-type anti-air bomb can form a spherical space killing range with a diameter of 300 meters. Coupled with its long range, it can hit enemy planes before they break up the formation, and if you are lucky, you can take out one of the enemy's flying squadrons with just one shot......

Of course, in real combat, the luck of the Yamato-class battleships was usually not so good. Moreover, in the later stages of World War II, with the advancement of radio technology, aircraft from various countries were successively installed with radio stations, and the formations became more and more dispersed. In addition, this type of three-type anti-aircraft bomb, which contains a large amount of flammable chemicals, is still a source of danger when mounted on a large warship, and because the Japanese military technology level is not up to standard, the performance of this type of three-type anti-aircraft bomb is very unstable, and it may explode at any time, which is about the same virtue as a "powerful oxygen torpedo" -- but if it is really accurate, then the effect is also amazing.

-- Relying on the accurate calculations of the tactical computer, the three huge bombs roared out of the muzzles, passed through the 1,000-meter low clouds, drew an arc-shaped trajectory with a great bend in the atmosphere, and accurately exploded in the formation of the incoming US planes, turning into countless shrapnel fragments, forming three huge inverted bowl-shaped meteor fireworks in the air, which spread over a vast space, and killed a dozen or twelve Avenger torpedo planes in an instant......

When the 460-mm main gun fired two Type 3 anti-air bombs, the US fighters, which had suffered heavy losses, finally arrived in the sky above the battleship Yamato, and an even more fierce decisive battle between the sea and air suddenly broke out -- all the anti-aircraft guns of the Yamato fired a salvo at the same time, forming a terrible three-layer airtight barrage; The two modified Shimafeng-class destroyers escorting the escort also used large-caliber anti-aircraft guns to fire artillery fire on the approaching route of the enemy planes, forming two belts of fire to drive away these air reapers. Dense anti-aircraft shells erupted in mid-air into clouds of hot metal shrapnel, weaving a deadly net called death, shooting down US planes that entered the area one after another. However, even though he had seen many of his colleagues go and never returned, the red-eyed US Corsair attack planes still went forward one after another to strafe and drop bombs, causing eye-catching water columns to rise on the sea around the Yamato

Under normal circumstances, Sophie, the ship's mother who eroded the Yamato, would have already taken over the automated air defense system, and with an accuracy rate that could never go wrong, she would have blown up all the US fighters that came in batches. However, now the body of the ship's mother, the Russian cruiser Aurora, was unfortunately affected by the nuclear explosion in Leningrad, and the soul of the ship's mother Sophie also suffered a heavy blow, and various supernatural abilities were temporarily paralyzed, and it has not fully recovered.

As a result, this sea and air war that broke out in the Indian Ocean could only rely on the rookie female sailors on the ship to play freely...... As a result, due to the lack of air defense training, various problems soon appeared: inaccurate ranging, disjointed movements, intermittent ammunition supply, and radio proximity fuses on anti-aircraft artillery shells were also affected by the high-power jamming equipment on US bombers, which exploded at a great distance from enemy planes...... Obviously, the sky was full of planes, and it seemed that one would hit in any direction, but no matter how frantically the sailors on the ship shot, the battle was still much less than expected. It's like a ferocious bison fighting a swarm of bees, no matter how it roars or rushes, it doesn't have anything to do with these little wasps.

Taking advantage of the gap caused by all this chaos, the five Avenger torpedo planes finally broke through the long-range fire net of the Yamato, approached the battleship "Yamato" from all heights and angles, and dropped the first batch of air-dropped torpedoes -- at this time, relying on the assistance of tactical computers, the observers of the "Yamato" ship accurately and immediately reported the speed and course of the American torpedoes. And Captain Minami Satoka also calmly commanded the "Yamato" to dodge the first wave of torpedo attacks. However, the problem was that the evasive maneuver of the battleship further affected the use of anti-aircraft artillery fire to a considerable extent, so a squadron of "Kalcia" dive bombers immediately swooped down on the plane and accurately dropped heavy bombs before they were shot down.

In an instant, a huge and violent explosion tore through the aft aft deck of the Yamato, causing the whole ship to be violently shaken. Fragments of cracked steel and wood flew in the air, leaving a huge crater on the deck. The crew of the Yamato had to venture out of the cabin, use a high-pressure hose to extinguish the fire, and push the shattered seaplane into the sea to barely stop the fire from spreading further.

A single bomb hit theoretically did not affect the Yamato's defense. Moreover, in return, the anti-aircraft guns of the "Yamato" ship also smashed three "Caucasia" dive bombers. Later, another unlucky Corsair attack plane was shot down by the frenzied Captain Minami Satoka personally operating a single anti-aircraft missile. However, stimulated by this achievement, more and more US attack planes poured out of their nests, like sharks smelling blood, and rushed up into the net of fire at the risk of death, and pounced on the Yamato -- "Corsair" attack planes, "Caurcia" dive bombers, and Avenger torpedo planes, and even the heavy four-engine B-24 heavy bombers came to join in the fun. The battleship Yamato struggled to writhe huge body and dodge the bombs that rained down, but soon it was nearly missed twice in a row, and water seeped into the side of the ship.

The two Shimafeng-class destroyers responsible for escorting the ship were even more unlucky, as their delicate and fragile high-temperature and high-pressure boiler systems were already very prone to failure. When it came to the terrible wartime situation, all of them fell off the chain -- because the boiler was damaged and burst out, the two ships broke down one after another, and then under the siege of the US attack planes, they exploded one after another and caught fire and sank, leaving only the Yamato still fleeing and struggling alone on the sea.

Then, the most dangerous moment finally came, when the Yamato, while anxiously dealing with the air raids of enemy planes in the sky, and rushing towards the east at maximum speed, unfortunately ran into the muzzle of a British submarine...... The continuous artillery fire obviously affected everyone's attention, and when the observer sent out "Four torpedoes, port side, quickly dodge!" By the time it screams, it's too late!

-- Captain Minami Satoka, who was covered in a cold sweat, looked from the bridge and saw four torpedo signs and four tuna moving at high speed, approaching the port side of the "Yamato"! Although she immediately ventured to hit a left full rudder and play a sea drift, she ended up with a torpedo...... Only a "boom" was heard, and more than half of the crew was almost thrown up and fell to the ground. Before they could get up, two more 500-kilogram bombs hit turret No. 1 on the foredeck, failing to chisel through the top armor of the turret, but shattering the transmission machinery and making it impossible to fire again.

As time passed, more and more smoke came out of the Yamato, and the damage management team ran back and forth but still couldn't put it out. And the fire net of the anti-aircraft guns was also blown out of the gap, so that the frequency of shots became more and more frequent. Although Captain Minami Satoka took out a single anti-aircraft missile that can be called a black technology in this era, and made one enemy plane after another explode in the air like a bird. However, in the face of the overwhelming fleet of US military planes, there is still the danger of being outnumbered.

In fact, at this time, the Yamato had already run out of the combat radius of the US shore-based aviation. However, the U.S. military, which has suffered repeated defeats and is in dire need of a victory to boost morale, has made up its mind that it would rather let all the planes go forever and let the pilots find a random place to parachute and soak in the sea water to wait for rescue, but also sink the Yamato in the Indian Ocean...... After a three-hour naval and air battle, the US military lost more than 150 fighters of various types, and more than 300 planes ran out of fuel and fell, and the pilots parachuted into the sea. However, the Yamato was also hit by five torpedoes and eleven bombs in a row, the hull of the ship was flooded by more than 3,500 tons, the two main gun turrets were damaged and could not fire, the hull was tilted up to 13 degrees, and the speed dropped to 16 knots.

Fortunately, night had fallen in the Indian Ocean at this time, and the US military combat aircraft in the Maldives had basically run out. However, at this time, the planes did not have the ability to fight against ships at night, so they could only sit back and watch the cooked ducks fly away again, and watch the badly damaged Yamato ship stagger away.

After another hour or so, the flames on the deck of the Yamato were finally extinguished. The smoking wreckage of the lifeboat was also thrown into the sea, with only crooked torn steel plates with shark-like gaps, and sloping cabin walkways covered in oil and blood...... Since leaving the zombie apocalypse, Nan Lixiang, who has not been subjected to such a cruel test for a long time, couldn't help but sigh sadly when she saw this.

-- According to the analysis of the staff officers and the radio instructions in the rear, the Yamato was still not really out of danger at this time. This is because although it has already been out of the attack range of the US shore-based aircraft, it will take at least one day before it can enter the effective range of its own shore-based air defense and get air cover from its own aircraft. If the battlecruiser Prestige, which had been pursued by the Yamato before, took the opportunity to turn around and kill it, then with the speed and firepower of the other side, as well as the miserable appearance of the Yamato that is now half-dead, the probability of failure and sinking in a conventional artillery battle is probably more than ninety percent.

However, the Yamato was not revisited until the Yamato was completely out of danger and rendezvous with its own destroyers who had come to the rescue......

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Although from the mixed radio waves in the sky, Admiral Fraser, commander of the British Royal Navy's Eastern Fleet on the Prestige, had long known the tragic situation of the Yamato being besieged by American planes. But from beginning to end, he did not try to kill a rifle at all, but relied on the help of American shore-based aviation to get rid of the pursuit of the battleship Yamato, and then rushed directly into the port of Mombasa in Kenya without any love of war.

-- In Admiral Fraser's view, since the British Empire had no choice but to bid farewell to the Indian Ocean and would never continue to be an enemy of the Japanese, it was far more important to preserve its strength than to achieve victory. Even if the Yamato is sunk, only the Americans will really benefit. And if the prestige is lost, then the British Empire's government-in-exile that has now moved to Guyana will not even have a capital ship - in this cruel era when there is no strength and no voice, no matter how humiliating and difficult the situation, the Royal Navy of the British Empire must not be reduced to an air fleet on paper.

Admiral Fraser, in the face of the ridicule and insults of the American troops stationed in Africa on the shore, stayed and rested in the port of Mombasa for a while, and successively gathered a number of auxiliary ships and civilian ships that had fled from the East, as well as Governor Mountbatten and Admiral Wingate who arrived on a cruise ship, and more than 10,000 British troops who had withdrawn from Singapore and India, and then continued south with them, passing through the ports of Zanzibar, Dar es Salaam, Maputo, and Durban, and finally in early September, He arrived in Cape Town, South Africa, with a large group of refugees.

According to the plan agreed between Admiral Fraser and Governor Mountbatten, they should cross the Atlantic to join the exiled Churchill cabinet in the colony of Guiana after a short rest in Cape Town...... However, this plan came to naught.

No sooner had this patchwork and unarmed smorgasbord fleet arrived in Cape Town than it was raided and disarmed by a group of vicious South African soldiers under the pretext of quarantine, and then, an arrogant Boer emissary, came to Admiral Fraser's surrender: "...... On behalf of the Federal Government of South Africa, I declare that Prestige has become the property of our country and cordially invites you and your men to join the newly formed SADC Navy ......"

Admiral Frazier, commander of the Royal Navy's Eastern Fleet, was stunned for a moment, then trembled and burst into tears, and deeply felt the malice of this world - the British Empire, for which he had fought bloodily for half his life, no longer existed...... And the battlecruiser Prestige, which has been with him for several years, will also lower the rice flag representing the glory of the past, and will forever become the existence of the "African god of war......

-- Half a year after the outbreak of World War III, the military power of the British Empire finally withdrew from the arena of world wars...... (To be continued.) )