628 Night Battle Warriors (10)

The torrential rain, the howling winds, and the constantly churning waves make the South Pacific tonight as manic and restless as the mythical and legendary Three Tai's troubled seas. 【 I want: super fast update 】

On the surface of the sea, nothing could be heard except the crackling rain and howling wind.

But in this kind of ghost weather, where the captains would curse twice, the two narrow black shadows were like lost dogs, regardless of the bow tossing up and down in the waves, still maintaining a very high speed, with the water that washed along the bow from time to time, speeding southward.

In the kitchen, Carol held the basin and couldn't speak, even if a veteran like him who had served for two years was tossed to death by this ghost weather, I can't imagine how the guys above have persevered until now, I can't understand how the Chinese found the fleet at this night, you know that at this time, even if a warship passes three thousand meters away, it is not clear at all, let alone fighting in this weather.

In the dull engine hiss, Carol put down the basin full of filth, and cautiously walked to the porthole, after the raindrops the size of beans hit the porthole, making the world outside the battleship more chaotic, in fact, even if the glass is clear, he can't see anything, because at this time the battleship is still under light control, except for the waves that pass by at close range, he can't see the world hundreds of meters away.

The only thing known was that the heart-wrenching explosions and the whistling of shells seemed to be gone, indicating that the enemy should have been thrown off.

He was just a cook, but he still had confidence in the Brave he was on, and in fact, as early as when he boarded the warship to start sea trials, he heard from those officers that this type of warship had run at a high speed of 28 knots, but it had been at sea for more than two months since its departure, and the speed would drop a little.

Although the bumps are terrible, as long as you can get rid of the enemy, it doesn't matter how hard you work, and it's night, and you don't have to worry about the Chinese planes that everyone usually says, so as long as you can stick to it and get back to Noumea, it's safe.

After feeling safe, it seemed that his body was much more comfortable, Carol poured a sip of cold water to make his stomach feel a little more comfortable and began to prepare the materials for breakfast, because by the time Noumea arrived, it must be morning, and a night of consumption would make everyone hungry, and the guys above protected his life, so he was ready to make a hearty meal to treat them.

While busy, Carol couldn't help but think of those previous partners in his mind, and he didn't know what happened to them, and they didn't know if they could escape from the enemy's terrible artillery fire, and what worried him was Vice Admiral Seymour on the French battleship.

He's a good officer, but he shouldn't be with the French, he should be on the Brave, because no one can catch up with .......

"Boom, boom, boom......."

Before he finished thinking about it, the sudden sound of the cannon in his ears made his hands tremble violently and caught up? How is it possible, no one can catch up with the British warships!

Carol hurriedly put down what he was holding and quickly ran to the porthole, and when his cheek was just pressed against the cold window, he was stunned by the scene in front of him.

I saw that countless fire points were constantly lit up from the darkness in the distance like electric lights flickering in the night of London, and in the rumbling cannons, countless columns of water had appeared on the rolling sea, and they were still .......

Keep stretching to your side!

Oh, God.

How can it be!

Rumble!

The world exploded in that moment, and out of the corner of Carol's eye, she saw the porthole in front of the cabin suddenly explode, and a fiery red cloud burrowed into the galley, and then there was a violent explosion.

"Carol."

"Carol, are you okay!"

Shaken down by the blast wave, Carol felt like he was going to die, lying on the cold deck feeling paralyzed and unable to move, until several of his companions pushed open the hatch and rushed into the galley in the thick smoke of gunpowder and shouted, he regained some strength and shouted: "I'm here, come and save me, help me!" ”

After the two sailors removed the scattered furnishings, they checked Carol by the light of the fire, and shouted: "Carol, you black-hearted cook, it's okay, don't worry, you're okay, get up and get out of here." ”

"Nothing? God, that's great. ”

Carol hurriedly stood up, shook his hands and feet and found that he was really fine, and hurriedly drew a cross on his chest, but before he could finish reading, he suddenly felt that his feet suddenly tilted, and everything in the cabin slid to the left, and the three of them hurriedly grabbed the nearby fixtures to maintain their balance, and when the battleship regained its balance after a few minutes, they raised their heads, but there was more deep horror in their eyes.

After so many years at sea, they are not idiots, just that is the scene that happens when a battleship maneuvers violently, and to maneuver like this when it has a 15-inch cannon can only show that the enemy is better than themselves, and the shells are more accurate than themselves, so the Brave must rely on maneuvering to get rid of the fate of being covered by shells.

It is possible to hit accurately, because the enemy ships have many guns, and there will always be a few hits in the covering shelling, but is it possible for a warship that is more than the Brave?

The three of them were terrified, but nothing was more important now than extinguishing the fire in the cabin first, so they immediately began to put out the fire, and when they saw that the next little fire was about to be extinguished, several black dots smashed into the place again.

"Boom......."

This time, Carol knew that he was really going to die, because the explosion had lifted him into the air, and then he pushed him backwards so hard that his back seemed to have been pierced by something, and he looked down to see that a section of water pipe had leaked out of his chest.

"Captain, there are four cabins underneath that have been penetrated, but it's not a big problem, and it didn't enter the ......."

"Boom......."

Before the first mate's report was over, several fireballs rose from the foredeck, causing the officers to quickly lower their heads, and when the smoke cleared, Captain Jefferson immediately shouted: "25°, turn left!" Release the smoke! ”

Jefferson had no choice but to continue to turn left, and although it would get farther and farther away from Noumea, there was only one thought left in his mind at this point, and that was to run as much as he could!

Jefferson, like all captains, never thought that the speed of the Chinese battleship would be so fast, although he had heard of some Chinese battleships flying at such speed, but they were limited to destroyers, even if there were some legends that cruisers could run 30 knots and battleships could run 28 knots, but no one had seen it with their own eyes. ※※※※※ I ※ I ※ ※

Now he finally understood the opponent's speed advantage, but this was not something that worried him, because from the sound of the ship's guns, he could hear that there were two light cruisers firing in the distance, and what scared him was that he didn't expect the opponent to maintain such a high hit rate in such sea conditions!

In fifteen minutes, they had penetrated their own cabin, and if they continued to fight, they might hit the key positions, and their shells had an armor-piercing ability that was obviously beyond imagination.

He knew very well how fragile the defenses of the brave class large cruisers were, and to put it bluntly, such warships were only suitable for surprise attacks, and were not used to bombard the enemy at all.

On the other hand, on his side, although the main gun was still firing at a rate of one round per minute, and the secondary gun had also joined in, in the turbulence of the wind and waves, let alone firing the cannon, even the steering wheel was difficult to hold steadily, and it had been fighting for nearly fifteen minutes, and a single flame could not be seen rising in the distance.

If there is no battleship chasing behind, Jefferson will definitely order to close the distance to give full play to the advantage of heavy artillery, although the two brave class will definitely be seriously injured in doing so, but the two light cruisers will definitely be finished, but now he does not dare, because there are still two Guam-class battleships behind him, if the speed is reduced to close the frontal battle, at least 15,000 meters of distance will be lost before killing the enemy, and the Chinese battleship can catch up as long as it has a speed of 25 knots.

The thought of being targeted by two battleships of more than 40,000 tons with 18 15-inch naval guns left Jefferson with no confidence, so he could only turn left again and try to use maneuvering and nightfall to open the distance.

Smoke generators from the stern and amidships began to pour out billowing black smoke, and suddenly the visibility on the sea surface became low, and even the mast lights of the two ships, which were only a kilometer apart, became blurred.

The Brave was very unstable in the sharp turn, and the hull of the ship was like a small sailing ship sailing against the wind, and the waves swooped down the port side, almost sweeping away a sailor.

"The distance is 12,600 meters, the left rudder is 25 degrees, the target is rapidly deflected, and the artillery scale is ......!"

On the Ussuri River, the radar is fixed in the position of the enemy ship, and the radio waves constantly provide the angle and attitude of the target, and the early radar cannot automatically calculate the speed and distance, and must manually calculate the speed and distance and other parameters according to the small gap between the target on the screen over a period of time.

This calculation will not be very accurate, but it is not a big problem for light cruisers in rapid sailing, because their shells never need to shoot accurately, as long as they are aimed at a certain direction, and then the 4 triple main guns are staggered at the elevation angle, and then with a rapid speed of 72 guns per minute, the target can be covered in a large area.

The fire control team reported the calculated data to the turret, and at the same time telegraphed it to the battleship formation behind and the partners who were chasing Tennessee, guiding them to concentrate on the pursuit while they remained silent.

No one knows that the Chinese Navy has unconsciously completed the original information-based network combat mode, which appeared as early as World War II, in the famous movie "The Eagle over London" in the British air battle, in fact, there was a use of radar-equipped warships to go out of the center line of the channel to provide early warning guidance for the British Air Force.

With the large-scale deployment of radios and radars, Hua also has such capabilities, but they themselves have not yet realized it.

The squad leader fixed himself on the handrail with a belt, and was not surprised to see the turret rotate automatically, because these were all done by the artillery follow-up system controlled by the fire control group, and when the muzzle of the gun was also raised to a certain angle, he immediately began to verify whether the shelling elements provided by the fire control team were in place, and then let the ammunition start to be loaded and fired.

After years of exploration and improvement, Hua has been able to make the 152 mm naval gun in the case of separate loading, so that the bomb loser and semi-automatic loader can be loaded at any angle between 0-35 °, simply put, when the target is within 15000 meters, the barrel can be directly locked without the need to return to the zero angle after the shot is done as before, and then reopen fire, that is to say, at this distance, the target can be covered at high speed throughout the whole process!

However, this flexible loading technology has not yet made a breakthrough in the heavy artillery above the 300 mm level, mainly because the heavy artillery shells are too heavy and too large, unless it is a fully automatic loader, and the manpower cannot be done in some places when it is semi-automatic.

Technological progress has made the battleship a whole, no longer like the previous cannon to artillery, ranging to range, the only regret is that those scientists did not invent a way to make this kind of sea state maneuver can still stand firm, if you don't use the belt to help fix, maybe it will be bumping and bumping first glorious.

The naval guns were still firing shells at a rate of 6 per minute, in fact, the gunners were firing completely blindly at this time, and even the rangefinder of the shelling control tower on the top of the bridge could only see occasional flashes of fire, mainly relying on radar and mechanical computers.

Rumble.

After another string of shells fired, the squad leader finally saw a large fire explode in the darkness in the distance, and from the turret rangefinder, it was faintly visible that it should have hit a lifeboat on the deck or a small-caliber rapid-fire ammunition depot or something, although it was not fatal, but it provided good coordinates for the rangefinders of the two light cruisers.

In an instant, the coordinates of the telephone came, and after the squad leader quickly calculated it, he really asked to aim all at the fire.

"Gather fire!"

"Cut the cable, cut it!"

The sergeant stamped his feet and took the axe from the side, and the idiot understood what an obvious goal a fire in the darkness was, so he immediately slashed desperately at the cable of the transport boat, but before he could raise the axe, a large swell made his feet unstable, and the whole person slid away.

"Damn it, let me do it." Seeing this, the second sailor immediately grabbed the axe on the deck, and someone next to him hugged his waist to prevent him from falling again, only to see that after he cut a rope with several axes, and was about to go to the next one, the explosion suddenly exploded from his side.

Several shells instantly flooded the small traffic boat parking platform, and the wooden lifeboat next to it also began to burn, although this kind of burning will not really hurt the warship, but the problem is that the fire will attract more shells.

Captain Jefferson hurriedly raised his binoculars and rushed to starboard, only to see the two Chinese cruisers in the distance who didn't seem to know what cherishing cannonballs were, and still kept emitting points of light, and the points of light were always kept at a distance parallel to their starboard side, which showed that they not only aimed and locked themselves, but also could clearly see the maneuvering lines of the two Brave-class large light cruisers in the dark.

"How is this possible?!"

Captain Jefferson rubbed his eyes vigorously, he really doubted that he was dazzled, if it were not for the artillery sparks exposed by the opponent, at this time the lookout with good eyesight could not see what was five thousand meters away, what did those Chinese track themselves through?!

"Turn 15 degrees to the left and let the Glory put out the fire!"

Captain Jefferson pointed to the Glorious that was on fire behind him and shouted, but before the fire could be extinguished, a terrible shout suddenly came from the port side.

"Cannonballs!"

"Circumvent!"

Suddenly, everyone saw that countless fire points in front of them exploded in an instant, and hundreds of shells flooded the maneuver line in the blink of an eye, and the helmsman had to desperately turn the rudder to evade, and the two Brave class began to maneuver in a serpentine manner in the storm, and the speed dropped to 22 knots in an instant.

"Report that the 12th fleet has stopped three Tennessee ships are exchanging fire, the Lijiang and Lancang have been disarmed, and they are currently in front of the British and are intercepting."

"The first target, reported, turned easterly again, and maneuvered to reduce their speed to 22 knots."

"Verse 22!" Li Xiuyan snorted coldly, put down the pen in his hand and leaned back from the chart, and sneered: "It can't run!" ”

Hearing this, the officers nodded, and after the 12th Fleet arrived in time to take over the task of pursuing Tennessee, the four light cruisers of the 31st Fleet were completely free, and now there were interceptions in front and on the right, unless the British were willing to fight a decisive battle, they could only continue to turn to the right and east.

Britain is absolutely impossible to fight a decisive battle, their rangefinder is already weak, although the power of the heavy artillery is amazing, but the speed is slow, 8 guns have not been able to form a covering shot, not to mention look at the ship type to know that in the wind and waves, this kind of heavy artillery light patrol is very unstable, if you want to knock out four light cruisers, you must get closer to 8000 meters, and reduce the speed to 18 energy saving to exert its power.

They should have known that there were battleships behind them and then they would be able to get down to 18 knots unless they could also take out four extremely nimble light cruisers in 10 minutes, but this kind of thing could not be done even by the Guam class.

"What's the distance?"

"It's 24,000 meters, and if the first target keeps it at this speed, it will be closer to 22,000 meters in 10 minutes."

As soon as the chief navigator finished speaking, the gunnery staff officer immediately handed over the distance and angle calculated by the fire control room according to the radar signal to Li Xiuyan, and frowned: "22,000 meters, will it be too far?" In this kind of weather, unless there are obvious coordinates, there is no guarantee of a hit, and once the cannon is fired, we will lose speed. ”

"You see, its bow has now drifted to the east, and it will not be able to return to Noumea if it continues to drive like this, so it must still need a maneuver to turn, and now that the four light cruisers have blocked it, it is impossible for him to complete the rudder in this situation, but if the right side pursues the Tumen River and the Ussuri River in parallel and slows down, then there will be a gap."

"Sir, do you mean to take the initiative to slow down and give it a chance to turn the rudder?"

"Yes."

Li Xiuyan nodded heavily: "The speed will lose a lot at once when it turns sharply, and the hull of more than 230 meters long will complete a 90° turn, it will take about 2 minutes, even if the boiler pressure has been kept high, it will take 3 minutes to accelerate to 3 minutes after deceleration, that is to say, it has 5 minutes at a speed of 20 knots, if we only use 6 main guns in the bow to fire, we can fire 6 rounds of 72 shells in 5 minutes, and the speed will not lose too much, if all are aimed at the target ship, it is worth ...... and gambling." ”

"But the rangefinder can't find an accurate reference target, and at 22,000 meters, the flare can only let us see the shadow, and there is no way to locate it?"

"That's easy." The corners of Li Xiuyan's mouth hooked, and he swept towards the gun commander: "I remember that each of the four light cruisers had a base number of incendiary bombs, right?" ”

That's right!

Everyone's eyes lit up suddenly, because of the need to regularly support the land, so the incendiary bombs have been allocated to each light cruiser, although this time is a naval combat mission, but there is also a base, each light patrol ammunition base is 48, four light cruisers are 1152, 8 minutes can be all shot, no matter how bad as long as you can hit 10-20, this kind of heavy rain can not extinguish the flame, in the dark is a good coordinate!

"Order the Tumen and Ussuri to start slowing down in 5 minutes." Li Xiuyan looked at his watch and sneered: "There are still 9 minutes left, let's start the countdown!" ”

"Yes."

A moment later, the 12 main guns of the bow of the two Guam-class battleships began to rise slowly, and one after another thick and heavy shells were stuffed into the chambers.

"Bang......."

Captain Jefferson, who was desperately trying to dodge the cannonballs, suddenly felt that his pupils were stabbed, because in an instant, the sea seemed to be sprinkled with fire oil, and all the soldiers widened their eyes and opened their mouths, only to see that the sea seemed to be burning, and after the cannonballs fell into the water, a ball of flames would gush out from under the water, and then it would explode and spread around, like a fire lotus rising from the bottom of the sea, which was very strange in the night.

The sailors began to whisper, not understanding what was scattered around, but Captain Jefferson's face had begun to change, and the flames that could not be extinguished by the sea would not be ...... if they exploded on the hull.

Before he could finish his thoughts, several explosions confirmed his idea, only to see two shells accurately land on the foredeck of the Brave, and the exploding shells brought a cloud of sparks, and in the blink of an eye, the entire foredeck seemed to burn.

"Damn it, put out the fire!"

Dozens of sailors rushed forward amid the shouts of the officers, but no one expected that the shells that flew immediately followed would envelop them, and the fire engulfed the sailors in an instant.

The flames continued to rise along the clothes and along the body, even if it rained heavily, there was no way to extinguish it, and even some sailors brought leather pipes to rush it, but they could only let the flames float and penetrate everywhere along the sea.

"What the hell is this!" Captain Jefferson cursed, but at this moment, everyone seemed to hear the sound of heaven.

"Captain, they're slowing down!"

Jefferson, who raised his binoculars, saw that the two cruisers on the right had slowed down a little for some reason, and had been dragged behind at least 4,000 meters, so that there was a huge gap between them and their partners blocking in front.

"Great, right full rudder!"

"Concentrate all your firepower and don't give them a chance to get closer!"

As if there was hope of survival, the two Valiant class large heavy artillery cruisers burst into full enthusiasm, and the bow that was rapidly deflecting to the left was even dragged out of the water by the waves.

Eight 15-inch guns and all the secondary guns opened fire at the same time, and the soldiers knew that if they didn't block each other, there would be no hope of going home once the gap was re-blocked, so they all roared.

But they didn't know that in the darkness, the two gods of death had opened a wide net.

The voice of the gun commander echoed in the loudspeaker, everyone's hearts were suspended, even Li Xiuyan prayed to God and Buddha in his heart, looking at the two not too obvious fire balls in the distance, knowing that what was needed at this time was luck.

"1, fire!"

In the dark, 12 flames suddenly exploded from the bow of the ship, and the huge recoil force made the hull of more than 40,000 tons suddenly stagnate, just like a high-speed car that hit the iron wall, and the inertia made the warship stagger, if it was not for the advance notice that it would fire at full speed, maybe someone would fly out directly.

"Second round!"

"Third round!"

"Fourth round!"

The artillery squad did everything they could, each round of shelling was even overwhelmed in 50 seconds, and now they just need more shells, cover, cover and cover!

"Boom~!"

As if hearing the shouts in the hearts of the soldiers, when the sixth round of shells burst out of the barrels, and the seventh round had just finished reloading, the flames bloomed in the distance, so that everyone felt that the blood rushed to their brains, and then their whole bodies trembled.

The beautiful orange-red fire hundreds of meters high rose from the pitch-black sea, and even the torrential rain could not stop it, not only lighting up the entire sea, filling the two battleships with cheers, but also making the scalps of the four light cruisers who saw this scene numb.

They didn't want to shoot thousands of shells to shoot a few small flowers before, but they didn't expect the Guam-class battleship to use only one shell, and directly made the target No. 2 ship, the Glorious, a ** barrel.

Captain Jefferson stepped out of the bridge and let the rain rain wash down all over his body, staring blankly at the ignition of the Glory like a giant salute, he had no temperature at all.

You don't have to look to know that the shells penetrate the weak or even the none-horizontal deck and burrow into the ammunition depot, and even if the Monarch-class battleship is pulled, this kind of damage is enough to kill, let alone a large light cruiser that is extremely fragile.

As far as the eye could see, the explosion stretched along the stern to the amidships, and then the hull broke through the middle of the third chimney, and the shrill cracking of steel made the feet of all the sailors on the Brave tremble.

The two torn hulls, scattered like petals, smashed into the sea again, stirring up countless whirlpools and waves, and disappeared into the manic and icy sea with 892 sailors before the next round of enemy shells arrived.

"Captain, they're coming up again!" The captain stood in the open hatch of the bridge and shouted, but Jefferson did not hear at all, and when the four light cruisers had once again baptized the Brave with cannonballs at all costs, he walked into the bridge with a pale face and looked at the marine clock.

There was still an hour before dawn, but ......, the Brave was doomed to return to Noumea!

"Turn off the engine, white flares, turn on all the lights, we're ......." Captain Jefferson looked around, looked at a pair of eyes full of fear, and let out a long sigh: "Give up! ”

At 4:51 a.m. on March 25, the British heavy artillery cruiser USS Valiant, which had just arrived in Australia less than 30 days ago, hoisted the white flag with three white flares fired and turned on all the lights, while the engine was turned off.

At 5:50 a.m., when the two Guam-class battleships arrived, the remaining 873 sailors of the Brave had all left the deck, and the sea valve was opened and began to fill the ship with water.

Nobody bothered them, this is the tradition of the Navy.

Looking at the slowly sinking battleship, Li Xiuyan and all the officers and men of the 31st fleet breathed a sigh of relief, this time, they could cheer to their heart's content, because!

The night and the weather can't trap the roaring dragon!

: Big chapter, gorgeous explosion, nothing else!

。

。 RO！ ~！