"Boom."

The roar of naval guns, which had been moving all day long, began to echo in the South Pacific Ocean with the first salvo of 18 406mm naval guns, and Seymour, who could not avoid it, had no choice but to respond.

But after only 2 rounds, he regretted it.

"General, yes, it's 16 inches!"

In the distance, the unusual cannon flame stunned the lookout in the light cruiser's bridge, and although this was the first time he had seen a 16-inch super naval gun roar, it did not prevent him from distinguishing the opponent who had closed to within 20,000 meters through various details.

16-inch naval guns!

Almost everyone was taken aback, they finally understood why they had lost 2 battleships and 1 cruiser in such a short time on the night of three days ago.

"Leave, leave, here!"

In Seymour's panicked shout, several water columns rose from hundreds of meters in front of the North Dakota, and the huge white water column made the eyes of everyone on the North Dakota who was being targeted widen, they had never seen such a huge water column.

Almost instantly, the battle line that had just been lined up began to shatter, and the 4 battleships began to evacuate without even saying hello to their companions, and the 3 cruisers, led by the Bristol, turned the rudder and took advantage of the speed to retreat first.

"Captain, they dispersed."

In fact, the staff officer didn't say it, Zhou Cheng had already seen the scattered opponents, this kind of scene made him sigh slightly, the Entente Australian Grand Fleet obviously had no battle **, this kind of battle would be doomed to be boring, so he simply acted as a spectator, and let the gunners and navigators cooperate with each other.

"18,000 meters."

"Boom."

When this distance figure was just reported, after five rounds of adjustments, the Zhongmeng received a second major result in this naval battle, with a 1,020-kilogram armor-piercing projectile hitting the bow of the North Dakota.

All lookouts saw that the North Dakota that had been hit seemed to have become a tool for the two giants to fight, first by the sky giant with a big hand into the sea, slammed down, then by the sea fiercely, and finally a big explosion occurred.

Although the explosion did not damage the bow ammunition depot, it directly cut off the entire bow and detonated the torpedo compartment, and by the time the explosion was over, the North Dakota was already like a clown with its nose cut off, and thousands of tons of seawater poured in from the wound in an instant, flooding the entire foredeck area, and the rear of the hull was slightly cocked, although the three twin 305-mm naval guns behind it were still shelling, but it was no longer lethal.

Since the first performance of the new Guam-class was at night three days ago, everyone didn't feel much about the power of the 406mm super naval gun, but this scorching shell really made people see its tyrannical power.

If the North Dakota was nothing but the bow was blown off, then the Simon faced by the Neptune was undoubtedly a terrible tyrant.

At 1:15, the battleship named after Xinhua Simon Province fired the 10th salvo, and the distance had been shortened to 17,000 meters, and the Neptune had no intention of fighting at all, and was turning the rudder and desperately preparing to leave.

Two one-ton armor-piercing shells buried this battleship, which was born in a fiscal deficit and became a lone seedling.

The first armor-piercing shell hit the stern, passing through the main armor belt of the 203 mm waterline arranged at an angle, and then destroying all the way and exploding into the fuel tank, although there was not much heavy fuel left in the battleship, but because the oil tank was filled with this large amount of volatile oil and gas, when the armor-piercing shell exploded, it suddenly caused a fire, and the entire rear of the hull seemed to be shrouded in thick smoke.

The second one is really deadly, this armor-piercing shell hit the second chimney of the ship's amidships, due to the unique design of Neptune, there is only one turret in the bow, but there are two amidships and two in the stern, so after this cannonball entered the chimney, it not only destroyed the two boiler rooms, making the Neptune drop to 8 knots, but also because of the serious damage to the deconstruction, and ignited the flames, so the captain of the Neptune had to order the two turrets in the stern of the ship to suppress the explosion, and painfully ordered the water injection of the middle two ammunition depots.

4 of the 5 turrets were lost at once, and the Neptune had been basically scrapped, but the Simon had not stopped, or it should be said that the gunners had nothing to do on purpose, because after seeing that the Neptune was seriously injured and slowed down, the Simon had already turned the rudder to chase the battleship Prince George, but the problem was that the pursuit route happened to bypass the Neptune, so after seeing that the 19,680-ton battleship had not yet sunk, the gun commander fired 7 volleys at it again.

Later, it turned out that the 7 salvos of the sea were hit a total of 11 due to the continuous approaching distance, not to mention the Neptune, even the Guam class could not afford this kind of damage, so by the time the Simon finally bypassed it and saw the fleeing Prince George, the battleship was almost unrecognizable, not only the entire superstructure was flattened, but it also burned from beginning to end.

Amazingly, the battleship burned at sea for a day and a night, and was even towed back to Noumea by the Xinhua destroyer, and it was later learned that the British captain had filled five ammunition depots with water in time and closed all the sealed cabins to create this miracle.

This kind of battlefield miracle does not have a copy surname, at least the Prince George can't enjoy it, less than 15 minutes after the Neptune was tortured, the Prince George, which was only 16 knots, was chased close to 19,000 meters by Simon.

In fact, the Majesty-class battleships are very affectionate to the Xinhua Navy, because the first generation of Polar-Star battleships started by Li Mo was based on it, although the Majesty-class was launched later than the Polaris, but the two types of battleships are actually of the same vein, except for torpedoes, they are basically similar, and even the appearance is very similar.

So when the veteran gunners opened fire, they almost took the Prince George for the North Star, so that three consecutive salves were in a trance, and it was not until the fourth salvo that it opened.

But it was this opening that pushed the roar of the 406-mm super naval gun to the maximum, although only 1 of the 9 armor-piercing shells hit, but it was this 1 that completely buried the Prince George, because it hit the ammunition depot.

Not to mention 406 mm, even the new 305 mm naval guns and the old Prince George could not defend against it, plus the old battleships generally did not use the design of compartments and fire doors, so the shells easily got into the front ammunition depot.

From the beginning of the departure, the main guns of the Prince George have only been fighting for ten rounds now, and there are still 180 shells left in the ammunition depot, and the propellant is also mixed in it, so the violent explosion instantly tore the 16,800-ton Prince George from the bridge position into two, and sank to the bottom of the sea within 2 minutes, and finally only 22 of the 610 people on the ship escaped.

At the same time as the Prince George sank, the sister ship Hannibal had also raised the white flag, and the captain gave the order to abandon the sinking ship after stopping resistance, leading the sailors to surrender to the approaching Zhongmeng.

At 2 o'clock, when the 12 dragon's teeth arrived to help, there were no battleships worth fighting for on the sea, and in the end they had to fight for the escaped cruisers.

In the other two battlefields less than 50 nautical miles apart, a massacre was also launched, concentrating 9 dragon's teeth, and even some Hornet fighters temporarily hung bombs to help, and the remnants of the Australian Grand Fleet had no intention of resisting.

Due to the small number of battleships left, almost all of the dragon wings hoped to sink the battleship, and in the end, the second ship of the Belle Lophon was even hit by 7 dragon teeth in a row, even if the 450 mm torpedo charge was only 150 kg of TNT, but so many torpedoes still sank the magnificent on the spot, and the 4 Majestic class battleships in its formation also suffered a frantic attack, and 2 of them finally hung up the white flag and sank themselves.

The biggest gain in this naval battle was the battleship Reckless, as the 3rd ship of the Bellerophon class, when it was leading the 2 Majesty-class battleships, 6 cruisers, and 7 auxiliary cruisers converted from merchant ships that had been broken up and regrouped, after 52 Dragon's Teeth, 12 Hornets, 3 Yangtze River class light cruisers and 2 destroyers roared one after another, and after only half an hour of resistance, the captain ordered to go to a coral reef 50 nautical miles away from the Raja Islands to run aground and surrender.

No one knows what the temporary commander thought at that time, according to his own words, the beaching and grounding was to save the sailors on the 16 warships from being buried in the sea, but the problem is that he almost gave 11 of the 16 warships to Xinhua intact, especially the battleship Reckless, and the 4 Rainbow Goddess-class cruisers and the cruiser Sydney, which did not suffer any damage at all, and finally they were all dragged out of the reef area by Xinhua sailors after the high tide at night, and were brought back to Guam ten days later, After some emergency repairs, most of the rest were brought back to Xinhua and dismantled as scrap metal.

Seven lightly damaged auxiliary cruisers were also brought back and sold to domestic shipbuilders in Xinhua after dismantling their weapons, and the last two were even transferred to post-war North Korea, where they were used until 1955, when they were disbanded.

On July 15, at 5 p.m. Australian time, the Second Task Force sent back a telegram that the main force of the Australian Grand Fleet, which was trying to be transferred to New Zealand, sank/destroyed and captured 16 battleships, 11 cruisers, 8 destroyers, 2 motherships, 9 auxiliary cruisers and supply ships, all senior officers including Claxton and Seymour were killed, the fleet was 18,565 people, 12,988 people were rescued, and 3,422 people escaped.

In the end, only 5 cruisers/auxiliary cruisers and 6 destroyers escaped back to Sydney Harbour two days later, and sank themselves in Sydney Harbour after the final landing of Xinhua began.

According to post-war statistics, the price paid by the 2nd Task Force in this naval battle was simply minimal, only 23 planes were shot down, of which 7 pilots were killed, 1 was missing, the rest were rescued, and none of the warships were lost.

When the remnants of the Australian Grand Fleet returned to Sydney two days later, the Xinhua Third Task Force and the three light carriers of the Second Task Force carried out a major bombing of Sydney together, and in the five consecutive days of bombing, a total of more than 650 tons of bombs were dropped, including the deadly 210 tons of incendiary bombs, not only half of Sydney was burned, but also officially declared Australia the world's largest island!

The southern gate of the Pacific Ocean is completely closed to the outside world.

(To be continued)