Chapter 146: Don't Give Up!

As the two sides continued to get closer, the mood between the two sides was constantly changing! Compared with their companions whose eyes were already red with jealousy and their faces full of envy, the sailors on the five Sea Hawk-class battleships who had already achieved brilliant results and could make a lot of money proudly raised their heads and puffed up their strong chests! Whether it was the Dutchmen who had already lost or the inside of the Huo Jiajun Navy, they were all well-deserved victors! Now, they could laugh loudly at the fact that these guys, who were only a dozen nautical miles away from them, were recruits!

"The telegram has been sent?" Chen Jin asked happily as he looked at Chen Changshan, who had just walked back to Cambridge, with a smile on his face.

"Well, it's been sent! I believe that the telegram that records our entire battle plan and the results we have achieved has now been handed over to those three guys!"

"They must not be able to sit still now!" Chen Jin said with a somewhat mysterious face as he looked at the three frigates that were getting closer and closer.

Hearing his words, Chen Changshan also nodded in agreement! All of them are young people who have just graduated from military academies, and they are all the new captains of the newly-appointed frigates of the Huo Jiajun Navy! Competitiveness is almost the best interpretation between them here! Moreover, no soldier hopes that he will fall behind his other comrades-in-arms! Especially when he sees that there are still two big goals that have not yet been solved!

"Captain, the waterline armor of the Dutch 'Grand Duke' and 'Jewel' armored ships has reached a thickness of 280mm, which is no longer something that our 130mm naval guns can penetrate! Moreover, the range of their two 210mm main guns has reached nearly 8,000 meters! I am afraid it will be difficult for us to be as unscathed as we did against the three Dutch warships in front!" Chen Changshan said with some concern. Although the range of the Seahawk-class frigate with twin 130mm main guns is as high as 15,000 kilometers, in order to save costs, there is no optical rangefinder installed on this class of battleships, so its actual effective range is only 5,000 meters! If this distance is exceeded, then its hit rate will drop to an unbearable level! At that time, I am afraid that even if it takes an hour to fight around the Grand Duke and the Jewel, it will not be able to take these two ironclad warships that are rough and thick for the Seahawk-class frigates!

"Don't worry, Changshan! The biggest advantage of our Sea Eagle class is our speed, at a high speed of 22 knots, it will be difficult for their main guns to aim at our battleships! At that time, as long as we give full play to the gun fire advantage of the Sea Hawk's main guns, I believe that even if it is difficult to sink those two battleships for a while, it will be enough to destroy their superstructure and shipboard weapons! Losing these, I think they seem to have no second way but to surrender obediently!" Chen Jinshen said confidently.

Listening to his words, Chen Changshan thought about it, and nodded in agreement!

"Captain, just received a telegram from the Seahawk VI, Seahawk VII, and Seahawk VIII!"

Hearing the staff officer's words, the two couldn't help but glance at each other with a smile on their faces, Chen Jin took three telegrams, read them about once, and handed them to Chen Changshan next to him!

"Yohe, is the tone the same? It seems that they really don't want to give up as we guessed!" Chen Changshan raised the telegram in his hand and said with a smile!

"Isn't that very good! We ate these five Dutch ironclad cruisers, just to relieve the pressure on General Lu Han!" Chen Jin looked at the eight Sea Hawk-class frigates that were gradually besieging the city in a circle, and said indifferently. Originally, their plan was to defeat the Dutchman's Prince, Oranche, and Emerald, three ironclad ships of about the same tonnage as them, on the premise of ensuring that they would not suffer too many losses! As for the Jewel and the Grand Duke, they had no intention of provoking! After all, after such a long voyage and three skirmishes, the service life of the coal and gun barrels of the five Seahawk-class battleships had dropped a lot! Moreover, the soldiers who had experienced war for the first time were also very tired after their tense nerves relaxed after the war! But after seeing the next three Sea Eagles from afar, he changed his attention!

The eight Seahawk-class frigates together are 18 130mm naval guns, and the number of shells fired per minute has reached 72! I believe that under such a rain of bullets, even the Dutch ironclad ships with thick skin and 280mm waterline armor will probably be able to escape their pursuit!

It was precisely with this consideration that Chen Jin informed the captains of the other three Sea Hawk ships in detail about the results of this battle! I believe that these guys, who are also full of naval honor like him! And the same aggressive guys, knowing that their own strength is superior, will definitely not let go of those two Dutch ironclad ships, the Grand Duke and the Jewel!

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On the ocean surface 80 kilometers south of the eight Sea Eagle frigates where Huo Jiajun had gathered, four battleships were heading south at a speed of six knots! From the somewhat panicked expressions on the faces of the battleship soldiers and the two warships that had almost completely destroyed their superstructures left behind, it could be seen that they must have suffered unimaginable blows before!

"Commander, this is the investigation report on the losses of the Crown Prince and the Oranch!" said the captain of the Jewel, Meng Deli, solemnly.

After a period of adaptation, Munch has recovered a bit from the initial blow!

Taking the paper in his hand, which was more than a dozen pages thick, Munch took a deep breath and looked at it roughly with his trembling right hand! In fact, he didn't look at any of this, but with his many years of experience in the navy, he could also estimate the damage from the miserable situation outside the Crown Prince and the Orlanch through his own eyes! But it was not as detailed as in this report!

Putting down the loss report in his hand, Munch's face turned a little pale! Except for the two 75mm speed guns, the rest of the weapons and equipment of the Prince were completely destroyed, the bilge was flooded, two of the four round boilers were lost, the speed dropped to six knots, and more than half of the 234 crew members were killed or wounded, so it can be said that it has basically been removed from combat effectiveness! However, it is indeed much better than the Orlanch! Because the officers and men of the Sea Hawk-class frigate no longer had the panic they had when they first entered the war, they were able to give full play to the level of their training! Therefore, when dealing with the Oranch, the hit rate of the five Seahawk-class naval guns was also much higher! In addition, because of the improper handling, the fire that ignited from the battleship destroyed almost all of the Oranch's superstructure and weaponry! Now from the blackened hull of his ship, it can be seen that there is no place in the whole place except for a chimney and a thickly armored Cambridge! But it was fortunate that it was not ignited by the fire and the ammunition compartment was able to float on the sea and sail with the fleet! But the Oranch, whose guns were completely destroyed and had lost nearly two-thirds of its soldiers, was no longer combat-effective!

"Isn't there any news of the Turquoise ironclad yet?" asked Munch with some hope.

"Not yet!" Mundley replied with some hesitation! Actually, he had already learned something from the mouth of Van der Waal, the captain of the Oranch! Although the Turquoise had turned around and slipped away after discovering that the situation was not right twenty nautical miles away! From what he had learned, the enemy ship had reached a speed of 22 knots! It was very likely that the Turquoise had been sunk or captured by the enemy!

"Alas!"

With a deep sigh, he had already understood the answer from Mundley's face and eyes! Munch understood that his military career was over after this naval battle! The loss of three ironclad ships, which were extremely important to the country, was unforgivable! Of course, if the joint expeditionary force of the two countries could finally win this time and restore all the East Indies colonies of the Kingdom of Holland, perhaps his guilt would be relieved of his guilt in the joy of the victory of the Parliament! But Munch, who had learned the lessons of this naval battle, had no expectations for this joint expedition between the Kingdom of the Netherlands and Portugal!