Chapter 149 Expensive Artillery!

Mundley frowned tightly, his expression was solemn and complicated, and in his sunken eye sockets, a pair of pale blue eyes stared at the big hole on the deck that was burning violently and emitting thick black smoke! At the same time, he couldn't help but secretly breathe a sigh of relief in his heart! Although the armor on the deck three inches behind did not withstand the large-caliber shells of the enemy ship! But the warheads that drilled into the deck did not threaten the ammunition compartment of the ship's bow guns! This was really a great joy in misfortune!

Sighing with some regret, Chen Jin unwillingly smashed his fist on the command platform! Although he had just hit a shell, it did not pose any threat to the enemy's ship's main guns and power, which was really a pity!

"That cannon just now was hit by that guy, write it down for him, and I will personally ask for credit for him after the battle!" Although this cannon did not cause much damage to the Jewel, the first cannon greatly boosted the morale of his own side and dealt a blow to the enemy's determination to fight! It can be said that it made a great contribution to this naval battle!

However, at this time, all the members of the artillery crew did not have time to rejoice, they were nervously and orderly, in strict accordance with their usual training, and shot their shells at the enemy ship in the distance one after another!

"Bang dang!"

Zhang Chengzhu pulled open the gun door and withdrew the thick copper bullet case, and the comrades next to him immediately filled the shells sent by the hydraulic bullet feeder into the gun chamber!

"It's now!" Zhang Chengzhu secretly thought in his heart! After one year of intense study at the Artillery Academy, and then he was assigned to the Navy for one year of internship! It was not until some time ago that the Seahawk-class frigate was put into service that he was promoted from the destroyer Li Mu to the rank of lieutenant and chief gunner of the Seahawk No. 1 Artillery Group as a second lieutenant! Although two years was not too long, under the premise that Huo Shan spared no expense in cultivating various technical arms, he had already fired nearly 2,000 rounds of shells of various calibers in the past two years! It is said that sharpshooters are fed with bullets, and in the same way, the gunners of Jīng Zhan are also trained with a large number of live ammunition! Zhang Chengzhu is one of the representatives!

At present, in the artillery academy of the Huo Jiajun, each artillery unit fires more than 500 rounds of shells in a year! Moreover, these live ammunition for training alone accounts for more than half of the shells produced by the three arsenals of the Huojia Army! Although mortarists and infantry gunners account for the majority of them! However, in the past two years, the number of heavy gunners in the Huojia Army who have completed training or are being trained has reached more than 1,000! In two years, they have destroyed nearly 1,500 cannon barrels! If it weren't for the fact that Huo Jiajun's arsenal was still desperately expanding the production capacity of artillery, I am afraid that it would not be able to keep up with this consumption rate that is faster than eating!

After silently calculating the distance and angle of the shelling, Zhang Chengzhu fiercely pressed the hair button in his hand! Only to hear a loud bang in the gun room, under the impetus of the double-base fire shell, two thick 130mm armor-piercing shells flew towards the enemy ship in the distance at a speed of more than 700 meters per second!

Zhang Chengzhu wore earplugs, lying on the window inside the turret, his dark eyes staring closely at the battleship Jewel in the distance, the anticipation and excitement in his heart made his body tremble lightly involuntarily, and his forehead, back, and palms were covered with sweat!

The distance of 5,000 meters was not too far, and in less than 10 seconds, the two shells that he had fired had already flown into the sky above the enemy ship! Except, one plunged into the sea more than 10 meters away from the ship and set off waves more than 10 meters high! The other pierced through the 120mm wrought iron baffle of the 210mm deck gun of the Jewel's bow gun under his expectant gaze! However, because the shell itself weighed only 34 kilograms, it did not penetrate the deck of the battleship again, but under the effect of the delayed fuse, it overturned the 18-ton front-loading main gun, and turned all the members of the surrounding dozen gun crews into minced meat flying in the sky!

This shell from the Sea Eagle No. 1 achieved a major result in Zhang Chengzhu's cheers, directly paralyzing the front main gun of the Prince!

At the same time, the consequence of the loss of one of the four main guns also sent chills to the hearts of all the Dutch officers and men present! They couldn't help but worry about their own future and fate! Moreover, the red blood and minced flesh on the deck also terrified the Dutch sailors, who had almost never experienced a brutal war!

Now the soldiers on both sides are completely different psychologically, and Huo Jiajun's morale is naturally high under the courage of their own artillery, which has relieved the tension in their hearts, and has fully brought into full play their usual training level, and the accuracy of the shelling has been greatly improved! On the contrary, the Dutch soldiers have been panicked by the rain of bullets from the enemy ships, the falling points of the shells that are getting closer and closer, and the cruelty of the war, and they have begun to pay more attention to the top of their heads, rather than the enemy ships in the distance! The accuracy of the shelling has been greatly affected! The threat to eight Seahawk-class frigates is getting smaller and smaller!

The captain of the Jewel, Montley, and the captain of the Grand Duke, Hughes, also discovered this unfavorable situation for their own side! But in this fierce battle at sea, they really did not have time to adjust the psychology of their soldiers! Now they can only pray that their naval guns can be fired more accurately, and even if they can't hit the enemy ships, it will be good to boost their morale at that time!

However, they obviously thought too much, and the 24th round of shells of the Huo Jiajun finally gained again, but this time it was the Dagong that was unlucky! Two shells from the Seahawk No. 7 hit its hull almost simultaneously! One hit the front chimney, and the other hit the amidship of the battleship! Although the second one did not achieve much success under the protection of the 280mm waterline armor! But the first one blew up the five-meter-high chimney of the Dagong into two sections! Not only that, after being accurately hit by two armor-piercing shells, the strong vibration finally caused strong consequences, and the reciprocating steam engine, which had already been overwhelmed, broke the round rod and bearing with a loud bang in a violent friction sound! Suddenly, the original 15-knot Grand Duke seemed to be stunned by a stick, and its speed plummeted, and it fell to 10 knots in a short time!

"It's over!!"

Cornelis stood on the broken deck of the Prince, looking at the Grand Duke, who had fallen to 8 knots, muttering to himself. At this important moment when the two navies were fighting, the battleship lost the speed at which it relied for survival, and in addition to surrendering and being captured, it was sinking in the warm waters of the Indian Ocean under the enemy's sharp artillery fire! After all, no matter how thick the waterline armor is, it cannot withstand the repeated bombardment of heavy artillery shells!

As the captain of the ship, Cornelis had already guessed the outcome at the very beginning of this war, and among the dozen or so senior officers of the four Dutch battleships, none of them understood better than him, the captain of the Dauphin, who had personally fought with the enemy ships and had been circling for nearly five minutes, how powerful the combat power of these long, narrow and fast battleships was under the impetus of high speed! Moreover, after the front chimney was broken, the smoke in the eye affected the bridge and the vision of the forward-mounted main gun artillery! In this case, it can be said that one of the main guns was scrapped again!