Chapter 150: Chen Jin's assault

With the speed of the Grand Duke, after losing a reciprocating steam engine, the speed dropped sharply! The Huo family army, which had achieved major victories, fought bravely to take the lead, especially the Sea Eagle No. 2, Sea Eagle No. 5, Sea Eagle No. 7, and Sea Eagle No. 8, which were responsible for dealing with the Grand Duke! The artillery of the four artillery groups would never let go of this opportunity to beat the water dogs!

The thick 130mm caliber heavy shells began to fall in the vicinity of the Grand Duke like eyes, setting off monstrous waves at the same time, the accuracy also began to increase greatly, and it was basically possible to hit one shell with 20 rounds!

Looking at the Grand Duke, which had already fallen behind due to the slowing down of the voyage, Mendeli's heart was cold, he knew that the Grand Duke was finished! And the more time passed, the lonely Jewel was also doomed! Then the Dutch ironclad fleet that was pursuing this time could not escape the end of the overall annihilation!

Listening to the increasingly dense sound of artillery in his ears, Mundley slowly took off his naval hat! The god looked solemnly and nostalgically at the coat of arms representing the Kingdom of the Netherlands! Stretched out his right hand and gently brushed its somewhat uneven surface like a lover, and sighed with infinite affection! At this moment, it had already made up its mind that it was determined to fight to the death for the honor of the Royal Netherlands Navy, even if it was sunk with the ship!

After a moment of remembrance, Mendeli put on his military hat again, and there was no worry or panic on his serious face, only infinite firmness and determination to fight!

"Dwight, order the ship's six 150mm secondary guns to fire me with all my might!" Montley snapped back and yelled at the Jewel's guns!

"Captain, the range of our 150mm guns is only 4,500 meters, and it can't hit that far at all!" Although he was a little uncomfortable with the sudden change in attitude of the captain, his responsibilities as a subordinate still made him quickly adjust his mentality, and reported meticulously!

As the captain of the Jewel, he knew a lot about his battleship, but there were very few weapons that could pose a threat to the enemy now, except for a 210mm main gun in the stern! Although the range of the 150mm secondary guns is limited, at this critical juncture of life and death, it is better to let them roar than to let them sit idle, on the one hand, to show their own momentum and enhance the confidence of the officers and men to resist, on the other hand, Meng Deli also hopes that these shells can deter the psychology of the enemy soldiers and reduce the hit rate of their naval guns! Of course, his method is only of some effect on the recruits who have not experienced actual combat, and it has no effect on the veterans at all! However, it is very unfortunate that the soldiers on the eight frigates of the Huo Jiajun are all new recruits! Although the Seahawk No. 1 and Seahawk No. 5 have experienced two naval battles, and the soldiers have already received some training, the not fierce battle has not made them completely sharpened! Therefore, when they heard that the Dutchman's naval artillery shells were falling not far from him, he couldn't help but panic a little in his heart, causing the ship's artillery hit rate to drop! You must know that in this era when aiming means are scarce, naval artillery firing depends more on the experience of artillery! Moreover, the turbulence on the sea is no better than that on land, and the slightest deviation in wind speed, humidity, salinity, and shelling angle is likely to be tens of meters away from the shells fired here!

Chen Jin, who was always following the progress of the war, also discovered that the hit rate of his ship's guns, after the enemy's secondary guns began to roar, it was obviously not as high as before!

Shen Sè frowned solemnly, Chen Jin also knew in his heart that this was caused by the soldiers' lack of actual combat experience, and if he wanted to reverse this situation from the root, there was no other good way, only through one war after another, to make these soldiers truly mature!

Looking at the sky outside, from 5:30 in the morning, the Dutch fleet divided its forces into pursuit, and then to a series of chases, and after two small-scale engagements and the capture of the Emerald, until the rendezvous of the Sea Eagle VI, Sea Eagle VII and Sea Eagle VIII, and after four hours of pursuit, finally caught up with the Jewel and the Grand Duke, and started a new war, most of the time has passed almost half a day! Now the time is almost seven o'clock in the evening, the sun has already set, and only the red glow in the sky is left, so that the light on the sea does not look too dim! However, Chen Jin, who had studied meteorology at the Naval Academy, knows very well that the sky may be dark in less than half an hour! At that time, the Huo Jiajun, who has no means of assisting in the attack at night, will completely lose the opportunity to destroy this Dutch fleet! Moreover, they are also very likely to flee back to the Netherlands under the cover of the night. The Portuguese escort fleet, when the time comes, not only will the war they had prepared for lose its meaning! Moreover, the intelligence of the Huo Jiajun Navy will eventually reach the ears of the escort fleets of the two countries, and by that time, the combined forces of the two countries, which have already been prepared, may also increase the difficulty of the Huo Jiajun ambush fleet to defeat them! These are things that Chen Jin absolutely does not want to see happen!

"We must take down the Jewel and the Crown before it gets too dark!" Chen Jin stared at the battleship that was constantly firing in the distance, and clenched his fists!

The captain of the ship is the brain of a battleship, and his decisions also determine the behavior of the battleship and affect the final course of the war! When the artillery of the Huojia Army suddenly roared with naval guns, the hit rate of the battleship dropped! The Sea Eagle No. 1 suddenly broke away from the shelling formation and took the lead in heading for the Jewel, which was 5,000 meters away! This sudden situation took the two warring sides by surprise!

Chen Jin doesn't care what others think, but he must achieve his goal and finally defeat the enemy ship!

At a high speed of 22 knots, the steel hull of the Sea Hawk I crashed through the azure water, setting off waves several meters high, and with a strong sea breeze, like a noble and heroic knight, he braved the enemy shells to rush towards the enemy ship!

"Three thousand five hundred meters! Captain!" the captain reported loudly with a nervous expression!

"Well, at this distance, don't be advancing! Order the artillery crew to aim at me, hit hard!" Chen Jin, who had always been calm and composed, roared with rare anger! He understood that his battleship was now under the threat of the seven guns of the Jewel! Although he was still more than a thousand meters away from the final engagement distance of the enemy's ships of 2,500 meters, the Seahawk No. 1 was indeed under the range of the enemy's naval guns! Moreover, the six 150mm naval guns, which pose little threat to the three Seahawk-class warships in the distance, are likely to concentrate all their firepower on them! Therefore, the probability of the Seahawk No. 1 being hit by the enemy ship has risen sharply! And the officers and men of the Huo family army and navy on the Seahawk No. 1 are also likely to suffer serious losses!

Of course, there are advantages and disadvantages! At a distance of 3,500 meters, the Seahawk-class frigates will also be able to give full play to their superiority in firepower, and the hit rate of the shelling will also be greatly improved, and the power of all kinds of armor-piercing and high-explosive shells will also increase a lot after the distance is closer! In addition, if the Seahawk-1 attracts the firepower of the Jewel, the shelling hit rate of the three Seahawk-class frigates that are also targeting the Jewel in the distance will also be greatly increased!

The artillery crew really did not let Chen Jin's hard work go in vain, and almost after advancing to 3,500 meters, the second round of shells accurately hit the left side of the Jewel, destroying a 150mm secondary gun and more than 20 Dutch naval soldiers around!

"Bastard, all the artillery is aimed at that enemy ship and give me a hard beat!" Montri, who was secretly relieved after giving his own order, made the enemy's hit rate drop and stared viciously at the enemy warship in the distance that had boldly approached and destroyed one of the gun positions of the Jewel, and roared loudly.

However, the speed of the Seahawk-class frigates is too fast compared to the Jewel, and their artillery is difficult to aim, and the shells fired are almost all based on feeling, and there is almost no time to calculate any data!

However, compared to the slow 210mm main gun, these relatively smaller caliber 150mm shè speed is much faster, almost reaching the shè speed of 40 seconds per shot, although now only two naval guns on the side of the ship are firing at the Sea Eagle One, but they are much more effective than the slow main gun of the stern shè to the threat of the Sea Eagle One!

As the Jewel continued to explode and catch fire under the shelling of the four Sea Hawk ships, its speed began to gradually decrease, and only three of the original seven naval guns were able to fire in the end, and the threat to the Huo family army was greatly reduced, and at this time, the eight Sea Eagle ships began to approach boldly like two Dutch warships! They were already in sight of victory!

But at this moment, the ship's guns, which had been roaring for nearly half an hour, finally achieved their first victory!