The battle cruisers of the two sides directly decided the result, but the battleships on the other side faced off, and it was still difficult to solve.

The collision of steel behemoths, and the roar of cannons, if you look at it from the perspective of an onlooker, this is definitely a man's romance. But from the perspective of the officers and soldiers involved in the war, then this is a life-and-death battle.

Since the sinking of the Montagu, the two sides have also been fighting successes. On the side of the Mediterranean Fleet, the St. Vincent, Neptune, Avantgarde, and Centennial were damaged, and the other warships were all damaged, which can be described as quite tragic.

Of course, the Mediterranean Fleet is so miserable, and the combined fleet is not having a good time on its side. The István and Dreadnought of the Combined Fleet were broken, Dante was broken, and the other ships were also more or less damaged.

Isn't it amazing that there has not been a single sunken battleship on both sides except for the unlucky Montagu.

Isn't it too friendly compared to the battle between the battle patrols next door?

This is really the case, in order to sink each other's warships, no one has ever relented. However, unlike the brittle battlecruiser, the battleship's thick armor was not so easy to penetrate.

Most of the thousands of tons of armor of today's battleships are concentrated above the waterline, and although the current battleships are more than ten meters high, the ones above the waterline are generally three or four meters, and they are basically with thick armor.

Not to mention that in order to enhance the defense of the battleship in recent years, various concepts such as core cabin protection and composite armor have emerged in an endless stream, and of course, there is also the development of armored steel technology, which has made the battleship thicker and thicker.

This is also one of the reasons why the displacement of battleships is getting larger and larger, of course, in addition to armor, the emergence of new technologies has also made the firepower and speed of battleships have been fully improved, which has also led to the rapid increase of battleships from more than 10,000 tons in more than ten years to more than 30,000 tons now.

If among these new technologies, there is one technology that is not developing fast enough, then armor-piercing shells are definitely one of them.

That's right, armor-piercing shells. As a shell equipped with thick armor, the armor-piercing shell was born for a relatively short time, and the concept of armor-piercing shell was only born in the sixties of the last century when ironclad ships appeared.

Moreover, early armor-piercing shells were nothing more than shells designed into sharp shapes, and their armor-piercing effect was not ideal. Of course, the navies of various countries did not give up because of this, because there are more and more warships equipped with thick armor, and they are getting thicker and thicker, so that the development of armor-piercing shells is also rapid. Pointed bullets are getting harder and sharper.

Of course, it's too difficult to figure it out just on shells. Because the armor will be thicker and stronger. Therefore, since the 80s of the last century, people have shared the eyes of armor-piercing on propellants and artillery. On the propellant, the appearance of a solid homogeneous particle propellant gave the shell a greater thrust. The development of smelting technology has made the barrel longer and larger, which also allows the shell to gain greater kinetic energy.

Although this technology has improved the armor-piercing ability of shells even more, the so-called road is one foot higher and the magic is one foot higher, and the development of armor has become faster. With the emergence and maturity of the surface carburizing and hardening process, high-quality armor steels such as Harvey steel and Krupp steel have appeared one after another. And compared to the armor piercing of artillery shells, the armor has a greater advantage, that is, it is directly thickened.

At the same time, in order to prevent the more and more expensive baby battleships from being sunk, various protection concepts are also emerging, such as key protection, armored boxes, etc. Therefore, due to these combined factors, it is easy for today's warships to be heavily damaged, but it becomes difficult to sink them.

Although the Italian Navy has used armor-piercing shells, due to the immaturity of technology and technology, its armor-piercing effect in actual combat is not particularly good. As for the British Navy, it is nothing more than an ordinary armor-piercing projectile with an extended warhead, and the armor-piercing effect is even more unbearable. (It is worth mentioning that the great development of armor was in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and the armor-piercing bullet was after the end of World War I, of course, after that, the development of science and technology allowed the armor-piercing bullet to gradually surpass the armor until the appearance of missiles)

Therefore, the performance of the two navies in the naval battle is that the warships of both sides are scarred, but they are still a little bit fatal in one blow. After all, it is not easy to deal a fatal blow to the enemy by chance.

Of course, if the enemy does not have a reinforced fleet, then the combined fleet will not be in a hurry, and they can deal with this situation slowly. Isn't it just that it can't cause sinking for a long time, it doesn't matter if the damage accumulates to a certain level, it will definitely sink the opponent, it's just a matter of water grinding kung fu.

Unfortunately, they don't have enough time. Even so, as the commander of the Combined Fleet, Leifell was unusually calm. How could it be said that as a fleet commander, he was not in a hurry. But he did not show this, and even though the communications staff kept reporting to him the direction of the British and French reinforcements getting closer and closer, he still watched the battle at sea intently, because a plan was taking shape in his mind.

"Report, the airship sent a telegram that the enemy reinforcement fleet is still forty-eight nautical miles away from us."

"Got it, let's go down."

At this point, Lyfel suddenly said, "Almost." ”

The staff officer was not given time to react, only to see him order. "Now I order, the lightning strike formation is now sortie, targeting the enemy battleship formation. The cruiser formation followed the lightning strike formation and blocked the enemy's interception formation. In addition, with the exception of Dante, the other battleships followed the flagship to close the distance to the enemy ships, and the target distance was 7,000 meters. ”

Leffel's words caused a brief silence in the Cavour Command Tower, and everyone looked at their commander in amazement.

Because this order means that the fleet will fight for its life, this is not a good choice. If the core compartment can be safed in a battleship duel at a distance of 10,000 meters, then the distance of 7,000 meters will become very dangerous. Because this will increase the penetration of the shells on both sides, in addition to this, the hit rate will also increase from the current 2-3% to more than 5%.

What is this not a fight for life?

Facing the suddenly quiet command tower, Leffel didn't explain too much, but looked at the communications staff officer seriously. "Isn't my order clear?"

The communications staff officer, who was taken aback, quickly replied, "Your Excellency the commander, I will go and deliver the order." ”

After the communications staff officer left, Lefell glanced at the people present and said a word. "We're running out of time."

Yes, they don't have much time left when the enemy reinforcement fleet is about to arrive.

Although this is a desperate style of play, Leffel is not really only desperate. He's already counted everything.

At this time, the artillery battle between the two sides has been two hours, although the other side has not been sunk battleships, but the enemy's ten battleships have been reduced by three (one sunk and two broken, the broken St. Vincent and Neptune have withdrawn from the battlefield, and the same is true of the battleships destroyed by the combined fleet), and the number of enemy and us battleships has come to a ratio of 7:9.

In addition, in the two-hour artillery battle, all ships were damaged, especially the battleships lacked sufficient protection of secondary guns, and the losses were even greater.

On the side of the Combined Fleet alone, the losses of the secondary guns of each ship have generally reached half, and it is believed that the losses of the auxiliary guns caused by the Combined Fleet, which has more elite officers and men, will definitely be even greater for the enemy.

Moreover, before the Mediterranean Fleet launched a torpedo attack, its losses of small and medium-sized warships were not small. According to the report of the airship, at present the Mediterranean Fleet can only have half the size of the combined fleet on the battlefield.

There's no reason why Leffel doesn't have a short, quick hand-to-hand fight, he has a huge advantage in the number of small and medium-sized ships.

Leffel's order was quickly carried out, and a group of lightning strike formations with torpedo boats and destroyers as the main force, under the cover of the cruiser formation, launched lightning strike tactics against the Mediterranean fleet in the distance. And what's even more ruthless is that the battleships, which had been keeping a distance before, also began to accelerate towards it.

Now it's up to Calden to deal with the Combined Fleet's desperate play.

Make up for yesterday's chapter, and there will be more in the evening.

(End of chapter)