Three watches in the morning!

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The Royal Navy's Sovereign-class battleship HMS Revenge was hit in the third salvo of the Ming naval formation, and a 155mm armor-piercing shell hit the building below the Revenge's conning tower. But it didn't break down, but it exploded when it hit!

This is because the armor-piercing shells used by the Ming Navy are filled with bitter acid explosives that are not very passivated, and after a violent impact, these incompletely passivated picric acid explosives usually explode because the charge is too sensitive before they can penetrate the steel plate of the enemy ship. Put George. The first explosion of the righteous law was caused by this. However, this explosion would theoretically not cause much damage to the sturdy Sovereign-class battleship.

The reason why it is theoretical, it is because the Sovereign class has another very fatal and strange flaw, the two twin 13.5-inch naval gun batteries located in the bow and stern of the Sovereign class are not covered!

I don't know what British shipbuilding experts think? So many pounds have been spent, so much armor steel has been used, why not put a lid on the most important battery?

All the secondary guns on the monarch class are protected by a steel shield, and there is basically no need to worry about the fragments of the shells, even if they are directly hit by 155 mm shells, most of them can withstand it. However, the two huge batteries located in the bow and stern of the ship did not have lids.

And that's not the worst of it, the worst thing is that behind these two large batteries are tall superstructures (front and rear conning towers), which are very easy to hit. Originally, an armor-piercing bullet filled with picric acid would not have caused much damage to the superstructure of the monarchy, but when exploding shrapnel and burning fireballs (picric acid has a certain arson effect) fall from the sky and land in a turret without a lid, things are all over. not only killed all the members of the artillery squad in the fort, but also easily detonated a 13.5-inch shell that had not yet been filled into the barrel - this is also a picric acid shell, and the British picric acid explosives copied the recipe of the Ming Dynasty, which was also easy to explode.

This was the end of it, a 13.5-inch picric acid shell exploded in the uncovered battery, directly blowing up the two huge cannons, and also ignited two barrels of propellant containing black powder and some other miscellaneous things, and stunned more than half of the officers and men in the bridge behind the battery, making the formation lose command for a while...... Look, just to save two lids, to make it look like this, as for the British Empire?

And how to blow up and burn, the battleship Revenge will be embarrassed, the bow battery will be disarmed directly, the "ship's head" is still burning...... there is an ammunition depot under the "head"! This is going to be blown up, and this Vengeance can't be wanted. And the command center of the entire fleet was directly stunned, and it was completely unable to give orders, so it could only rely on the people below to fight on their own.

However, the quality of the officers and men of the British Royal Navy on the Revenge was still high, and although there was no one to command them, the officers and men in charge of damage management still filled the ammunition depot under the bow battery in strict accordance with the procedures to cool down, and the battleship was saved.

However, after the bow is filled with water, the speed of the ship will inevitably slow down, and the bow will also sink, so that the hull will tilt forward, and it can only "pout" forward.

This invincible Sovereign-class battleship suffered only one 155-mm armor-piercing bullet, and it was "on fire", with its buttocks upturned, and it could only sail crookedly. This embarrassment not only shocked the officers and men of the British Royal Navy at sea, but even the officers and men of the Ming Navy were stunned.

Sovereignty...... That's it?

And the gunners of the Ming Navy are very clever, and they can see at once where the weakness of this "monarchy" class is? There's also an uncovered turret on the butt of that upturned ship! Therefore, there was no need for Li Chenghui and Zhuge to give orders, and all the 155 guns were aimed at the pouting ass of the Revenge and beat it over.

The 24 155 guns were followed by three rounds of shelling, specifically hitting the "butt of the ship", and sure enough, it lived up to expectations and set the "butt" of the Revenge on fire. A 155-mm armor-piercing shell filled with picric acid fell directly into the turret, and exploded with a "boom", not only killing all the gunners, but also detonating a 13.5-inch cannonball, first blowing two cannons away, and then also causing a fire...... Picric acid is easy to fry and burn!

And the experienced British sailors did not take the lake and once again flooded the "butt of the ship" of the Revenge...... This time it was balanced, but the speed dropped again, and it could only run to 10 knots.

What is more troublesome than the drop in speed is that this "first ship in Europe" with a full load displacement of more than 15,000 tons is now left with only five 6-inch guns on one side to fight. Of course, it also has six small-caliber rapid-fire guns and 12 torpedo tubes...... However, the small-caliber rapid-fire guns could not hurt the Arthur and Vladivostok at all, and it was too slow to use the Revenge as a torpedo boat.

As a result, the Revenge was left to fight with 5 6-inch guns...... But that's not the most laughable, it's much stronger than the Indomitable. It still has at least five 6-inch rapid-fire guns to fight!

And the Indomitable with a diagonal battery and four 16-inch front-loading rifled guns was simply embarrassing. The rate of fire of the 16-inch front-loading guns was so slow that it could make people fall asleep, and it took ten or twenty minutes to shoot a shot, and it was not at all suitable for naval battles on battleships. And it didn't have a 6-inch rapid-fire gun yet, and only relied on three 6-inch half-rapid-fire guns on one side to fight naval battles.

A large ship of more than 10,000 tons can be hit with only 3 and a half rapid-fire guns. This "half-rapid fire" is a retreating artillery, with a theoretical rate of fire of one round per minute, a combat rate of fire of one fire every two minutes, and the actual rate of fire today is about one round every three or four minutes......

Therefore, the Ming Navy simply ignored the Indomitable and continued to greet the Vengeance with all its firepower.

However, except for the two "uncovered" large batteries in the bow and stern, the Revenge is extremely strong in other places, not to mention that the 155 mm armor-piercing shells can't be hit, even if the 305 mm main gun of the Hongwu Emperor class comes to fight, it is difficult to penetrate the Revenge's strongest side main armor belt - that is 457 mm armor! Even the protection of the superstructure of the Revenge is not penetrating by 155 mm guns.

Therefore, although the Vengeance was covered in fire and black smoke billowing from the concentrated fire of 24 155 guns, it was still fine, and still returned fire with 5 rapid-fire guns in a hurry...... From time to time, you can also hit the Lushun with one or two shots.

However, the British 6-inch shells were also the same as the 155-mm shells of the Ming Dynasty, and they also exploded on a collision, and the armor-piercing ability was reduced. And the protection ability of the Lushun is not bad, although it is only a cruiser with a standard displacement of more than 5,000 tons, but the armor steel plates it uses are the latest and best nickel alloy steel, so the critical part of the Lushun is not so easy to penetrate. After a few 6-inch shells, it was the same as a "no-brainer".

Just when the firefight between the two sides was at a stalemate, George. Yilu, Charlie. The two unlucky guys, who had been stunned by the detonation of the 13.5-inch shell, had woken up, and the two brothers found that they were still alive, so they quickly helped each other to get up, limped to the window of the command tower, and looked at the holes blown out of the bow deck and the dead bodies lying all over the place, and already knew that the "monarchy" was ridiculously wrong.

Then turn your eyes to the starboard side where the enemy is exchanging fire...... was completely pressed and beaten, but fortunately "thick skin", although it was beaten again and again, it could still withstand it!

However, a few 6-inch guns didn't seem to be able to help the Lushun. And the guns of the three protective cruisers that followed the Indomitable were not enough to reach the two Ming cruisers, because the distance was too far, and the hit rate was very bad.

The First Clan

It seems that it is too much to suffer if you continue to fight like this.

Come to think of it, George. Yilu shouted loudly to the officers who were still dazed in the command tower: "Hang up the flag, let each ship fight separately!" ”