Chapter 276: Sunset of the Home Fleet (Part I)

ps: Today's second shift, it's a little late, sorry......

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Hankyung, presidential palace.

Mr. Moon-de-hei and a group of high-ranking generals continued to watch the live broadcast in the screening room. Because there is a time difference of nearly 7 hours between Hankyung and Jutland, they are now having dinner, just watching a blockbuster while eating. Well, in fact, they didn't have the heart to eat dinner tonight, they just asked the chef to order a pot of braised beef noodles, and one person held a big bowl of beef noodles and ate while watching.

The German air raid made the commander-in-chief of the air force, Meng Shu, look at it and shake his head, he pointed at the screen with chopsticks and said: "The timing of the attack of the German aircraft group has not been grasped well, and now the main force of the British army has not arrived, they should wait a little longer." It would have been even more effective if we had waited until the main force of the British army had discharged the battle line and engaged the German capital ships before attacking! Now it is just a detachment of fleets, and it is a complete waste!"

"There is no dedicated torpedo machine, it just looks lively, and the actual effect is extremely limited...... But they came up with the idea of getting the Air Force to help, which was a surprise to me. Commander-in-Chief of the Navy, Wang Tiehammer, also shook his head.

Wen Deji took a bite of noodles and said, "Didn't they send a group of officers to study with us a few years ago, and they have also learned this kind of coordinated tactics, so it's not surprising to think of this." I guess some young officer reminded me......"

Army Commander-in-Chief Rosie touched his big bald head and smiled: "Hehe, your requirements are too high." It is also the first time that the Germans have played sea and air coordination, and it is already very good to do this kind of Cheng dΓΉ, at least much better than the Turks. ”

Wang Tiezhu said with a toothache on his face: "Hey, don't mention the Turks, their appearance really makes the spectators angry, such an obvious advantage actually made Lao Maozi's fleet run by a third, and only 3 of the 40 torpedoes hit, that is a professional torpedo machine......"

While they were talking, the bombing results of the German fighters also came out, and it has to be said that the efficiency of dive bombing is high. The Japanese Navy's Type 99 dive bombers were able to achieve a hit rate of 60%-80%, although the German planes were not professional dive bombers, and the pilots were not temporary cameo fighter pilots, but they still achieved a hit rate of about 40%, that is, about 100 of the 240 bombs they dropped hit the target.

The 50-kilogram bomb can only be regarded as painless for a large ship such as a battleship, but it is more fatal for a light ship, especially for a bunch of destroyers that are generally less than a thousand tons, it is really not something that can be ignored.

And because the German aircraft is on the ship, the bombs used are armor-piercing and semi-armor-piercing, which is even worse. With the consistent cutting corners of the British shipbuilding industry, even the armor of the battleships has been reduced again and again, and I hate to have to ask for the best, and you still expect light cruisers and destroyers to have armor? Well, the light cruisers still symbolically laid a layer of horizontal armor of about 10 mm in some important parts, while the destroyers are completely naked# running, and there is not a millimeter of wood.

That deck alone would certainly not be able to rely on the 50-kilogram iron lump that fell from the sky, so as long as the bombs dropped by the Germans hit, they would definitely penetrate the deck and explode inside the hull. Although a 50-kilogram bomb can't kill a destroyer, it's still okay to be paralyzed and disabled.

And once these light ships are injured, the German light ships on the opposite side are not here to fight soy sauce, and it is normal to take the opportunity to beat the water dogs.

As a result, in just this round of attacks, the British lost 2 cruisers and 7 destroyers, although most of them were not sunk, but the rest also lost their combat effectiveness and became dead fish. In addition, 2 cruisers and 17 destroyers were injured in varying degrees of severity and were being beaten by German light ships. There were even two British destroyers that collided headless and brainlessly in order to dodge, and both of them were scrapped.

And that's not all, after the fighters dropped the bomblets, they began to "wash the deck" of the British ship with their machine guns and cannons. I saw a torrential rain of bullets sweeping by, and the British ship suddenly flew with blood and flesh, screaming again and again.

What's even more unfortunate is that some smart pilots specifically aim at their torpedo tubes to shoot, these British ships are ready to launch lightning strikes, the torpedo tubes are loaded with torpedoes, and the torpedo tubes are just a thin steel tube, there is not much defense, machine guns may be difficult to penetrate, but the 20mm cannon is different, not to mention that the German aircraft still uses white phosphorus incendiary bombs. And once a torpedo is hit by an incendiary bomb, you know the consequences. As a result, 1 cruiser and 4 destroyers were blown up by their own torpedoes, and 2 of them were directly blown in two.

Compared with the original time and space, the warships of various countries at this time have strengthened their air defense, and Britain is naturally no exception, but this is also relative. Because the British did not feel the pain, they did not understand the importance of air defense, especially light ships, that is, symbolically loaded with a few 2-pounder bangs or 1-pounder guns, plus a few anti-aircraft machine guns, and these gun emplacements were open and had little protection.

Therefore, although the British sailors also fought back, they lacked air defense training, and their weapons were not effective, so the effect was not ideal, but they were killed by German planes and lost a lot of anti-aircraft firepower.

11:45。 The German fighter dropped all the bombs and shells, and then the nose of the plane was satisfied. And at this time, 189 light bombers also reached the skies over the British fleet.

Most of these planes are H-1 "Tern" light bombers imported or licensed from China, and some are German-designed Duurnier DO-9 medium bombers, which are twin-engine biplane bombers that did not exist in the original time and space, and are slightly inferior to the "Terns" in terms of performance except for higher bomb load. How can you say that Erdezi is also an industrial power, with Chinese aircraft as a sample reference, it is no problem to make several decent aircraft, after all, these primary aircraft are not too complicated.

"Tern" can carry two 250-kilogram bombs, while the Do-9 can carry four 250-kilogram bombs. Of course, none of them were dive bombers, and it was difficult for them to bomb a moving target such as a warship.

The German pilots also fought hard, and in order to increase the hit rate, they lowered the plane to an altitude of 1,000 meters or even 500 meters, and adopted very dangerous low-altitude bombs. Fortunately, the anti-aircraft firepower of the British ships in this period was far from strong, and the deck was washed by the fighters just now, and the anti-aircraft firepower was severely weakened, so these bombers were able to aim and drop bombs more calmly.

136 terns and 53 DO-9s lined up one column after another, braving anti-aircraft fire, crossed over the target, and dropped 250 kg bombs on the British ships on the sea. Bombs rained down and exploded in the sea, stirring up columns of water that soared into the sky.

11:46。 After successfully evading a dozen bombs, the Warweary finally missed, and a bomb was hit on the deck near the main gun, and after the bomb passed through the deck armor, it pierced several decks in succession, burrowed into the ship's hull and exploded near the gearbox. A violent blast blasted the Warweary's gearbox to pieces, while napalm and white phosphorus thrown from it caused a fire in the ship's hold. The war-weary, which had lost its momentum, collapsed to the surface of the sea at once.

11:47。 The Barham was shot in the middle of the hull, a large hole was blown out of the front chimney, and smoke filled half of the hull, and the central main turret was completely enveloped in it.

Wait until 11:53. The German bombers finished dropping their bombs and left, and the British fast fleet was already bombed to pieces. German bombers dropped a total of 484 250-kilogram bombs, 22 of which hit directly and 17 of which were close misses. The hit rate was ugly, but even such a pitiful hit rate brought severe damage to the British fleet.

The War Weary was the worst, because it lost its mobility and became the key target of the follow-up German aircraft, it was hit by a total of 11 bombs, three main turrets were destroyed, and the mixed napalm and white phosphorus incendiary caused the entire hull to ignite a raging flame.

The Queen Elizabeth and the Malaya were each hit by two bombs, one of which penetrated the bow deck of the Queen Elizabeth and exploded near the waterline, blowing a two-meter hole in the underwater part of the left bow and reducing the speed by 4 knots. The Malaya was hit by a bomb on the deck between the first and second turrets, and the strong shock wave blew up the actuators of both turrets, and the front main gun could not turn.

The broken chimney of Barham and the smoke that filled the air affected the efficiency of the sighting system and made the central main turret almost impossible to fire. The firepower dropped by more than half.

In addition, 6 bombs and 3 near-misses were shared by several light ships, resulting in the sinking of one light cruiser and two destroyers, and the serious injury of three destroyers.

However, the air raids are not over. Five minutes later, 96 Gotha 2 heavy bombers arrived over the British fleet, and soon they lowered their altitude to 200 meters in accordance with the training syllabus and flew towards the British fleet close to the sea.

At 12 o'clock in the afternoon, the captain of the team aimed at the Gangyong at a distance of about 3,000 meters and dropped the first aerial torpedo of this campaign. Other planes then dropped torpedoes on their targets.

The officers and men of the British Navy were still quite tall, and as soon as their light ships saw that the German planes had dropped a large number of torpedoes, they hurriedly abandoned their opponents who were still fighting and hurried to escort them. The five battleships, which were the main targets, were also immediately ready to evade lightning strikes.

However, they were not faced with the thermodynamic torpedo with a long trail as they had imagined, but with the novel oxygen torpedo. Torpedoes without a track were not so easy to spot, the British had absolutely no experience in dealing with such torpedoes, they looked at the sea in vain, but did not find a single track.

How can a torpedo without a track dodge? God knows where it came from. The light ships had to stand in front of the battleships indiscriminately, and the battleships also avoided them indiscriminately. Such blind movements obviously do not have much effect.

96 oxygen torpedoes of the "Yaksha-3" type swooped down on the target at an astonishing high speed of 53 knots......