Chapter One Thousand Two Hundred and Ninety: Sneak Attack 1
Chapter 1290 Sneak Attack 1
Blown by the sea breeze, the white smoke emitted by the two German battleships, which originally used all-oil-fired boilers, quickly dissipated in the semi-dark air. The speed of the German fleet at this time was not very fast, about 15 knots. The rangefinder on the top of the mast was slowly rotating, locking a small boat at the end of the fleet in the center of the field of vision!
"This little thing is really hard to find!" An officer rubbed his dull eyes after passing the data measured by the rangefinder to the fire control room. According to the Germans' opinion, the first thing they need to clear out is the destroyers behind them. These guys are the enemy of submarines and also assassins in the night. In order to prevent them from being capsized in the gutter, the two German warships must first clear out these little guys. .
"According to common sense, there should be one more ship, but we can't find it now. It will be completely dark in a few dozen minutes. Do we need to take action?" Reidel said, looking at the darkening sky.
"Let the Scharnhorst kill it within 5 salvos! After the flagship fires, the Gneisenau immediately attacks the transport ship at the rear! Everyone, move quickly, we only have a few dozen minutes." Su Xiong ordered. "Also, tell Colonel Schultz's pack that they can move freely after nightfall."
With the issuance of Su Xiong's order, the Scharnhorst-class fast battleship, known as the Twin Gods of Death in the Indian Ocean by the Allied Powers, once again showed its ferocious teeth! 13,000 meters! 11 o'clock direction! The half-volley begins! As the heavy fire door was opened, rounds of 350MM artillery shells weighing more than 600 kilograms and ammunition packages wrapped in silk and brass shells were extracted from the ammunition compartment deep in the battleship.
The artillery is placed at a loading angle of about 5 degrees. A huge mechanical servo carries the shell to the rear of the artillery, and is placed into the barrel of the gun under the action of a mechanical push rod. (The earlier German dreadnoughts in history pushed the bombs into the chamber manually, and there was a mechanical boost at the back. It was just a mechanical push rod, which greatly improved the rate of fire!) Then there is the front section of the propellant pack, and The second half wrapped in a brass shell, after one shell and two packets of propellant were pushed in, the horizontal wedge breech closed quickly with the sound of steel sliding!
Because of the close distance, the elevation angle of the artillery was very small. The eight huge and long artillery pieces were pointed at the 11 o'clock direction of the battleship. At this time, the destroyer, which was like a rabbit being targeted by a hunter, did not realize that the disaster was approaching. Still sailing slowly behind the fleet at a speed of 10 knots.
"High-explosive bombs, fire!" Four thick flames spurted out from the muzzle instantly. Each huge fireball even covered half of the hull. Four 635KG shells flew out of the muzzle at more than twice the speed of sound. Before the thunderous sound entered the ears of the Japanese, the water jets splashed by four shells had already enveloped the poor battleship!
"Well done!" In the field of view of the main rangefinder, the water column splashed by a shell almost coincided with the target. This shows that even if the shell did not hit,
Then the impact point is also very close, and it may even be a near-miss! Four shells were evenly distributed around the unlucky Japanese destroyer, and the opponent was successfully caught in the first round of shooting!
"Switch to efficiency fire and fire at full speed!" the fire control officer gave the order, and 30 seconds later, the second round of shells also flew out of the barrel!
"What's going on?!" The captain of the destroyer Isokaze suddenly saw a water column of tens of meters rising less than 20 meters away from the side of his warship! (Dear book friends looking for trouble, this is definitely not a mistake by the author. During World War I, Japan really had a first-class destroyer called Isokaze. It was not the Kagero-class Isokaze in World War II. It was commissioned in 1917. If you don’t believe it, please read Kang Battleship, 1906-1921, bottom right corner of page 242)
Subsequently, more than 100 Japanese naval officers and soldiers on the battleship could feel that the hull seemed to have been hit hard by a sledgehammer. The battleship that was originally running smoothly soon became swaying, and a dull loud noise began. It came from the bottom of the hull, as if a powerful water wave hit the hull.
The fist-sized shrapnel penetrated the Isokaze's hull plate, which was only a few millimeters thick, as easily as an armor-piercing bullet underwater. The underwater part in the middle of the hull was instantly turned into a sieve. Tons of seawater poured into the hull through large and small gaps, and the three boilers on the damaged side went out instantly. The entire hull also tilted irreversibly. Amid waves of shaking and constant explosions, the entire battleship was crumbling! Although there was no direct hit, the damage caused to Isokaze was equivalent to the close-explosion damage of a small mine!
"Report the damage and prepare damage control immediately!" the Japanese captain shouted at the sound transmission tube, and then the Germans did not give the destroyer a chance. In the third salvo, a 350MM high-explosive bomb was successful. The hit hit the front of the Japanese destroyer, and the two 4.7MM cannons in front were easily wiped off like dust on a table. And that's not even fun, tens of kilograms of explosives directly blew up the destroyer's sword-like bow into a blossoming steamed bun! The turbulent water caused the battleship to tilt seriously!
"This Japanese destroyer is finished, let's fight the others!" Two minutes later, only half of the stern of the destroyer Isokaze was left rising high from the sea. The Scharnhorst aimed its guns at the Japanese transport ship in the distance, and not long after it sank the destroyer Isokaze, the Gneisenau also scored the first victory in this battle. Result!
The Gneisenau targeted a Japanese transport ship located in the northwest. Judging from the hull shape, the registered tonnage should be more than 5,000 tons. The ship was in a location where the light was decent and the distance was moderate. At a distance of 14,000 meters. Gneisenau dropped the shells one after another on the Japanese transport ship that was caught off guard like a target!
Facts have proved that the defense of civilian ships cannot be compared with that of warships. This difference is not only in the performance of armored defense that can be reflected through numerical responses, but also in micro aspects such as compartment division and reserve buoyancy. The second round of salvo hits A single 350MM shell had already sentenced the transport ship to death.
This cannonball was like a sharp long knife, directly cutting a several-meter-long breach in the middle of the target ship! The shrapnel and shock wave generated by the explosion directly destroyed the watertight compartment of the left string. The transport ship loaded with more than 5,000 tons of ore, metal ingots and other supplies tilted to 25 degrees in less than 3 minutes. The Japanese were shouting frantically, trying to ask for help from their colleagues next to them. Or maybe want to save the ship. However, their efforts were ultimately in vain.
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