Chapter 2225 Battle 2
"The Ben Bow has been hit!" Lieutenant General Duff said with concern as he watched the front of the battleship Ben Bow in front of him burst into flames. Just half a minute ago, a 15-inch shell accurately landed on the No. 2 main turret of the Benbow. How could a mere 12-inch armor block a powerful blow from a 15-inch armor-piercing projectile weighing 870 kilograms? As a result, this turret and more than 60 British Royal Navy officers and soldiers died very simply!
The huge shell left a huge hole in the turret's forehead. Two long 343MM artillery pieces fell on the deck, and billowing smoke and flames poured out from the breach in the turret. Groups of British naval officers and soldiers tried to extinguish the flames that were spreading around, but at this moment the second disaster struck!
It was also a 15-inch shell, also from the Saxony. This shell accurately hit the armor belt in the middle of the hull of the Benbow! With the violent impact and scattered fire, the shell successfully tore off a large piece of armor plate from the huge hull. Subsequently, countless fragments and shells hit the left condenser at the rear of the armor plate, and a huge flame flew out from the side string of the battleship. Even the British Navy 2 kilometers away saw this heavy one strike!
"The left condenser was destroyed and we don't have enough fresh water!"
"The fire is starting to spread. Damn it, there is something abnormal inside the boiler room." Inside the hull of the Benbow, teams of British naval officers and soldiers were busy in the narrow and dark corridor. The destroyed cabin was like the entrance to hell, filled with flames and thick smoke. . The British saved their warships under threat of death.
"Your Majesty, Lieutenant General, Ben Bao wants to temporarily withdraw from the battle line." An officer pointed to the signal flag of Ben Bao and said. This is not a problem of the Benbow avoiding the battle, but because after the condenser on the left side was destroyed, the boiler water had a serious problem, so the steam supply could not be guaranteed. You know, the entire fleet is now competing with the German fleet at a speed of 18 knots. Sailing almost parallel and losing nearly half of its power, the Benbow could hardly maintain its position on the battle line!
"Let him hold on a little longer and control the amount of steam in the pipe. The battle has just started for 7 minutes now. We can't let a super-dreadnought withdraw from the battle just like this! Because..." Lieutenant General Duff said nothing. When he finished speaking, a series of shocking explosions were heard not far from the flagship Iron Duke! The violent explosion instantly suppressed everyone's words!
The German High Seas Fleet flagship Bavaria aimed eight 15-inch heavy guns at the Marlborough in the distance. During the fifth round of semi-volley fire, the Bavaria successfully clamped the target, and the four water columns were evenly distributed on the ship. The Bavaria, which was surrounded by super fearless people and then quickly switched to effective fire, poured out its firepower crazily at a rate of fire of one round every half minute. When the previous round of shells had not yet entered the water, the second round of shells had already flown from the barrel. Out, in the eighth minute, the Bavaria scored its first hit!
Two 15-inch shells hit this poor battleship one after another! A shell penetrated the lower mount of the Marlborough's No. 2 turret! How can ring armor with a thickness of less than 10 inches block a 15-inch armor-piercing projectile? Like a hot knife cutting through butter, the armor-piercing projectile easily penetrated into the dressing room in the gun mount. Then with a flash of fire, tons of shells and propellants piled in the dressing room were detonated. The violent explosion destroyed several surrounding decks. It was blown to pieces, and even the hundreds of tons of turret on the top of the gun base was shaken off the gun base!
Although the fire door on the ammunition depot temporarily blocked the raging fire demon, the raging flames had begun to spread to the No. 1 turret at the front of the hull. Just as the captain of the Marlborough was considering whether to flood the ammunition depots of both turrets, the second shell hit the poor battleship.
"Poor Marlborough! This shot seems to have hit the engine room.
"On the fighting side, the officers and soldiers on a British destroyer on standby witnessed this spectacular scene. In the distance, a fire flashed on the huge battleship, followed by a loud noise, and the boiler room below the flue erupted like a volcano. . A huge chimney was blown away from the hull of the ship, and a section of the open-air deck dozens of meters long was riddled with holes. Flames, smoke, and high-temperature and high-pressure water vapor gushed out from the breach, quickly spreading across the ship. It spread over the hull of the ship, like a volcano waiting to erupt.
However, the poor battleship's disaster did not end when the captain of the Marlborough only knew that his battleship had been hit twice and did not even know the loss. The second round of attacks had already landed, and the third 15-inch shell drew an arc in the air, and then successfully shot into the top of the No. 2 turret ammunition depot from the horizontal direction! The defense system of the ammunition depot, which was already on the verge of collapse due to the explosion of ammunition, instantly disintegrated!
The huge shell was blown to pieces by the explosive under the action of the fuse. Thousands of fragments flew into the ammunition depot that had not yet had time to be filled with water. As a result, almost the entire fleet heard the first sound of this naval battle. A deafening explosion! Many people also witnessed the scene when the first sunken battleship died in this naval battle!
Accompanied by a thunderous explosion, a hundred-meter-long fire dragon rose up from the hull. The power of this explosion was so huge that the huge energy from the explosion of the ammunition depot at the bottom of the ship even lifted the hull slightly away. water surface! Under the action of its own gravity and explosion, with the No. 2 turret as the dividing line, the huge battleship broke into two parts. The front part of the bow was quickly swallowed by the waves, while the rear hull was still useless no matter how hard it struggled. Accompanied by one after another explosions, hundreds of tons of debris were thrown across a radius of several kilometers. The ship hit the sea heavily, and thousands of tons of seawater poured into it, causing the ship to quickly fall from the sea. It disappeared 2 minutes later. Only the mast and the propeller with its tail raised high still showed that there was once a warship here.
"God bless the German Empire!"
"Long live the High Seas Fleet!"
"Long live the heroic Bavaria!"
"Long live the Crown Prince! Long live the Kingdom of Bavaria!" When they saw the Marlborough in the distance being blown into pieces, the entire German naval officers and soldiers on the Bavaria were boiling. It had been a long time since they had experienced such a hearty experience of killing an enemy ship instantly. The pleasure is gone! And got the first kill in this decisive battle. It also made the officers and soldiers on the battleship excited. They believe that it was the founder of this battleship, Crown Prince Ruprecht, and the previous kings of Bavaria who gave this battleship such good luck! After all, there are 12 of his fellow disciples here. If you want to get the first kill, luck is more important!
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