The third round of artillery fire in the enemy fleet had not yet dissipated, and Colonel Garcia, the captain of the "Lexington", speculated: "Dreadnought! Those two must be German dreadnoughts! Only the main guns of the dreadnoughts can reach such a long range!"

In the telescope's sight, the outline of the enemy ship is still blurry. However, from the situation of the artillery just now, the two "medium-sized warships" were most devastating to the Germans. Lieutenant General Hart knew very well that although their tonnage was not much greater than that of cruisers, their powerful protection capabilities were much higher than those of cruisers, which was obvious to all in the last war. The 18-inch naval gun of the "Lexington" is one of the most powerful naval combat weapons, and the two Queen Elizabeth-class 15-inch naval guns are powerful.

The power is not small, but their near-missile bombs may not be fatal to the German dreadnought. In such a super-long-distance artillery battle, the direct hit rate will definitely be much lower than in previous naval battles. Assuming that the hit rate of both sides is one percent, by the time the three main battleships on their side have completed 100 rounds, the opponent may have completed two 100 rounds, which one will take advantage of? Furthermore, today's naval battle is no longer a simple battleship battle, and the enemy is ready. How can it fight a simple fleet artillery battle?

With such doubts and concerns, Lieutenant General Hart's mentality was not as stable as the rock at the beginning, but was wandering between advancing and retreating, fighting and avoiding. Later, he turned his head to look at his staff officer, and ordered with displeasure: "You go to the radar room and see for yourself what the 'medium warship' equipped with a large caliber naval gun is in the radar detection equipment. When encountering similar situations in the future, don't be blinded by such illusions!"

Colonel Garcia, who was standing aside, heard his dissatisfaction from Hart's words. The captain defended his radar operator: "In fact, the radar judges its orientation and size based on the reflection of the target object on the radio waves. When the distance is far away, it cannot even accurately distinguish between warships and islands, so we are often..."

Before the colonel could finish what he wanted to say, the main gun of the "Lexington" suddenly roared, and its first round of shooting fired four shells at intervals. After that, two Queen Elizabeth-class battleships also launched the first round of half-volleys.

Everyone's attention immediately shifted to the distant sea surface.

In more than a minute from the time the shell was released to the drop, it was seen that three enemy ships opened fire twice, and the diffuse smoke formed a faint mist in their sight, which had a certain impact on the aiming accuracy of the optical equipment. Seeing that there was seaplane activity near the enemy ship, Lieutenant General Hart spoke, and he told Colonel Garcia: "Col. I think we urgently need the seaplane to observe and report the bounce point."

Colonel Garcia woke up as if he was dreaming and made arrangements for his subordinates. Based on the important role played by seaplanes in the previous war, the original design of the Lexington-class battlecruiser was equipped with carrier-based aircraft. During the modernization modification, the engineer moved the aircraft catapult from the end of the ship to the stern, freeing up space to accommodate more carrier-based aircraft and air defense weapons. The modified Lexington-class can carry 4 Curtis Seagulls water reconnaissance aircraft during wartime, and the three-ship formation can carry 12 aircraft, basically meeting the needs of combat reconnaissance and artillery fire calibration.

Putting the aircraft catapult at the tail of the ship solves some problems, but also brings other problems. Although the rear main gun fires to the side of the ship does not hinder the use of the catapult, in order to make the seaplane take off, the crew must first use a trailer to transport the seaplane from the rear to the stern. Even if it passes through the other deck opposite the muzzle, it will be affected by the shelling of the ship and the enemy shells. At this time, the "Lexington" is in a formation and has a fast speed, so it is not suitable to lift the seaplane into the water.

Facing the takeoff, and because of the heavy radar, Colonel Garcia did not arrange the crew to prepare for the reconnaissance plane to take off before dawn. At the moment, he had to bite the bullet and let them get the "Seagull" to the stern of the ship. As a result, when the enemy plane approached the US and British fleet, the "Lexington" still failed to take off a carrier-based aircraft. Fortunately, the two American cruisers and a British cruiser accompanied the ejected three seaplanes, and Lieutenant General Hart and the mixed fleet he commanded were not in an extreme passive situation.

Before the water reconnaissance planes were in place, the Allied fleet fired more than 60 shells at a distance of 29,000 to 26,000 meters, with a direct hit of zero, but two shots fell on the near-shore surface of the "Lexington", causing minor damage to the hull, and causing one death and three injuries to the crew on the starboard battle position of the US ship; the US and British fleet fired more than 40 shells, and the number of hits was also zero. The watchman observed that several bullet points were very close to the enemy flagship, and even mistakenly thought that the fire smoke of the enemy ship was a scene of being caught and exploded, and then corrected it.

Shortly after the two "Seagulls" that took off from the US ship and a "Walrus" that took off from the British ship took off, the air defense guards of the "Lexington" suddenly warned: "Four enemy planes were found in the east, with biplanes without pontoons, and they were likely to be the enemy's carrier-based fighter jets!"

The officers on the bridge quickly turned their sight to the east. At this time, the sunset was about to reveal itself, and there were four clear black shadows on the horizon. They were enlarged by the telescope. They were indeed typical single-engine biplane as described by the air defense guards, and they were far away from land. They should be carrier-based aircraft taking off from the aircraft carrier.

For Lieutenant General Hart and his combatants, just four fighter jets were not scary. What was scary was that their appearance meant that there were enemy ships nearby. Because of the limited intelligence received before, Hart did not know that the enemy's escort fleet had an auxiliary aircraft carrier. Since the opening of the Battle of Azore, he had personally experienced many sea and air wars and learned that the threat of carrier-based bombers to surface ships was great. If the enemy's aircraft carrier formation was in the nearby waters, not only the "Lexington", but also the entire task force would suffer a catastrophic blow.

Without time to think carefully about the possibility of the enemy aircraft carrier appearing here, Lieutenant General Hart ordered the accompanying light ship to cast a smoke screen to cover the three main battleships to retreat. After receiving the order, the US and British destroyers quickly cast a smoke screen toward the enemy fleet, but in this way, the sea sight of each ship was also affected. Perhaps it was enemy artillery fire that interfered with the communication on the ship, or it may have been mentally nervous to cause human error. During the panic turn, the "Lexington" suddenly hit the British light cruiser "Orion". The sharp bow almost cut off the unlucky guy from it. The collision caused the death of 17 British crew members on the spot, and caused the "Orion" to quickly roll. Nearly 100 sailors were trapped in the bottom cabin and failed to escape in time...

In this tragedy, the "Lexington" that caused the accident was also seriously injured. Its bow ruptured and seawater poured into the front cabin and the ammunition depot of the No. 1 main turret. Colonel Garcia had to order the speed of the flight to allow the crew to perform drainage and damage pipe operations.

The retreat plan of Hart's fleet was unexpectedly blocked, and the US-British reconnaissance aircraft that took off from the cruiser also encountered great trouble. The four carrier-based fighters flying from the east were Irish-made ir-29ts. This carrier-based fighter jet, which was famous in the European aviation industry in the early years, was out of date, but it was more than enough to deal with the clumsy "seagulls" and "walrus". As soon as they fought, the US-British pilots knew they were defeated and hurriedly hid back to the air defense circle of their own fleet. Fearing from the anti-aircraft gun fire of the US-British warships, the Irish "Griffin" did not dare to get close, but set up circles around the US-British fleet to cover their own He-60 water reconnaissance aircraft for air collaborative shooting.

The US and British fleets had a lot of trouble, but the opponents were getting smoother and smoother. Under the guidance of the "Eye of the Air", three German battleships continued to shell out targets twenty-six kilometers away. Their accurate heads were getting higher and higher, and water columns continued to rise near the US and British warships. According to this trend, it was only a matter of time before they could get a direct hit.

At 6:44 in the morning, a 305-mm armor-piercing projectile from the "Carl Great" hit the "Lexington". The shells penetrated the upper deck from the rear of the No. 5 sub-cannon on the starboard side of the US ship. Then, under the action of huge inertia, penetrated the three decks one after another, exploded on the inside of the armor partition below the waterline, blasted through the armor partition and adjacent oil storage tanks from the inside out, and blasted through the protective armor of the second boiler group inward, cut off a large number of steam pipes, and almost caused the boiler tank to explode.

Two minutes later, another volley of the "Karl Great" hit again. This time it directly knocked off the No. 3 sub-turret and its ammunition depot on the starboard side of the US ship, and instantly detonated nearly 200 152mm caliber shells and more than four tons of fired medicine. The blazing flames rushed around, and the rolling black smoke almost enveloped the part, as if it had been hit very heavily, but the actual damage was not as serious as it seemed.

The ship "Carl Great" is named after one of the most famous monarchs in European history, a common ancestor of the Germans and French. The Frank King Charlemagne I, known as the "Father of Europe". The previous generation of the German Navy, "Carl Great", was built in the late 19th century. It had been transferred to the second line before the outbreak of the last war, mainly responsible for alert and training tasks, and was then sold or retired and dismantled. This generation of "Carl Great" built the King-class battleship No. 5 in 1913. Its hull construction was completely based on the original design, and it was provided with 58,000 horsepower by 15 low-pressure oil-fuel boilers and 3 gear-driven steam turbines. It can reach 62,000 horsepower under overload state.
Chapter completed!