Chapter 637 Naval Battle of Natuna Islands (9)
In two minutes, the Revenge suffered a total of 280mm shells, 5 155mm shells, 11 105mm shells, and several nearly missing rounds. Two large holes were blown out on the deck, and the sidewalk was also hit in many places, seeping water, and suffering heavy damage. However, the Revenge's counterattack was not hit. It seems that the Revenge's character is not very good.
However, after completing the steering, the Revenge was obviously operating at the right time, because the Mo Xie, behind the Ganjiang, actually started turning in advance, and happened to have missed the Revenge perfectly and did not launch an attack on the Revenge. Therefore, Captain Martin couldn't help but secretly thank him and quickly ordered the loss-keeping personnel to hurry up and repair it immediately to prepare for the next opponent, Weiyang.
After passing by the Revenge, Gan Jiang opened fire and attacked the England behind, and drew a large arc on the sea surface and rushed straight towards the Far East Fleet. After Mo Xie turned ahead, he was not following Gan Jiang, but was located behind Gan Jiang, but at the angle of shooting forward. At the same time, he changed lanes along a large arc and rushed towards the Far East Fleet's queue, and the two warships targeted the Far East Fleet's steering position.
At this time, the remaining warships of the Far East Fleet did not understand the purpose of the People's Army fleet. They planned to cut the Far East Fleet into two and defeat them one by one. So the England, which was turning towards the Centurion and the Baler behind them, opened fire and attacked the two ships Gan Jiang and Moye who were rushing towards them.
At this time, Gan Jiang and Mo Xie all used their bows to fight the enemy. Therefore, the four front main guns and four 155mm secondary guns of the two ships fired together, launching a fierce counterattack on the Far East Fleet, and at the same time, they all increased their speed to the limit, both exceeding 20 knots. At the same time, the five destroyers of the 2nd Destroyer Detachment of the People's Army Fleet followed at some point, and quickly accelerated, surpassing Gan Jiang and Mo Xie, and rushed directly to the Far East Fleet, obviously intending to attract the firepower of the enemy ships and cover their two battleships to cut off the enemy's queue.
The five destroyers of the 2nd Destroyer Detachment were four Sea Dragon class destroyers originally belonged to the Beiyang Navy, and one Feiting gunboat. Among them, Feiting was purchased by the Qing court before the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895, but was delivered after the war; and the four Sea Dragon class were purchased by the Qing court after the Sino-Japanese War of 1895 when the Qing court rebuilt the Beiyang Navy. It was the best ** Boat destroyer in the world at that time, with a maximum speed of 33 knots. It was captured and divided by the Eight-Nation Alliance during the Gengzi Kingdom. Later, the crosser arrived and wiped out the Eight-Nation Alliance Navy and took away these five destroyers. Later, it was organized into the 2nd Destroyer Detachment, named Helong, Heqing, Hexi, Hehua, and Heting.
British warships dare not be careless. Although the tonnage of these five destroyers is not large, only 3,400 tons, once they break into the 2,000-meter range of the warship, the ship-based ** can pose a great threat to the warship. Therefore, all ships also hurriedly rotated small and medium-caliber artillery to launch fierce and intensive attacks on these destroyers.
However, these five warships are small in size and fast in speed. The slowest Heting can reach 22 knots. The other four destroyers have a speed of more than 30 knots and are sailing on the "s" route. Therefore, it is not easy to hit these destroyers. Moreover, Gan Jiang and Mo Xie are not a good deal. They also shoot with all their strength and bombard British warships. The five destroyers also provide cover. In fact, the Far East Fleet also has two destroyer teams, but now these two destroyer teams are following the team, and it is too late to catch up.
So for a moment, there were many water columns on the sea, and these were rising and falling. Five destroyers advanced through the water columns and gradually rushed into the British fleet. However, the British fleet's intensive attacks were not without gains. The slowest Heting was first shot, and almost all the bows were destroyed and sank in the sea in less than 10 minutes. The Heqing and Hehua were also shot, but fortunately they were all 75mm shells, which were relatively small and could continue to advance. The Ganjiang and Moye opened fire continuously, hitting the England, the Centurion and the Baler, and failed to hit a few shots. This was mainly because several British warships currently participating in the war were missing one by one, so it was difficult to concentrate all their efforts on shooting against the Ganjiang and Moye.
First, England was shot 12 times, including 1 280mm shells and 3 155mm shells, but the steering was completed. Then, the battle with the Weiyang was in line and was unable to support the warship behind. The Centurion entered the steering, so the Ganjiang and Moye concentrated their firepower to launch a strike against the Centurion. In just over a minute, the Centurion was hit by three 280mm shells and seven 155mm shells. Almost all the strikes were concentrated in the front of the Centurion. The entire head of the ship was almost destroyed, and a large amount of sea water poured into the front of the warship, causing the front of the warship to sink and the rear to rise.
However, at this time, the Baler and two Monmouth-class armored cruisers, Monmouth and Bedford, also rushed to support, and the formation of the British fleet began to chaotic.
At this moment, the Heqing and Hexi first entered the area where the ** was launched. The two destroyers fired two rounds at the British warships. Immediately afterwards, the Helong and Hehua also entered the ** launch area and launched two rounds each.
8 rounds of 8 were speeding towards the British warship at a high speed of 38 knots. The Barelle, Monmouth, and Bedford could only turn and avoid it. Only the Centurion was hit by the Centurion due to the influx of a large amount of sea water, which was unbalanced and slow to move. It made a shocking loud noise. Originally, the Centurion had only half its life left, but this Centurion undoubtedly became the last straw that crossed the camel. Finally, it was completely helpless and slowly sank into the sea.
In fact, in this era, the hit rate of ** is very low, but the People's Army did not expect to sink the British warships by these destroyers. It just hoped to use ** to restrain the British warships. For Ganjiang, Moye cut off the British fleet and gained time. Sure enough, Ganjiang and Moye did not disappoint. They seized the opportunity they won by the destroyer and finally cut across into the British fleet's queue, and faced the enemy with the side side, with full firepower. The Barelle, Monmouth, Bedford, and the Edgar, Royal Arthur, Grafton and other warships behind were all shot and could only turn to avoid them. The Far East Fleet was finally intercepted by the People's Army in two sections.
"Bang!"
Wang Hailong slapped the table, waved his fists excitedly, and shouted: "Well done, well done, so beautiful. We will definitely win this battle."
Chen Xiaojiang also nodded and tamped with the British fleet was another important node in this war after the change of armored cruisers of the People's Army fleet, and laid the foundation for the victory of the People's Army fleet in this naval battle.
However, Chen Xiaojiang is the chief of staff after all, and is calmer than Wang Hailong. He said, "Old Wang, it's still early to say that we have the advantage and we have to win completely. We can't make any mistakes in the subsequent battle. Otherwise, the cooked ducks will fly away."
After hearing this, Wang Hailong immediately calmed down and said, "Yes, yes, the cooked duck can't be allowed to fly."
So Wang Hailong first ordered that the helicopters must closely monitor the entire battlefield and promptly feed the battlefield information data to the Yueyang ship so that the Yueyang ship can calculate the shooting units of each ship. He also ordered the Ganjiang and Moye to turn immediately to support the battle on the cruiser side; and then ordered the other three battleships of the People's Army Fleet to lead the five protective cruisers of the Third Cruise Squadron, and the remaining four destroyers of the 2nd Destroyer Detachment to replace the Ganjiang and Moye to annihilate the remaining British warships to ensure that the People's Army wins the final victory.
At this time, the busiest people were in the air, because the battlefield was divided into two obvious parts. One was on the west side of the battlefield, with the Gan Jiang, Mo Ye, the armored cruiser Jinan, Tianjin, the protective cruiser Qingzhou, Yizhou and the 1st destroyer detachment against the Old Man Star, Ocean, Victory, Revenge, and England of the Far East Fleet. Goliath had sunk, and the Old Man Star had basically lost its combat effectiveness and actually withdrew from the battle. The other four battleships also had different degrees of damage.
The other part is on the west side of the battlefield, including the Weiyang, Boyang, Feiyang, the Third Cruiser Squadron of the People's Army Fleet, a total of 12 destroyers, and a total of 16 warships, fighting with the Battleships of the Far East Fleet, the USS Balar, the Cruiser Squadron of the Far East Fleet, the First Destroyer Squadron of the Second Destroyer, a total of 16 warships. Although the Far East Fleet has a slight advantage in the number of warships, there are 3 battleships in the People's Army Fleet, and there are only one battleship in the Far East Fleet, and there are also second-class battleships. The rest of the warships are also destroyers, such as small warships below 1,000 tons.
But the two battlefields are about 10,000 meters apart, and the combat situation is very complicated. Neither side can maintain a good column formation, which is completely a messy battle. This adds a lot of difficulty to the helicopter monitoring the positions of all warships on the battlefield, and transmits accurate data to the Yueyang ship, and the workload is not ordinary. Therefore, except for Li Yangang to control the helicopter, Liu Heyang and Yu Wenfen are both focused on monitoring the battlefield, constantly switching back and forth between various panels and windows. The keyboard's ramming sound keeps ringing, and Li Yangang dare not disturb their operations. Therefore, there are almost no other sounds in the helicopter except the sound of the machine.
Chapter completed!