.Seeing the stupid gulls led by the squadron leader twisting their bodies in the air and Schnaufer felt an indescribable worry. He took a deep breath, placed the flap of the plane in the cruise position, adjusted the elevator and rudder, loosened the speed plate, and then the nose of the plane sank, and the blue sea and target - the South Dakota-class battleship appeared in front of his sight.

The wind and black smoke came to the face. The places where the anti-aircraft shells exploded were no longer far away. The bang explosion seemed to be sounding in my ears. The plane was vibrating because of the airflow. A small part of this airflow changes came from nature, and the rest were caused by American shells. In Schnaufer's eyes, the outline of the American battleship became clearer. The hull, which was more than 200 meters long and more than 30 meters wide, was like a small steel island floating in the sea. The four triple-mounted 406mm main turrets were so majestic, and their firepower was not inferior when fighting with the best German battleships. Because it was a first-class battleship using a fully oil-fired boiler, even if

It was when sailing at full speed, the black smoke coming out of the thick chimney was far less dense than the coal-fired boiler. However, in front of Schnaufer, there were large squadrons of thick smoke rising. It was the result of a squadron's dive bomber, at the cost of 6 Junkers Ju-DD and 12 excellent pilots above. 7 150 kilograms of semi-armor-piercing bombs hit the starboard and middle and rear of the battleship, but the huge battleship was still turning on the sea at a maximum speed of 23 knots. The black smoke was constantly flashing with ignition lights, which were as many as 120 anti-aircraft guns and anti-aircraft machine guns on the ship were desperately firing into the air.

After passing through the smoke screen formed by the explosion of anti-aircraft shells, Schnaufer's eyes suddenly had a series of flashing points. They were not fireflies or angels, but machine shells and machine gun bullets with tracer added. Many dive bombers were shot down by these seemingly beautiful highlights when diving. Schnaufer kept glancing at the dashboard from the corner of his eyes. His plane was diving down at a dive angle of 70 degrees and a speed of more than 500 kilometers. He held the joystick tightly with both hands, and the elevator had become extremely heavy at this time. He had to spend a lot of effort to adjust his aiming point.

Dangdang

Two machine gun bullets hit Ju-dd's engine armor shell without hesitation. The fleeting but very dazzling Mars shocked Schnaufer. He begged his engine not to have any problems. If the engine stops at this moment, he will not hesitate to crash into the enemy ship. I hope the rear-firing machine gunner behind him will not have any objection to this.

The bullets bounced off the armor rubbed Schnaufer's cockpit. Fortunately, there was no problem with the propeller and the engine themselves. Schnaufer glanced at the altimeter again from the corner of his eyes. It just showed a very suitable bomb drop height, but he thought to himself, "Wait a little longer, wait a little longer, be sure to hit it, for the dead comrades and for the living landlord!" So his fingers were still pressed tightly against the bomb drop.

Next to a quadruple 7.62mm machine gun on the port side of the warship, the officer wearing a steel helmet pointed at the German planes that were sweeping rapidly and shouted. The sailors sitting in the gun position quickly turned the horizontal rotation handle, and their entire body vibrated at a frequency of 10 times a second. Every second, 40 yellow bullet shells were thrown out from the machine gun shell port. A thick pile of bullet shells had been piled up on the deck, and the sailors on both sides were carrying bullets loaded in iron boxes. They just waited for the guns to stop and quickly replaced the quadruple machine gun with a new bullet box.

At least when the German plane in front was put into the machine gun sight, the American sailor in charge of shooting screamed in surprise, and saw three black bombs leaving the plane and in an instant it had reached directly above the head.

While enduring the huge centrifugal force brought by the plane when it was out of its dive, Schnaufer finally breathed a sigh of relief. Just as he passed by the American warship, he clearly saw the commander's flag on the mast!

"It's the flagship! That's the flagship of the Americans!" Schnaufer shouted excitedly.

boom

In the loud bang, the entire plane vibrated violently, the engine was still roaring, and the propeller was still rotating at high speed, but the plane, which was gradually climbing, became light and fluttering as if it had lost its power instantly. After flying forward for dozens of meters with inertia, the heavy nose finally began to fall irreversibly, and Schnaufer also saw the blown tail in his rearview mirror and the blood in the rear seat.

He calmly opened the hatch. Although the air outside was very cool, all kinds of smells gathered together gave people a very difficult feeling. The plane began to fall, and at less than 200 degrees, on this sea with rain of bullets, there seemed to be no big difference between skydiving or not jumping. Schnaufer unhurriedly untied his seat belt and even had a little time to tidy up his clothes. He remembered the words he heard before departure:

"Even if we die in battle, Germany will still exist!"

Half a minute later, Schnaufer floated on the water with his back facing the sky, and God's messenger did not take him away. In this noisy sea, he quietly enjoyed the ease that belonged to him. Hundreds of meters beside him, smoke was rolling on the US Pacific Fleet flagship "South Dakota".

Without Schnaufer's squadron became incomplete. When the squadron formation returned, the pilots were surprised to find that there were only 20 left in the 25 bombers when they arrived. This meant that a total of 5 bombers were lost when they attacked the American battleship, which was just the loss of their squadron. Looking at the nearby return formations, none of them were complete, and the most unfortunate one had only 14 aircraft.

"Guys! Good job!" There was no sound in the communicator for a long time. For some reason, the squadron leader's voice sounded a little hoarse.

Half an hour later, Schnaufer was rescued by an American destroyer, and the German navy lieutenant was able to watch the wonderful performance of his colleagues on a US warship. After the attack of the dive bomber, the Americans finally breathed a sigh of relief. At this time, the only two aircraft carriers in the US Pacific Fleet had all sunk, and the main battleships also had, which sank and were severely damaged. All the fleet commander General Robert Kontz could do at this time was to risk sending the battle cruisers "Lexington", "Constellation", "Saratoga", "Roverer" and five high-speed cruisers to go north to find and attack German aircraft carriers, but as soon as they set off, six squadrons of German torpedo bombers flew from the north.

This time, the German torpedo plane was not a type E-type torpedo used to attack light ships, but a real 1923 type A 533 mm torpedo. The warhead was equipped with a full 230 kilograms of mixed explosives. This mixed explosive uses 45% TNT, 5% hexanitrobenzene face, 30% aluminum nitrate and 20% aluminum. Its explosive power is more than 1/3 stronger than 100% TNT charge. With an 8,000-yard range and a speed of 40 knots, they will inevitably become the nightmare of those giant ships that move relatively slowly.

The battlecruiser team that left the large formation north was the first to become a victim of this German heavy torpedo. Although after carrying an old torpedo, the German pike torpedo bomber had a slower speed than a dive bomber, their trump card was to join forces to throw torpedoes from faraway places. As long as the number of torpedoes is sufficient and the allocation is reasonable, it is difficult to escape by the warship itself.

Seeing more than 150 German torpedo planes surrounding themselves, the American commander was at a loss for a moment. After the war, he absorbed a large number of former British ship designers. The Lexington-class battlecruiser built by the United States largely adhered to the style of British warships. The full-length battleship of this class is the longest among the navy of various countries. Even the Japanese Astronomy-class battleship with a tonnage greater than it and a stronger firepower than it was only 252 meters. On the other hand, the Lexington-class waterline armor with a standard displacement of 35,000 tons is only 177 mm thick, while the Japanese Astronomy-class battleship is much better than the American Lexington-class. Its waterline armor reaches 250 mm. Not to mention the German Battleship, even the Deflinger-class who served 7 or 8 years ago, also had a 300 mm waterline armor belt.

The design of British ship designers is destined to be punished. The sinking of the Lexington only cost 21 torpedoes and 3 torpedoes from the Germans. The Constellation is 33 torpedoes and 2 torpedoes. The Saratoga and the Rover are very unfortunate. Although they shot down four German torpedoes, they were hit in the opponent's first torpedo attack. More than 20 torpedoes cost less than 10,000 marks were sent to the seabed with a cost of tens of millions of dollars. In addition, the US government must also pay high pensions for a large group of dead and injured crew members.

After packing up the US Battle Patrol team that was trying to go north, some of the pikes that had dropped torpedoes returned, but more of them flew towards the main force of the US Pacific Fleet like unsatisfied wolves. The air defense firepower here is stronger, but the prey is also more valuable.

Looking at the gray eagles flying all over the sky and the torpedoes, Robert Kontz was silent. What else was there to make him feel more disheartened than this?

At that end of the sea, the U.S. Atlantic Fleet, commanded by General Edward Eberly, was still a dozen hours away from Schell's battle fleet, and at this time both battle fleets received the latest updates on fierce battles in the Caribbean.

"Did the German battle fleet really operate in the northern waters of Cuba?" Edward and General Eberly were cautiously skeptical about this intelligence. He could not believe that the Germans only used their main aircraft carriers to deal with the US Pacific Fleet. Through in-depth research on the Battle of Indepascal Fleet and the Battle of Laura in South America, Eberly concluded that aircraft carriers and carrier-based aircraft alone could not destroy a fleet. After seizing air supremacy through a large number of carrier-based aircraft and disrupting the other party's deployment, the battleships were the final terminators.

Is it a smoke screen released by the Germans or a fact? General Eberly thought hard, and sent a message from Washington to the war in the Caribbean, and it was impossible to determine the true where the German battle fleet was going. At noon on August 30, General Eberly finally made a heartbreaking decision that made the whole United States feel: to go south at full speed!

On the sea more than a hundred nautical miles north of Cuba, Marshal Reinhartscher was waiting quietly with amazing patience. The long-range reconnaissance aircraft that took off from Cuba flew over the fleet again and again, and the veteran glanced at the majestic warships on the sea with deep eyes. This may not be the last confrontation of giant ships and cannons in human history, but it is probably no less intense and bloody than any naval battle. Perhaps in another day, some ships in this fleet will disappear from people's sight.

"Marson, this is a secret telegram sent from the 'Enster'!" The communication officer handed a message to Scher with a serious expression, saluted and turned around and left.

"Sinking 'Lexington', 'Zodiac', 'Saratoga', 'Rover' and 'New York', 'Arizona', 'Mississippi', 'West Virginia', 'South Dakota', 'Montana', 'Texas', 'Idaho'! Our carrier-based aircraft overall loss rate is 11%, which is fully capable of maintaining the current attack intensity. The enemy fleet is fleeing towards the Gulf of Mexico!"

Scher read out the content of the telegram softly, and when his eyes swept over the last word "escape", a hint of mockery flashed across his mouth.

At this time, there were not only a large number of busy German officers on the German heavy aircraft carrier "Enster", but also six special guests. After Japan declared war on the United States as an allies, at the strong request of the Japanese government, the German Navy allowed the Japanese Navy to send a group of special observers to watch the battle on German warships. Most of these observers chose to stay on Marshal Scher's flagship "Graf", and only six officers chose to watch the battle on Prince Heinrich's ship "Enster".
Chapter completed!