Just after 6 a.m.

The four Newland battleships actually opened fire first, but they were still twenty kilometers away!

The lookout observed the muzzle flash emitted by the main gun of the Newland battleship when it opened fire, and the distance measured by the radar exceeded 20 kilometers.

It can be seen that within a dozen minutes before the fire, the four Newland battleships must have deflected their course eastward and expanded their distance.

While issuing an alarm, the captain issued a battle order.

Then, the anti-fragment armor in the commander's bridge fell down, and the guard soldiers guarding the door closed the 500mm thick hatch door.

The "Longxing" was the first to accelerate and turn, and the three battleships behind also began to turn at the same time.

To be honest, it doesn't make much sense.

The opponent is just shooting probabilistically, not aiming at the battleship, nor can he aim.

In addition, it was in a cruise state before, with a speed of only 15 knots. It was impossible for a huge battleship to change its speed easily like a fighter. Even if the air pressure of all boilers is in the highest range, it will take several minutes to increase the speed to more than 20 knots.

The key is how the four Newland battleships aimed at it!?

Although both sides were shooting flares before this, Zhang Guozhu had already issued a combat readiness order, and all four battleships were under light control.

Even if the night sky is clear and it is more than twenty kilometers away, it is definitely not clear.

What eating carrots and cod liver oil can enhance night vision is a trick made by intelligence agencies and is useless to deceive ghosts.

When Zhang Guozhu was thinking about this problem, the shells fired by the enemy ships had already flew over.

Judging from the sound of the shell falling, the deviation of the bounce point is not large.

Subsequently, the lookout report also proved this.

Although the twelve shells that were shot did not form a cross-fire, all landed on the right side of the "Longxing", which was the distance between the bullet points, the deviation of the landing points was not large. One of the shells was no more than 500 meters away from the "Longxing", and the farthest was about 2,000 meters.

In the night artillery battle, and the combat distance exceeds 20 kilometers, this accuracy is already very high.

The lookout also reported that the other three battleships were also bombarded, and the deviation was not very large from the point of the shell landing.

At 5 o'clock after 6:00, the enemy ship made a second round of volleys.

At this time, the speed of the "Longxing" reached 20 knots, and the distance between the four battleships expanded to more than 2,000 meters.

The spread range of the enemy ship's second round of volleys shocked Zhang Guozhu even more.

The deviation of the bounce point further narrowed. The nearest shell was less than 300 meters away from the Longxing and landed on the port side of the battleship.

In other words, the enemy ship adjusted its aiming point between two volleys, but it was overcorrected.

As expected, in the next few rounds of volleys, it will definitely form a cross-fire at the "Longxing" and enter the cover shelling stage.

In fact, the enemy ship No. 2 has already formed a spanning shot at the Shengwu, which is following the Longxing.

These were only two volleys.

If only one enemy ship fired a shell accurately enough, it can be said that it was luck.

But now, the accuracy of shelling of the four enemy ships is not low.

If this is a result measured with an optical device, it is a fool!

Until now, the four battleships of the 42.1 team have not opened fire yet.

Could it be that there is a gun-aided radar on the Newland battleship!?

This sudden thought made Zhang Guozhu tremble for a few times.

Although the "Longxing" class is not equipped with a gun aiming radar, Zhang Guozhu is very clear about the powerful performance of the gun aiming radar.

Don’t forget that during the last war, Zhang Guozhu became the captain of the "Beihe".

In the first half of the year, the Beihe and Nanjiang took advantage of the opportunity to replace the main gun barrel and installed the same gun aiming radar as the "Xuhai" class. After that, they took the opportunity of sea trials to conduct the test. The results prove that the use of gun aiming radar can increase the accuracy of the main gun by more than ten times in long-range artillery battles.

The key is that the radar is not affected by combat distance and can maintain the same accuracy almost within the full range of the main gun.

To be precise, the primary factor affecting the range of shell dispersion by radar is no longer the measurement error, but the accuracy error of the naval gun itself.

Of course, the number one value of radar is the ability to detect and lock targets at night.

To be said, the emergence of radar has completely changed the tactics of night artillery battles, making the special training for night wars meaningless.

In addition to being shocked, Zhang Guozhu did not forget to do the most important thing, that is, let the communications officers shoot and send telegrams.

Although it was just his guess, there was reason to believe that the four Newland battleships must have radars, and they were still gun-aided radars with advanced performance.

So, what about other Newland warships?

Since there is a gun-aiding radar, will there still be a lack of air-to-air search radar?

The time when the "Longjiang" sent the telegram was 6:15.

At that time, the four Newland warships on the opposite side had already fired a third round of volley and were preparing for the fourth round of volley.

The four "Longjiang" class carried out a semi-volley for school artillery around 6:10, preparing for the first full-volley.

About 100 kilometers southeast of the 42.1 team, four fast battleships of the 43.1 team were galloping eastward at a speed of 28 knots.

The leader is the "Xuhai".

Li Jie was commanding the 43.1st team, but he was not the commander of the 43rd Special Mixed Fleet, and there was no commander of the 43rd Special Mixed Fleet.

Among the four special mixed fleets, the 43rd special mixed fleet is the most special.

The 43rd Special Mixed Fleet itself was temporarily formed. Except for the "Xuhai" and "Yanhai", other warships did not originally belong to the Fourth Fleet, but were drawn from the Second Fleet. It was just that because the assembly location was in the Qiugang, it was organized under the name of the Fourth Fleet.

In addition, the 43rd Special Mixed Fleet is also the smallest.

In addition to the four fast battleships of the 43.1 team, there are only four light cruisers of the 43.2 team and four destroyers of the 43.3 team.

If there is no heavy cruiser incorporation, there is no heavy cruiser available!

Before the war, the Imperial Navy had only sixteen heavy cruisers in total. The four "Qunzhou" class built after the end of the last war were already behind. Because the hull was almost exhausted, it stayed in the rear as a training ship. Among the other twelve ships, four were in the 41st Special Mixed Fleet, four in the 42nd Special Mixed Fleet, and the other four were sent to the Yanhai to guard against the two heavy cruisers of the South Pearl Squadron of the Newland Navy.

For the 43rd Special Mixed Fleet, it is not a big problem whether there are heavy cruisers or not.

In the traditional fleet decisive battle, the main task of heavy cruisers is to cover the main battleships, block the enemy's light cruisers and destroyers, and prevent the main battleship from being attacked by torpedoes. However, in the fleet decisive battle with fast battleships as the main force, speed is the best protection.

The exercises conducted before the war have long been clear, and fast battleships can handle the attacks of enemy destroyers with their speed.

The key is that all the fast battleships of the Imperial Navy strengthened their air defense firepower, and the most prominent sign was that they replaced the secondary gun with large-caliber anti-aircraft guns.

The Imperial Navy's 130mm anti-aircraft gun is definitely very powerful in dealing with small and medium-sized warships.

Although the power of a 130mm shell is not as powerful as a 150mm shell, the advantage of the rate of fire is enough to make up for the lack of power of the shell.

That's true, fast battleships often do not require cruiser cover.
Chapter completed!