Chapter 639 The Battle of Sirte (Death-fighting Style)
The battle cruisers of both sides decided the outcome directly, but the duel between the battleships on the other side was still inextricable.
The collision of steel giants and the roar of giant cannons. From the perspective of a bystander, this is definitely a man's romance. But from the perspective of the officers and soldiers participating in the war, then this is a life-or-death battle.
Since the Montague was sunk, the two sides have continued to achieve results. On the Mediterranean Fleet side, the St. Vincent was severely damaged, the Neptune was severely damaged, the Vanguard was damaged, and the Centurion was damaged. The other battleships were all injured, which can be described as quite tragic.
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Of course, the Mediterranean Fleet was so miserable, and the Combined Fleet was not having an easy time either. The Combined Fleet's Istvan and Intrepid were severely damaged, Dante was moderately damaged, and other ships were more or less injured.
Isn't it amazing that after the battle, except for the unlucky Montague, no battleships from the two sides have been sunk yet?
Compared with the battle between the battle cruisers next door, is it too friendly?
What is the real situation? In order to sink the other side's battleships, no one is soft-hearted. However, battleships are different from fragile battle cruisers, and their thick armor is not that easy to penetrate.
Today's battleships have thousands of tons of armor, most of which is concentrated above the waterline. Although today's battleships are more than ten meters high, only three or four meters are exposed above the waterline. Basically, they have thick armor.
Armor.
Not to mention that in order to enhance the defense of battleships in recent years, various concepts such as core compartment protection and composite armor have emerged one after another. Of course, there are also developments brought about by armored steel technology, making battleships thicker and thicker.
This is one of the reasons why the displacement of battleships is increasing. Of course, in addition to armor, the endless emergence of new technologies has also fully improved the firepower and speed of battleships. This has also led to the rapid increase of battleships from more than 10,000 tons in more than ten years to
The reason for the current more than 30,000 tons.
Yes, when the enemy's reinforcement fleet is about to arrive, they don't have much time left.
The startled communications staff officer quickly replied, "Your Majesty, Commander, I will go and deliver the order right away."
After the communications staff member left, Leifer glanced at the people present and said, "We don't have time."
Without giving the staff officer time to react, he immediately ordered. "Now I order the lightning strike formation to attack now, targeting the enemy battleship formation. The cruise formation will follow the lightning strike formation to attack and block the enemy's interception formation. In addition, in addition to
In addition to the Dante, other battleships followed the flagship to close the distance with the enemy ship. The target distance was seven thousand meters."
Isn't this a life-and-death struggle?
Faced with the sudden silence of the command tower, Leifer did not explain too much but looked at the communications staff seriously and said, "Is my order unclear?"
If there is one technology among these new technologies that is not developing fast enough, then armor-piercing projectiles are definitely one of them.
Although this is a desperate play, Leifer is not really just desperate. He has already taken everything into account.
Of course, if the enemy does not have a reinforcement fleet, the combined fleet will not be impatient. They can deal with this situation slowly. Isn't it just that it has been unable to cause sinking? It doesn't matter if the damage accumulates to a certain level, it will definitely sink the opponent. This is just
It's a matter of time and effort.
Of course, it is too difficult to think of a solution just for artillery shells. Because the armor will become thicker and stronger, so starting from the 1980s, people have also focused on armor-piercing propellants and propellants.
On the artillery. In terms of propellant, the emergence of solid homogeneous particle propellant has given the cannonball greater thrust. The development of smelting technology has made the cannon barrel longer and larger, which also allows the cannonball to gain greater kinetic energy.
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Because this order means that the fleet will fight for its life, this is not a good choice. If the safety of the core cabin can be guaranteed in the battleship duel at a distance of 10,000 meters, then the distance of 7,000 meters will become very dangerous. Because of this
It will increase the penetration of the shells from both sides. In addition, the hit rate will also increase from the current 2-3% to more than 5%.
That's right, it's armor-piercing projectiles. As a way to deal with artillery shells equipped with thick armor, armor-piercing projectiles have been around for a relatively short time. The concept of armor-piercing projectiles only came into existence after the emergence of ironclad ships in the 1960s.
Moreover, the Mediterranean Fleet launched a torpedo attack before, and the number of small and medium-sized warships lost was quite large. According to airship reports, the Mediterranean Fleet currently has only half of the small and medium-sized warships on the battlefield as the combined fleet.
At this time, the artillery battle between the two sides had been going on for two hours. Although no more battleships were sunk by the other side, the enemy's ten battleships had been reduced by three. One was sunk and two were damaged. The damaged St. Vincent and Neptune had withdrawn from the battlefield.
The same is true for the destroyed battleships on the Combined Fleet side). The number of enemy and friendly battleships has reached a ratio of 7:9.
Leifer's words caused a brief silence in the command tower of the Cavour, and everyone looked at their commander in surprise.
"Report, the airship sent a telegram, the enemy's reinforcement fleet is still forty-eight nautical miles away from us."
At the same time, in order to prevent the increasingly expensive precious battleships from being sunk, various protection concepts are emerging one after another, such as key protection, armor boxes, etc. Therefore, these combined factors have led to the fact that it is easy for current battleships to be seriously damaged, and sinking becomes difficult.
It's very difficult.
For the Combined Fleet alone, each ship has generally lost half of its secondary batteries. I believe that the Combined Fleet, which has more elite officers and soldiers, will inflict greater losses on the enemy's secondary batteries.
Although the Italian Navy currently uses capped armor-piercing projectiles, due to the immature craftsmanship and technology, its armor-piercing effect in actual combat is not particularly good. As for the British Navy, it only uses ordinary armor-piercing projectiles with extended warheads, and the armor-piercing effect is even worse.
(It is important to mention that armor developed greatly at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, while armor-piercing projectiles were developed after the end of World War I. Of course, after that, the development of science and technology allowed armor-piercing projectiles to gradually surpass armor, until the emergence of missiles)
Therefore, the performance of the two navies in the naval battle was that the warships of both sides were scarred, but they were still a little short of a fatal blow. After all, it is not easy at all to give the enemy a fatal blow by chance.
Moreover, the early armor-piercing projectiles were just designed with sharp shapes, and their armor-piercing effect was not ideal. Of course, the navies of various countries did not give up because of this, because there are more and more warships equipped with thick armor, and it is getting thicker and thicker, allowing the development of armor-piercing projectiles.
Just as quickly. The pointed bullets became harder and harder and sharper.
In addition, during the two-hour artillery battle, all ships were damaged, especially the battleships that lacked sufficient protective secondary guns, which caused great losses.
At this moment Leifer suddenly said, "It's almost done."
Although this technology has improved the armor-piercing ability of artillery shells, the development of armor has become faster. With the emergence and maturity of the surface carburizing and hardening process, Harvey steel and Gram-resistant steel have appeared one after another.
Lupp steel and other high-quality armor steels. And compared with the armor penetration of artillery shells, armor has a greater advantage, that is, it is directly thickened.
"I know, let's go down."
Unfortunately, they did not have enough time. Even so, Leifer, as the commander of the combined fleet, was still extremely calm. To say that as the commander of the fleet, he was not impatient, how could this be possible? But he did not show it.
Due to this, even if the communications staff kept reporting to him the approaching position of the British and French reinforcement fleets, he still watched the battle situation at sea intently, because a plan was taking shape in his mind.
What reason does Leifer have for not engaging in a short and quick close-quarters melee battle? He has a huge advantage in the number of small and medium-sized battleships.
Leifer's order was quickly implemented. A lightning strike formation consisting of torpedo boats and destroyers as the main force, under the cover of the cruise formation, launched a lightning strike tactic against the Mediterranean fleet in the distance. And what's even more ruthless is that it had been
The battleships that kept their distance also began to accelerate towards it.
Next, let’s see how Cardon will deal with the United Fleet’s desperate play style.
I’m going to catch up on yesterday’s chapter, and there will be more tonight.
