At 9:33 in the morning, the flagship A3 of the East China Sea Fleet fired at the "Guam General", and the naval battle between the Third Loyalist Army of Manila Bay and the Matador began.
Firing artillery while marching. This is the difference between Deng Shichang and others. He did not mobilize the enemy ships at all, but faced the enemy directly!
His ten warships were arranged in a 1~3~3~3 offensive arrow formation. As the flagship, the heavy cruiser A3 took the lead and rushed to the front line without fear of death. He had no intention of doing so.
Flagships are dangerous.
He didn't even realize that his principal~leader Zhou Yu was on his flagship. You don't think about your own safety, but always think about your leader!
He doesn't! Because once he gets into the mood of fighting, Deng Shichang will never consider other factors. All he thinks about is defeating the enemy in the fastest, simplest and smoothest way!
Matador called the two warships purchased from John Bull Guam-class battleships. The two warships were almost identical. The only difference was in the ship number. One armored ship was the USS Earl of Guam, and the other was the Guam-class battleship.
It's the battleship USS Guam.
Because they were armored battleships, the blindly confident Matador ranked them at the front.
Deng Shichang's attack arrow was first aimed at the enemy's flagship, the armored ship USS Guam General.
Deng Shichang did not seize the so-called T-position at all, but fired at the enemy's flagship while running.
This is a very difficult to control attack method. In mobile warfare, various factors must be taken into consideration.
In a rough sea, it is no different than on land. The waves are slightly undulating. The result is that the shells fired are hundreds or thousands of meters away from the target warship.
However, from the landing point of the first round of ammunition of the East China Sea Fleet at this time, it can be seen that the combat quality of the East China Sea Fleet is not generally high. The entire operation is as if it is operated by one person, without any deviation.
Even during interspersed artillery strikes, the East China Sea Fleet's fleet formation was as rigorous as if no artillery fire had been fired, and there was no sense of chaos at all.
What Zhou Yu felt was that the A3 heavy cruiser vibrated heavily while moving, paused for a moment after moving sideways, and then rushed towards the enemy ship.
What surprised Zhou Yu the most was that Deng Shichang's command basically relied on a variety of semaphores, and the number of commands actually issued through the unified command system was pitiful.
Moreover, there is another phenomenon that surprised Zhou Yu, that is, Deng Shichang's command did not have any commands at all, such as Zhu Yuan shooting, scattering, elevation angle, shooting angle, etc. Instead, there were extremely complicated semaphores.
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Zhou Yu estimated that these were the semaphores he taught everyone at the time, and were now put to good use by Deng Shichang.
It’s so complicated that even I, the original author, can’t understand it!
The East China Sea Fleet's first round of firing was launched 8,000 meters away from the enemy ship. The impact point of the shells was very concentrated. It fell in the sea area around the enemy's flagship, the Guam General, and burst into large water columns. Some shells,
It fell into the sea water next to the side of the enemy's flagship, splashing water columns and even falling onto the deck of the enemy's flagship.
This sudden situation scared the commander of the Matador fleet into a cold sweat, and cast a thick shadow on his heart.
At such a distance, the Matador Navy warships are powerless, they can only stare!
Two minutes later, the second round of bombardment from the East China Sea Fleet came again!
This time, the matador finally tasted the artillery shells of the East China Sea Fleet. What scared the matador ghosts was that the artillery shells fired by the loyal army fleet were no longer dumb bombs, but powerful.
Huge explosive armor-piercing projectile.
Almost all of the East China Sea Fleet's second round of artillery shells exploded close to the enemy ship. The waves caused by the explosion rocked the enemy's flagship.
Three of the shells landed on the flagship hull, causing extremely terrible consequences for the Matador.
One of the three landed at the bottom of the mast in the middle of the upper floor of the Matador flagship.
Because, due to the influence of the steel wires around the mast, the armor-piercing projectiles continued to break several steel cables, but did not penetrate into the deck of the enemy's flagship, but were blocked by the enemy's armored deck.
It is because the armor-piercing projectile explodes on the deck surface that the consequences are even more terrifying!…
The force of the explosion of the armor-piercing bomb tore most of the tall sail mast of the enemy ship. The violent vibration caused the three matadors who were working on the mast to fall out of the mast and fall heavily on the deck of the enemy ship.
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The three matadors were smashed into a puddle of flesh on the spot, red and white, which made people sick after seeing them!
The fire caused by the explosion immediately caused the 5,400-square-meter sail to burn.
The flames burned very quickly due to the wind, and soon the fire burned all the sails on the mast.
The explosive force of the shells had torn most of the mast apart. Finally, it could no longer withstand the fire, and it fell to the side of the ship, as bare as a fire stick.
Because it fell in the direction of the South China Sea Fleet, the mast was heavily loaded into the sea water, and it did not continue to have an impact on the Guam General.
Of the three shells that fell on the Matador flagship, one of them, by accident, penetrated the fifth window in the mezzanine on the right side of the bow of the flagship.
Some matadors can bear this!
This shell, after penetrating through the window of the building, passed through the inner deck inside the mezzanine, penetrated into the interior of the attic on the first floor, and exploded.
The huge force of the explosion tore a 5-meter-square hole in the deck of the attic on the ground floor.
This is not even the most cruel thing. The most powerful thing is the fire caused by the explosion of the artillery shell.
Originally, the Guam-class battleship was a wooden warship. Later, it was wrapped with iron armor on the outside. However, its interior is still a completely wooden structure, which only fuels the flames and has no defensive power at all.
Moreover, another point is that the fire ignited inside the Guam General, which made it very difficult for the matador to put out the fire in time.
Fortunately, the fire was burning internally, not externally, and the sea breeze could take advantage of it.
For a time, the middle and lower floors of the Guam General and the bottom cabin were in a mess, and the matadors were busy putting out the fire.
The third of the three shells passed through the top of the 63-meter-high main mast conning tower on the bow of the Guam General. It immediately broke the mast at the top of the conning tower and hit it heavily on the left side.
on the side deck.
The cannonball that penetrated the mast fell into the sea water on the other side and exploded.
On the control tower of the Guam General, the Commander of the Matador Fleet was almost thrown out of the tower by the huge vibration. Even so, the life of the Commander of the Matador Fleet was not easy. He was hit by the huge force in the command tower.
On the retaining wall.
The forehead was immediately hit, creating a large crack more than 10 inches long. Blood gushed out. One eye was soaked in blood and could not be opened at all.
Fortunately, Commander Gui Lao didn't faint. He screamed at his subordinates on the command tower, asking them to come and treat him quickly.
The Matador Commander had a hard time, and so did the other ghosts in the command tower. Basically, they were all thrown to the ground by the huge inertia, and no one was spared.
However, their injuries are not too serious!
Regardless of their own injuries, everyone hurriedly ran to Commander Gui Lao and tried their best to treat their commander's wounds. Everyone still relied on him for 'commandation'!
Matador's fleet commander doesn't think so. No matter what, his own life is still important!
He ordered the herald beside him to lower the commander's flag and raise the white flag. The ship exited the battle order and let the Earl of Guam, which was following closely behind, replace his warship and raise the commander's flag~the commander's flag!
After some panic operations, the Guam General finally lowered its flagship flag and raised the big white flag, indicating that it was about to exit the battle order.
The Count of Guam, which followed closely behind, felt baffled when it received the semaphore order from the flagship, but they had no choice but to raise the flagship flag and replace the General of Guam as the temporary flagship of the Matador.