Of course, not all warships ignored these Hengmanzi aircraft. Some warship commanders still felt that something was wrong. While asking nearby escort ships to intercept them, they ordered the main guns to suspend the bombardment and asked the air defense personnel to prepare.
.
But, the pilots of Hengmanzi are not stupid. When they see that you have stopped firing the main guns, they will not go over at all, but rush to the battleships whose main guns are still firing!
There are so many Krul battleships in the huge battlefield, and there are no Krul fighter jets in the sky. These torpedo planes can calmly select targets and launch torpedoes!
At 11:36 that day, this is a day worth remembering in the development history of Blue Star Navy!
Because at this time, multiple A-3 torpedo planes of the Daheng Navy launched torpedoes at the battleship Gilbert of the Third Battleship Fleet of the Krul Kingdom Navy at a distance of less than 500 meters.
.
Four of the six torpedoes hit. This powerful battleship, with a full load displacement of more than 36,000 tons and equipped with twelve 350 mm 50-caliber naval guns, was roaring with its main guns one moment, but the next moment it was roaring.
It was hit by four torpedoes.
As four huge drops of water rose up, the poor battleship had to be abandoned due to severe flooding in a short period of time.
Just a few minutes later, the second target of the Daheng Empire's carrier-based aircraft, the Darcy, was also attacked by multiple torpedoes. It was luckier. Although it was hit by three torpedoes, one of them was a dud.
Although the remaining two bombs severely damaged it, they did not cause it to sink directly. It was just that the excessive water intake severely reduced the speed.
But then the third target, the battleship USS Smith, was not so lucky. The unlucky girl was directly approached by the brave and skilled Daheng pilot to a distance of only about 300 meters and released the torpedo.
And there were no duds. Five of the six torpedoes hit. The powerful explosion destroyed the battleship on the spot. The violent flooding in a short period of time prevented the ship from even getting a chance to fill it with water. It was destroyed directly due to the large amount of water flooding.
It tilted rapidly and finally sank.
The whole process only takes a few minutes!
A series of torpedo attacks did not last long. They only attacked three battleships in total, and soon they fired torpedoes and ran away.
But it directly led to two sinkings and one heavy damage to the navy of the Kingdom of Krul!
This was not the only battleship sunk by both sides in today's great sea battle. In fact, both sides had lost many battleships in the past few hours.
For the Krul Kingdom's naval fleet, which consisted of dozens of battleships, two sinkings and one damage were nothing.
But the problem is that the way they were sunk was beyond everyone's expectations.
Even the Daheng Empire Navy itself did not expect it to go so smoothly before the war.
After all, the air defense is very bad these days, but their torpedo planes are also very bad... It's really not a problem with these bad things.
The most critical thing is that the Kingdom of Krul actually has no carrier-based fighter jets to intercept their torpedo planes, and their small number of seaplanes were suppressed or simply shot down by a group of carrier-based fighter jets from the Daheng Empire Navy early on.
This allowed the torpedo planes of the Daheng Empire Navy to enter the battlefield in an almost leisurely manner, and then calmly declared war targets and launched torpedoes.
And because the opponent's battleship is bombarding our own battleship!
If you want to conduct air defense operations, you cannot fire the main guns, so you have to bear the main gun bombardment of the Daheng Empire battleship formation unilaterally.
If we did not conduct air defense operations, then the result would have been two heavy losses and one heavy damage!
In this regard, the Krul Navy also quickly made adjustments. On the one hand, they sent a cruiser formation to make a detour, trying to get close to the location of the Daheng aircraft carriers, and then directly sank these aircraft carriers.
Without aircraft carriers, these so-called torpedo planes would naturally cease to exist.
Secondly, more auxiliary ships with air defense capabilities are mobilized to accompany the main formation to conduct air defense operations and protect one's own battleships when necessary.
As for asking our battleships to stop their main guns and conduct air defense operations after the enemy torpedo planes come over, that is impossible.
If you stop, the main gun of the Hengmanzi battleship opposite will not stop.
What's more, if you stop and the torpedo planes don't attack, they just fly beside you, what will you do then?
Anti-aircraft combat? The torpedo planes can't come over, and at the same time, the main gun shells of Hengmanzi's battleship keep flying over.
Abandoning the main gun for air defense, torpedo planes flew over and dropped torpedoes in minutes.
Therefore, their only response was helpless and simple, which was to mobilize a group of destroyers and cruisers to act as air defense ships.
Not to mention, the effect is amazing...
In addition to being accidentally too close to the battle line, and the cruisers had basically no protective capabilities, many of them were accidentally damaged and sunk by the main gun shells of the Daheng's battleships. At other times, they actually drove away the Daheng's torpedo planes.
They even allowed them to shoot down several torpedo planes.
However, in this way, after a large number of their cruisers and destroyers were mobilized, it gave the Daheng Empire Navy's lightning strike force an opportunity to come up and launch torpedoes from time to time.
In short, in the few hours in the morning, the Kruls found that the fight was not going well. Although they sank three or four Hengmanzi battleships, they failed to achieve a decisive effect.
Not to mention, their own losses were greater than those of the Daheng people, sinking five battleships before and after!
By noon, the Third Mobile Fleet, which the Fourth Mobile Fleet had been waiting for, finally rushed all the way to the battlefield!
The fastest runner was the battle formation of the Third Mobile Fleet. The two Royal Princess-class battleships, the Princess and the Prince, two 40,000-ton super battleships, raised their 400 mm caliber guns.
Main gun!
It roared like a super battleship!
When Krul's naval personnel heard the sound of the cannon and saw the water column, a very experienced rear admiral opened his mouth half-open and was stunned!
This is definitely not the sound and water jet of the 350mm main gun!
This is definitely a larger caliber, at least a 380mm main gun, and the generals who knew about the test firing of some 380mm main guns in the Kingdom of Krul were even more trembling in their hearts.
Because the main gun of the opposite Hengmanzi is actually more powerful than the 380 mm main gun, which means that the opponent's main gun may have a caliber of more than 400 mm, and there is a high probability that it is the Hengmanzi mentioned in the intelligence.
The super battleship that Manzi started building before.
How could these Hengbarbarians build these super battleships and put them into service so quickly!
The firing of two Royal Princess-class battlecruisers was just an appetizer!
When the four Daheng-class battleships also came up and opened fire with the 400mm battleships, many of the middle and senior generals of the Krull Kingdom Navy were heartbroken!
Damn it, a 400mm big pipe, how can you fight this!