After Liu Hai decided to attack the enemy at night, he ordered the fleet to be divided into two parts, with four Iowa battleships as the raiding fleet, and the remaining few warships lingering around the periphery.
At around 11 o'clock that night, Liu Hai personally led the raiding fleet in the direction of the enemy fleet.
After they drove for an hour, the other party appeared on the radar.
After driving for nearly an hour, they finally approached the fleet led by Knut Clone.
At this time, their entire fleet had anchored, and except for some personnel on duty, everyone on the warship had fallen asleep.
Liu Hai's four Iowa battleships slowly approached the opponent's sea surface 15 kilometers away.
At this point, the four battleships also began to slow down, and then aimed their guns at the enemy fleet.
After calibration by the fire control radars and computers on the battleships, the four Iowa battleships fired their first salvo.
Since this was at night, even though the radar and fire control system were used to help with aiming, the shooting accuracy was still much lower than during the day. Therefore, the first salvo did not cause any losses to the opponent's fleet.
However, this time the bombardment awakened the sleeping fleet.
Knut Kron was on the bed and was forcibly lifted up by his adjutant. Although Knut Kron was a little annoyed, he also heard the sound of shelling.
Now Knut Kron thought that the sailors on some warship were disobeying the command and firing cannons privately.
"Which warship opened fire randomly?"
"Commander, it was not our warships that opened fire, but we were attacked."
After hearing this, Knut Clone said nothing, put on his own clothes, and went up to the bridge of the Sovereign.
By the time Knut Clone arrived in the command module of the Sovereign, the place was already brightly lit.
At this time, the four Iowa battleships fired their second salvo. This time the accuracy was pretty good, and one of the 406mm shells hit an Edgar-class cruiser.
This 7,000-ton cruiser immediately burst into flames after being hit by a shell.
When Liu Hai saw this situation on board the Huangdi, a smile appeared on his face, and then he ordered the people next to him: "Concentrate your firepower and sink it."
Liu Hai gave an order, and four warships immediately launched a third bombardment on the cruiser.
This time, all 36 shells missed, but this is a common occurrence in naval battles, so Liu Hai was not disappointed. Sure enough, during the fourth salvo, two more 406mm shells hit the ship.
A cruiser of over 7,000 tons.
At this time, the cruiser could no longer hold up and immediately broke into several pieces and sank quickly.
Knut Clone on the Sovereign was very helpless when he saw this situation. In the darkness, although there would be some small bright spots every time the opponent fired, it soon dimmed. In this case, the fleet
It is impossible to detect the enemy at all, let alone attack.
Knut Kron knew what method he had to take now. He thought for a moment and could only give a helpless order? "All light cruisers move towards the enemy? Then turn on the searchlights to guide the direction of the main fleet."
After giving this order, Knut Klon thought for a moment, and then ordered the four Sovereign-class battleships of the main fleet to set sail immediately and maneuver on the sea as quickly as possible to avoid becoming the target of the opponent's attack.
Knut Clone now has a very puzzling question? It has been lingering in his heart, that is, in this dark night, how can the opponent launch an attack like during the day?
Of the fleet's 15 Cossack-class light cruisers, a total of 10 were dispatched this time. How many other ships followed the fleet to prevent a sneak attack?
Cossack-class light cruiser? It has a displacement of 1,980 tons, but is equipped with six 152 mm guns and has a sailing speed of 20 knots.
This was considered a very advanced cruiser at the time. Both its firepower and speed were top-notch at the time, but its tonnage was less than 2,000 tons. It can be said that the tonnage has been used to the extreme.
There are seven such cruisers in Liu Hai's fleet, and the Nanyang Fleet is full of praise for this class of light cruisers. Even though it is only less than 2,000 tons, if it is on the sea with more than 4,000 tons,
Even if a warship encounters one place, it will not necessarily be at a disadvantage.
Therefore, Knut Kron still has high hopes for the assault of these 10 cruisers. They just cannot provide direction to the fleet and can launch torpedoes nearby. More importantly, these 10 cruisers are small in size and fast in speed.
, can hide the opponent very well, but may not necessarily be able to detect them from a long distance.
But Knut Kron didn't know that as soon as these ten cruisers started moving, the radars on the four Ava-class battleships discovered them.
Liu Hai would not just wait for the 10 cruisers to approach his battleship. He ordered the 4 battleships to also increase their speed.
This time, the speed of the four Yihua-class battleships has increased from a leisurely eight knots to 25 knots. In this era, this speed cannot be matched by any warship.
Therefore, when the ten cruisers that rushed over arrived at their destination, they found that there was nothing around them.
Before these cruisers could react, they were immediately hit with a heavy blow.
This time, these light cruisers faced not only the main guns of the Iowa-class battleships, but also the 12 127mm secondary guns of the Iowa-class battleships.
Originally, the Iowa-class battleships were supposed to have 20 127mm secondary guns, but due to the angle, only 12 twin 127mm secondary guns could actually be fired.
However, this was enough for the other side. The bombardment from the 4 warships with a total of 48 127mm secondary guns lit up half the sky.
Three cruisers were hit on the spot, and a raging fire broke out on the sea.
Immediately afterwards, the Yihua-class battleship launched another main gun attack on it. Although there was no direct hit, a shell exploded next to a light cruiser, and the huge wave that immediately set off directly overturned it.
The remaining Cossack-class light cruisers could only fire randomly on the sea in the general direction of the four Yihua-class battleships. The results of the shooting were naturally very disappointing. Not a single shell landed on the four ships.
Within 100 meters of Iowa and battleships.
At this time, the main force of the enemy fleet, which was already in action, also knew the general position of the four Iowa-class battleships, so all the battleships carried out indiscriminate bombing in this direction.
Although this shelling did not pose any threat to the Iowa-class battleship, it did startle Liu Hai, so he immediately ordered the warship to speed up and leave the area, and circled back to the side and rear of the enemy fleet.
At this point, the main guns of the four Sovereign-class battleships in Knut Cron's fleet were almost useless.
As for the artillery fire on several other warships, because the caliber of the artillery muzzles is too small, it no longer poses a threat to the Souyihua-class battleship.
At this point, Liu Hai can confidently and boldly bombard the enemy.
Liu Hai's attack this time focused on the opponent's four most elite Sovereign-class battleships.
Because Liu Hai knew that the 305mm cannons equipped on these four battleships still posed some threat to the Iowa-class battleships.
Liu Hai's first round of firing this time did not pose a threat to the four Sovereign-class battleships, but one of the shells also landed on the side of the Sovereign-class battleship Empress, forming a close arrow.
When faced with the threat, the four Sovereign-class battleships immediately changed their direction and aimed their guns at the Yihua-class battleship.
However, because the Iowa-class battleship was much faster than the Sovereign-class battleship, the Sovereign-class battleship never achieved its goal, and then faced the second round of bombardment.
This time there was a shell in the bombardment, which accurately hit the side of the Empress, reducing the speed of the Empress from 18 knots to 12 knots.
This battleship could no longer resist the speed of several of his Sovereign-class battleships.
Knut Krone understood that his country could not afford to lose a Sovereign-class battleship, so he ordered two Admiral-class ironclads to move forward to escort him.
These two Admiral-class ironclads are actually the predecessors of the Sovereign-class battleships, and the Sovereign-class battleships were built based on them.
Moreover, this ironclad ship is equipped with a formidable 413mm main gun. Although due to technical reasons, this type of main gun has many areas for improvement in terms of range and accuracy, it has to be denied that this
The first-level main gun is the most powerful in the world today.
In this way, Knut Clone's main fleet was divided into two parts, one part consisted of three Sovereign-class battleships, and the other part consisted of two Admiral ironclads and one injured Sovereign-class battleship.
When Liu Hai saw this situation, he once again increased his speed to 30 knots and quickly penetrated the opponent's fleet.
These four Iowa-class battleships passed behind the Sovereign-class battleship, making it impossible for the Sovereign-class battleship's main guns to aim at the Iowa-class battleship, while the Iowa-class battleships could use the 36 main guns of these four ships.
The Sovereign-class battleship conducted a fierce bombardment.
This time, the Counterattack, which was at the very end of the four Sovereign-class battleships, was hit by four cannonballs on the spot. The hull tilted immediately, and its speed reached 8 knots.
At this time, the two Admiral-class ironclads of the Second Main Fleet behind the Sovereign-class battleship also rushed to the scene. They used their 413mm main guns to violently attack Liu Hai's four Iowa-class battleships.
Because Liu Hai was afraid of the 413mm main guns on the two battleships, in order to prevent his Iowa battleship from being injured, he quickly left the side and rear of the Sovereign-class battleship, then made an arc, and appeared again in front of the enemy.