Liu Hai's Nanyang Navy and the intervention fleet have both made the decision to fight, and now the fleet is slowly approaching.
When the distance approached 15 kilometers, the four Iowa-class battleships used their ultra-long range and the assistance of radar to launch an artillery strike first.
The first round of 36 406mm artillery shells hit the main force of the intervention fleet like meteors.
But it is a pity that there was no loss to the intervening fleet, but it only caused a cross-fire.
As the commander of the fleet, Knut Kron stared at the opponent's main fleet with a telescope. When he saw the opponent's first round of bombardment, it formed a cross-fire, and the shadow in his heart became even greater.
The accuracy of the opponent's artillery fire has completely exceeded his imagination. Within a distance of 15 kilometers, the first shot formed a straddle shot. I am afraid that the accuracy will become higher and higher in the future.
But we can't attack now, because shelling now is simply a waste of shells. Although the 305 mm caliber main gun on the Sovereign can hit such a long distance, when the shells fly 15 kilometers, they are no longer accurate.
.
So Knut Clone immediately ordered the main force of the fleet to advance at full speed.
Therefore, the four Sovereign-class battleships at the head immediately increased their speed to the highest speed of 18 knots.
The two Admiral-class ironclads and Edgar-class cruisers behind him were not to be outdone. Due to the new boilers, their speed could reach 18 knots.
As the two sides got closer and closer, the Iowa-class battleship conducted a second bombardment. This time the bombardment was much more accurate than the previous one. One shell directly hit the Admiral ironclad.
After the ironclad ship was hit, its speed immediately dropped, and a raging fire broke out on the ship. Faced with this situation, the battleship immediately signaled, then withdrew from the battle line and came to the rear of the fleet for emergency repairs.
Next, the Iowa-class battleship conducted another five rounds of bombardment, but luck was relatively bad, and these five rounds of bombardment did not produce any results.
By this time, the distance between the two sides had entered a range of 10 kilometers, and the British battleship, the Sovereign-class battleship, could finally open fire at this distance.
So at that time, 16 305 mm caliber artillery shells flew towards the Nanyang Navy.
However, because the gun sighting system on the Sovereign-class battleship was relatively backward, the first attack did not produce any effect, and the deviation distance was still very large. Not a single shell came within 200 meters of the Liu Hai Nanyang Fleet.
When Liu Hai's Nanyang Fleet launched another bombardment, in addition to the four Iowa-class battleships, the ironclad Jiangxi and the armored cruiser Hefei also joined the attack.
This time the fierce bombardment finally achieved results. A 406 mm caliber shell hit the side of the Empress.
The Queen's battleship suffered heavy damage last night. Although it underwent emergency repairs, it could only barely fight.
This time he was shot again, immediately opening a large hole several meters wide on his flank, and the cracks that had been urgently repaired last night also opened again.
As a result, countless seawater poured into the battleship HMS Empress. The captain of the HMS Empress hurriedly ordered the opening of the cabin on the other side to balance the Empress of India.
Just like this, the speed of this cutting-edge Sovereign-class battleship suddenly dropped to about 8 knots.
As the commander of the fleet, Liu Wei naturally knew that it was better to cut off one of his fingers than to injure ten, so he immediately ordered four Iowa-class battleships to conduct a concentrated fire attack on the injured Sovereign-class battleship.
Sure enough, during the second round of firing, the Sovereign-class battleship was hit again by two 406mm shells. The wheel hub broke on the spot and began to sink.
And Knut Kron was not idle either. When the opponent was shooting at his Empress battleship, he also ordered all the artillery to focus on shooting at the Nanyang Navy's flagship Huangdi battleship.
After five rounds of shooting, a 305mm shell finally hit the side armor of the Huangdi.
However, due to the strong armor of the Huangdi and the use of new armor steel, this shell had no effect. It did not even scratch the armor of the Huangdi, but only formed a black mass on the paint surface.
Knut Clone was originally happy that his cannon hit the opponent, but as the battleship Huangdi continued to fight unscathed, Knut Clone's eyes showed despair.
In fact, he didn't have much confidence in defeating these four behemoths, but he hoped to at least severely damage one of them and allow the navy to retain some face and even hope.
But the reality is too cruel. The latest artillery on their battleship Sovereign was unable to damage the opponent at all.
Then, as the two sides got closer and closer, the accuracy of the artillery became even more accurate.
First of all, because the Iowa-class battleships not only have larger artillery caliber, but also have a faster rate of fire than the Sovereign-class battleships.
Therefore, his several rounds of bombardment were effective, and one of the shells hit the Admiral.
This most advanced ironclad ship in the British Navy was unable to defend itself against attacks from 406mm artillery shells. A single shell hit completely rendered her fragile armor useless and hit her keel.
Therefore, the battleship Admiral slowly began to sink.
When another Admiral-class battleship, the Indomitable, saw this situation and didn't know what was going on, it actually started to break away from the battle line and fled to the rear of the fleet.
When the fleet commander Knut Kron saw this situation, he was so angry that he yelled: "When I get back to London, I will make this bastard court-martialed."
But it is useless to scold him now. The fleet he leads is now at a disadvantage both in terms of tonnage and quantity.
But their disaster was not over yet. At this time, a 12-inch caliber shell from the ironclad Jiangxi hit the command module of the flagship of the Geely Fleet, the Sovereign. The command module was penetrated on the spot, causing 15 casualties.
Tragedy.
This time, among the injured was the commander of the British fleet, Admiral Knut Klon.
Knut Kron was using a telescope to observe the movements of four Iowa-class battleships. Suddenly, a shell penetrated the cabin, and a steel fragment hit his head, causing him to bleed.
When the fleet chief of staff on the side saw this situation, he immediately ordered Admiral Lewis to be sent to the rest cabin below for treatment.
As the chief of staff of the fleet, Peter Lamont took over the command at this critical moment and continued to command the fleet to fight against the Nanyang Navy.
In the following rounds of bombardment, the 305mm-caliber guns equipped by the Sovereign-class battleships also hit the Iowa-class battleships of the Nanyang Navy several times.
However, due to the power of the artillery, these shells had no impact on the Iowa battleship at all.
On the contrary, the Iowa battleship USS Qin Shihuang continuously hit the opponent's battleship USS Sovereign. After being attacked by 4 shells, this iconic battleship finally could no longer hold on and began to tilt slowly.
Peter Lamont saw that the Sovereign was unsalvageable, so he could only order everyone to abandon the ship. He also left the Sovereign in a small boat, reboarded the Repulse behind the Sovereign, and continued to command the battle.
At this time, Knut Kron, who was the commander of the fleet, was also transported from the small boat to the battleship Repulse.
After all this tossing, Knut Clone finally came to his senses.
Although Knut Clone's head was still covered in blood, he managed to come to the command room of the Repulse to understand the situation of the battle.
After Chief of Staff Peter Lamont reported the situation to Knut Kron, he incidentally handed command back to the commander.
Knut Clone stood in the cabin and looked at his fleet with a telescope. Several warships had already caught fire, and two of the Sovereign-class battleships had been lost. If the situation continued like this, the interfering fleet would be completely wiped out.
He knew that defeat was inevitable, and the most important thing now was to leave a glimmer of hope for his fleet.
So Knut Kron issued an order for the Counterattack and Ramillis, and the two Sovereign-class battleships immediately began to retreat.
Four Edgar-class armored cruisers moved to the front to defend the main fleet from artillery fire.
On Liu Hai's side, he also saw a change in the opponent's formation. Their two most elite Sovereign-class battleships had begun to retreat.
Liu Wei immediately judged that the opponent wanted to preserve his strength and leave the battlefield.
So the order was given, and the Jiangxi Hou Ironclad ship and the Hefei armored cruiser immediately left the group and met the four Edgar-class armored cruisers.
Liu Mei led four Iowa-class battleships in a circle, out of the attack range of the Edgar-class armored cruiser, and pursued the two Sovereign-class battleships that had left the battlefield.
The ironclad Jiangxi and the armored cruiser Hefei also knew that their numbers were smaller than the opponent's, so they did not engage in hand-to-hand combat with the opponent. Instead, they used the advantage of being two knots faster than the opponent to open up a distance to continuously enter the opponent's main body.
Attack the gun's blind spot.
After five rounds of bombardment, the Jiangxi Hou Ironclad finally fired a 12-inch main gun, and the shell hit an Edgar-class armored cruiser.
This shell just penetrated the Edgar-class armored cruiser, and the thick deck fell into the opponent's shell chamber.
Immediately, the warship's artillery shells exploded, and then the entire warship jumped high as if it was lifted out of the water by the palm of a giant, and then fell hard, and then the warship was divided into
It reached three and a half meters and quickly disappeared on the horizontal plane.
The remaining three Edgar-class armored cruisers changed their tactics when they saw that a warship was sunk. They sent a warship to attract the opponent's firepower. The other two warships were behind this warship.
The four 233mm-caliber main guns on the bow of the ship fired continuously at the ironclad Jiangxi.