Chapter 1085: 1086 Dawn is approaching
Chapter 1085 Chapter 1086 Dawn is approaching
Of course, the Tang Army was expanding its results. They were not only expanding their results on the South Island, they also continued to attack the Mirage's main fleet at sea.
This time, it was the 7th Destroyer Squadron of the Datang Navy that launched the attack. They flank the Mirage fleet, so they have a better angle of attack.
As the frontline commander, Mirage Haifeng waited for about half an hour without a call back from the base camp. His message requesting for the evacuation of the wounded warship was lost in silence.
The navy of the Tang Empire did not give Mirage Haifeng any time to wait. They followed the plan and launched a more violent attack about 150 kilometers away from the landing site.
Styx anti-ship missiles one after another rushed into the Mirage Navy battleship formation. In just 15 minutes, two cruisers of the Mirage Navy were hit in succession, and one battleship was injured.
Although the injuries to the battleships hit this time did not seem particularly serious, some details still made Mirage Feng extremely frightened.
None of these battleships were hit critically, which may be good news for the Mirage Navy, but the places where these battleships were hit were all on the sides!
There are various signs that a Tang Empire fleet appeared on the flank of the Mirage Navy Fleet. They can also fire those weird weapons with an astonishingly high accuracy!
Mirong Feng, who had problems with his flanks, was worried that his fleet would suffer more heavy losses due to its exposed flanks.
In his opinion, the front of a battleship has the smallest area that can be hit, while the side is obviously the largest. What is even more worrying is that there are many areas on the side of the battleship that lack armor protection. These are the areas where the battleship is most vulnerable. The vulnerable part.
Sure enough, just when Mirage Haifeng was worried that his fleet would suffer more losses, a Styx anti-ship missile directly hit the Mirage Navy battleship Courage from the side.
Although this battleship is also an old-fashioned battleship, it is still a battleship and is an important part of the Mirage Navy's combat power.
The battleship Courage, which has 10 350 mm caliber main guns, has a very conventional turret layout. The No. 1 and No. 2 turrets are stacked at the front and rear of the ship. There is a turret between the two chimneys in the middle of the hull, followed by the stacked No. 4 and No. 5 turrets. turret.
Such an arrangement allows the battleship to protect more artillery with shorter armor defense, and is also a relatively mature design. However, it is a pity that the ammunition depot and boiler oil under the artillery are placed together, which actually poses certain safety risks.
In normal times, there are very few enemy ships that can penetrate the thick armor of a battleship, destroy the internal structure of the battleship, and induce these safety hazards.
But the jet stream of the Tang Army's Styx anti-ship missile penetrated the pitiful main armor belt on the battleship, which was only about 200 to 300 thick. It was a piece of cake.
The manic jets will roll and roll in all the cabins that are penetrated, until the jets are dispersed and eliminated by enough cabins.
Obviously, the 500-kilogram warhead combined with the penetration capability close to the speed of sound can easily bring flames to the core of the battleship.
The Styx anti-ship missile that penetrated the side armor of the Courage directly ignited the Courage's boiler... The fire started all of a sudden, and the boiler exploded due to the high pressure. The explosion destroyed the partition and burned the ammunition in the middle of the ship. cabin.
Without enough time to add water to extinguish the fire, the ammunition depot of the battleship Courage exploded! The huge explosion twisted and deformed the middle part of the battleship, and lifted the buildings above into the air.
A section of the chimney collapsed directly, and the small-caliber artillery on both sides and the anti-aircraft guns installed later were all destroyed. The warship that had just been moving at full speed trying to keep up with the fleet suddenly reduced its speed to less than 10 kilometers.
Because the steel plates on the side collapsed due to the vibration, and seawater poured into the interior of the battleship, it had to slow down the damage control to possibly save its own life.
This attack also proved to Mirage Haifeng that although most of the Tang army's attacks only hit the superstructure of the battleship, it was possible to severely damage a giant ship with a full load displacement of more than 30,000 tons!
But before Mirage had time to regret it, a heavy cruiser on the far side of his fleet was hit by a Styx anti-ship missile.
Suddenly, the battleship burst into flames, and the flames spurted from the chimney frightened the mirage sailors on the surrounding battleships.
Immediately afterwards, the cruiser named Shenhu was broken in the middle. It became the first battleship of the Mirage Navy to be sunk tonight, a full ten years ahead of the second battleship to be sunk. few minutes.
The Shenhu cruiser is not originally a new ship, but its design is too speed-oriented, so it can still keep up with the fleet.
Because of its fragile protection and unreasonable magazine configuration, its explosion was a matter of course.
The slender hull almost made the Styx anti-ship missile pass through, but the missile luckily hit the chimney of the Mirage warship, as well as the ammunition compartments of some newly added anti-aircraft guns. These equipment became Another layer of armor was added to allow the Styx missile to exert its full power. After these ammunition were ignited, they exploded immediately, turning the entire battleship into a brilliant fireworks.
"General! If this continues, the entire fleet will be doomed!" the staff officer worriedly reminded Mirage Haifeng, but his hope that the commander would order a retreat was destined to receive no response.
Mirage Haifeng sighed and said: "The base camp's order, the fleet must go south! Keep the speed! Execute the order!"
The staff officer was stunned for a few seconds, then nodded heavily, and then retreated to his position. On the other side, the Mirage battleship Niijima had just been hit by a Styx anti-ship missile and also started to catch fire.
As the entire mirage fleet advanced, warships were constantly injured. As they went along, they gradually turned the "<-shaped formation into a <--shaped formation.
What made Mirage Haifeng dumbfounded was that about half of the warships were on fire, and his fleet seemed to be marching with torches.
The good news is that it is already five or six o'clock in the morning, and if they stay up for a while, they can survive until dawn. The bad news is... the dawn doesn't seem to be of any help to them either.
Even if such a fleet is approaching the landing site of the Tang Army, Haifeng does not believe that he is sure to gain an advantage in the artillery battle with the Tang Army's fleet.
According to the intelligence department of the Mirage Kingdom, the Tang Army has at least six new battleships. Now, the main fleet of the Mirage Kingdom under the command of Mirage Haifeng actually no longer has any advantage on paper.
The Mirage and the Goblin battleship of the same class as the Mirage battleship are the national treasures of the Mirage Kingdom. These two battleships are equipped with terrifying 460 mm caliber main guns. Part of the technology of this thing is still used by the Goblins in Xiri. Purchased from the Grameen Consortium.
I heard that the design work of this kind of artillery was basically completed by the Datang Group, but due to high price and other issues, it was not equipped on the Battleships of the Datang Empire Navy.
So the Mirage State was so lucky that it equipped its battleships with a total of 12 such artillery pieces! That's right, Mirage's new battleship adopts a layout of two in front and one in back, but only two main guns are installed on each turret.
The Mirage-class is not a copy of the Yamato-class, but a scaled-down version: the Mirage is unable to imitate the Koinichi Kingdom and build such a huge battleship.
In fact, the total tonnage of the Mirage and the Goblin is about 50,000 tons, which is quite a bit less than a battleship of Yamato's level. If this were not the case, the Mirage Kingdom would not be able to accumulate so many battleships.
The idea of Mirage is to use the caliber advantage of the artillery on the new battleships to overwhelm the Tang battleships in artillery battles... But until now, they have not waited for the opportunity to go head-to-head with the Tang Empire battleships.
The darkness before dawn is the most difficult, and this is also true for Mirage. He racked his brains and thought about how he should face the Tang Air Force that might appear after dawn.
At that time, he would have to endure the attack of the weapon that had crushed him all night, and he would have to deal with a large number of enemy aircraft harassment... He didn't even know if he would have a chance to get close to the one who seemed so close but was far away in the horizon. The landing site of the Tang Army.
He hoped that there would be support from Zero fighter jets at dawn, but it was a pity that Mirage took out all the planes and could not gather enough strength to satisfy Mirage: Mirage promised to support the naval fleet, but only 20 Zero fighters were available. fighter jets and 18 Dragon-Slaying bombers…
That’s right! Mirage Wu Zhong sent out all the planes at the bottom of the box to cover the navy. For this reason, he used junks like Tulong as fighter jets.
Just as Mirage Haifeng was thinking about how to deal with the suddenly complicated battlefield situation at dawn, a lookout on a destroyer outside the Mirage Navy discovered that something seemed to be approaching on the sea.
Suddenly, he realized that this was a torpedo launched by the Tang Army! He shook the copper bell next to him, pointed at things on the sea, and shouted loudly to his comrades at his feet.
A torpedo had already intersected with the destroyer at this time, and many sailors had already seen the white track intersecting with the side of the destroyer they were on, but the collision and explosion they feared did not come.
The white track passed through the destroyer and headed rapidly toward the core area of the Mirage Fleet. At this time, everyone realized that the fixed depth of this torpedo did not seem to be used to deal with small boats like theirs.
"Quick! Send a message quickly! Alert the fleet! Torpedoes! Pay attention to the enemy's torpedoes..." Captain Mirage in the bridge gave the order with a pale face. When he just sent the message, a ship in the distance was larger than the destroyer. A column of water "rose" from the side of the cruiser for two full turns!
The torpedo charge exploded in the water, twisting the hull of the battleship, lifting it high, and then fell heavily back into the sea...
(End of this chapter)