Chapter 759: Caught off guard
"Let the light cruiser Sydney cover the transport fleet, and the Melbourne and the Defense will stand by outside the entrance." After thinking about it, he decided to be more cautious. "By the way, send a signal to those ships, ask them if they have found other large warships, and ask them to wait aside."
Soon, the radio wave sent in clear code was sent out, and the other party seemed to be very interesting. Slowed down, turned around, and sent a call back. While expressing his obedience, he said that no other large ships were found.
"Maybe it was a false alarm." Colonel Harris wiped a cold sweat, then picked up a cup of coffee. He hasn't rested since last night and is in high tension. Now he needs to refresh himself.
However, I just took a sip of coffee and picked up the beef burger at hand before I had time to take a bite, when a clever figure passed by the window. He quickly threw away the bread in his hand and ran to the observation window of the control tower. It was a seaplane, no, two! And definitely not a Royal Navy model!
"We may be in big trouble!" An ominous premonition haunts Harris, but he doesn't know where the danger comes from!
As if responding to Harris' premonition, a transport ship behind the fleet was suddenly shrouded in water columns of up to tens of meters! The sound of shells entering the water and the violent explosions plunged the entire fleet into chaos. All the transport ships had Royal Navy personnel, and these personnel naturally knew that this was an attack by a large-caliber naval gun!
The opponent's first round of shooting was very accurate, and it directly caught the target! But to Harris' surprise, the target was not found in the Defense's rangefinder!
"Let the Sydney and the destroyer come here, we are in big trouble!" Harris immediately ordered, and the huge defense began to turn, and with him was the light cruiser Melbourne.
The second round of volleys arrived as scheduled in just 20 seconds! This time, the opponent directly hit the poor transport ship, like an egg smashed by a heavy hammer, the superstructure of the transport ship with a displacement of 5000 tons was directly blown to pieces! Like a behemoth headed by a owl.
The transport ship that was hit was dragging thick black smoke and flames to try to avoid death’s deadly sickle, but only 10 seconds later, another round of shells fell. This time, Harris could observe two hits, once. At the stern, Harris could clearly see that half of the stern was cut off. The transport ship quickly slipped. But before the opponent was struggling, a cannonball fell straight on the already messy deck like the sword of Damocles. This cannonball penetrated at least three decks and exploded at the bottom of the cabin. There are also large amounts of ammunition carried by transport ships.
Boom! Accompanied by a loud noise, the entire transport ship was torn into pieces by a violent explosion. A huge fireball rose up from the sea. Then a huge mushroom cloud pushed the broken hull parts into the air, after gradually cooling down. , Forming a plume of smoke up to more than 150 meters. The re-falling pieces were scattered in the fleet, almost everyone was stunned!
"Damn, we can't see the attacker!" The gun commander of the armored cruiser Defense roared angrily. Judging from the opponent's shelling frequency, this is definitely not something that a warship can fire. The next two rounds of shells can't be separated. For 10 seconds, even a half salvo cannot be achieved, because the swing cycle of the battleship must be considered when the artillery fires. Without that battleship, the swing cycle would be only 10 seconds!
The tragedy, however, is that the British did not find a warship. The Defense has turned its bow and rushed over. It is as brave as a warrior who swears to guard his relatives, but finds the enemy invisible!
"They are behind those merchant ships!" At this time, the telegram from the Melbourne USS pointed out the direction to Harris. From the defensive point of view, the opponent could not be found, but from the other direction, the Melbourne found the target.
"Warn those merchant ships with secondary artillery, don't get in the way!" The defense's 7.5-inch artillery fired. The falling shells made the merchant ships caught between the two fleets immediately understand what, the latter quickly hid aside. Revealing the attacker with his back against the sun!
"God, what did I see?" a British naval officer looked at the somewhat vague figure in the combined rangefinder and said in terror. The opponent's offensive position is very good, with his back against the sun, which is definitely a very big trouble for the optical rangefinder. This makes it very difficult for the British to judge ship type and distance. At this time, the distance between the two sides was about 15 kilometers, and it was very difficult to compromise the defense number with only 9-inch rangefinder and 9.2-inch main gun!
"That's definitely a dreadnought ship! Can anyone tell me how the Germans came here? Did they fly over from the North Sea?" At this time Colonel Harris's anger against the intelligence services of the British Empire has reached the point of inexhaustible increase, an armored cruiser and 2 light cruisers fight 2 dreadnoughts? What do you think?
"Kill these warships first, and hand over those merchant ships to auxiliary cruisers and mines." At this time, watching the Defense and Melbourne fast approaching in the distance and the Sydney a little further behind, Su Xiong ordered the fleet to move the muzzle. Aimed at the British battleship.
Anyway, Raidel is really a consultant. Under his design, the German fleet has obtained the best state of receiving the enemy~www.wuxiaspot.com~ The sun’s back makes it difficult for the fleet to be locked by the opposing optical instruments. And beginning to use the fleet in front to block its own figure allows the fleet to enter a moderate combat distance, 15 kilometers, already within the best range of the 350MM naval gun, and this distance is at the defender. The edge of the range, and even if it hits, it is impossible to penetrate it. As for lightning strikes? You have to run at least 10 kilometers to make a hit...
The Scharnhorst was in front and the Gneisenau was behind. The two ultra-dreadnought fast battleships chose the Defense and Melbourne respectively. The huge turret was guided by the rangefinder and pointed to the target, accompanied by a roar. It sounded again, the thick and long 350MML45 artillery jumped backwards, and 4 rounds weighing more than 600 kilograms flew out of the barrel!
Defense is also an old ship, fighting for the British Empire for at least 8 years! Insufficient boiler pressure and aging pipes always plague this second-line warship. So its bones are not so flexible, and the result of inflexibility is to be hit!
A cannonball slammed into the defense like a brick. This shell hit the twin 7.5-inch secondary gun turret on the port side of the defense. The fragile armor was easily penetrated like iron. After being broken into pieces, the flames from the violent explosion directly ignited the spare shells in the tail compartment of the turret. Along with a loud noise, a fire dragon of more than 20 meters soared into the sky! Fortunately, the fire door of this turret is closed...
The third one is here~~~! Please subscribe for a reward~~~!
