"Raise the gun, aim... and fire!"
"Pa bang bang..."
Following Charlie Elliot's order, hundreds of new bass rifles fired simultaneously, hundreds of bullets flew into the air, and then...oh, nothing more. The new Bess rifle is just an ordinary rifle used by infantry, not an anti-aircraft rifle designed to attack airships - such a rifle designed to attack airships will be developed soon, but it is not available yet. Therefore, the bullets fired by the new bass simply cannot reach the airship flying at an altitude of 1,200 meters.
Looking at the airships lined up in a line, they were still slowly flying towards me, unscathed. Charlie Elliot was almost enveloped in despair. These damn airships have not launched any attack on the Indomitable until now. They just circled slowly in the sky, flew behind the Indomitable, and then pulled In a line, flying at a speed of about twenty knots, slowly, slowly approaching the Indomitable.
This is like asking Guan Tianpei to tie up Charlie Yilu and place him face up on a slow guillotine. Let him watch the sharp guillotine slowly fall down, but he can't do anything... ....Oh, he can also order the sailors on the battleship Indomitable to use rifles to line up and shoot the airships in the sky.
Of course, the rifle could not stop the airship, and the Indomitable was only able to survive at a speed of fifteen or six knots, and could not escape the pursuit of an airship flying at a speed of twenty knots. After a while, the airship Guan Tianpei was riding on had slowly flown over the Indomitable... The Indomitable, which was accelerating desperately in an attempt to escape the pursuit of the airship, had now reached its maximum speed of sixteen knots, but this speed could not be sustained. of. This is the speed that can be maintained for a short period of time after using full-power forced ventilation. If you keep this speed all the time, you may get a "fry"!
But George Elliot can't control that much. He just wants to maintain high speed now - the higher the speed, the less likely he is to be hit by bombs dropped by airships in the sky. Oh, George Elliot didn't know how to use an S-shaped route to avoid bombs. He only knew that the faster, the better. But no matter how fast he is, he can't be faster than the airship in the sky! But the Indomitable is the Indomitable and will not admit defeat so easily. Guan Tianpei and Ma Xuchen are not in a hurry to chase the Indomitable. They just run after the Indomitable unhurriedly. I don't know how long I ran "up and down", but suddenly I saw the Indomitable on the sea shook violently, and then the 12,000-ton ship seemed to be deflated, and its speed suddenly slowed down.
"Haha, it's really blown up!" Guan Tianpei in the sky seemed to have expected this scene, stroking his beard and laughing, "Okay, now you can calmly blow it up!"
Ma Xuchen also said with a face of surprise: "Admiral, just take a look!"
As he spoke, the airship began to slow down under Ma Xuchen's personal control. Ma Xuchen first disconnected the transmission system between the two engines and propellers. The remaining two propellers also maintained a very low speed, but the airship was still faster than the Indomitable. After flying for a long time, the Indomitable was lost. passed over the head.
At this moment, the bombardier's voice rang: "Stop!"
Ma Xuchen's hands were already on the two red wrenches. Hearing the sound of the bombardier, he pulled the wrenches hard. The two propellers that were still rotating on the airship suddenly lost power and soon stopped rotating completely.
The airship that has lost power can now only rely on inertia and wind to move forward slowly. Today, the wind above Jiyin Waterway is not strong and the wind direction is very stable. The airship is flying slowly and steadily in the sky. Originally, it dared to The battleship Indomitable naturally caught up again, and saw its bow passing under the airship.
The No. 1 bombardier squinted his left eye and only used one right eye to look down through the bombsight. The moment the bow of the Indomitable appeared in the sight, the No. 1 bombardier pulled down the bombsight. He opened the handbrake and shouted in a Henan accent: "Catch!"
When the word "中" was shouted, the airship's magazine suddenly opened, and 16 bombs were thrown out with a roar. At this moment, the airship suddenly lightened up and suddenly jumped up.
At the same time, everyone on the airship stretched their necks through the windows or other things, holding their breath and looking down - to see if those bombs could hit?
That's 16 100kg armor-piercing bullets!
The deck of the Indomitable can't withstand it at all. If only one hits, the Indomitable will become the "Screaming"!
On the Indomitable, every Royal Navy officer and soldier who knew they were being bombed held their breath and silently chanted "Heavenly Father bless" in their hearts. Charlie Elliot was no exception. He only saw him raising his neck with a dead look in his eyes. Staring at the rapidly falling black spots, he muttered: "Heavenly Father bless you, Amen..."
Just when the "door" of Amen was exiting, those "black spots" indeed fell to the sea along the starboard side of the Indomitable with the blessing of Heavenly Father.
"It's okay..." Charlie Yilu just breathed a sigh of relief. His whole body was shrouded in fear. He quickly grabbed a red-haired Scotsman next to him and blocked him in front of him. At the same time, he walked to the deck. Knocked down.
"Boom boom boom..."
Before Charlie Elliot's body touched the deck, the earth-shaking explosion, the sea water stirred up by the explosion of the bomb in the water, and the bomb fragments swept towards the starboard deck of the Indomitable!
Although the 16 bombs did not hit directly, they landed very close to the starboard side of the Indomitable. The picric acid bomb is very sensitive, and violent collision with sea water will detonate the bomb.
The shrapnel from the 16 near-missed bombs swept across the deck of the Indomitable like raindrops, mowing down all the British sailors on the deck who were holding up their rifles and trying to shoot the airship - this was a real deck wash!
Because Charlie Elliot reacted half a step faster, he pulled a Scotsman to block the bullet for him, which saved half his life... just half! Because the Scotsman blocked Charlie Elliot's upper body, but not his lower body. He was totally focused on his head and not his buttocks. As a result, a piece of bomb fragment hit Charlie Elliot's big butt without any deviation, and with a pop, it "opened the buttocks." Although Yilu's buttocks are quite thick, he can't stand such a wide spread! Both buttocks were cut into four parts, causing him to scream in agony.
But after all, he was a veteran who had participated in the Napoleonic Wars. At this time, he was not so painful that he gave up on himself. He was still screaming and crawling through the pile of dead people to get behind the hood of a 6-inch gun. There were several artillerymen hidden behind the hood of this 6-inch gun. Seeing their buttocks blooming, the chief of staff quickly went up to hold him down, then blocked his mouth, took off his trousers, and began to bandage his "four" Flap ass”….
Just when Charlie Elliot was temporarily saved, the second airship had already flown to the Indomitable and started dropping bombs.
This time, the bombing method was the same. First, fly in front of the Indomitable and make a "sudden stop", and then when the "head" of the Indomitable appeared in the bombardier's eyepiece, 16 100-kilogram bombs roared down.
"God bless, God bless..."
In the command tower, George Elliot is doing his best to help the Indomitable avoid bombs - the way he works is to pray! Yes, just pray! He doesn't know the S-shaped evasion route now, and he doesn't have an anti-aircraft gun that can shoot airships. He can shoot smoke...but after the smoke is released, the "anti-aircraft volley" cannot be fired.
So all George Elliot could do was pray sincerely.
But he was not the only one who knew how to pray. The airship bombardier who dropped bombs from the sky and Guan Tianpei also prayed.
"King Wu Zhong bless! Zhuge Kongming bless! Ancestor Guan Erye bless..."
Look, it’s King Wuzhong again, it’s Zhuge Liang, it’s Second Master Guan... and his surname is Guan! Those above are too embarrassed not to bless me!
So the second round of bombs dropped another dozen near-misses. This time, they hit the port side of the Indomitable. The shrapnel from 11 100-kilogram bombs swept across the port side of the Indomitable and hit the "air defense" that was firing. The platoon gunners" were all wiped out.
Nine out of ten of the platoon gunners on both sides were dead, and the remaining ones who were still alive were all too scared to find a place to hide. The Indomitable's anti-aircraft firepower was suddenly silenced.
"Boom boom boom..."
When the spray and smoke from another near-missile bomb dissipated, Lieutenant Colonel Ma Xuchen, captain of the First Airship Battalion, who was watching the battle from the air, had already discovered that the battleship below had become "dumb", so he immediately ordered: "Quickly generate electricity. Order boats No. 8 to No. 25 to lower their altitude to 800 meters!"
"Yes, sir!"
1,200 meters is a bit high, so it is normal for bombs to miss. After lowering 400 meters, only 800 meters remain, and the accuracy of bombing will naturally improve.
Sure enough, one of the 16 bombs dropped by Airship No. 9 hit the stern deck of the Indomitable!
The 100-kilogram bomb penetrated the deck on the spot and exploded in the sailor's cabin below the deck. Burning picric acid flew randomly in the cabin where many flammable materials were piled, causing a fire in an instant.
Although this explosion did not cause much damage to the Indomitable, it greatly encouraged the Ming Navy aviation in the sky.
"Boat No. 12 to No. 25 will descend another 400 meters!"
Ma Xuchen, who discovered that the anti-aircraft firepower of the Indomitable must have been muted, once again issued an order to lower the altitude.
Before boats No. 12 to 25 descended to the designated height, the bomb dropped by boat No. 11 hit the Indomitable again. What was bombed this time was the lifeboat deck of the Indomitable. Because of the obstruction of a lifeboat, the bomb did not penetrate the deck, but exploded on the lifeboat deck, igniting all the lifeboats and causing a fire.
The fires in the sailors' cabins and lifeboat decks were actually not serious, but because a large number of sailors had been killed by near-missiles due to the genius tactic of "queuing up to shoot the airship", there was no way to carry out effective damage control, and the fire was The more it burns, the more prosperous it becomes.
Just when the Indomitable was about to be "cooked," the bomb dropped by Boat No. 12, which had dropped to a height of 400 meters, hit the Indomitable again. This time, one of the two obliquely connected turrets was hit.
This turret also has no cover, but even if it did, it couldn't withstand a direct hit from a 100 kilogram armor-piercing bomb! The bomb fell directly into the turret, and there was a big explosion inside, blowing away the two 16-inch cannons. However, because the two cannons did not fire and all the shells were hidden in the ammunition magazine under the turret, they were not exploded and the Indomitable escaped temporarily.
But the disaster of the Indomitable has just begun! There are now thirteen airships that have not dropped bombs, and they can descend again...again!
When the airship descended to an altitude of 200 meters or even 100 meters, everyone knew that the Indomitable was finished.
Although the main armor belt and power system of the Indomitable are still intact, and the command tower is still strong, the loss of the crew is too great and there is not enough manpower to put out the fire, so the entire Indomitable has almost burned into a fire ship.
George Elliot was still standing in the command tower of the Indomitable, watching the fire around him getting more and more intense, and he had the idea of simply perishing in the flames.
At this time, his good brother Charlie Elliot had been carried into the command tower by the gunners who saved his life. Seeing that he had not abandoned the ship, he shouted loudly: "George, it's time to give up the unyielding Called!"
"Abandon the Indomitable?" George Yilu shook and looked back at his cousin who was lying on a stretcher with his butt up. "Charlie, this is a battleship! We have already..." today.
He didn't say anything anymore... I couldn't bear it!
The future of the Revenge is uncertain now, the Indomitable is about to give up again, and there is an unknown ship burning in the south. It is probably a Royal Navy cruiser... What a tragic defeat!
"George," Charlie Elliot was anxious when he saw his cousin's appearance, "The Royal Navy still needs us...Although we were defeated, we already know how to fight future naval battles? The British Empire's The Royal Navy has completely fallen behind, and we must catch up, otherwise the world will belong to the Ming Dynasty... Someone must tell London this fact now!
Someone must tell the Prime Minister and the Lord of the Admiralty that our battleships cannot withstand the enemy's airships at all. England has fallen behind and England must rise up! England must have the most powerful airship force in the world! "
As soon as he finished speaking, a staff officer in the command tower shouted: "The enemy's reinforcements have arrived...two cruisers and two destroyers!"
"George, give the order to abandon the ship quickly!" Charlie Yilu said, "There are torpedoes on Ming Dynasty's cruisers and destroyers!"
When he heard the torpedoes, George Yilu trembled.
The Indomitable has been paralyzed by the explosion and has no ability to withstand the Ming Dynasty's cruisers and destroyers coming up to release torpedoes. As long as a few torpedoes hit the Indomitable below the waterline, the Indomitable will be finished.
"Boom boom boom..."
At this time, several more bombs hit the Indomitable. The Indomitable trembled again and looked like it was about to "succumb"!
Soon someone screamed, "Brigadier General, the No. 2 main turret has been blown off..."
George Yilu's eyesight went dark - both turrets were gone, what a fart!
"Abandon, abandon the ship..." George Yilu leaned weakly on a railing, "Quickly, abandon the ship quickly!"
