When the sky lit up, Mirage's battleships began to raise their gun barrels, preparing to bombard Tang's battleship fleet.
Mirage Haifeng had already seen hope. As long as he could break through the Tang battleship fleet in front of him, the remaining Tang fleet would be just a bunch of lambs waiting to be slaughtered.
Just when he was extremely excited, he was waiting for another exciting good news: the lookout reported that only two battleships were seen in the Tang Dynasty's battleship fleet!
"The enemy only has two battleships! They only have two!" The staff officer was so excited that he almost laughed out loud. Now they have an absolute advantage of six against two!
Although half of the battleships have been injured or sunk, Mirage's battleships still have an advantage in number!
From Mirage's perspective, Mirage's squadron seems to have played a decisive role: the commander of the Tang Army must have been unclear about the attack direction of the Mirage fleet, so he allocated part of his force to defend the north. .
Until now, he had not guessed that Tang had only two battleships, because in his opinion, Tang must have more battleships!
"Enemy ship fires!" Seeing the Tang Army fleet on the opposite side flashing a flash of fire, the lookout shouted nervously.
Soon, after nearly twenty seconds, the Tang Army's artillery shells suddenly fell and hit the front of the battleship Xiangyun, which was far away. These shells were obviously shorter, but they were already very close to the Mirage fleet.
The huge water column dwarfed the over 40,000-ton battleship Xiangyun next to it. The dozens of water columns looked spectacular even from the bridge of the battleship Mirage.
But the commanders of the Mirage Kingdom who were being beaten could not feel this magnificence. They felt more nervous and uneasy.
The Tang Army's bombardment was so accurate. They didn't know what means they used to hit the Nandao accurately before dawn. Now they are targeting the battleship Xiangyun, and it can be seen that they hit the battleship in the first salvo. It has to be very precise.
"The opponent's artillery skills are quite accurate!" The staff officer withdrew his gaze from the water columns in the distance and said to Mirage Feng beside him.
"The gunners of our Mirage Kingdom are also the best among the best!" Mirage Haifeng is still very confident in the gunnery skills of his men. The Mirage itself is founded on the sea, and its naval gunners are the best among the best, and their skills are absolutely excellent.
"Order! Fire as soon as the warships are ready! No need to wait for my order." After he finished speaking, he picked up the telescope and looked in the direction of the Tang Army's fleet in the distance.
A few seconds later, the six 460mm-caliber main guns on the Mirage battleship roared, and the flames they sprayed instantly covered the sky and the sun, which was also very majestic.
Immediately afterwards, the battleship Goblin also opened fire. For a moment, every battleship in the Mirage fleet fired out cannonballs, and the battlefield was filled with the roar of cannons.
This is what the Mirage Navy imagined a naval battle to be like. In an instant, all the officers and soldiers of the Mirage Navy seemed to have found a familiar feeling.
They had been preparing for such a battle. They were familiar with the scene in front of them. They concentrated on stuffing the heavy shells into the barrel, and then used machinery to push the propellant into it. Then the breech closed, delivering a fatal blow to the enemy in the distance.
When firing powerful cannonballs, the battleship even trembled, and the terrifying sound shook the heaven and earth, as if the god of death was calling.
The enemies in the distance were doing the same thing. The commanders of both sides relied on their skillful ship maneuvering skills to avoid each other's attacks. Everyone was making precise calculations and guessing the node location of the enemy's serpentine maneuver.
In the end, the brave naval officers of the Mirage Kingdom used their courage and luck to defeat the cunning and despicable opponents, and won the naval battle... This kind of story is a story that has been told countless times by everyone in the Mirage Kingdom.
Unfortunately, the reality is cruel. Opposite them, inside the hull of the Dongwan-class battleship, in front of a place full of mechanical instruments and several very bulky-looking monitors, a soldier wearing glasses is operating on him. The machine inputs the command parameters.
The soldier beside him moved a parameter comparison table that looked like a Bagua diagram, matching the numerical scales on the inner and outer circles under complex commands.
In fact, as he turns the dial, the main turrets on all Dongwan-class battleships will automatically point in a very precise direction. If there is no malfunction, the movements of these turrets will be controlled by the fire control system in the battleship. unified control.
The adjustment of this system is scientifically calculated based on the shooting parameters given by the fire control radar and the correction data of the previous shell impact, which is much more reliable than the gunner's experience.
There are complex stabilization devices inside these turrets, which are similar to the two-way stabilization on tanks: it can ensure that the battleship is on the shaking sea surface, and there are no problems with the pitch angle and directivity of the artillery.
The entire system will ensure that all the artillery can be fired at the moment when the warship returns to its most stable position amidst the undulating rolling of the waves. This ensures that all the artillery can be set on a stable platform.
It is completely different from the naval gun systems of other countries. This system can ensure the attack accuracy of the naval gun. With the gun barrel precisely processed by Tang Guo's technology, Tang Guo's artillery shells can hit its target very accurately.
Moreover, the Tang Army's 380 mm caliber main gun can be loaded immediately without returning the angle to the horizontal. This technology is actually available in other countries, but it is not equipped on many old battleships.
This gave the Tang battleship an extremely fast rate of fire, and it could fire one shell in about 25 seconds! At a distance of 15 to 20 kilometers, this rate of fire is almost the same as the time it takes for the artillery shell to hit the target.
In other words, at the same time that the cannonballs stirred up water jets near the enemy ships, the Tang Empire's battleship main guns fired again! For a 380 mm caliber main gun, this rate of fire is undoubtedly very amazing.
The distance between the fleets of both sides is constantly getting closer. The Mirage fleet is approaching the Tang fleet at an angle, and the Tang fleet has no intention of retreating.
At this time, the two fleets were about 18 kilometers away. The Tang Navy opened fire again, and more than a dozen shells landed near the battleship Xiangyun, which was in the forefront of the Mirage Navy.
"Closer..." Mirage Haifeng's heart tightened when he saw the impact point of the Tang army's artillery. He had a very bad premonition: Although the battleship Xiangyun had made a snake maneuver, the opponent still missed the impact point of the artillery shell. adjusted to its course.
However, as a relatively forward warship in the fleet, Xiangyun cannot make too many changes in its route, because the Mirage Navy's own tactics are to close the distance. Wouldn't it deflect the entire fleet by maneuvering to the outside?
Driving on the bridge of the Mirage battleship diagonally behind the Xiangyun battleship, Mirage Haifeng held his binoculars nervously. He saw that the round of shells he had just fired landed near the Tang Army's battleship.
It was said to be nearby, but at such a distance, Mirage Haifeng himself just wanted to shake his head: most of the cannonballs actually landed far away from the Tang fleet. He couldn't even see them outside the field of view of his telescope if he didn't look carefully. Water column...
"The range is short! Parameter correction!" The artillery commanders of the Mirage Kingdom are working hard to correct their parameters, striving to make the cannonball impact point closer to the warships of the Tang Empire in the next salvo.
Many soldiers are also busy. There are still many secondary guns to operate on the battleship. After a while, when the distance is closer, these soldiers will use the secondary guns to pour their ammunition on the opponent.
With more numbers, they are confident that they can drown their opponents with massive amounts of ammunition in close combat.
But just as they were preparing for the second salvo, the missiles that had troubled them all night flew over again. In order to ensure the electromagnetic environment of the missiles, the destroyers of the Tang Dynasty chose to fire one round at a time, two at most. or fire two rounds simultaneously in two directions.
In this slow-flow mode, the missile's hit rate is very high. In addition, the Mirage's naval fleet has no so-called electromagnetic interference concept at all, so the Tang Army's missiles basically achieved a hit rate of more than 80%.
For a missile that participated in actual combat for the first time, this actual combat hit rate is already very high. In addition to the missiles that malfunctioned and fell into the sea, there were also those that hit and penetrated the outer cruisers. The remaining missiles played an important role.
Again, for missiles, the armor on a battleship is no different than a piece of white paper. Its penetration depth is simply too great and cannot be solved by the thickness of the armor.
If... Mirage's battleships were equipped with ceramic composite armor, coupled with more and denser pressure relief compartments, it might have some effect... But who would install more than two meters of composite armor on a battleship? What about armor?
The battleship Great South Bay, which was at the very rear, was hit hard again. Although it was not in danger of being sunk yet, the continuous attacks had already made it very embarrassing.
The shells coming from behind hit its main gun turret, and the billowing smoke on the hull obscured its sight. The entire battleship was like a ball of fireworks traveling on the sea.
It is a pity that no one cares about the battleship Da Nanwan anymore, because another salvo fired by the Tang army, a shell directly hit the moving Xiangyun. My heart trembled.
Thinking about it, the two Tang battleships on the opposite side clearly surpassed the Mirage navy in terms of shooting accuracy. Mirage Haifeng has begun to worry that if two similar Tang battleships appear again, his fleet will not be able to defeat this problem. .
Fortunately, this shot hit the bow of the battleship Xiangyun. Apart from breaking the anchor chain, it did not cause much damage to the Xiangyun.
(End of chapter)
