"Tuk...!" A whistle blew, startling the frolicking seagulls.
A fleet came across the waves on the sea, its towering chimneys emitting thick black smoke, like lit beacon towers.
"Commander! We have now arrived near Qunlan Island!" The deputy captain reported to Navy Commander Zhao Yujian after comparing the navigation charts.
The warship they were on was the Nanhai, now the flagship of the Hainan Navy. It is also one of the four heavy cruisers in the hands of the Hainan Navy.
The turrets standing on the mighty steel body, and the ferocious barrels are like a forest of steel. He is showing his power to the world.
The heavy cruiser's stature may be inferior to the giant "battleships" of the navies of various countries, but after comprehensive optimization by Tianming Base, its speed and firepower have been enhanced.
At the beginning of the design and construction, the heavy cruiser had two main guns, one mounted on the bow and the other on the stern. Six secondary guns were distributed on both sides of the ship, three on each side.
After optimization, Li Weidong ordered the dismantling of the original cannon, which could only fire one round, and converted it into a large-caliber twin cannon, which nearly doubled the firepower of the heavy cruiser.
After modifying the twin artillery, a turret can fire two shells at the same time. In other words, a heavy cruiser's flank salvo with two main guns and three secondary guns can fire ten shells at the opponent, and four of them are
Large caliber artillery shells.
Li Weidong also put in a lot of effort for the opponent's French Far East Fleet. In response to the shortcomings of the Far East Fleet, the high command designed various plans to maximize his own advantages.
According to the collected information, the remaining capital ships of the Far East Fleet are battleships, and the main guns installed on them are 308mm caliber giant guns. With the armor protection of the Hainan Army's heavy cruisers, they are basically half disabled after being hit by one shot.
So since he couldn't defend himself, Li Weidong simply chose to sacrifice defense in exchange for the warship's ultra-high speed and powerful firepower configuration.
"The course remains unchanged! Turn on the lightning scan and send an order to the observation tower to pay attention!" Calculating the time, the French Far East Fleet should have arrived here, and then Zhao Yujian ordered.
"Yes, Commander!" the deputy captain responded.
Kunlan Island is a chain of coral islands offshore of Hong Gai County. It is not suitable for habitation, so there are no residents. The fleet headed east and soon arrived near Qunran Island.
At the forefront of the fleet, Beihai.
Suddenly, the soldiers on the observation deck of the Beihai shouted loudly: "Report! An unknown ship appears on the left side of our fleet!"
The first was the Hainan Army battleship Beihai. It first discovered a plume of black smoke on the southeastern horizon and immediately sent a signal to the team that "a ship has appeared in the southeast."
The signal was quickly reported to Zhao Yujian, the flagship of the Nanhai, and Zhao Yujian, who was standing on the bridge, quickly raised his telescope and looked to the left.
In the distance, on the line between the sea and the sky, the first thing that catches the eye are black and gray smoke pillars, which are the thick smoke expelled from the burning coal when the warships sail.
As the distance between the two sides narrowed, the flag flying by the other side's warship was clearly visible. It was the French flag.
"Finally found you!" Zhao Yujian recognized them at a glance as the remnants of the Far East Fleet that had been bombed by the Hainan Air Force.
"All personnel are ready for battle! Load the artillery shells and be ready to fight at any time!" Zhao Yujian immediately ordered.
Following Zhao Yujian's order, the prelude to the naval battle between the two sides has begun.
The Hainan Army's fleet is divided into four squadrons. The first squadron is Beihai and Bohai; the second squadron is the flagship Nanhai and Huanghai. These two squadrons are surface fleets, mainly engaged in head-on combat with the French fleet.
The submarine formation composed of eight shark-tooth submarines is divided into two teams, arranged by serial number, with numbers 1 to 4 being the third team, and numbers 5 to 8 being the fourth team.
In the distance, the French Far East Fleet has all appeared in Zhao Yujian's eyes. The opponent's fleet is lined up in a small formation, headed by three battleships in the front, heading towards the Hainan Fleet.
This formation consists of two ships in each squadron, with the leader in the front and the flanking ships on the forty-fifth degree line to the right behind, four hundred yards apart; each squadron is arranged in a file, with a spacing of five hundred and thirty-three yards.
"Send the order! Send out the submarine force and wait for an opportunity to attack the enemy warship!" Zhao Yujian ordered.
The French commander on the other side must not have expected that there is still a " trump card " hidden by the Hainan Army under the sea, and it must be able to teach them an unexpected lesson.
At this time, the Hainan Fleet was able to recognize that there were five enemy ships approaching, including France, Dunkirk, Provence, and two other destroyers.
Seeing the ferocious approach of the French fleet, Zhao Yujian did not dare to take it lightly. In order to take advantage of the fleet's artillery superiority, he resolutely ordered a change of formation, changing the formation of small groups of people in the sea into a horizontal formation.
To put it simply, this formation means that the fleet is spread out horizontally, facing the enemy warships with its flanks. During the battle, it takes a zigzag route and attacks with the firepower advantage of the main and secondary guns.
"Aim! Fire!" There was a deafening sound of gunfire, and the screaming warhead tore through the sky, landed on the side of the French fleet, and exploded into a towering water column.
Once within the range of the artillery fire, the Hainan Navy Fleet struck first and launched a salvo of artillery fire. However, due to the strong wind and waves on the sea and the swaying of the ship's hull, this was the theoretical maximum effective range, so the artillery bombardment effect was not ideal.
Although the effect of the bombardment was not satisfactory in Zhao Yujian's eyes, the new commander of the French Far East Fleet, Jerson, who was on the battleship France, was shocked.
"How is it possible!? Their giant cannon has such a long range!" Before our own side entered the effective range, the other party actually fired.
Just when they were surprised, the second wave of shelling by Hainan warships had arrived, and this time the shelling was more effective than the last time. The Dunkirk's front armor was hit by a shot, although the damage to the armor was not significant.
But it has made the French soldiers realize that the Hainan Army has the ability to threaten them.
"Quick! Head at full speed! Close the distance and bombard the enemy!" There was no time to think about it, and Nelson shouted loudly.
In this short distance, the French fleet had already been bombarded by three rounds, which made Nelson deeply aware that the opponent's artillery not only had a long range, but also had a fast rate of fire.
On the Nanhai, Zhao Yujian saw that the battleship Dunkirk was shot in the front, but the damage was very light and could even be ignored.
"Send the order to the warship, replace the main gun with armor-piercing explosive shells! Continue the attack!" Seeing that conventional artillery shells were ineffective, Zhao Yufei ordered to replace them with special artillery shells.
This kind of armor-piercing explosive bomb was redeemed by Li Weidong from the Tianming Base. As the saying goes: Once the cannon is fired, there are ten thousand taels of gold. Li Weidong finally understood it. One shell costs three hundred yuan, and Li Weidong exchanged a total of
I bought 2,000 rounds, but Li Weidong spent 600,000 yuan, thinking he was back before liberation.
In terms of the number of warships, there is almost no difference in strength between the two sides. The Hainan Army has four standard heavy cruisers, the French Fleet has three battleships, and two somewhat old destroyers. There is not much difference between the four and five.
However, there are three "Big Macs" in the French fleet. The battleships have thick defensive armor and strong resistance to strikes. They are not as "vulnerable" as the Hainan Army's heavy patrols.
However, the Hainan Fleet has one advantage that the Far East Fleet cannot match, and that is the speed gained at the expense of defense and the twin artillery pieces that have been reloaded.
And just as the battle between the two fleets on the sea became more and more intense, there were several huge black figures on the seabed gradually approaching the French Far East Fleet.
In the third attack formation, a formation of four submarines approached the French fleet from the flank. They finally found a breakthrough and used this rare opportunity to launch torpedoes at the battleship Provence.
"Load torpedoes! Prepare, launch!" Following the order, four torpedoes rushed towards the battleship Provence.
Day is different from night. The white mark when a torpedo is launched is very obvious and can be easily spotted by a ship. Of course, if the timing is right, the torpedo is still difficult to avoid.
The French officers and soldiers on the battleship Provence saw the torpedo flying towards them with white spray behind them, and they immediately shouted at the top of their lungs: "Damn it, there's a torpedo! Turn the rudder quickly, quickly...!"
The helmsman of the French warship quickly turned the rudder. Torpedoes still posed a great threat to the battleships. In ordinary military training, how to avoid torpedoes is a required course for them.
The machine gunners on the battleship used their machine guns to fire torpedoes frantically, trying to explode the incoming torpedoes, but this was not a very easy task.
Sometimes launching torpedoes is also a matter of luck. Torpedoes usually attack at a depth of between 1.5 meters and 3 meters.
Although the torpedo is large in size, it is very difficult to aim and hit due to the influence of undercurrents in the water and the very fast attack speed of the torpedo. Moreover, the biggest limitation of the torpedo attack is the range issue.
In the horrified eyes of the French officers and soldiers on the warship, the first torpedo did not hit the French warship, but passed by the ship.
But before the rush came, a subsequent torpedo successfully hit the battleship. With a loud "Boom!", a large hole of nearly two meters was blown out of the belly of the battleship, and seawater poured in.
Go in.
The French officers and soldiers at the explosion site above the hull suffered heavy casualties. The deck was also in a mess, with corpses and debris everywhere.
After winning the first battle, the officers and soldiers inside the Hainan Navy submarine were so excited that they quietly changed positions and continued to attack the French fleet.