Chapter 146: The Battle of the Mediterranean Sea IV
After the first echelon in the Far East launched a column attack, they were bombarded by five Italian warships and suffered relatively heavy losses. However, they received death orders to annihilate the main Italian warships and disrupt the enemy's formation at all costs.
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Therefore, shortly after the Ganzhou ship was hit, a crack was torn near the waterline of its stern. Sea water continued to pour in, and the stern of the ship began to sink slowly. At about 5:35 pm, Captain Huang Jiguang discovered that the ship was bound to sink.
After it sank, they immediately ordered to ram the enemy ship "Velikiso" at full speed. In the end, the two ships sank at the same time. More than 300 of the 500 officers and soldiers on the Ganzhou ship survived.
After that, the battleships "Alexander", "Borodino" and "Western Eagle" of the Italian Combined Fleet were also severely damaged by the first echelon. While the first echelon was engaged in deep battles with Italian battleships, the three ships of the second echelon in the Far East
The battleships were also using their superior firepower to carry out coverage strikes against the Italian main cruiser group, after a fierce confrontation.
It successively sank 3 Italian escort cruisers and 2 heavy cruisers. However, because the Italian artillery system was relatively old, both the firing speed and caliber size were very different from those in the Far East, so the first day of exchange of fire between the two sides started at about 3:15 p.m.
At the beginning of the war, it was mainly carried out among the first echelon cruiser detachment and torpedo detachment in the Far East.
The second echelon of the Far East fought with the Italian cruiser detachment. In the subsequent five-hour battle, three torpedo boats in the Far East were hit and sunk, the light cruiser Ganzhou sank, and the Hangzhou was severely damaged and could only maintain a speed of 15 knots.
, several auxiliary ships were hit and caught fire.
However, the main iron-clad battleships in the Far East remained intact, while Italy was sunk 3 battleships and 6 main cruisers. By around 6 p.m., the defeat of the Italian Combined Fleet on the first day was determined, but the Italian Combined Fleet did not seem to be prepared to let this happen.
Despite giving up, they still continued to fight with the Far East Fleet. Later, because the fleets of both sides often lost contact in the smoke, the route was very chaotic, and the two sides began a melee in the night.
At 6:45, the fifth and sixth Italian cruiser teams entered the battle, but not long after, the Italian heavy cruiser "Svetna" was sunk by a shot from the Far East Tarzan-class battleship, while another old heavy cruiser "Coytons"
"During the counterattack, it was besieged by three cruisers from the Far East. It was directly damaged and sank.
Subsequently, the battleships of both sides met twice at 7:15 and 8:30, but both Italian joint battleships were severely damaged. As a result, three cruisers were successively sunk by the Far East 305mm large-caliber artillery. At 8:00 p.m.
, because it was too dark to see each other at all, so the first day's naval battle ended like this.
That night all the seriously injured ships of the Italian Combined Fleet withdrew from the battle, but at this time the torpedo ship formation from the Far East had arrived. The Far East was preparing to launch a night attack with torpedo boats and frigates. Then the Italian Combined Fleet was beaten into chaos and had long been defeated.
The three battleships "Alexander", "Borodino" and "Western Eagle", which were riddled with holes, sank. 10 minutes later, the ammunition depot of the cruiser "Tirobono" was hit, and the ammunition depot
It was destroyed, causing a boiler explosion and it sank immediately.
From 9:30 p.m. to 5:00 a.m. the next morning, a total of torpedo boat formations were dispatched from the Far East to launch a torpedo attack on the remaining Italian combined fleet. The Italian third squadron had received anti-torpedo attack training, so most of them survived, while the ships of the second squadron survived.
Most of them were sunk, and "Vasisoy", "Nazimov", and "Velikinalin" were successively sunk by torpedoes.
The old armored cruiser "Makhmono" fought back tenaciously even though its bow was blown off by a large-caliber torpedo, but in the end it was seriously injured and scuttled on its own at 5 a.m.
Just after 5 o'clock in the morning on February 4, the Far East Fleet quickly sailed towards the Italian Combined Fleet, but at 7 o'clock in the morning, it was once again surrounded by the remaining 23 Italian fleet ships and was violently bombarded by the Italian fleet. However, just before
At this time, the Spanish Mediterranean Fleet suddenly arrived, and then immediately attacked the Italian Combined Fleet from the rear. Although the Spanish Mediterranean Fleet's attack strength was relatively weak, it still brought another chaos to the Italian Combined Fleet.
The Far East Fleet immediately took advantage of its own speed and firepower to carry out concentrated fire and roundabout attacks. The commander of the Italian Combined Fleet, Benjie, then issued a wrong order again, which was to change the existing attack formation.
It is divided into two parts, one is to attack the Spanish Mediterranean Fleet, and the other is to encircle and attack the Far East Fleet.
The final outcome of the entire Mediterranean war was a complete failure after Benjie, commander of the Italian Combined Fleet, issued wrong instructions again and again.
Just when the Italian Combined Fleet changed its formation again, all the ships of the Far East Fleet had already entered the effective firing range. Then, under the order of Commander Qiu Jun of the Far East Fleet, all the artillery of the Far East ships aimed at the flagship of the Italian Combined Fleet and concentrated fire.
Under 5 minutes of artillery fire, the commander of the Italian Combined Naval Fleet, Bengio, sank into the sea along with his flagship.
Then Rear Admiral Gatov, deputy commander of the Italian Navy Fleet, decided to lead 6 cruisers to surrender. However, after seeing the Italian surrender signal, the Far East Fleet continued to bombard until the Italian warships hoisted the flag of the Far East Navy, but the rest of the Italian fleet
The ships either resisted and were sunk, or escaped. In the end, only two cruisers and two other destroyers escaped back to Italy.
The Battle of the Mediterranean ended at noon the next day. In the two-day naval battle, the Italian Navy was completely annihilated, the Far East Fleet lost 8 ships, the light cruiser Ganzhou sank, Hangzhou and Suzhou were severely damaged, the Huanghe-class battleship ran aground, and the Taishan-class battleship was stranded.
The two ships also suffered varying degrees of damage, and almost all the torpedo boats and the frigate formation were sunk.
However, this battle with great disparity in strength once again pushed the Far East to an unprecedented height. At the same time, it also focused the attention of all countries on the construction of full-caliber artillery warships, because in this naval battle, the Taishan-class full-caliber artillery played a great role.
The effect is quite great, because it can directly attack the enemy from 8000-10000 meters away. Although the accuracy is not high, the effect is decisive.
However, this battle also caused numerous controversies, that is, after the Italian Navy surrendered, the Far East continued to attack, which violated the humanitarian spirit. However, the Far East said that it did not see the Italian Navy hoisting a surrender flag, and he
There was another witness, the Spanish Mediterranean Fleet. In the end, it was two mouths fighting against a group of mouths.
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