However, although Ye Fei was impulsive, he was not reckless. After three consecutive rounds of artillery attacks caught the British off guard, he ordered the two heavy cruisers to turn around and retreat. However, he also requested that even during the retreat, the two warships could not
Stop bombardment, the forward main battery and side string secondary battery will not
It can be used, and it still has the rear main gun! But it must be noted that this decision was not only because the enemy was too powerful to defeat it, but also because the two heavy cruisers captured by the task force from the Japanese were specially considered for the previous modifications.
When it comes to this "fight while retreating" combat method...
The two Chinese heavy cruisers turned around and retreated, so that their side strings, which had been exposed to the largest bombardment, avoided the enemy ship's artillery fire. Seeing this, the seven British warships immediately turned to concentrate on bombarding the enemy ship's rear main battery turret, because this part was also the same.
This is the key point. However, these officers and soldiers of the British Royal Navy did not know that when they originally modified these two
When the ship was on heavy patrol, Hu Weidong took into account that the overall strength of the Chinese navy was weak. Therefore, under normal circumstances, it would not engage a limited number of capital ships in frontal fleet battles, but would choose a guerrilla-like strategy to attack those who could win.
The enemy will retreat immediately when encountering someone he can't afford to offend. So he thinks this
The side string protection that warships in that era generally attached great importance to does not have much practical significance for the Chinese Navy. On the contrary, the front main turret, which will be concentrated fire by enemy ships when pursuing, and the rear main turret, which will be concentrated fire when retreating, need to be strengthened.
, just because changing the armor thickness on a large scale may seriously affect the warship's
Therefore, it was not until the Sino-German secret cooperation began that the Qingdao Shipyard, which received support from German technical equipment and designers, was able to put it into practice. It was not finalized until almost half a month before the two ships went to sea this time.
Complete. Now it's finally time to test its effectiveness...
The effect of the modification was quite significant. The main gun turret, whose defense was almost comparable to that of a battleship, was completely undamaged by hundreds of shells from the British warships. At this time, the British had already sunk two destroyers, and the only one was
A light cruiser also suffered heavy damage and almost completely lost its speed.
, could only withdraw from the battle line extremely slowly like a snail. As for the three heavy cruisers as the main force, although they basically did not suffer much damage because they were not the focus of the task force's attack, the task force first chose to kill the British.
After the light warships, the remaining
The maximum speed of these three heavy cruisers is only 32 knots, and there is no possibility of catching up with the task formation. The distance that has been opened at this time has greatly reduced the accuracy of the British ships' bombardment. Even if they notice the enemy ship's turrets
After the defense was unimaginably strong, he turned to
The target was changed to the stern rudders of two Chinese heavy cruisers. However, if you want to hit such a small (relatively speaking) target at such a long distance, the British Navy's artillery accuracy has never been particularly good (and the German Navy's
Compared with ), one can imagine how difficult it is...
Not only that. After opening the distance between the two sides to about 20 kilometers, Ye Fei, who was brave and careful, even had the idea of wiping out all the British fleet. Ye Fei's confidence did not arise out of thin air. It was because he noticed that after the distance was widened,
The accuracy of British naval gunfire has been proven
has dropped significantly, but the two heavy cruisers on the Chinese side are equipped with the world's first optical sighting devices provided by the Germans, and the main guns still have a very high hit rate at a distance of 20 kilometers. In addition, the two heavy cruisers
When patrolling against the enemy head to tail, it is impossible to penetrate the front of its main turret.
The armored British can only cause substantial damage to them by accurately hitting the rudder position. In addition, even if compared to the main guns, the new 203mm naval guns equipped on the two Chinese heavy cruisers are far from comparable to the British artillery, regardless of range.
Accuracy and rate of fire are both superior.
Therefore, from the perspective of probability theory, although the British warships have a numerical advantage, when the warships of both sides are facing each other, the actual killing efficiency of the Chinese warships is more than 20 times higher than that of the British warships, as long as there is no luck.
If you carry it too far, your chances of victory are actually very high.
The Royal Navy officers and soldiers on the remaining three British heavy cruisers became alert after noticing that the enemy ships suddenly slowed down. However, the glorious history of the Royal Navy of the British Empire made it impossible for them to attack the Chinese, who they had always looked down upon.
After shaving his head, he still had the nerve to retreat voluntarily. As a result, the heavy cruiser "Dorset" was the first to be concentrated by the task force.
Medium shelling, as the "Dorsetshire" (the third batch of "County" class) class heavy cruiser, the main battery turret has only 25mm of frontal armor, which becomes its most fatal weakness in battle. If it is a conventional side bombardment,
The enemy ship's armor-piercing shells are likely to directly penetrate the turret of the heavy cruiser "Dorset" and then fall into the sea without causing substantial damage. But the problem is now
It was the front of the turret that was hit by a large-caliber armor-piercing explosive shell from an enemy ship. As a result, the shell with extremely strong penetrating ability penetrated the front main turret of the "Dorset" and continued to penetrate it again.
The armor plate outside the ammunition depot at the back got into it, and then exploded inside. It immediately caused a fierce explosion, and the huge bow of the heavy cruiser "Dorset" suddenly burst into flames.
It sank, then lifted up again. The warship's keel could not withstand such a powerful force and suddenly broke apart. The "Dorset" that became two pieces then sank into the sea without any suspense. There were also martyrs with it.
There were more than 600 people on the ship from the captain down. Due to the terrible whirlpool generated when this huge warship sank rapidly, almost no one on the ship survived...
The rapid sinking of the "Dorset" plunged the only two remaining British warships into an unprecedented crisis. However, the British Royal Navy has always been famous for its brave and courageous attacks. Even in the face of such difficulties, the officers and soldiers of the two ships
Still did not choose to retreat. However, most of the officers on the two heavy cruisers had experienced World War I and had very practical experience.
Chang Furich soon saw that the design of the two enemy ships seemed to have great advantages when facing the enemy head-to-tail, but these British warships were designed according to the traditional requirements of side-string bombardment, so in
In the pursuit battle, the weakness was completely exposed. It was obvious that the enemy was fighting with the greater number, but now the situation of victory and defeat has been completely reversed.
In view of this, although the two Kent-class heavy cruisers did not retreat, they did not dare to continue the pursuit. Instead, they turned the rudder and faced the two enemy ships sideways. In this way, if the enemy ships wanted to continue the fight, they would
It will fall into the most taboo "T" position in naval battles. The Chinese warships only have a total of 8 203mm main guns on the bow or stern to attack, while the two British warships can use all the main guns and half of them.
The secondary battery fired back fiercely, firing
The force density is much greater than that of the enemy. If the two Chinese warships also come across to bombard them, the firepower can be greatly enhanced, but their defensive weaknesses will inevitably be exposed.
The captains are all experts, and they know that due to limited buoyancy, the design of warships cannot be comprehensive. If the vertical defense of Chinese warships is so strong, their horizontal defense must be very weak... (To be continued.