My Italy

The battle cruisers of both sides decided the outcome directly, but the duel between the battleships on the other side was still inextricable.

The collision of steel behemoths and the roar of giant cannons, from the perspective of a bystander, this is definitely a man's romance. But from the perspective of the officers and soldiers participating in the war, this is a life-and-death battle.

Since the Montague was sunk, the two sides have continued to achieve success. On the Mediterranean Fleet side, the St. Vincent was severely damaged, the Neptune was severely damaged, the Vanguard was damaged, and the Centurion was damaged. The other battleships were all injured, which was quite tragic.

Of course, the Mediterranean Fleet is so miserable, and the United Fleet is not having an easy time either. The United Fleet's Istvan and Intrepid were severely damaged, and Dante was moderately damaged, and other ships were also more or less damaged.

Isn't it amazing that after the battle, except for the unlucky Montague, there has not been a single battleship sunk between the two battleships.

Is it too friendly compared to the battle between the battle cruisers next door?

This is not really the case. In order to sink the other's warships, neither side showed mercy. However, the battleship is different from the fragile battle cruiser, and its thick armor is not that easy to penetrate.

Most of the thousands of tons of armor on today's battleships are concentrated above the waterline. Although today's battleships are more than ten meters high, only three or four meters are exposed above the waterline. Basically, they have thick armor. Armor.

Not to mention that in order to enhance the defense of battleships in recent years, various concepts such as core compartment protection and composite armor have emerged one after another. Of course, there are also developments brought about by armored steel technology, making battleships thicker and thicker.

This is also one of the reasons why the displacement of battleships is increasing. Of course, in addition to armor, the endless emergence of new technologies has also fully improved the firepower and speed of battleships. This has also led to the rapid increase of battleships from more than 10,000 tons in more than ten years to The reason for the current more than 30,000 tons.

If there is one technology that is not developing fast enough among these new technologies, then armor-piercing projectiles are definitely one of them.

That's right, it's an armor-piercing bullet. As a way to deal with artillery shells equipped with thick armor, armor-piercing projectiles have been around for a relatively short time. The concept of armor-piercing projectiles came into being only after the emergence of ironclad ships in the 1960s.

Moreover, the early armor-piercing projectiles were just designed with sharp shapes, and their armor-piercing effect was not ideal. Of course, the navies of various countries have not given up because of this, because more and more warships are equipped with thick armor, which is getting thicker and thicker, allowing the development of armor-piercing ammunition to be equally rapid. Pointed bullets are getting harder and sharper.

Of course, it is too difficult to think of a solution just for the artillery shells. Because the armor will become thicker and stronger. Therefore, since the 1980s, people have also focused their attention on armor-piercing propellants and artillery. In terms of propellant, the emergence of solid homogeneous particle propellant has given the projectile greater thrust. The development of smelting technology has made the cannon barrels longer and larger, which also allows the cannonballs to gain greater kinetic energy.

Although this technology has improved the armor-piercing ability of artillery shells even more, as the saying goes, the development of armor becomes faster. With the emergence and maturity of the surface carburizing and hardening process, high-quality armor steels such as Harvey steel and Krupp steel have appeared one after another. And compared to the armor penetration of artillery shells, armor has a greater advantage, that is, it is directly thickened.

At the same time, in order to prevent the increasingly expensive precious battleships from being sunk, various protection concepts are emerging one after another, such as key protection, armor boxes, etc. Therefore, due to these combined factors, it is now easy for warships to be severely damaged, but it becomes difficult to sink them.

Although the Italian Navy currently uses capped armor-piercing projectiles, its armor-piercing effect in actual combat is not particularly good because the craftsmanship and technology are not mature. As for the British Navy, it only uses ordinary armor-piercing projectiles with extended warheads, and the armor-piercing effect is even worse. (It is important to mention that armor developed greatly at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, while armor-piercing projectiles were developed after the end of World War I. Of course, after that, the development of science and technology allowed armor-piercing projectiles to gradually surpass armor, until the emergence of missiles)

Therefore, the performance of the two navies in the naval battle was that the warships of both sides were scarred, but they were still a little short of the firepower to kill them with one blow. After all, it is not easy at all to give the enemy a fatal blow by chance.

Of course, if the enemy does not have a fleet reinforcement, the combined fleet will not be impatient, and they can deal with this situation slowly. Isn't it just that it has been unable to cause sinking? It doesn't matter if the damage accumulates to a certain level, it will definitely sink the opponent. This is just a matter of time and effort.

But unfortunately, they didn't have enough time. Even so, Leifer, as the commander of the combined fleet, remained unusually calm. How is it possible to say that as a fleet commander he is not impatient. But he did not show this. Even though the communications staff kept reporting to him the approaching position of the British and French reinforcement fleets, he still watched the battle at sea intently, because a plan was taking shape in his mind.

"Report, the airship sent a telegram, the enemy reinforcement fleet is still forty-eight nautical miles away from us."

"I know, let's go down."

At this time Leifer suddenly said, "Almost."

Without giving the staff officer time to react, he immediately ordered. "Now I order that the Lightning Strike formation will attack now, targeting the enemy battleship formation. The cruise formation will follow the Thunder Strike formation to attack and block the enemy's interception formation. In addition, except for the Dante, other battleships will follow the flagship to close the distance with the enemy ship. , the target distance is seven thousand meters.”

Leifer's words caused a brief silence in the Cavour's command tower, and everyone looked at their commander in surprise.

Because this order means that the fleet will fight for its life, which is not a good choice. If a distance of 10,000 meters can ensure the safety of the core cabin in a battleship duel, then a distance of 7,000 meters will become very dangerous. Because this will increase the penetration of the shells from both sides, in addition, the hit rate will also increase from the current 2-3% to more than 5%.

Isn't this a fight for one's life?

Facing the suddenly quiet command tower, Leifer did not explain much but looked at the communications staff officer seriously. "Is my order unclear?"

The startled communications staff officer quickly replied, "Your Majesty, Commander, I will go and deliver the order right away."

After the communications staff member left, Leifer glanced at the people present and said something. "We're out of time."

Yes, when the enemy's reinforcement fleet is about to arrive, they don't have much time left.

Although this is a desperate play, Leifer does not really only know how to fight hard. He had already accounted for everything.

At this time, the artillery battle between the two sides had been going on for two hours. Although no more battleships were sunk by the other side, three of the enemy's ten battleships had been reduced (one was sunk and two were damaged, and the damaged St. Vincent and Neptune had withdrawn from the battlefield. The same is true for the destroyed battleships on the Combined Fleet side). The number of enemy and friendly battleships has reached a ratio of 7:9.

In addition, during the two-hour artillery battle, all ships were damaged, especially the battleship's lack of sufficient protective secondary guns, which caused great losses.

For the Combined Fleet alone, each ship has generally lost half of its secondary batteries. It is believed that the Combined Fleet, which has more elite officers and soldiers, will inflict greater losses on the enemy's secondary batteries.

Moreover, the Mediterranean Fleet launched a torpedo attack before, and the loss of small and medium-sized warships was not small. According to airship reports, the Mediterranean Fleet currently has only half of the small and medium-sized warships on the battlefield as the combined fleet.

There is no reason for Leifer not to engage in a short and fast close-quarters melee battle. He has a huge advantage in the number of small and medium-sized warships.

Leifer's order was quickly implemented. A group of lightning strike formations with torpedo boats and destroyers as the main force, under the cover of the cruise formation, launched lightning strike tactics against the Mediterranean Fleet in the distance. And what's even more cruel is that the battleships that had been keeping their distance before began to accelerate towards it.

Next, it depends on how Kaden will deal with the United Fleet's desperate play style.

I’m going to catch up on yesterday’s chapter, and I’ll have more tonight.