The decisive battle against the Third Reich

On one side of the window, another six "Swordfish" attack planes lined up and rushed into the German air defense blind spot... The angle of these six Swordfish attack planes was very tricky, and they appeared exactly between the "Richelieu" and On the other side of the "Strasbourg", in this way, the hull of the "Dunkirk" becomes the best cover for the six "Swordfish" attack aircraft, and the other two battleships cannot even see it. To these six low-flying "Swordfish".

Qinchuan secretly thought, this time the "Dunkirk" was about to be doomed... It had been hit by a torpedo, slowed down and tilted slightly to one side, and it was impossible to avoid the torpedoes fired by the six "Swordfish".

However, at this moment, the black shadow of a fighter plane fell from the sky, and then with the roar of machine guns, the six "Swordfish" sank like kites wet by heavy rain... Because they were flying at an ultra-low altitude, two of them hit the sea directly and broke into several pieces during the roll. Three of them held on crookedly for a while but eventually fell into the sea. The last one had black smoke coming from its tail. The torpedoes it was carrying were launched into the water moments before crashing.

Qin Chuan saw the white line of water coming straight towards the warship, facing the warship's command post... If this torpedo exploded, it would probably kill the people in the command post.

At this moment, the German fighter plane miraculously made a beautiful roll in the air, and then dived down again and fired a bunch of bullets... "Clatter, clack, clack," the bullets set off two splashes in the sea water, approaching the white streak. waterline, followed by a "boom" sound. The torpedo exploded before hitting the warship, and the seawater it raised even splashed into the command post.

"Marceyo!" Qin Chuan heard the navy soldiers on the deck cheering.

Only then did Qin Chuan notice a yellow "14" painted on the side of the German fighter plane... This was Marceiu's plane. He didn't expect this guy to make such rapid progress.

But Qin Chuan had no time to sigh, because at this time someone shouted: "The enemy fleet!"

He raised his telescope and looked to the east, and sure enough, a large group of warships appeared in sight... The British fleet hoped to rush into the battle when the air power bombarded the German fleet, but it was obvious that they had missed the best opportunity. Because at this time, there were very few British fighter planes left under the joint attack of the German Navy and Air Force.

The British army also has three battleships, namely "Warspite", "Sovereign" and "Maria".

Among them, the "Warspite" is the flagship, and it belongs to the Group B fleet with the "Sovereign". The "Maria" originally belonged to the Group C fleet and served as a rear guard together with the "Eagle" aircraft carrier. However, Lieutenant General Tovey learned that the German three After all the battleships were safe and sound, he was worried that the British fleet would suffer losses, so he hurriedly asked the "Maria" to come for reinforcements.

These three battleships actually exceed the German "Dunkirk" class French battleships in terms of firepower and protection, and are equivalent to the "Richelieu" class battleships. (Note: Warspite's main gun is 381MM, while the "Dunkirk" class battleship's main gun is 330MM).

The problem is that these British battleships are all products of World War I. Although their artillery has been modernized, large parts such as engines cannot be replaced, so their speed can only barely reach 21 knots, which is not the same as " The 27 knots of "Dunkirk" and the 30 knots of "Richelieu" are far different.

As we all know, speed is very important for warships, especially in warship-on-warship battles. Faster speed often means that you can more flexibly avoid enemy shells and torpedoes, and you can also easily seize a favorable position. Make full use of the firepower of your own warships.

More importantly, the British battleships do not have multiple composite protections like the French warships. Therefore, although its surface protection data is better than that of the French warships, its sinking resistance and strike resistance are not as good as it seems... The flagship "Warspite" is in During the battle, it was repeatedly damaged and overhauled.

At this time, Lieutenant General Tovey was commanding the battle on the "Warspite". With his order, various types of naval guns of the British fleet fired a batch of shells at the German Navy.

Suddenly there was a roar of artillery shells in the sky, and then a series of towering water columns exploded around the German fleet. Several destroyers were hit on the spot... One of them should have been shelled by the main gun of the British battleship. , the entire hull sank into the sea water. After bursting into flames, it jumped up due to the buoyancy of the high water. Then it quickly lost its balance and tilted to one side and slowly sank into the sea water.

There was thick smoke, flames, water waves set off by artillery shells and water vapor evaporating into the air everywhere. Debris from warships and various daily necessities were floating on the sea. Corpses were floating in the water, and red blood spread around them. In the bloody water, the navy launched escape boats and kayaks one after another, and threw out lifebuoys one after another to rescue their comrades who were diving to escape. The scene was chaotic for a while.

This time, the British fleet took advantage of the battle... The German fleet was busy with air defense, and was caught by surprise by the British fleet.

But what happens next is different.

The British air force has reached the end of its strength, so the German Air Force can free up its hands to attack the British warships... This is also Redel's idea. He asked the Air Force to provide air cover for the German Navy later, in order to allow the warships to use their capabilities again. The air defense strike capability allowed the German Air Force, which was originally at a numerical disadvantage, to gain air superiority.

Once the air force gains air supremacy, the British fleet will be in a double attack on the sea and in the air.

This is not only due to the confusion of artillery shells sometimes hitting the air and sometimes hitting the ship, but also because the reconnaissance aircraft in the air can compare the cannons...

Just as artillery on the ground needs artillery observers to shoot guns, warships also need reconnaissance aircraft to shoot guns.

The higher artillery of ground artillery does not rely heavily on aerial reconnaissance, because artillery observers can set up artillery observation posts on high ground, but there is no such thing as high ground in naval warfare... It can only rely on the observation of aerial reconnaissance aircraft, and then tell Whether the warship's round of cannon fire is far away or close, and adjustments will be made.

This is one of the reasons why cruisers and battleships of this era must carry several water reconnaissance planes... Water reconnaissance planes can not only play a reconnaissance role, but can also conduct artillery comparisons in battle.

Once the British air supremacy was lost, the first to be shot down were these seaplanes that were slow, had low firepower, and had obvious targets... There were two pontoons underneath the seaplanes.

In addition, the French warships were very fast, so only the first round of bombardment by the British warships could be accurate.

Looking at the German Navy, they can fire artillery shells more accurately with the cooperation of their own seaplanes.

"Fire!" Redel, whose face was blackened by gunpowder smoke, ordered loudly into the microphone.