The Rise of the Third Reich

"This is a critical moment that determines whether the Roman Empire can stand in the Mediterranean again. I order every Italian aircraft that can fly to the battlefield to join the battle immediately! I ask every Italian air force soldier who believes in fascism to fight with the greatest enthusiasm! History will firmly remember today, the day when the Roman Empire rose and the British Empire collapsed!

Fight, airmen of the National Fascist Party! Fight for the motherland, for glorious fascism! "

When little Hersman and his comrades flew eight Fokker Zero fighter jets to the ocean east of the Calabrian Peninsula, Italian leader Mussolini made a passionate speech at his Air Force Headquarters. He gave an impassioned speech and also issued the order for a "general assault of the Italian Air Force".

The fascist leader has always loved the air force. Many of his cronies can fly airplanes, and they all flew airplanes in the Abyssinian War. But no one told Mussolini, the leader, that most of the National Fascist Party's airmen would not be able to identify whose ships on the water belonged to them from the air because they had not received relevant training.

In addition, most of the Type 79 medium bombers, which are the most dangerous to the British Mediterranean Fleet, cannot carry torpedoes, and the airport ammunition depots where they are located do not have armor-piercing bombs used to deal with battleships. But this does not affect the fascist fighters flying aircraft to attack...

"Enemy ship!" With the loud report of the lookout petty officer on the battleship Count of Cavour, the fleet decisive battle known as the Battle of Ponta Stillo by the Italians was finally about to take place. About 15 minutes later, Admiral Compioni noticed a series of flashes in front of a battleship approaching at high speed from the west. This was when the 15-inch cannon on the battleship Warspite opened fire, and the shells roared and flew at extremely fast speeds. came and landed on the sea 1,500 meters away from the right front of the Count of Cavour, stirring up several huge water columns.

"26,000 meters!" The rangefinder on the bow of the Cavour began to work, and the sighting officer immediately read the distance between the two sides.

"Left rudder 15 degrees!" Admiral Compioni decisively gave the helm order, and then shouted, "Order the Caesar to follow and prepare to seize the T-head position."

The Italian admiral knew very well that his advantage was speed. During large-scale modifications, the Count of Cavour and Caesar strengthened the power at all costs, increasing the main engine output power from 31,000 horsepower to 93,000 horsepower. Therefore, the speed It has also been increased from 21.5 knots to 28 knots.

Two of the three British battleships, the Queen Elizabeth class (Warspite and Malaya), have a theoretical maximum speed of only 25 knots, while the other Revenge-class battleship, the Sovereign, has a maximum speed of only 21.5 knots. If three British battleships form a bombardment formation, their maximum speed will be limited by the Sovereign, which is only 21.5 knots at most. In this way, it will be easy for the two Count of Cavour-class ships to seize the T-leading position.

If the British fleet only uses two Queen Elizabeth-class ships to form an artillery formation, then the firepower comparison between the two sides will be Italy's 20 320mm/43.8x caliber main guns against the British 115-inch)/42x caliber main guns.

"The British ships also followed suit and turned around. They were two battleships!" Major General Baroni reported.

That is 2 Queen Elizabeth-class ships versus 2 Count of Cavour-class ships! Although the Count of Cavour class still has a speed advantage of 3 knots, this speed advantage is not enough to help the Count of Cavour class grab the T-head position.

"The enemy fleet has turned to the right!" A new situation came from the lookout post.

Now the Italian fleet and the British fleet were facing each other. The British fleet moved from northwest to southeast, while the Italian fleet moved from southeast to northwest. In addition, judging from the position of the Italian fleet, the Italian fleet is on the right, while the British fleet is on the left. Now the Italian fleet turns 15 degrees to the left, while the British fleet turns to the right (viewed from the position of the British fleet). Both sides are actually sailing in the same direction.

"Prepare to shoot!" Admiral Compioni ordered, "Target, the Count of Cavour is aiming at the enemy's flagship, and the Caesar is aiming at the enemy's No. 2 battleship."

The combat method he chose was not concentrated firepower, but one-on-one confrontation.

Two or three minutes later, the gunnery officer of the Conte de Cavour loudly reported: "Aim! Aim!"

Rear Admiral Baroni, who also served as the captain of the Count of Cavour, shouted: "Fire!"

Ten 320mm naval guns sprayed out orange-red fireballs, and white smoke billowed up on the deck. Ten armor-piercing bombs roared towards the battleship Warspite, which was more than 20,000 meters away. At the same time, Warspite's second salvo also came over. The shells landed more than 800 meters on the port side in front of the Count of Cavour, exploding seven or eight water columns dozens of meters high.

Seeing the British artillery shells falling closer and closer, everyone in the command tower of the Count of Cavour felt frightened. The 381mm caliber artillery is obviously not something that a battleship of the Count of Cavour can withstand. Admiral Compioni did not dare to let the warship continue to approach the opponent, and once again ordered the warship to turn 15 degrees to the right to increase the distance between the two sides.

At the same time, the two Italian cruisers began to approach Fleet C behind the British Fleet B - because the maximum speed of the battleship HMS Sovereign and the aircraft carrier HMS England in Fleet C was only about 21 knots, so after Fleet B had reached a speed of 25 knots, Just fell behind. He fell prey to the Italian cruiser approaching at high speed!

At around 3:30, the eight Ansaldado 1 main guns of the Italian heavy cruiser Zara fired. The target was the British battleship Sovereign 25,000 meters away. Later, five other Italian heavy cruisers also joined the firefight, all aiming their main guns at Sovereign. Although their 203mm main guns were unable to cause fatal damage to the Sovereign, the simultaneous firing of 48 203mm guns by 6 cruisers (4 Zara-class and 2 Taranto-class) was quite spectacular.

Moreover, the artillery of these Italian cruisers was well aimed. At 3:38, the Zara, which was the first to fire, fired a straddle shot. Two minutes later, a shell hit the tall main mast of the Sovereign. The main mast shook violently, and the mast The roof was completely blown off, and the 279 radar was also damaged.

At the same time, several Italian light cruisers and destroyers began to pounce on the aircraft carriers "Eagle" and "Glorious", which were heavily protected by British destroyers. The two aircraft carriers had already ejected all the Spitfires and Swordfish missiles. Fighters roared in the sky, and torpedoes were dropped like raindrops. The Italian cruisers and destroyers had to dodge left and right, although there was not a single torpedo. Hits (thrown too far), but interferes with their impact. The British destroyers escorting the aircraft carriers took the opportunity to use smoke to surround the two British aircraft carriers.

Just as the Italian light cruisers and destroyers dodged the torpedoes and prepared to move on. Suddenly a huge fireball burst out on the sea. It turned out that a 15-inch shell fired by Warspite hit the Italian battleship Caesar. The shell exploded on its lower deck, causing a fire. Flames swirled through the breather tubes, extinguishing several boilers and slowing the ship from 28 knots to 19 knots.

"Let the destroyers release smoke around the Caesar!" Compioni received the report of the loss of the Caesar and immediately ordered the destroyers to release smoke.

"We have to divert the two British battleships away," then the Italian admiral said to Rear Admiral Baroni beside him, "The Caesar must retreat!"

Relying on a speed of 19 knots, it was impossible to ensure that the distance between itself and the British battleship was far enough. If two British battleships with 15-inch cannons were allowed to approach the Caesar, the Italian battleship of more than 20,000 tons would definitely be blown to pieces.

However, Compioni's worries soon proved to be unnecessary, because after damaging the Caesar, Cunningham ordered Fleet B to turn to rescue the besieged Fleet C. Fleet C has two valuable aircraft carriers. Cunningham would rather let go of the troubled USS Caesar than risk these two carriers.

At this moment, the 279 radar on the Warspite suddenly made another discovery!

"Admiral, an enemy plane is approaching! Coming from the northwest."

"It should be G.50," Rear Admiral Crutchley said. "There is an Italian fleet consisting of two battleships and one aircraft carrier to the northwest of us... I think they are less than 100 nautical miles away from us."

"Don't worry about them!" Cunningham said without changing his face, "Let's kill an Italian heavy cruiser first."

However, the news from the aircraft carrier Glory soon surprised Cunningham.

"It's a Fokker Zero!" Major General Crutchley reported, "There are 9-12 of them, fighting with the Spitfire."

"What?" Cunningham took a breath, 12 planes came at once. Is this a large-scale air attack?

"Admiral! The radar has detected enemy planes again, more than 10 in number, heading due east!"

Just one minute later, Warspite's radar found the target again, which was an enemy plane flying from the east.

"Is it a G.50?" Cunningham asked.

The answer quickly disappointed him. It was 12 S.M.79 medium bombers. After two months of soy sauce, the Italian shore-based aircraft were finally dispatched! And these 12 S.M.79s are just the first batch of Italian bombers that will drop bombs randomly today! They passed over the British C Fleet and two Italian cruisers that were fighting, and dropped 60 high-explosive bombs at an altitude of three to four thousand meters. Although they did not hit any targets, they caused the British and Italian navies to The generals were so frightened that they broke into a cold sweat. And this is just the beginning of the Italian Air Force's general assault...