My Italian Chapter 638

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Italy's desperate style of play shocked Admiral Cardon.

In fact, General Cardon was very satisfied with the shelling from the two sides before. Although the Montague was accidentally sunk before, the ensuing battle proved that the battleship's thick armor is indeed resistant to beating.

If he follows the previous style of play, he is confident that he will wait until the arrival of the reinforcement fleet to inflict heavy damage on the Italians and win this victory in the battle for sea power in the Mediterranean.

But now that Italy is unexpectedly fighting for their lives, Carden feels a little uneasy in his heart. Of course, he behaves very calm in front of everyone.

He said with a smile. "The Italians know that Lieutenant General Sturdey is coming, so they want to fight for their lives. Gentlemen of the British Empire, let us teach them a little lesson. Now I order to send an interception formation to stop the enemy's lightning strike formation , and the battleship formation is now moving eastward, increasing the distance from them."

Carden's words calmed everyone present, and the tension caused by the United Fleet's desperate assault dissipated a lot.

Immediately afterwards, the small and medium warships of the Mediterranean Fleet also rushed over. They wanted to intercept the enemy's lightning strike formation, and a thrilling hand-to-hand battle began.

"Fire and stop them."

Looking at the various torpedo destroyers rushing towards the rear battleships, the captain of the cruiser Dujuan who was in charge of the interception mission quickly gave the order to fire.

I saw the 6-inch (152mm), 5-inch (127mm), and 3-inch (76mm) naval guns it was equipped with, constantly spitting out flames, trying to stop the enemy ship's charge.

Doing the same thing as the Rhododendron, there are other warships responsible for interception. These more than 30 warships, large and small, have become obstacles in the assault formation, and they are drawn to stop them. Even the battleship formation not far away was firing with the remaining secondary guns, so a rain of bullets hit the charging Thunderbolt formation on its way.

Countless water jets rose from around the lightning strike formation, and the wave of shelling from the interception formation was completely emptied. In fact, this is quite normal. You must know that the current shooting director is not only not cheap, but also has a large size, and the space required is not small at all.

The optical range finder for ships is only a few meters long, let alone other instruments, they all go for big ones, so at present, all the shooting directors are equipped with large warships, basically tens of thousands of tons.

As for small and medium-sized warships, their needs are not urgent and they cannot accommodate them, so they still need manpower to directly aim at the water, and it is a ghost to be able to shoot accurately in the first round.

But in the face of intercepting their own artillery fire, the lightning formation of the United Fleet did not stop at all. At this time, they all frantically urged the wheel set to increase their horsepower, and rushed past the enemy's interception at a faster speed.

Of course, the cruiser formation as a cover mission will not ignore the fact that one's lightning strike formation is intercepted by enemy firepower, so the cruiser formation that is rushing at this moment will naturally not let the opponent do what they want.

"Open fire, target the enemy to intercept the formation, and attack the opponent's small and medium-sized warships first."

Rear Admiral Lopez, commander of the cruiser formation, gave orders loudly.

Under his order, more than a dozen cruisers also sprayed flames, venting their anger to the interception formation.

Facing the Italian firepower, Major General Edward, who was in charge of intercepting and commanding the interception formation, didn't want to ignore it because he knew who was the greater threat. But when the artillery fire from the enemy cruise formation hit the battleship of his formation one after another, he had to face up to the enemy in front of him.

"Why is the opponent's cruiser formation so fierce?"

No wonder Major General Edward was puzzled, because the cruisers in front of him were all new cruisers headed by the Piedmont class and its improved Verona class. With a displacement of five to six thousand tons, Italy was equipped with 8-10 double-gun ships. Equipped with a 150 mm 50 times caliber main gun and four 105 secondary guns, its rate of fire of three or four minutes per minute is enough to pose a great threat to the interception formation.

Moreover, the Italians are very thieves, and their cruiser formations give priority to choosing warships with a smaller displacement to intercept the formation. The warships of several hundred to one or two thousand tons in its formation can't be hit by its 150mm main gun, let alone its fast rate of fire.

"The first squadron of cruisers counterattacked the enemy, and the remaining battleships continued to intercept the enemy lightning strike formation."

At this moment, in order to ensure that the intercepting formation's firepower will not be interrupted by the opponent, Major General Edward can only let the first squadron of his cruisers counterattack. This is the most deterrent warship in his hands. This is a formation composed of six Monmouth-class cruisers.

The standard displacement of this class of patrol is as high as 9,800 tons. It is equipped with 14 152mm 45-fold naval guns and 10 76mm guns. The maximum speed is 23 knots. Although this class has been in service for ten years and is a little old, it still has enough deterrence in the face of the Italian cruiser formation headed by the Piedmont class and the Verona class. (The 10,000-ton battleship and the 6,000-ton warship are evenly matched, which is enough to see how far behind they are)

Following the order of Major General Edward, the six 10,000-ton cruisers began to unleash their artillery fire on their new opponents. Although it is a bit behind, the 10,000-ton cruiser is thicker than the new Italian cruiser at least in terms of armor.

Of course, the British Empire is not without new cruisers, the number of which is actually far greater than that of Italy, but they are all concentrated in the North Sea to deal with the more threatening High Seas Fleet, and more of the Mediterranean is allocated to the cruisers that are still usable. Although the naval strength of the British Empire is still the best in the world, but it has more than one enemy. And allies are useless, so they can only do nothing.

But soon, a train-like whistling sound made the officers and soldiers of the interception formation change their expressions drastically.

I saw a series of loud explosions from around the interception formation, which were brought by super-caliber artillery shells.

"No, this is the shelling of the battleship."

As the commander of the interception formation, Edward is even more experienced, and he knows that the caliber of the incoming shells is not less than 300 mm. At this moment, his heart is broken. The interception formation he leads not only has to deal with the lightning strike formation, but also fights with the enemy cruisers. Now the battleships don't care about beating them first. Why is it so difficult for his interception formation!

The shelling from the battleships made the officers and soldiers of the interception formation restless, and their hit rate plummeted. Don't blame these officers and soldiers for being impatient, because they belong to the second-rate level of the British Navy.

As we all know, the most elite officers and soldiers of the navies of various countries must be equipped with their main naval ships. Among them, Dreadnought, Super Dreadnought, and Battle Cruiser are the most elite, followed by cutting-edge warships that have been in service in recent years, such as new cruisers, destroyers, etc. It is an honest warship of various countries. However, the Mediterranean Fleet is a large number of old-fashioned warships, and naturally its officers and soldiers are not as elite. (Actually, it's not considered an old-fashioned warship, but compared to the latest warships, it's time to fight in another country.)

On the side of General Carden, seeing the unfair treatment suffered by his interception formation, naturally he would not sit idly by. He immediately ordered, "Shoot at full speed and sink the enemy ship."

The battleship formation led by him immediately erupted with the most intensive artillery fire, and the sea steel giant, which was constantly spraying flames, bombarded the battleship formation where Lefer was located at a speed of 1-2 rounds per minute.

This kind of continuous bombardment without pressure naturally has a good strike effect. In addition, the current distance between the two sides is close enough (a distance of six to seven kilometers), and the damage effect is even more amazing. pressure.

On the Cavour, the atmosphere in the command tower was even more tense, and the communications staff kept reporting the losses of the ships.

"Report, the Da Vinci sent a telegram, its No. 4 turret was destroyed, and the left side of the ship was penetrated, causing water to enter..."

"Report, Michelangelo sent a telegram, the funnel of the battleship was hit, and the thick smoke caused the accuracy of the No. 3 and 4 turrets in the rear to drop. In addition, a 305mm shell was hit in the power cabin, which lost 28% of its power and reduced its speed by three knots. .Colonel Nosov has given up his position, and he will follow after recovering some momentum."

"Report…"

While the staff officer was reporting the situation, a deafening explosion sounded suddenly, interrupting the report directly.

"What's going on, go and see."

Lieutenant General Sidoror, the chief of staff, couldn't bear it at this time, and immediately issued an order.

Soon an officer came in to report. "Report, it was the explosion sound from the Teghoff at the tail of the formation just now."

Within two minutes, a more detailed report of the damage to the Teghoff was also sent.

Lieutenant General Sidorol, who received the information, stared blankly. Because the situation reported by the captain of the Teghoff was quite bad. The Teghoff was hit in the ammunition depot. Fortunately, half of the ammunition had been fired before, so it did not sink on the spot. But the situation is not optimistic. It was blown out a large hole of about ten square meters, and the turbulent seawater continued to pour into the cabin. The damage management team could do nothing about it. officers and soldiers.

In addition to the Istvan, which had suffered heavy damage before, in just one afternoon, only one of the three Austro-Hungarian battleships was left on the battlefield, the United Force, which was really desolate.

This is sometimes due to unlucky factors, but it is more due to the lack of performance of the joint force class, especially in armor performance~www.mtlnovel.com~ The displacement of the joint force class is slightly lower than that of the Dante class (more than 500 tons less than the Dante class), the equipment with stronger firepower has been reduced from other aspects, and the armor is 400 tons less than the Dante class. Although Italy selflessly provided its own shipbuilding experience, the Austro-Hungarian Navy still has its own unique insights. So in the case of some changes, although the joint force class has stronger firepower than the Dante class, it is slightly inferior in speed and protection. And within the battlefield, the only standard for testing warships, this makes the joint force class perform worse than the Dante class.

But it is useless to say these now, the bitter fruit of the sinking of the Teghoff can only be tasted by the Austro-Hungarian Navy itself.

Of course, the Austro-Hungarian navy is uncomfortable, and Italy is also uncomfortable. This kind of behavior of not fighting back after being beaten is still such a dangerous distance, and it is the same for anyone.

But even so, Lefer did not frown, but a smile appeared on the corner of his mouth at this time.

Because the lightning strike formation had already rushed past the interception formation, and rushed towards the battleship formation not far away.

(end of this chapter)

Chapter end