On one side of the window, six other "Swordfish" attack planes lined up and flew into the dead end of the German air defense...... The angle of these six Swordfish attack planes was very tricky, and the position in which they appeared happened to be on the other side of the "Richelieu" and "Strasbourg", so that the hull of the "Dunkirk" became the best cover for the six "Swordfish" attack planes, and the other two battleships could not even see these six low-flying "Swordfish".

Qin Chuan said secretly, this time the "Dunkirk" is going to be finished...... Having been hit by a torpedo, its speed slowed down and tilted slightly to one side, it simply could not dodge the torpedoes fired by the six "Swordfish".

However, at this moment, the black shadow of a fighter plane descended from the sky, and then with the roar of machine guns, the six "Swordfish" sank down like kites wet by a rainstorm...... Due to the ultra-low-altitude flight, two of them directly hit the surface of the sea and broke into several pieces in the tumble, three of them held on for a while but finally fell headlong into the sea, and the last one emitted black smoke from the tail, and it launched the torpedo it carried into the water at the moment before it crashed.

Qin Chuan saw that the white waterline was coming straight towards the warship, facing the warship's headquarters...... If this torpedo bursts, it can also shock the people in the command headquarters to death.

At this moment, the German fighter plane miraculously made a beautiful roll in the air, and then dived down again and fired a shuttle of bullets...... "boom" bullets made two splashes in the sea water and hit the white water line, and then there was a "boom", and the torpedo exploded before hitting the warship, and the sea water it set off even splashed into the command headquarters.

"Marseillo!" Qin Chuan heard the naval soldiers on the deck cheering.

Only then did Qin Chuan notice that the German fighter had a yellow "14" painted on its flank...... This is Marseilleu's plane, I didn't expect this guy to progress so quickly.

But Qin Chuan didn't have time to sigh, because at this time, someone was already shouting: "Enemy fleet!" ”

Raising the binoculars and looking east, a large group of warships appeared in sight...... The British fleet was hoping to rush into battle in time for the bombardment of the German fleet by air power, but it was clear that they had missed the best time, because there were few British fighters left under the combined attack of the German navy and air force.

The British also had three battleships, the "Warweary", the "Sovereign" and the "Maria".

Among them, the "War Weathiness" was the flagship, and the "Sovereign" belonged to the B fleet, and the "Maria" originally belonged to the C fleet and served as the rearguard with the "Eagle" aircraft carrier, but Vice Admiral Tovey was worried that the British fleet would suffer a loss, so he hurriedly asked the "Maria" to come for reinforcements.

These three battleships actually surpassed the German "Dunkirk" class French battleships in terms of firepower and protection, and were comparable to the "Richelieu" class battleships. (NOTE: THE MAIN GUN OF THE WAR-WEARINESS IS 381MM, WHILE THE MAIN GUN OF THE BATTLESHIP OF THE "DUNCIRKE" CLASS IS 330MM).

The problem was that the British battleships were all products of the First World War, and although their guns were modernized, large parts such as engines could not be replaced, so they could barely reach a speed of 21 knots, a far cry from the 27 knots of Dunkirk and the 30 knots of Richelieu.

As we all know, speed is very important for warships, especially in the battle of warships against warships, fast speed often means that they can dodge the enemy's shells and torpedoes more flexibly, and they can easily seize the advantageous position to give full play to the firepower of their warships.

What's more important is that the British battleships did not carry out multiple composite protection like the French warships, so although their surface protection data is stronger than that of French warships, in fact, the sinking resistance and strike resistance are not as good as they seem...... The flagship "War Wey" was repeatedly damaged and overhauled during the battle.

At this time, Vice Admiral Tovey was directing the battle on the "War Weyer", and as soon as he gave the order, the various types of naval guns of the British ship group fired a batch of shells at the German Navy.

Suddenly, there was a roar of cannonballs in the sky, followed by a series of soaring columns of water that exploded around the German warship group, and several destroyers were hit on the spot...... One of them was supposed to have been hit by the main guns of the British battleship, and the entire hull sank into the sea, and after a burst of fire, it jumped up due to the buoyancy of the high water, and then quickly lost its balance and slowly sank to the side.

Thick smoke, flames, waves of water kicked off by cannonballs, and water vapor evaporated into the air were everywhere, fragments of warships and various daily necessities were floating on the sea, corpses were floating in the water, and crimson blood was spreading around, and the navy released escape boats and kayaks, throwing out lifebuoys one after another to rescue their comrades-in-arms who had jumped into the water to escape, and the scene was chaotic for a while.

This time the British fleet fought cheaply...... The German ship group was busy with air defense, and was caught off guard by the British army.

But then it was different.

The British air power had reached the end of its strength, so the Luftwaffe was free to attack the British ship group...... This was also Raeder's idea, and he asked the air force to provide air cover for the German Navy later, in order to allow the warships to exert their air defense strike capabilities so that the Luftwaffe, which was already numerically inferior, would gain air supremacy.

And as soon as the Air Force gains air supremacy, then the British fleet will be in a double blow both on the surface and in the air.

This is not only because of the confusion of shells against the air and ships at one time, but also because of the problem that the reconnaissance planes in the air can compete with the artillery......

Just as artillery on the ground needs artillery observers to fight their guns, warships need reconnaissance planes to fight their guns.

The dependence of ground artillery on aerial reconnaissance is not very large, 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 the warship whether the round of guns is far or close and adjust.

This is one of the reasons why cruisers and battleships of this era had to carry several water reconnaissance aircraft...... Water reconnaissance aircraft can not only play the role of reconnaissance, but also conduct artillery battles in battle.

As soon as the British lost air supremacy, the first to be shot down were these seaplanes with slow speed and low firepower and obvious targets...... Both seaplanes were carried under two pontoons.

Coupled with the speed of the French warships, the British warships could only be accurately hit by the first round of shelling.

The German Navy, on the other hand, was able to fire shells more accurately with the cooperation of their own seaplanes.

"Fire!" Reddell, whose face was blackened by gunsmoke, shouted orders into the microphone.