"This is the crucial moment that will determine whether the Roman Empire will once again stand tall in the Mediterranean, and I order every Italian plane capable of flying to the battlefield to join the battle at once! I ask every Italian Air Force fighter who believes in fascism to fight with the utmost enthusiasm! History will remember today, and will remember this day when the Roman Empire rose and the British Empire collapsed!

Fight, air fighters of the National Fascist Party! Fight for the Motherland, for glorious fascism! ”

While Hersman Jr. and his comrades flew eight Fokker Zero fighters to the ocean east of the Calabrian Peninsula, the Italian leader Benito Mussolini gave an impassioned speech at his Air Force Headquarters and gave the order for the "Italian Air Force General Assault".

The fascist leader had always loved the Air Force, and many of his cronies flew planes and flew them in the Abynesian War. But no one told Mussolini that most of the National Fascist Air Force fighters would not be able to identify from the air whose ships were on the water, because they had not been trained to do so.

In addition, most of the more than 600 S.M.79 medium bombers, which were the most dangerous for the British Mediterranean fleet, could not carry torpedoes, and they were located in airfield ammunition depots with no armor-piercing bombs to deal with battleships. However, this did not prevent the fascist fighters from flying planes......

"Enemy ships!" With the loud report of the lookout non-commissioned officer on the battleship Count Cavour, it was called Ponta by the Italians. The decisive battle of the fleet at the Battle of Stiro is 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 to the west, which was the fifteen-inch cannon fire on the battleship Weary, and the cannonballs whistled and flew at great speed, landing on the sea 1,500 meters away from the right front of the Count of Cavour, stirring up several huge columns of water.

"26,000 meters!" The rangefinder in the bow of the USS Cavour began to work, and the observer sergeant immediately read the distance between the two sides.

"Left rudder 15 degrees!" Admiral Campioni gave the rudder order, and then shouted, "Order the Caesar to follow and prepare to take the T-head position." ”

The Italian admiral was well aware that his advantage was speed, and the Count of Cavour and the Caesar were able to increase their power at any cost during the extensive refit, increasing the output of the main engine from 31,000 to 93,000 hp, and therefore from 21.5 to 28 knots.

Two of the three British battleships, the Queen Elizabeth-class (Warweary and Malaya), had a theoretical maximum speed of only 25 knots, while the other Revenge-class battleship, the Sovereign, had a maximum speed of only 21.5 knots. If 3 British battleships formed an artillery formation, their maximum speed would be limited to the Sovereign's 21.5 knots at most, so it would be easy for the 2 Earls of Cavour to take the top position.

If the British fleet had formed an artillery strike formation with only 2 Queen Elizabeth classes, the firepower of the two sides would have been 20 Italian 320mm/43.8x guns versus 16 British 381mm (15 in)/42x guns.

"The British ships also followed, and they were 2 battleships!" Major General Baroni reports.

That's 2 Queen Elizabeth class against 2 Earl Cavour class! Although the Earl of Cavour still has a speed advantage of 3 knots, this speed advantage is not enough to help the Earl of Cavour grab the T-shaped position.

"The enemy ship formation turned to the right!" There was a new situation at the lookout post.

Now the Italian and British fleets are head-on. The British fleet went from northwest to southeast, while the Italian fleet went from southeast to northwest. In addition, judging by the position of the Italian fleet, the Italian fleet was on the right, and the British fleet was on the left. Now the Italian fleet turned 15 degrees to the left, while the British fleet turned to the right (from the position of the British fleet), and both sides were actually sailing in the same direction.

"Ready to shoot!" Admiral Cumpioni ordered, "Target, the Count of Cavour is aimed at the enemy flagship, and the Caesar is aimed at the enemy battleship No. 2." ”

The mode of combat he chose was not to concentrate firepower, but to engage one-on-one.

Two or three minutes later, the gunnery officer of the Count Cavour reported loudly: "Aim at the target!" Aim for the target! ”

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

Ten 320mm guns spewed out orange fireballs, and white smoke rose from the deck. Ten armor-piercing shells whizzed towards the battleship Warweary more than 20,000 meters away. At the same time, the second salvo of the Warweary also hit, and the shells fell more than 800 meters on the port side in front of the Count Cavour, blowing up seven or eight columns of water tens of meters high.

Seeing the British shells getting closer and closer, all the people in the command tower of the Count Cavour felt terrified. The 381mm caliber guns were clearly not something that a battleship of the Count Cavour's caliber could withstand. Admiral Kompioni did not dare to let the warship continue to approach the other side, and again ordered the warship to turn 15 degrees to the right in order to distance the two sides.

At the same time, the two Italian cruisers began to approach the C Fleet behind the British B Fleet, which fell behind after the B Fleet had reached a speed of 25 knots, as the battleships of the C Fleet and the British aircraft carriers had only a maximum speed of about 21 knots. Became the prey of an Italian cruiser approaching at high speed!

At around 3:30 a.m., the 8 Ansaldado Type 1927 203mm guns of the Italian heavy cruiser Zara were fired. The target was the British battleship Sovereign, 25,000 meters away, and later five other Italian heavy cruisers joined the firefight, all aiming their main guns at Sovereign. Although their 203mm guns could not cause fatal damage to the Sovereign, the simultaneous firing of 48 203mm guns from 6 cruisers (4 Zara class and 2 Taranto) was quite spectacular.

And the guns of these Italian cruisers were well aimed, at 3:38, the Zara, who was the first to fire, fired a straddle fire, and 2 minutes later, a shell hit the tall mainmast of the Sovereign, the mainmast shook violently, the mast was blown away entirely, 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 "Brilliant", which were heavily protected by British destroyers. The two carriers had already ejected all the Sea Spitfires and Swordfish, the warplanes were whistling in the air, the torpedoes were raining down, and the Italian cruisers and destroyers had to dodge left and right, although not a single torpedo hit (the distance was too far), but it interfered with their impact. The British destroyers escorting the aircraft carriers took the opportunity to emit smoke and surrounded the two British aircraft carriers.

Just when the Italian light cruisers and destroyers flashed their torpedoes and were ready to move on. A huge fireball suddenly erupted on the sea, and it turned out that a 15-inch shell fired by the Warweary hit the Italian battleship Caesar. The shell exploded on its lower deck, causing a fire. The flames swirled through the snorkels, extinguishing several boilers and slowing the ship from 28 to 19 knots.

"Let the destroyers release smoke around the Caesar!" Receiving a report of the Caesar's damage, Campioni immediately ordered the expulsion and release of the smoke.

"We must divert the two battleships of the British," and then the Italian admiral said to Rear Admiral Baroni beside him, "Caesar must retreat!" ”

At a speed of 19 knots, it was impossible to guarantee a long enough distance between himself and the British battleships. If 2 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, Campionny's fears soon proved unfounded, for after damaging the Caesar, Cunningham ordered Fleet B to turn around and rescue the besieged Fleet C. The C fleet had two valuable aircraft carriers, and Cunning was willing to spare the shipwrecked Caesar rather than let these two carriers take the risk.

And at this moment, the 279 radar on the war-weariness suddenly made another discovery!

"Admiral, there are enemy planes approaching! Flying from the northwest. ”

"It should be G.50," said Rear Admiral Krachley, "and to the northwest of us there is also an Italian fleet of 2 battleships and 1 aircraft carrier...... I think they're less than 100 nautical miles away. ”

"Leave them alone!" Cunningham said with an unchanging face, "Let's take out a heavy patrol of the Italians first." ”

However, the news from the aircraft carrier Radiance quickly took Cunningham by surprise.

"It's Fokker Zero!" Rear Admiral Krachley reported that "there are 9-12 of them, engaged with the Sea Spitfire." ”

"What?" Cunningham took a breath of cool air, 12 at a time, is this going to launch a large-scale air raid?

"Admiral! The radar found another enemy aircraft, more than 10 of them, due east! ”

Only 1 minute later, the warweary's radar again detected the target, an enemy aircraft flying from the east.

"Is it G.50?" Cunningham asked.

The answer quickly disappointed him, and 12 S.M.79 medium bombers came. After 2 months of playing soy sauce, the Italians' shore-based aircraft finally sorted! And these 12 S.M.79s are just the first Italian bombers that are going to drop bombs indiscriminately today! They skimmed over the British C Fleet and the two Italian cruisers, which were engaged in an exchange of fire, and dropped 60 high-explosive bombs at an altitude of three or four thousand meters. And this was only the beginning of the general assault of the Italian Air Force...... (To be continued.) )