readx; A 510-kilogram armor-piercing projectile fired by the Shaohao hit the weak armored position on the starboard side of the Kaohsiung's stern, and then penetrated several layers of cabins in a row before entering the rear internal compartment of the Kaohsiung and exploding!

The violent explosion did not detonate the rear main gun ammunition depot of the Kaohsiung, nor did it damage the core engine room of the Kaohsiung, but the explosion caused the steering gear to malfunction!

As a result, the helmsman of the Kaohsiung discovered that the rudder of the Kaohsiung had been stuck and could not be operated by machinery!

"Baga, send someone quickly, and immediately start the artificial operation!" Captain Nakamura Hachiro Dasa, the captain of the Kaohsiung, scolded angrily that the failure of this steering gear is a more serious thing than the loss of power. Pen | fun | pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ

The loss of power is a big deal about the speed dropping, but the failure of the steering gear means that the battleship cannot change course and can only sail forward at an angle, and this situation is fatal for the Kaohsiung in the midst of a fierce battle.

The fault must be solved as soon as possible, even if it is controlled manually, the battleship must be restored to the ability to change course!

At the same time, another destroyer of the 6th Destroyer Group of the Chinese Navy fired a torpedo at the Kaohsiung, and the destroyer quickly withdrew after the torpedo was fired.

Among the Chinese lightning strike units participating in the war at this time were the 17th Destroyer Group, which was originally part of the 21st Fleet, and the 6th Destroyer Group, which was directly under the fleet.

When the 17th Destroyer Brigade took the lead in launching the first round of lightning raids, the 6th Destroyer Brigade also came from the southwest to reinforce them, and immediately carried out lightning raids as soon as they got closer.

As for the destroyers in the 17th Destroyer Group, they have now run out of torpedoes from their launchers, and although there are spare torpedoes on board, they cannot be loaded into the launchers in a short time, and without the help of auxiliary ships, it would take more than two hours to reload the torpedoes.

Under these circumstances, the ships of the 17th Destroyer Group, which had completed the torpedo launch, withdrew from the front line one after another, but they did not immediately flee away, but still traveled at high speed in the northern direction of their main fleet, and while carrying out anti-lightning operations, the officers and men of the destroyers also began to reload their torpedoes nervously.

When the 17th Destroyer Group retreated and returned to cover its capital ships while reloading, the 6th Destroyer Group also launched a fierce lightning attack.

The lookout on the Kaohsiung looked at several torpedoes coming straight from the sea, and once again issued a torpedo attack warning, but at this time, the Kaohsiung was unable to make an emergency turn maneuver to dodge because the steering gear was stuck by the owner, and if it continued at the current speed, it would definitely be hit by a torpedo, and even if it wanted to accelerate, it could not accelerate due to a large amount of water caused by a torpedo hit before.

Nakamura Hachiro Osa naturally won't sit still!

"Summons emergency reverse!" Since he can't turn and can't accelerate, Nakamura Hachiro is ready to come to a death! Because a torpedo attack needs to take into account the amount of advance, there is the time and range required for the torpedo itself to travel, and it also has to take into account the advance of the Kaohsiung's travel, and only when the two points are combined together will it be hit.

In the current state of the Takohsiung, if it wants to avoid the attack of the torpedo, it must change the current speed or course, and since it cannot accelerate and cannot change the course, Nakamura Hachiro Daisa tries to slow down and let the incoming torpedo pass in front of his ship to dodge.

Of course, the consequences of this temporary reverse mode are also very serious, that is, the Kaohsiung will greatly reduce its speed or even stop in a short period of time, and at this time the Kaohsiung is in a state of fierce combat, and the reduction of speed means that it will be hit by more fierce fire from the enemy, which will not only attract more torpedo attacks from enemy destroyers, but also greatly increase the artillery shooting hit rate of the enemy's capital ships.

After all, the reason why the main gun hit rate of the two warring sides in the sea is low is because the state of engagement between the two sides is in a state of dynamic versus motion, and once the own side stops, it will become dynamic and static.

Although the hit rate of hitting moving targets is low, if the hit rate of hitting fixed targets does not go up, those gunners in the Chinese Navy commit suicide, what kind of battle are they fighting!

And Nakamura Hachiro knows these situations very well, but at this time he has no choice, if he doesn't reverse then he will be hit by a torpedo, if he reverses, it is possible to avoid this wave of torpedo attacks, even if he will be hit by more fierce fire later, he can't care about it.

As Nakamura Hachiro's order was conveyed, in the power compartment inside the Kaohsiung, the transmission structure made of huge steel suddenly emitted a violent vibration, and the huge steel parts seemed to be twisted and broken out of the hull, and at this time, the entire Kaohsiung also had a violent vibration.

The propeller, which was still spinning at high speed, came to a halt and then began to reverse, driving the ship to slow down.

The forward habitual action and the reaction force generated by reversing collided with each other, causing the speed of this battleship of more than 40,000 tons to slowly decrease, and the speed of the ship also decreased sharply from the previous 25 knots to 20, 15, and 10 knots!

In front of the Kaohsiung on the right, several torpedoes fired by the Chinese Sixth Destroyer Group approached at high speed with white waves, and the lookout on the mast of the Kaohsiung watched the torpedoes in front of him at high speed with wide eyes.

Although Nakamura Hachiro still maintained his composure at this time, his heart was beating violently, and now it was the last moment of life and death, and he risked so much to dodge the torpedo by reversing, if this could not be avoided, they Nakamura Hachiro had no choice.

It's close!

It's close again!

Those torpedoes swooped down like a scythe like a grim reaper, as if they were opening their mouths to swallow the Kaohsiung!

Nakamura Hachiro had never felt the tension at this moment, so he had not done so in the previous duel with the enemy's main ship with the main gun, but looked at the huge water column around the Kaohsiung with a sarcastic look on his face, laughing at the inferior gunnery of the Chinese Navy.

Even after being hit by a torpedo before, he was not as nervous as he is now, although he was horrified at that time, he still looked like he was still commanding the damage and continuing the shelling.

Even in his opinion, then it was really to sacrifice his life for the imperial country tonight, then it was expected, and there was no big deal.

But now he was more nervous than ever, and the desperation of being powerless and watching the enemy torpedo approach was incomprehensible to ordinary people.

Time passed little by little, and the torpedoes were getting closer and closer, but although the Kaohsiung had stopped moving forward at this time, the torpedoes were also attacking in a fan area, and the outermost torpedo was speeding towards the Kaohsiung.

"Why haven't you retreated yet!" Hachiro Nakamura shouted in his heart: "Hurry back!" ”

At this tense moment, it was as if the main guns on the Kaohsiung had stopped firing and fell silent, and countless officers and men on the ship were staring at the torpedoes on the sea in the distance, and a large number of secondary guns on the starboard side of the Kaohsiung were already firing intensively, whether it was those six-inch secondary guns or 100-millimeter secondary guns or even those small-caliber anti-aircraft guns had already carried out intensive strafing towards the sea at this time, and they tried to destroy the torpedo directly at sea!

In the internal power compartment of the Kaohsiung, the officers and men of the power cabin looked at the rapidly rotating engine, hoping that the power system could explode a miracle at the last moment and drive the battleship back.

The surging power from the steam turbine drove the huge propeller shaft to rotate rapidly, and the huge propeller behind the propeller shaft was rotating rapidly, driving the sea water to pass through the bottom of the Kaohsiung ship, and through this reaction force, the Kaohsiung giant warship weighing more than 40,000 tons slowly retreated.

One meter, two meters, five meters......

The Kaohsiung has finally stopped from the forward state and entered the backward state!

With the expectations of many officers and soldiers, the huge propeller exerted a huge force, driving the Kaohsiung to slowly retreat, ten meters, twenty meters......

The Kaohsiung's retreat was getting faster and faster, and the torpedo in the distance was also getting faster and faster, and now it was only a few hundred meters away from the Kaohsiung.

A short period of more than ten seconds is as long as a century for the officers and men on board the Kaohsiung!

The power system of the Kaohsiung finally lived up to the expectations of Hachiro Nakamura and a large number of officers and men on board, and finally drove the Kaohsiung to evacuate in the last few seconds when the torpedo approached.

Seeing that the Kaohsiung was only a few meters away from the bow of the Kaohsiung, many Kaohsiung officers and soldiers finally put their minds at ease!

However, just when they thought they had dodged this deadly torpedo, suddenly there was a violent explosion from the bow of the Kaohsiung!

That torpedo exploded!

What's going on, didn't you hide from it? How can it still be hit? Hachiro Nakamura clenched his fist and slammed it on the table!

He did not know that the torpedo that hit and exploded was not the Type 37 torpedo that was heavily in service in the Chinese Navy.

It is a Type 42 torpedo, although the Type 42 torpedo and the Type 37 torpedo are not much different in terms of basic structure, but they are different in the fuze, the Type 37 torpedo uses a traditional impact fuze, while the Type 42 torpedo uses a collision fuze and a magnetic fuse double detonation mode.

In other words, the Type 37 torpedo will explode only after a direct hit! However, the Type 42 torpedo can explode even if it does not hit directly due to the magnetic fuse!

The original goal of developing the magnetic fuze torpedo was because the Chinese Navy wanted to deal with some light ships or auxiliary ships and transport ships of the enemy, because the draft of such ships is generally not deep, and the torpedo is easy to cross the bottom of the ship, and the magnetic fuse can make the torpedo explode even if the depth is too deep to cross the bottom of the enemy ship, so as to provide a hit rate!

In addition, in order to avoid the lack of frequent collision fuze failures, the double fuze mode is used to increase the explosion rate and avoid the high dud rate.

As for today's torpedo hitting the Kaohsiung, it was a gain outside the design, and the torpedo section under the Navy's Ship Administration Department did not expect that its own torpedo would pass through the stern of the enemy ship only a few meters away, thus triggering the magnetic fuse, which is definitely a small probability event.

Of course, this situation has further increased the Chinese Navy's attention to and research and development of the torpedo with the magnetic surname, but this is a later story, as far as the Chinese Navy itself is concerned, the Chinese Navy itself does not know that this torpedo slipped a few meters in front of the Kaohsiung and exploded, they can only see the explosion at the bow of the Kaohsiung from a long distance, and then they think that the torpedo directly hit the front half of the Kaohsiung starboard side.

When the Kaohsiung was hit by this torpedo again, the huge explosion almost destroyed the bow part of the Kaohsiung and caused a lot of water!

Soon after the Kaohsiung was hit by a torpedo, a twelve-inch cannonball fired by the Fuxi hit the bridge position, although the shell failed to penetrate their bridge armor, but the violent explosion still brought great damage to their bridge position!

When Nakamura Hachiro decided to reverse to avoid the torpedo, he had already predicted that he would be hit by the intensive fire of the enemy ships, and this was exactly the case, when he found that the speed of the Kaohsiung was reduced, although Vice Admiral Lu Jian at that time did not know what was happening, but this good opportunity would not be let go by him, and he immediately ordered to concentrate fire on the enemy No. 2 ship!

The second enemy ship is the Kaohsiung. After all, at the beginning of the battle, the Chinese Navy did not know the names of the specific ships of the enemy fleet, so they used numerical numbers to temporarily mark them, and after an hour-long battle, it was also determined one after another that the enemy No. 1 ship should be one of the Yamato-class ships, and it is not known which one it is. The second ship in the rear was also determined to be a Vanagi-class battleship based on its five twin-mounted sixteen-inch naval guns, and the Denagi-class battleship had already been sunk by the Chinese Navy in the last war, and it was said that "there is only one Kaohsiung left in this navy, so it is very easy to determine that it is Kaohsiung." As for the remaining capital ship, it is also identified as a Kongo-class battleship based on the four twin-mounted fourteen-inch naval guns on it, and it is unknown which one is Kongo-class, but it is either Haruna or Kirishima, because the other two Kongo and Hiei have been sunk by the Chinese Navy in the previous war.

Therefore, it is either the Haruna or the Kirishima that appears here!

Now seeing that the speed of the Kaohsiung has been greatly reduced, Lu Jian does not care whether it is because of the damage to the power crew or other reasons, as long as its speed is reduced, then Vice Admiral Lu Jian will not hesitate to order his four capital ships to concentrate their firepower to attack Kaohsiung, trying to sink or severely damage this capital ship by concentrating firepower.

As long as the Kaohsiung can be sunk, then the main ship of this navy will be three to one, and then it will occupy a great advantage for the Chinese navy.

After the order was delivered, the Yandi and the Yellow Emperor transferred their firepower to attack the Kaohsiung, and with the previous Shaohao and Fuxi-class firepower, a large number of sixteen-inch shells and twelve-inch shells poured into the vicinity of the Kaohsiung in an instant.

Even if the hit rate at this time was still not high, but if the number was compensated, a small number of shells still hit the enemy ship, and less than three minutes after the bow of the Kaohsiung was hit by a torpedo, a sixteen-inch shell fired by the Yellow Emperor hit the front armor belt of the Kaohsiung starboard side.

Although the Kaohsiung is called a battleship and its displacement is huge enough to reach more than 40,000 tons, Kaohsiung and Yandi are both products that belonged to the Washington Naval Treaty before, when the Kaohsiung side protection of the Kaohsiung built as a battle cruiser was worse than that of the Yandi, and the 120-kilogram huge shell easily penetrated the side armor of the Kaohsiung, and then entered the internal compartment and exploded.

And this is also the first sixteen-inch naval gun hit after more than an hour of fighting between the two sides, although the two sides fired a large number of sixteen-inch shells, but none of them hit, before only the Chinese Navy's twelve-inch shells hit a few rounds, and the fourteen-inch naval guns on the Hazel in the Navy also hit the Yandi, but the fourteen-inch shells did not bring much damage to the Yandi.

The lack of protection of the Yandi is relative to the sixteen-inch naval guns, and the fourteen-inch shells of the Haruna are still slightly insufficient to cause damage to the Yandi.

This is just like the twelve-inch naval guns in the Chinese Navy can't bring much damage to the enemy ships Shinano and Kaohsiung, even if the hit bomb hit the Kaohsiung, this can't be said to have brought much damage to the Kaohsiung, it can only be said that the Kaohsiung rudder malfunctioned through the explosion.

Now after the sixteen-inch shell fired from the Yellow Emperor hit the Kaohsiung, the effect was completely different!

The violent explosion made the Kaohsiung almost tremble, and the shell penetrated the broadside armor belt and penetrated deep into the internal compartment of the Kaohsiung, and then exploded directly near the Kaohsiung's front main gun ammunition depot!

The reason why the 16-inch cannon has such great power is because the 16-inch cannon can penetrate the armor protection of the enemy ship and then go deep into the inner compartment to explode, and if you are lucky, you can directly detonate the ammunition depot. Or concentrate the turrets of enemy ships and overturn the entire turret directly!

And tonight's Kaohsiung is destined to be the most unlucky one, being hit by two torpedoes in a row, and hitting a number of 12-inch shells in a row, one of which directly caused the Kaohsiung's steering gear to malfunction and not move, and now it has been hit by a 16-inch shell!

If it was just a hit, then the Kaohsiung was heavily damaged but still able to continue fighting, but the hit position of the sixteen-inch shell was just close to the ammunition depot of the Kaohsiung's front main gun, and the violent explosion directly detonated the Kaohsiung's front main gun ammunition depot!

Almost instantly, there was a violent explosion from the Kaohsiung, and its ammunition depot exploded!

In these days, there is no anti-ship weapon that is more powerful than the explosion of the battleship's own ammunition depot! The damage caused by the explosion of the Kaohsiung's ammunition depot was almost worse than all the previous blows combined!

The huge explosion power directly cracked the hull structure near the former ammunition depot of the Kaohsiung, and the hull structure could not withstand the pressure of the Kaohsiung's front and rear squeezing after being so badly damaged, and then it was tight for a minute, and the explosion site was concave one after another, and the stern was slowly cocked!

"Hit, hit!" The lookout on the Yellow Emperor in the distance shouted excitedly as he looked at the distant firelight.

Lieutenant General Lu Jian on the Yandi was also excited: "Finally got a hit!" ”

"Not only did it hit, but it also directly hit the enemy's ammunition depot, hmph, this time even their Amaterasu Okami himself couldn't save them!"

On the Kaohsiung, the hull has been significantly deformed at this time, the front of the island has been bent and concave, the stern has been raised to a certain height, and the hull structure on the entire Kaohsiung has begun to deform and bend.

Nakamura Hachiro's originally nervous mood had calmed down, and two tears could be seen slipping from the corners of his eyes when he closed his eyes: "Could it be that the Imperial Martial Arts has come to an end tonight?" ”

Nakamura Hachiro didn't give another order, because now everyone knows that the Kaohsiung is finished, and the Kaohsiung under such heavy damage can't even continue to stay afloat, sinking extremely fast, and there is not much time for the crew to escape!

Only five minutes later, the stern of the Kaohsiung had been cocked up to more than 20 degrees, and then under the action of gravity, the middle structure of the Kaohsiung's hull broke on a large scale, and the stern of the ship without support fell heavily into the sea. At this time, the bow of the Kaohsiung had already submerged in the sea, and the sea water had overflowed the foredeck.

After Nakamura Hachiro gave the final order to abandon the ship, he took out his pistol, the sinking speed of the Kaohsiung did not give him time to commit suicide by disembowelment, and he didn't want to tie himself to the battleship and sink himself with the ship like his predecessors, he wanted to die before the battleship sank!

After a crisp gunshot, several gunshots rang out from inside the bridge one after another!