readx; Just when the three submarines belonging to the Second Submarine Detachment of the First Diving Fleet of the Third Fleet of the Chinese Navy were quietly approaching the transport fleet in the distant seas. Pen | fun | pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ

In this transport fleet, on the Iwate, Inoue Katsujun Osa was smoking a cigarette in his captain's room, and in his hand was writing a report on the operation of this escort on a document.

The transport fleet led by Inoue Katsusumi was not too large, with just over a dozen transports, in addition to the three destroyers escorting the ship and his flagship Iwate.

Since the outbreak of the war, the main fleet of the navy has basically carried out armed escort to avoid being attacked by the Chinese navy, and this kind of escort action is naturally impossible for the main fleet to undertake, and the task of escorting the main fleet of the navy is to fight a decisive battle with the main force of the Chinese navy, and the task of escort can only be entrusted to a large number of old second-line ships, such as the second-line armored cruisers such as the Iwate.

The Iwate is already a very old battleship, construction began in 1898, launched in 1900, and then admitted that it was one of the main ships and participated in the Russo-Japanese War in 1906, which made a huge contribution to the rise of the Navy, and then after the Russo-Russian War, the world's navy began to develop towards dreadnoughts, and the status of armored cruisers began to be replaced by battle cruisers, so the Iwate quickly became a second-line battleship. In the Washington Naval Treaty after World War I, although the navies of various countries had to dismantle a large number of capital ships, the armored cruiser Iwate was able to avoid dismantling and continue to serve in the second-tier fleet because of its tonnage of less than 10,000 tons, and then participated in the war in 1923. However, at that time, the Bandite was already old, and there was no chance to participate in the battle at all, so it could only escort the mission.

Now, seven years later, the Iwate is even older, nearly 30 years old, but it has not been decommissioned and continues to serve in the second-tier fleet, serving as escort and coastal defense along with a large number of other older ships.

This voyage was already the second escort mission that the Iwate had served as an escort in just over half a month, leading more than a dozen transport ships to transport a large amount of supplies to North Korea, including a large amount of ammunition and other supplies.

Inoue Katsusumi put down the pen after writing half of the report in his hand. His thoughts are a little unfocused now, remembering what his wife Naiko said to him a few days ago is a kind of boredom in his heart, his wife Naiko was born in a family, much better than his family, if it wasn't for a coincidence, he wouldn't have married him, but this gap in family background has always made Inoue Katsuchun feel a little uncomfortable. Many people think that he rose to prominence because of his wife's background.

"Those guys, they know what I've done all these years!" Inoue Katsujun sighed in his heart, and then picked up his cigarette and walked out of the captain's room, preparing to blow the sea breeze on the bridge.

"Dazuo!" As soon as he came out, a lieutenant walked over in a hurry.

Inoue Katsuchun, who was already in a bad mood, frowned and shouted: "Hmph, how can you be flustered, don't forget that you are an officer of the Imperial Navy, and you must always maintain the prestige of an officer!" ”

But as if he could not hear his accusations, the lieutenant continued to trot forward, and when he got closer, Inoue Katsujun could see the panicked look on his face.

"Dazuo, there is an enemy ahead!" The lieutenant spoke.

When Inoue Katsuchun heard this, his face also changed: "Encounter an enemy? What's going on? Where are the enemy ships? ”

The lieutenant seemed to be relieved at this time, and said, "The Feather Wind called ahead, saying that it had found traces of enemy submarines?" ”

Inoue Katsuchun frowned when he heard that it was a submarine: "How is it now?" ”

And as soon as his words fell, he heard a dull explosion, which seemed to come from the sea far ahead, and reached the ears of Inoue Katsujun on the empty night sea, and as soon as he heard this explosion, he felt very bad, as a qualified naval officer, he could only hear this explosion, this was definitely not the sound of a naval gun shell exploding, but the sound of a torpedo exploding.

And he was very sure that this was definitely not a torpedo fired by his own side, because if the destroyers under his fleet were to fire torpedoes, they would definitely fire at enemy surface ships, and he had already received the news before the engagement. And this sudden explosion only says one thing: that is, their fleet was ambushed by enemy submarines.

Inoue Katsujun didn't speak, but ran quickly to the bridge, and then just after arriving at the bridge, he shouted, "What's the matter?" Where are the enemy's submarines? ”

At this time, the deputy captain on duty immediately walked over: "Dazuo, just now the Feather Wind reported that the Aiyan was hit!" ”

The Love Eye is a thousand-ton transport ship in the transport fleet, but Inoue Katsujun is not interested in these, he wants to know where the enemy is?

Then the deputy captain continued: "Based on the previous enemy attack, we judged that the enemy's submarine was in the northwest direction of the fleet!" Now the Feather Wind is already on its way to anti-submarine warfare! ”

As a Fengfeng-class destroyer, the Feather Wind was a destroyer with more than 1,200 tons, much stronger than the other two old destroyers in the fleet. The Fengfeng-class destroyers were built before the Washington Naval Treaty, and were originally scheduled to be used in a decisive battle with the Amagi-class battlecruisers, so they were extremely superior in all aspects, and the maximum speed was as high as thirty-nine knots. However, the replacement of destroyers is much faster than that of capital ships, and basically after six to eight years, destroyers will be of a new generation. After the Fengfeng class, it was said that "Ben has successively built Kamikaze-class and Haoyue-class two-stage destroyers.

Of course, this is not to say that the Fengfeng-class destroyers are old and unusable, in fact, in the recent naval battle, the Fengfeng-class destroyers still participated in the naval battle as the main force.

The situation is similar to that of the Chinese Navy, which began to design and build two-stage destroyers in 1925 and 1928, but the Pingtai-class destroyers built before 1923 are still the main destroyers of the Navy.

In fact, without the order of Inoue Katsujun, the Hakaze had already begun to accelerate and conduct anti-submarine reconnaissance operations. However, due to the darkness of the night, the Feather Wind was only able to roughly determine the direction of the torpedo attack by the situation when the transport ship exploded, and launched anti-submarine warfare in this direction.

In those years, anti-submarine warfare was still relatively primitive, mainly relying on the naked eye observation of the crew, and after discovering the periscope of the enemy's submarine, it directly attacked with artillery or attacked with depth charges after getting close. As for the sonar, although it has appeared during the First World War and served on the British [***] ship, the technical requirements for sonar are still very high, and there are few countries that can build it, so far, in fact, only the British have a practical sonar, and even the Americans do not have sonar devices now, and in the Chinese Navy, although research has also been carried out and there are a small number of test models, but the failure is high and the price is high, and more importantly, the surname can far from being able to satisfy the navy, In the anti-submarine warfare of the Chinese Navy at this stage, the Navy prefers to believe in its own eyes rather than sonar. Therefore, China's sonar is still some way from practical combat and practicality.

The same thing happened in the Navy, which has begun to study sonar, but it has not yet reached the stage of practical application, and anti-submarine warfare can only rely on the naked eye to observe the sea surface, and then determine the direction to carry out anti-submarine warfare.

In anti-submarine warfare, the most difficult thing is to determine the position of the submarine, and once the position of the submarine is determined, the destroyer is basically able to carry out a unilateral slaughter of the submarine.

However, the difficulty lies in finding the target, especially in the dark sea at night, and it is even more difficult to find the enemy's submarine.

The Feather Wind had reached a top speed of thirty-nine knots, and it didn't take long for it to reach its predetermined position, and then the crew was looking for any suspicious targets on the surface with their eyes wide open. However, after a few minutes, no suspicious targets were found.

So the Feather Wind began to blindly fire from naval guns in this range, and at the same time dropped several depth charges on the predetermined area. Even if it can't be found for a while, it can't be found, but it is enough to suppress this submarine of the Chinese Navy.

At the same time, on board the Iwate, Inoue Katsujun Osa continued to order: "Order the transport fleet to evacuate to the northeast first!" ”

His mission is to protect the safety of the transport fleet, and as long as the transport fleet is safe, then his mission is completed. And the Chinese submarine, he is also sure, it is a big deal to let the Yufeng stay here for a few hours, until dawn, maybe he will be able to catch it.

However, just as Inoue Katsusumi Daisa's direct fleet began to flee to the northeast, suddenly there was a violent vibration from the Iwate, and then a muffled loud bang came.

Katsujun Inoue, who was shaken down and fell, struggled to get up, shouting: "The enemy has not just one submarine, but two."

Two minutes later, before another destroyer arrived, the Bandite was hit by another torpedo, and after hitting two torpedoes, the Wasade was unable to stop the incoming water, and then began to sink rapidly.

Before World War I, warships, including battleships, had a very average torpedo defense, and even if a battleship was hit by a heavy torpedo, it was seriously injured even if it was unsinkable. Although the warships built after the twenties have greatly increased their underwater defenses, especially against torpedoes, they still have some shortcomings, and this situation is a common defect of the world's navies, not that this navy will be like this, even the Chinese navy, the British navy and the American navy. This was the case with the battleships of the First World War, and it was impossible to expect the Iwate launched in 1900 to have a complete underwater torpedo defense, which was hit by one, and the Iwate was actually not far from sinking, and after being hit by the second torpedo, it was basically a death sentence for the Iwate, and in the next few minutes, the Iwate sank quickly and completely into the sea.

And at this time, there was a loud bang from another transport ship in the transport fleet, and it was clear that it had been hit.

Judging from the fact that the two transports and the Iwate were hit, the officers of this navy can already determine that there were at least three or more submarines ambushed them. If it was daytime, they didn't have to be afraid of anything, but it was past one o'clock in the morning, and it was basically difficult to find a submarine under the surface of the sea with the naked eye in the dark night.