"This can't be a deliberate trap set by the Italians, right?" Finally, half an hour later, the Rheinland spotted the Bora in the distance, and because of the light and a little luck, when the Rheinland spotted the Bora, the distance between the two sides was less than 18km! And the Bora was really patient, and did not rush to fire after the opponent entered the firing range, and when the opponent was ready to turn and evacuate, the Bora fired the first salvo!

Nine 10-inch guns erupted tongues of fire, and shells weighing 260 kg were rapidly accumulating from the chambers, and before that, four seaplanes ejected from the Bora had also been lifted into the air. Unlike German seaplanes, these three seaplanes were carrying small bombs, and it was unlikely that they would sink each other, but it was okay to cause some interference.

"It's still quite accurate, it's been more than ten years, and the Italian Navy hasn't been abandoned." Looking at the shells that landed not far from the back of the hull, Hansen said with a gloomy face. If nothing else...... This battleship should be the Italian Navy's heavy cruiser Bora, equipped with a seaplane, but also has a chance to find himself first. Based on the problems within the German Navy, Hansen knew that this battleship was definitely not a match for itself, and the entire German East African fleet did not seem to have a single presence with it. So in this case, it is better to evacuate as soon as possible! Of course, as a qualified German naval officer, he was the first to send out the news of his encounter with the Italian fleet.........

"Retreat at full speed! Don't stay here for long! "After Hansen gave the order. In just a few minutes, the Rheinland's power output was raised to another notch, and all 10 oil-fired boilers were running at full speed. High-temperature and high-pressure steam was sent to the engine room, and the four gas turbines produced a powerful thrust of up to 110,000 horsepower, and the speed of the entire battleship was quickly increased to about 30 knots. The distance between the two sides is also slowly widening. Although the Bora continued to shoot, it was never able to form a breakdown because both sides were sailing at high speed and the distance was somewhat remote. As for the hit, it is even more far away.

However, just because the shell misses does not mean that the bomb misses! Three seaplanes staggered over. Adhering to the tradition of the anti-aircraft artillery coffee table of the German Navy in World War 2 (such as the world-famous 37 hand-pulled machine on the Bismarck. The performance of the German Navy's anti-aircraft guns in this plane is still relatively good. At least for now, not to mention that the Rhine came alone, not to mention the rush to flee for her life. Didn't care about these three planes.

A seaplane flew through the sparse artillery fire and carried out a forward dive bombardment 400 meters above the Rhine, two bombs like black dots slid off the wings, and with a pop, one fell into the sea close to the side of the Rhine's hull. The Germans didn't care at first, but then a muffled sound made the ship shake slightly, and although the charge of a 100kg high-explosive bomb was not much, it was much more than a 10-inch grenade. The near-miss bomb exploded 5 meters underwater, just avoiding the main armor of the Rheinland's sidestrings, and the energy generated by the detonation of the high-energy explosive squeezed the shrapnel and seawater towards the hull. The outer hull plates and empty compartments were first broken through, and then the tanks. Fortunately, the Germans' TDS armor was quite good, and the last layer of armor barely blocked the attack, but it also caused several cabins to ......... flooded.

"It doesn't matter, the power equipment was not destroyed." Hansen felt a slight shock to the hull and then returned to normal, and his heart was wide at the moment. Look at the Bora as it is gradually being pulled away. With a wry smile on his face, he didn't know whether to congratulate himself on his luck or not. I was going to go out to hunt rabbits, but I ran into a tiger that really caught him a little unexpected. Just when he was glad to have escaped, a bomb dropped by another plane almost blew up Hansen's lungs! …。

The bomb landed at the base of the chimney of the Rheinland, where several flues converged and then exhausted through the upper chimney, and this high-explosive bomb exploded and directly destroyed most of the flue, billowing smoke and flames spread in the cabin after losing their restraints, and even part of the exhaust gas poured into the power compartment causing the two boilers to go out! As a result, the output power decreases dramatically. The speed dropped by more than two knots!

"Prepare to fight, or win, or die with the banner held high! Get all the seaplanes out and I'm going to see how much the Italians have grown over the years! "By this time, the four seaplanes that had taken off from the Bora had dropped all their bombs, and there were no weapons except for two 50mm machine guns, one of which was damaged by anti-aircraft fire and made a shaky forced landing on the sea. So when the Rheinland released all the 4 seaplanes that could be used. In the air, the Germans had the upper hand, and although the German seaplanes were not equipped with bombs, they still rushed forward without fear of death, and used the 20mm machine gun in the bow to strafe the deck ......... of the Bora.

Then the nine guns on the Rhine also roared...... The advantage of the faster rate of fire of the guns of the German battleships manifested itself at this moment, and in just one minute, the Rhine fired 6 salvos! The Pola was enveloped in dense water, and two near-miss bombs even landed less than 10 meters away from the battleship. "After all, it's just a sheep, and you dare to attack a lion?!" Although the rate of fire of the Bora was relatively slow, as the distance narrowed, the thick water columns of tens of meters high from the 10-inch guns still terrified the Germans. The orange muzzle flames were poured from time to time, and heavy shells flew directly over the two battleships.

The Germans released smoke while dodging, and after gaining air supremacy, the Germans completely abandoned using their ship's rangefinder to correct the design parameters, and instead relied entirely on seaplanes to guide the artillery, while they hid their bodies in the smoke. Although the aviation shooting technology was not yet mature at this time, the Germans originally wanted to get rid of time, and once the power compartment was restored a little, they would immediately flash people.

But perhaps it was the Germans who did not come to the ground, and a shell landed behind the third turret of the Bora, where there happened to be a catapult with a drone on it. The shells, weighing more than 100 kilograms, easily tore the biplane to pieces, then destroyed the catapult and went all the way down, tearing through the upper deck until it was blocked by the main horizontal armor. Behind the fire, a small fire burned on the aft deck. However, apart from affecting the viewing, there is not much trouble ..........

In the face of the Rhine, which was incarnated as a squid, the Bora did not have a very good way, and the accuracy of the shelling was not as good as before, and several shells fell around the target sparsely. But the good fortune of the Germans was here, just when the battle was at a stalemate, the buzz from the sky made Hansen completely despair, and under the cover of 3 fighters, 7 bombers with 250kg bombs came over!

"The sea attack of the Italian naval aviation was still very orderly, the three fighters immediately dived after dealing with our seaplanes, and then used machine guns and small bombs to suppress our air defense, and when our anti-aircraft guns were exhausted, the seven bombers divided into two groups to launch dive bombing of our ships from the left and right directions. And after the end of the first wave of attacks, the bombers who had completed the bombing did not evacuate, and also joined the suppression of the anti-aircraft artillery, and the strafing of more than a dozen machine guns and machine guns completely suppressed our exposed anti-aircraft rapid-fire guns, so that the next 4 bombers almost did not encounter decent resistance when they dropped their bombs! "This is how a rescued German ensign after the war said about the first battle of Italian naval aviation.

In fact, the fate of the Rheinland was already sealed in the first round of dive bombing, a 250kg high-explosive bomb hit the tail of the battleship, and the violent explosion directly destroyed the fragile horizontal armor in the upper part of the transmission shaft compartment (here the horizontal armor is inferior to the main horizontal armor in the armor box. Directly blew off one of the propeller shafts, and the vibration caused some malfunctions in the stern wheelhouse. A 250kg bomb from the next four dive bombers hit the ship's amidships, and the shrapnel and flames from the explosion directly destroyed several important steam pipes. The last near-miss shot opened a large hole of several square meters in the underwater part of the starboard side of the hull, and under the action of more than 100 kilograms of high-explosive charge, the underwater defense system of the Rheinland was completely destroyed by high-temperature and high-pressure bubbles and high-speed shrapnel. In just a few minutes, hundreds of tons of seawater poured in. …………。

The Rhine, which was seriously damaged and the hull was broken, was finally exposed to the guns of the Bora after the smoke screen dissipated, and the 9 guns could not beat the 9 10-inch guns after all, and the accuracy of the Italians increased rapidly in good observation conditions, and the Rheinland was successfully clamped 15km away in only 3 test firings, and the fourth salvo caused a close miss, and the fifth salvo was hit, and a 260kg armor-piercing shell directly penetrated the No. 2 gun mount of the Rhine...... The hardened layer of the cap and the outer layer of the armor shattered at the same time, leaving a round warhead to hit the non-hardened layer behind. With a loud bang, it finally entered the dressing room under the turret and ignited more than ten medicine packs inside!

With a loud bang, a column of smoke nearly 100 meters long rose from the front of the hull, and a violent shock wave began to spread towards the No. 1 and No. 3 turrets. Numerous shrapnel and armor fragments swept across the entire foredeck. In the midst of a succession of explosions. Turret No. 1 failed due to shock. And the No. 3 turret also had a gun barrel smashed by a steel plate weighing hundreds of kilograms, and the entire battleship lost 7% of its firepower in an instant! The entire foredeck became a sea of fire, the angle of inclination of the battleship increased, and it was only a matter of time before it sank.

Just as the Italians were about to kill the dog and completely eliminate the Rhine, medium-range bombers from German East Africa appeared in the air. "Now that we've achieved our goal. And I earned a light cruiser for nothing, so let's go, I don't have the idea of fighting with the opposing land-based aviation. After receiving the report, Iyakino ordered the Sicily to release four fighters to cover the evacuation of the fleet, and at the same time began to recover the first batch of released aircraft, and then evacuated the ......... with the Bora to the open sea.

Thanks to the book friend zhouyu1976, hukaikaka for the reward~~~, and the book friend Orphein for the monthly pass support ~~~~. (To be continued).