After eliminating their respective opponents, the Amsterdam and the Scharnhorst finally got together! Rear Admiral Spee, who had just been excited about sinking an enemy ship of about the same tonnage as himself, did not hesitate to command the Scharnhorst to fill the vacancy caused by the sinking of the Taipei, and pinched the most powerful warship in the Russian and Dutch navies! I have to say that Rear Admiral Spee at this time was a little hot-headed, although the Scharnhorst was powerful, and even hung the name of a pocket battle cruiser, but it was also a fast capital ship, and the gap between Scharnhorst and Amsterdam was still obvious.

Aside from the two less guns than the other party, the gap in protection is even greater, the 11-inch main assembly is 8 inches, the former is almost immune to the German 11-inch 45L main gun, and the latter can withstand the 262KG heavy bomb with an initial velocity of up to 850 meters at the middle distance! Overall, the Amsterdam's firepower with high-speed neutralization and high-velocity electric turret is not weaker than that of the Longxu battlecruiser, and stronger than the Ninghai-class quasi-dreadnought and the Scharnhorst!

And at this time...... Under the command of Cheng Biguang, 3 Ninghai-class battleships and 3 fast battleships of the Russian-Dutch Navy are firing fiercely, and the fast battleships use a lot of money and the high speed they pile up to have very limited significance in the standard battle line engagement. And there is no advantage in protecting the two Peter the Great-class fast battleships! In addition, the quality of the officers and men of the Chinese Navy is generally higher, so the two warships directly under Essen are extremely entangled! …。

Although the rate of fire of the Ninghai and Jinghai was slow, but the accurate shooting grasped the initiative of the battlefield at the beginning, the two battleships opened the distance between them and the opponent as much as possible, and cooperated to attack the opponent at a distance of 8 to 9 kilometers, while the two Russian capital ships only had 12 main guns, and the hit rate was low. In addition, Cheng Biguang has enough confidence in the defense of the Ninghai. So Cheng Biguang gave up a simple one-on-one fight. Instead, after breaking the balance, when one of the opponent's battleships evaded or the firepower was weakened, the firepower was concentrated to attack the other battleship, and the salvos of the Pinghai and Jinghai from time to time brought considerable pressure to the two Peter the Great-class battleships!

5 minutes after the start of the engagement. The Jinghai, which was in second place, was the first to give its opponent a heavy blow! A 12-inch shell accurately smashed into the top of the Catherine's B turret, although this shell was said to be unable to penetrate the turret's horizontal armor, but sadly, the Russians believed too much in the effect of hardened armor, so the top armor of the turret was also hardened armor, not highly elastic homogeneous steel armor. In addition, the thickness of this piece of horizontal armor is not high. ONLY 75MM THICK. However, the thickness of the hardened layer was sufficient, so the shell did not bounce off after hitting the turret horizontal armor, but hit the horizontal armor with sufficient hardness but insufficient toughness. A huge shock was transmitted to the lower part of the armor. This resulted in a large number of backplate and steel plate cracking! Although the cannonballs were not able to enter the turret, the resulting fragments still swept through the entire gun crew indiscriminately! …。

"Suddenly I heard a dull crash, followed by a shrill tearing sound that resounded throughout the turret. It drowned out all the sounds, and the entire turret reverberated with this mind-crushing sound. Then splinters rained down from the top of the gun on the left, destroying everything they could touch, the electric lights for lighting, the hydraulic and reset equipment to control the pitch of the gun, and a living life! I subconsciously leaned towards the side of the main gun, and immediately heard the sound of splinters hitting the steel. and the screams of our comrades, it was like a shrapnel suddenly exploding above our heads, and we were defenseless and stuck in a cramped turret. I was lucky, but I was hit by a few rounds of shrapnel in the leg, and my artillery crew lost at least 70% of its personnel in this hit! Afterwards, the soldier said with trepidation. …。

The shells did not penetrate the turret, so from the outside, there was nothing wrong with the top of the turret except for a pit, although it had been killed inside, but at first the Russians did not notice that the turret had lost its effect. The servo of one of the guns was badly damaged, while the other was basically fine, and of course, the two gun crews inside were almost all buried! The first thing that discovered that the Ekaterina was strange was actually the Jinghai that was fighting with it, and the Jinghai suddenly found that the three-headed dog that was breathing fire on the opposite side suddenly became a two-headed dog! . …。

Later, the Russians also noticed that the firepower seemed to have weakened somewhat. The telephone inside the ship could not be reached, and after sending someone to check in desperation, they found that the Russian artillery crew in the B turret had been completely damaged, so they hurriedly repaired the damaged equipment while letting the spare artillery crew enter the battle position. And just as the Russians were busy, another 12-inch shell hit the front of the C turret, which landed on the floor of the infirmary behind the deck of the big ship! The violent explosion instantly shredded the entire cabin...... The sheets, alcohol, bandages and other items inside were ignited, billowing black smoke gushed out of the large hole in the deck, and the third turret of the Catherine was instantly covered by thick smoke.

And that's not all, the fire spread along the corridor to other places, and even threatened the adjacent power supply room! Although the damage caused by these two shells is not irreparable, the damage caused by them will inevitably lead to serious consequences if they are not dealt with immediately, so the Catherine quickly signaled to Essen, asking if she could temporarily withdraw from the battle column to save herself, and Essen looked at the Ekaterina with thick smoke and called it a tangle. The Catherine now needs to save itself, but what if it's gone, what if it's left alone? One-on-two? It's obviously unrealistic. So Essen took a compromise, which was to stay in the battle line, but arrange for auxiliary warships to release smoke to cover the ......... of Catherina.

Several lightning strike ships carrying smoke canisters sailed towards the Catherine and pulled out a cigarette belt to provide cover for the damaged battleship. Look at the battleship looming behind the smoke. Cheng Biguang decisively gave up the attack on the Catherine. Instead, immediately concentrate fire on Essen's flagship! The salvo of 12 12-inch large-caliber guns spewed tongues of fire at the Peter the Great, and the Russian battleships, which still had the upper hand in a dozen and one, could not fight at all in the case of two to one, and the dense barrage of two battleships alternately enveloped Peter the Great, and violent explosions sounded from this cutting-edge battleship from time to time!

Peter the Great is one of Russia's newest warships. The heavy 10-inch armor stubbornly resisted the blows of the 12-inch guns like a battering ram from 7,000 meters away! THE 380+ KG SHELL REPEATEDLY HIT THE SLENDER HULL OF THE PETER THE GREAT, AND WITH A PIERCING CRASH, A 12-INCH SHELL HIT THE FRONT OF THE PETER THE GREAT SERVO ALMOST AGAINST THE WATER, AND THE SHELL HIT THE JUNCTION OF THE MAIN ARMOR BELT AND THE TAIL ARMOR, AND THE MAIN ARMOR BOX WAS INTACT. But the tail armor belt was torn in a big piece. What's even more tragic is that the fragments after the explosion of this shell directly penetrated the mine protection empty compartment under the waterline of the hull, causing two separate silos to enter the water! So that the battleship had a tail roll ..........

And then several shells of the Jinghai hit the rear of the hull, and the fighting side of the entire rear hull was taken care of by various shells depending on the caliber, and the tail armor, which was not thick, was knocked out in all directions. Large chunks of armor peeled off the hull, and even some of the main artillery shells pierced through the dome armor and exploded near the propeller shaft and steering gear! These repeated blows increased the draft of Peter the Great by at least 1.5 meters!

Just when the Pinghai and Jinghai were beating the Russian fleet, the two seven-level fast battleships were also repeating what the Pinghai and Jinghai were doing, and it has to be said that the Netherlands. The last vestiges of the former maritime power were still very strong, unlike the Russian navy, which had already lost two heavy bloodsheds. Although the Dutch navy has not experienced actual combat, because there are no losses, the professional quality of middle and low-ranking officers is still very high, although the Russians have fought battles, but most of the experienced ones have died on the battlefield. So in this naval battle, the level of performance of the Dutch at the tactical level is indeed relatively high. …。

Of course, there is another reason that the two seventh-level fast battleships are obviously stronger than the combination of one Ninghai and one Shannhorst! After the last naval battle. The Dutch found that in the face of the attack of the enemy ships with 8 12-inch main guns, the seven provinces could support it for a long time, and this time the opponent only had 6 12-inch guns and 6 11-inch guns, and the main armor up to 11 inches thick could completely resist the opponent's direct fire..........

Faced with this situation...... Ninghai is okay to say. It will be able to support it for a while, and the Scharnhorst, which was still killing all sides just now, can't stand it in the first place. At a distance of 5,000 meters, a 262KG shell finally pierced through the 8-inch main equipment of the Scharnhorst. It then shot straight into the lower deck and exploded above the dome, sending a hurricane through the flue and adjacent power distribution room close to the explosion point. Before the officers and men of the German Navy could react, they were directly beaten into a puddle of minced meat by dense shrapnel and flames. A fire of modest scale was caused in the amidships of the hull.

In the beginning. The German officers and men, under the command of the officer, quickly rallied to the fire point to prepare to extinguish the fire, but then the dense 6-inch high-explosive and shrapnel turned any place without armor protection into hell. "Walking through the dim corridor, I don't know when a cannonball from the side wall will fall next to you, accompanied by a loud bang and a huge fireball, and the companions who were alive just now will turn into ashes, only a few blackened hard hats or something else prove that these people still existed!" This is how a German second lieutenant described the aftermath of the war.

But at this moment, neither Liu Guanxiong nor Major General Spee had a trace of fear and evasion. Under the command of Rear Admiral Spee, the Scharnhorst avoided counterattacks in the smoke screen and rain of bullets, and the dexterous and powerful Amsterdam fast battleship maneuvered, and tried to pull away as much as possible to give full play to the fire control advantage to counterattack, although the situation was ugly, but thanks to the thick dome armor, this last German armored cruiser would not collapse immediately! . …。

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