The Florida, which had increased the draft and decreased stability because of the change of guns, was the first to be unable to hold on, and the battleship Caesar, not to mention that it was Germany's first-class super dreadnought, but the armor performance was better, and at the same time, the artillery was also slightly advantageous, and coupled with the gap in the level of the two sides, after a period of firefighting, the Florida finally couldn't hold on!

At a distance of 12KM, the projection of the 8 guns of the Caesar was no worse than that of the 10 14-inch guns of the Florida, and the hit rate was even higher than that of the opponent. After the two sides exchanged greetings for half an hour, the Florida's side-chord main armor belt was pierced at least four times, and one of the shells fell into the boiler compartment, but due to the shock problem, it did not explode, and only 2 boilers were destroyed. Another 3 shells destroyed part of the flue and several secondary guns. And the beginning and tail were beaten into a sieve by the dense rain of bullets. The Caesar on the opposite side was also uncomfortable, the bow and tail parts of the hull were pierced many times, but because the main armor belt was quite strong, only two cracks were punched, so the problem was not very big.

IN THE END, THE FLORIDA COLLAPSED WITH A 350MM SHELL THAT HIT THE UPPER AMMUNITION DEPOT OF TURRET 2, WHICH DID NOT PENETRATE THE HORIZONTAL ARMOR ABOVE THE AMMUNITION BAY, BUT THE VIOLENT IMPACT CAUSED THE HORIZONTAL ARMOR TO CRACK UNDERNEATH. The collision and explosion gave these fragments an extremely high muzzle velocity, and these fragments inevitably sparked when they hit the ammunition below, and the propellant of the American artillery was a silk medicine pack! This qiē came so suddenly that the American officers and soldiers were engulfed in raging flames before they could react! A flash of fire shot into the sky from the top of turret 2, accompanied by a series of explosions and metal breaks. America's earliest superintrepid began to tremble, and the entire bow twisted and shook under the force of the explosion and eventually broke off from its hull. A large amount of seawater poured into the breach, and it took less than 1 minute. The bow of the ship sank into the sea, and the remaining hull was plunged headlong into the sea due to the explosion and excessive flooding. The USS Florida sank, the first capital ship lost by the US Navy, but definitely not the last!

Just as the Germans were cheering for the sinking of another Imperial battleship, suddenly, a loud noise came from behind them, and a huge fireball suddenly erupted from the bottom of the No. 1 turret of the Nassau-class battleship Westphalia, which was located at the tail of the battle line. Billowing smoke quickly poured out of the breach and spread out in all directions. The German damage control team quickly rushed to the place where the bullet was hit and did their best to put out the fire, and the officers and men in the ammunition depot immediately lowered the fire door. "God bless Germany!" A German soldier took out the cross around his neck and kissed it fiercely! The trembling body and the staccato voice told the others how dangerous the moment was. If it is a little slower, it can lead to disastrous consequences. "The turret is completely ruined, but thankfully it didn't explode." An officer wiped a cold sweat as he looked at the steel plate torn by the explosion.

And just when everyone thinks that things are over and the crisis is over. Another shell from the Pennsylvania accidentally hit the Westphalia's No. 2 turret mount! Just when the Germans breathed a sigh of relief. This 14-inch shell successfully penetrated the opponent's gun mount and detonated all the ammunition inside! This time the good fortune of the Germans finally came to an end, and the blast doors of the ammunition depot did not block the hundreds of kilograms of shrapnel coming at high speed! Pieces of shrapnel hammered like hammers on the fire door, and finally knocked it open! Before the German officers and men at the ammunition depot in the lower part of turret No. 2 could fill the water with water, they saw a fire dragon rushing down from the ceiling. And devoured all of them!

The Westphalia seemed to be dragged upwards by a raised hand, and the entire hull seemed to be out of the water, and then slammed into the sea, and the violent explosion cut the entire hull in half, and the fire and smoke poured out along the cracks. After a series of explosions, Germany's first dreadnought finally sank into the rolling waves. "It's 4 to 4 now." Scheer looked at the battleship Westphalia that was gradually disappearing into the sea, and said calmly.

The battle went on until this time. The German High Seas Fleet had already suffered even worse losses than the previous engagement, and even the Saxony, the No. 4 of the Bismarck-class battleships, was doomed to not return to the port of Kiel. Although he was still afloat, he had lost power, and the battleship, which had been overwhelmed, could no longer be towed. The end result can only be abandoned. The Americans' counterattack was very tenacious, although their artillery skills were not superb, but they still relied on a large number of artillery to block the opponent's attack.

"Our attack power is still a little worse, and we can only suppress the battleships of the United States that are very well defended, but cannot completely destroy them, and a very powerless feeling wells up in my heart. Unless the Hipper fleet can pull out its hand to help us, it will be difficult for us to achieve a decisive victory. Just as I was considering whether to retreat, a telegram gave me the courage to keep fighting, and our air force was finally here! Just when Scheer felt that the current situation of the war could be described as chicken, this telegram was undoubtedly the gospel of St. Milgar! Thinking about the Elector, who died under a British torpedo plane, Schell very much wanted to know what kind of achievements the German naval aviation could achieve today! Although German aircraft could not carry torpedoes with great lethality to battleships, bombshells of more than 300 kilograms still posed a certain threat to these warships. And the most favorable condition is that the British do not seem to have seaplane carriers with them, that is, the opposing side does not have air power to interfere with the air raids of bombers!

"It's a German plane!" The Pennsylvania, which was fighting, was the first to spot the German twin-engine bombers entering the battlefield from the northeast, and these guys painted with a huge iron cross had a black thing hanging under the belly of the plane, although it was far away, but the Americans could vaguely distinguish that this thing was not a torpedo but a bomb. "It seems, maybe, that the threat isn't too great, right?" Sims looked at the German bombers that were getting closer and closer, and said with some trepidation. The first wave of about 40 bombers began to cut into the battlefield from the rear of the American fleet, and the first target they aimed at was the battleship Arizona that was fighting the King, the main flagship of Scheer! The American battleship was right in the middle of the battle line, and there was much debate about why the Germans found this battleship and not the others.

"The opposing frigates are concentrated in the front, they are equipped with a large number of anti-aircraft guns or machine guns, which is very bad for us, and at this time we saw that there is a battleship that is fighting with the main flagship of the fleet, so we decided to help Commander Scheer solve this problem first." A Luftwaffe major who participated in the naval battle said. Well, in the final analysis, it is a sentence to help leaders solve difficulties! It's the same to sink a battleship, and you helped the fleet commander solve the difficulties, and people must be happy! Although it is difficult to say whether this was a sycophant or not, after the fact, Schell did strongly support the construction of naval aviation. And this major also became the first German aircraft carrier captain, is there anything to do with this? No one knows.

And the German Colonel Bowman, who led the team at the beginning, explained, "I thought he was a New Mexico-class battleship, and he was the biggest threat to the main fleet, so we decided to destroy this guy with the greatest threat first!" "From above, this battleship is indeed very similar to the New Mexico, so this battleship has become the first target of the Luftwaffe attack instead of Sims! These two explanations were the most popular at the time.

"Arizona will die under the bombs of bombers, this is fate, there is no escape." This third explanation has only circulated in a small range, Chinese President Xu Jie once said this quite puzzling sentence after learning that the Arizona died at the hands of bombers in the Norwegian naval battle, and everyone else present at the time thought it was a joke, but looking at Xu Jie's strict expression, it seems that it is really like that, and the final result is that it is not possible, and the reason may only be known to Xu Jie himself! (Book lovers who want to know can Baidu Pearl Harbor.) ）

In the face of the Luftwaffe that swooped over like a vulture, the Arizona immediately prepared for air defense operations, but in the medium-range engagement, the secondary guns were almost knocked out, not to mention most of the various anti-aircraft guns placed in the open air, and according to the intelligence of the British, the Luftwaffe did not seem to have the ability to attack ships, so the defense against aircraft was not strong, well, the British were not entirely wrong, it is true that you can't throw aviation torpedoes. And when these bombers with bombs began to attack with shallow dives and sliding bombing, the only option for the Arizona was to dodge! The battleship twisted its massive hull and began to turn to evade, but because there was too much water in the previous battle, the battleship moved a little slower.

But even so, the first round of bombing by the Luftwaffe can only be described as a tragic urge, 6 twin-engine bombers shallow dive bombing only hit one bomb, this 350KG high-explosive bomb directly smashed into the stern of the Arizona, and finally exploded above the propeller shaft after directly penetrating several decks, more than 200 kilograms of picric acid explosives placed in the bomb were ignited under the action of the fuse, a huge fireball rose from the stern, and then countless flames and air currents flew into the air, and even formed a small mushroom cloud. "At this moment, I thought it was the other party's ammunition depot that exploded, but when I looked at the wrong place, then there should be no ammunition."

The charge of a 14-inch armor-piercing shell is about 15.6KG, the charge of a 14-inch high-explosive bomb is about 38.1KG, and the charge of the bomb just hit is more than 200 kg, which is almost equivalent to the charge of six 14-inch high-explosive shells, and the attack is still on the stern of the weakly protected. The propeller shaft under the hit point was destroyed by the shock, and the other also had some problems, and the entire battleship was almost completely deprived of power. (To be continued......)