After losing power, the Arizona became the Luftwaffe's best target. Watermark Ad TestWatermark Ad TestA group of bombers attacked the badly wounded battleship like vultures seeing carrion, but unexpectedly, the first sixths of the hit rate was still the most accurate single attack of this attack, and the remaining bunch of bombers bombed with accuracy ranging from one-eighth to one-tenth! The final result of the first wave of more than 40 bombers was only 6 bombs! But 6 bombs is not a lot, which at least means that more than a ton of high explosives fell on this poor battleship! Perhaps it was because the Germans liked to make the delay of the bombs longer, even though they were high-explosive bombs, but they could still smash through the unprotected upper deck and then explode inside the hull.

The end result was that the ton of picric acid explosives did not destroy the Arizona's armor box, but it turned most of the compartments outside the armor box into a sea of fire. The USS Arizona became like a flaming mountain floating on the surface of the sea...... The fire ignited almost everything that could be burned, from the teak deck to the various decorations inside and even to the steel being consumed in the sea of fire. The officers and men of the Arizona tried to save all this, wearing asbestos fireproof suits, gas masks, and water hoses desperately trying to extinguish the fire, but in the face of the fire demons spreading wantonly along the various pipes inside the ship and the tunnel that was not about to collapse, the Americans' rescue attempt ultimately failed. This is a real deck washing, and the entire deck of the battleship is engulfed in flames, much more efficient than firing high-explosive shells with rapid-fire guns! …。

In the face of the bombers coming from the sky, the U.S. Navy did its best to cover the battered Arizona, and they attacked the German bombers constantly circling in the sky with all weapons with an elevation angle greater than 45 degrees, from 12-pounder rapid-fire guns to Browning machine guns, the Americans did everything, and their efforts were somewhat rewarded. During the half-hour-long air strike, at least 12 German planes were shot down! The fiery snakes weaved together into a dense web of fire. Drive away your opponent as much as possible. This may be the reason why the hit rate in the later stage is not as high as the first wave of attacks.

When the USS Arizona turned into a pile of scrap metal, the first wave of bombers had begun to return home. Watch the departure of these air deaths. The Americans couldn't help but breathe, but not before they could take a breath. Another group of bombers is flying around! The number of bombers in this group was slightly smaller than in the previous wave, only 36 units, but in terms of formation, this bomber formation was more experienced than the first wave of attacks. The entire fleet was divided into four squads, each with nine bombers, which flew towards the American fleet in a neat formation. This time their target was the USS Mississippi! The reason is very simple, it is the worst maneuverable among the warships that still have combat effectiveness in the US fleet! After being hit by a 15-inch underwater bullet, the battleship can be described as broken. The left side of the entire bow is mostly submerged in the water, by pouring water into the side. The left-leaning situation has improved somewhat, but the first-leaning has become even more severe. Originally, as the distance widened, the problem of slowly draining the battleship while fighting should not be very big, but the attack from the sky put the American battleship in crisis again! …。

Relative to Britain and Germany. The U.S. Navy did not recognize the threat of the Air Force, and the British paid attention to it because the Royal Navy Army successfully sank a King-class battleship, while the German Navy paid attention to it because it suffered its own losses. And the rookie of the US Navy has just entered the war and does not know this matter at all, even if there are data and information, they can only understand these threats on paper, as for the specific situation at the time of the war, there is no understanding at all, and what is even more tragic is that the British Air Force took the torpedo route, and when attacking, they were all low-altitude close to the launch of torpedoes, while the Luftwaffe took horizontal and shallow dive bombing, which was to slide from the middle altitude and then drop bombs. …。

However, because the Mississippi was included in the British fleet, at this time, Jericho naturally would not sit idly by, gritting his teeth and sending 2 light cruisers and 4 destroyers to cover the Mississippi, which was incapacitated. "Based on past experience, I have found that formation cover bombing has a higher hit rate than single bombing in shallow dives or horizontal bombing, and if a bomber piloted by an experienced pilot in front of the bomber makes a corrective attack on the target in advance, then the accuracy will be higher, because the bomber behind can be readjusted according to the attack situation of the aircraft in front. And when bombers drop bombs in formation, the possibility of the opposing battleship dodging will be even less. Colonel Keitel, who commanded the second wave of bombing, said this after the battle..........

It has to be said that the colonel's attack method is very close to the horizontal bombing method of the Japanese Navy during the 2 war, which is a formation covered bombing with a leading aircraft to provide correction. The only problem may be that it doesn't do a good job when it comes to getting into the attack route. Colonel Keitel chose to enter vertically from the opposing side...... Not entering from the rear reduces the relative speed of each other.

There is no doubt about the advanced nature of this attack method, but the price is not small, because if you enter the attack route in a large formation, the opponent's anti-aircraft fire can concentrate the attack, and the formation bombing will improve the accuracy but the mobility will go down. A large number of antiaircraft guns of various calibers of British escort warships attacked the bombing formations fiercely, and it has to be said that the British did have a relatively high level of anti-aircraft shooting, at least they had relatively perfect anti-aircraft aiming equipment. A 75mm anti-aircraft gun shell exploded in the air, countless shrapnel flew in the air, a twin-engine plane flew with shrapnel to destroy the engine on the left side, the fuselage was crooked and out of formation, and before he could rebalance, another shell hit the fuselage straight into the fuselage, blowing the entire plane into a flaming fireball.

As the altitude continued to decrease, the firepower of the British battleships became more and more fierce! A large number of 37mm guns were put into anti-aircraft combat, and these weapons with extremely fast rate of fire and flexible turning became the biggest enemy of the German attack aircraft group! In less than 2 minutes. Two bombers were shot down by flying shells, and the remaining German bombers finally couldn't bear the pressure and began to disperse. The attack of the first squad was completely disintegrated by the attack of the auxiliary warships of the British Navy. The few remaining bombers, even if they barely dropped their bombs, were quite far from the target. However, before the British could hail their victory, the other two squads killed ......... almost simultaneously.

When the British wanted to intercept it, they realized that the target was too close, and this time the number was doubled! Although the fierce anti-aircraft fire of the British knocked down at least 6 bombers attacking from a height of several hundred meters, many more bombers have successfully dropped bombs, and the escort warships have done their best, and the rest can only depend on the Mississippi itself! Two bombs hit the turret and the bow of the ship, the former being blocked by the heavy armor of the turret, but the huge shock still destroyed some of the equipment inside. The bomb that hit the bow of the ship made another big hole near the waterline, and the entire bow was almost filled with seawater, and the third bomb was even more deadly, it was a near-miss, and the landing point was only 2 meters from the port side of the Mississippi!

The power of a bomb exploding at this distance is already about the same as a torpedo, after all, the former has more charge than a torpedo of this era. The huge water pressure generated by the explosion directly tore the entire hull plate apart, and then a large amount of seawater mixed with high-pressure bubbles poured into the hull, they crashed through layers of highly elastic steel plates, and finally hit the side wall of the motor room, the huge water pressure pushed the shrapnel to cut through the armor plates of the side wall and poured into the engine room, because of this blow alone, the poor Mississippi lost nearly half of its power! By the way, there are also more than 1,800 tons of water intake! However, the iron turtle is the iron turtle, even if it is washed by more than 14 inches of shells, 15 inches of water bullets and more than 300 kilograms of near-misses, it still stubbornly floats on the water! This American battleship washed away the humiliation suffered by its ships of the same class in Saipan that year! "The United States is unsinkable!" A U.S. Navy officer and sailor aboard the USS New Mexico shouted excitedly when he saw the battleship USS Mississippi that was still struggling! …………。

"This thing is going against the sky!" Looking at the scarred battleship USS Mississippi, the Germans also had a headache, although the entire bow was almost level with the water, but the American battleship was still floating on the water, and the 3 turrets were still spewing deadly tongues of fire. "The anti-sinking capabilities of the improved New Mexico class are definitely not inferior to those of the Bismarck-class battleships." This is what Hipper said about this class of American battleships after the war...... And just when Meiying was glad that they had finally held it, and just when Hippert was regretting it, the fourth attack formation finally arrived.

"And there's more!" Enraged Entente ships attacked the last wave of bomber formations with all the weapons they could muster, and the Germans still insisted on their formation bombing tactics. And the Allied escort warships still used ferocious anti-aircraft fire to sweep away air targets. In the third bombardment, at least 4 bombers were smashed into the sand and were shattered by flying shells. The third wave of attacks was disintegrated, and only one bomb landed on the hull, blasting two secondary guns into the sky. "It's all over? Looking at the distance, no new planes appeared. The Americans breathed a sigh of relief. "It seems that their nightmare is over, the opposing air force has completed the attack, and through previous intelligence analysis, it seems that the other side should have used all the long-range bombers that can be dispatched, that is, there will be no more attacks from the air! The Americans cheered! …。

Thanks to the book friend zhouyu1976 for the tip~~~