Episode 186 Decisive Battle at Sea (5)

The lead ships of the Japanese fleet were frequently torpedoed in a short time, and they quickly realized the problem: submarines!

Although the Ming fleet on the opposite side kept firing torpedoes, and the torpedo launchers on the decks of destroyers and cruisers kept firing "tom tom" and one after another huge torpedoes jumped into the water and rushed over, however, the Japanese side fired the same number of torpedoes, or even more, not to mention, in the face of the enemy fleet, they were all distributed in a fan-shape, six fan-shaped, several fan-shaped torpedo barrages, which continued to spread with distance and could improve the hit rate. The torpedoes fired from a few thousand meters on the opposite side were already very far apart, how could it happen that the Yamashiro was hit by two torpedoes almost at the same time! This is clearly launched from close range, and the distance is so close that it is very certain, and it can be hit without hitting the fan. This is simply a submarine!

The first to discover the problem were the Japanese officers and men on the Yamashiro. They went in and out of the fire and smoke, some dragging hoses to extinguish the fire, some dragging the wounded out from under the steel plates of the smashed towers, and several others clung to the deck railings, tiptoeing, pointing into the water and shouting:

"Submarines! Submarine! Behold, submarines!! ”

Sure enough, in the explosion and fire of the wreckage of a cruiser in the distance, two short pipes were side by side, one thick and one thin, flashing across the water more than thirty meters away, dragging a small white wave. Immediately, it disappeared into the darkness.

The Japanese sailors who were the first to spot shouted and waved their arms as they motioned for the tower's machine gun crew to fire into the water. But there were explosions and artillery all around, and what they shouted was simply not heard. At this moment, another shell hit the tower, directly opening a large hole in the armor, and a large number of steel plates, pipelines, shrapnel and a wave of hot air swept half of the deck. The deck of the Yamashiro was suddenly filled with new corpses. And one of the junior officers was covered in flesh and blood, dragging half of the mutilated calf, insisting on holding on to the gangway, gritting his teeth and climbing up.

A full five minutes later, the report of the submarine's periscope found in close proximity was transmitted to the Yamashiro command room. The Yamashiro immediately notified the flagship Mutsu with a signal light.

It is possible that the Ming submarines will be involved in stealing chickens and dogs, which is also expected by the Japanese army. The Mutsu immediately turned on the signal light and ordered the nearby "destroyer team" to carry out anti-submarine operations, and at the same time ordered the ships to distance themselves and increase their speed, hoping to get rid of the submarine by virtue of the speed advantage of the warships.

……

The overall movement of the Japanese fleet was immediately captured by the Ming fleet. In the command room of the Changping, the commander immediately knew that they had discovered the submarine. The commander of the fleet immediately issued an order, ordering his own destroyer fleet and light cruiser fleet to concentrate their firepower and bombard the Japanese destroyers, so that they could not resist the submarines.

The Japanese destroyers shuttled among the huge ships, and used sonar to search for submarines with difficulty amid the dense sound of warship engines and the deafening sound of cannons around them. It's almost in vain. Finally, a destroyer picked up the sound of the submarine, immediately slowed down, and began to circle around, trying to use sonar to determine the specific location. The air in the sky immediately whistled, and the 4-inch and 5-inch destroyers' main gun shells continued to fall, and the Japanese destroyers were suddenly surrounded by a column of water.

This is not a subterrent. Not to mention that you can't hear anything in this column of water, and even if you do, you will never live the moment when the submarine is blown up and sunk. The Japanese destroyer had no choice but to hurry up and leave the place of death.

The entire Japanese fleet was accelerating, and by this time the overall speed had risen to 16 or 17 knots. Takasu Shiro ordered to maintain this speed. This speed is enough to throw off the submarine under water, but not too fast, resulting in the instability of the firing platform and affecting the hit rate.

After the Japanese fleet accelerated, the Ming fleet also accelerated, and the two sides continued to maintain parallelism and shell each other, but everyone's hit rate decreased a little.

……

Then, something unexpected happened to the Japanese. After about forty minutes, a huge column of water rose up on the left side of the Yamashiro. The Yamashiro was hit by the third torpedo. Immediately afterward, another column of water rose on the same side, and the Yamashiro was hit by another torpedo.

The officers and men of the entire Ming fleet were fighting fiercely at their respective posts, and each warship was vigorously watching its "specific opponent", plus it was dark again, and there were fireballs and flashes everywhere, but not many people found out what was going on with the Yamashiro. Only the "specific opponent" of the Yamashiro, the Tokunaga directly opposite it, saw everything clearly.

By this time, the cheers on the Tokunaga had already resounded in the sky, and the sound of whistles and stomping on the steel plates resounded throughout the ship. At the same time, it was another salvo, and four 16-inch shells (four twin turrets, each salvo with only one gun of the turret, and the next salvo with the other side, so that only half of the main guns were fired at each salvo) slammed through.

Moments later, three columns of water rose right in front of the Yamashiri, and then a fourth shell exploded on the Yamashiro foredeck. The second turret of the Yamashiro was finally pierced, and the strangely shaped steel plates turned outward, and large clouds of flames erupted. Four propellants in the turret were ignited, and flames swept half of the foredeck.

The turret has always been the thickest part of a battleship's armor, and there is nothing more dangerous than a turret being penetrated. There is a propellant in the turret, and there is a lift passage leading to the ammunition depot underneath. Once the ammunition depot is ignited, a ship-wide explosion known as the "Martyrdom" will occur, and it would be good for one or two thousand battleships to survive.

But the Yamashiro was not martyred. Either the fire doors leading to the lower ammunition depots are tightly closed, or they are flooding the ammunition depots. Soon, the situation became clear. The Yamashiro flipped rapidly to the left, and the bow sank into the water at a rapid pace. This was not only caused by the ingress of four torpedoes, apparently they were also flooding the ammunition depot.

The mountain castle's towers, which were disproportionately high, became its deadliest burden at this time. Severe top-heavyness, combined with a massive amount of water ingress into the flanks caused by four torpedoes, already made it teeter. At this time, the balance of water injection on the other side will not catch up. Flipping can happen at any time.

At this time, the Yamashiro hung out all the signal flags. This is the "full flag", which is the highest etiquette of a warship, which is equivalent to a soldier wearing a grand dress and putting on all the medals and swords.

The captain of the Tokunaga on the other side looked at all this and already knew what the Yamashiro was going to do. The captain of the Yamashiro intends to die on the ship. But even so, the captain of the Tokunaga calmly ordered to continue firing until the Yamashiro was sunk.

There was already a sea of fire on the deck of the Yamashiro. A moment later, countless Japanese sailors scrambled to jump into the water. Obviously, the order to abandon the ship has already been issued. But just five minutes later, the Yamashiro quickly flipped on its side, its tall towers slamming into the water, and the two main gun turrets slid off the deck and into the sea. In the blink of an eye, the majestic giant ship just now only the round bottom of the ship is exposed on the sea.

"We sank the Yamashiro !!"

On the battleship Tokunaga, as well as on the two adjacent battleships, cheers resounded in the sky. Within two hours of the main battleships of the two armies clashing, the first to be sunk was the Japanese Yamashiro.

……

Takasu Shiro's flagship, the Michinoku, is in front of the Yamashiro at the moment, and the two battleships are in battle positions next to each other. Takasu Shiro's eyes widened as he watched the Yamashiro flip on its side.

This time it was clear that again two torpedoes in a row hit almost the same place. It's still a submarine! He didn't understand that the gallop at a speed of 17 knots for forty minutes in a row had not yet thrown off the Ming submarine. With the submarine at a slow speed of up to 6 knots under water, it is impossible to catch up with the fleet in any case.

There is no other explanation, it can only be thought that the blind cat ran into a dead mouse and ran into another submarine of the Ming army.

Takasu continued to give orders, and the entire fleet increased its speed again, this time to 20 knots.

But it was too late. Now the Mutsu has been hit by two torpedoes and has been filled with hundreds of tons of seawater, and the flagship itself cannot even drive at a speed of 20 knots. There is also the Mogami, which was scarred in the "veneer battle" of the cruiser at the beginning, plus hit another torpedo, and now it has become a "short board" that drags its feet.

Now it's equivalent to saying that the whole fleet is being dragged here by the flagship.

Takasu Shiro quickly weighed it and decided that the problem was not too serious. Even if you can only drive to this speed, it will be more than enough to throw off the submarine again.

Almost an hour later, the brutal truth slapped him in the face again.

Takasu saw a column of water several stories high rising from the right side of the Isei in front of him. Before he could react, another column of water followed. A few seconds later, another column of water.

Takasu Shiro's eyes were straight and his mouth was half-open, and he couldn't believe what he was seeing.

In just a few seconds, the right side of the Esai was hit by three torpedoes in a row! And this time the direction of the torpedo is on the right side! This is the direction with its back to the Ming fleet, unless the Ming torpedoes will turn, this kind of thing is simply not possible!

It's still a submarine!

The Japanese staff officers in the command room were also dumbfounded. They couldn't imagine that could happen. It is very clear that either the Ming military submarines laid a net so that they intercepted the Japanese fleet three times in three hours - of course, this is unlikely, or there were one or several high-speed submarines that could keep the Japanese fleet at an underwater speed of more than a dozen knots!

……

The Esai in front was hit by three torpedoes in almost the same position, and the sea water suddenly gushed in. At that time, the hull of the Esai tilted to the right, and at the same time the speed of the ship slowed down.

Subsequently, the Ming battleship Yanping on the opposite side fired a salvo, and a row of 15-inch shells covered the face. In an instant, another shell exploded on the Essee, and a secondary cannon was lifted several meters high and smashed into its own deck.