Fox of France

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After discovering that they had misidentified the target, the French began to hurriedly shift their firepower, re-measure the range, and re-target the target... and their opponents are now ready for everything.

The four 305mm guns of the battleship "Crecy" fired first. Just as the French planned to give priority to destroying the British battleships, the British were also the priority battleships against the French.

The battleship "Crecy" was aimed at the French flagship, the battleship "Trajan". This is a new battleship with a displacement comparable to that of the "Crecy". It is also the warship most threatening to the British fleet.

Four shells flew toward the Trajan amid the roar of the cannon.

The British have never been able to make a new smokeless propellant, and the propellant they use is still the old brown powder. The explosive gas expansion speed limit of brown gunpowder is quite low, which means that the initial velocity of the shells fired by the British artillery is relatively low. In order to pursue armor-piercing capabilities, the British can only use large-caliber and heavy warheads. So although the British cannons have a terrifying caliber, and the weight of the shells is many times better than that of the French, but because the muzzle velocity is too low, the actual armor-piercing ability is far inferior to the Trajan’s 203 mm gun. Not even much stronger than the 150mm gun of the previous generation of battleship "Caesar".

Of course, if it is penetrated, the charge of the 305mm shell is much more than any French shell, and it is naturally much more powerful.

In the first round of firing, one of the four shells hit the A turret of the "Trajan". The first round of volley can get a hit, which is simply God bless. And also hit such an important position that when the watchman reported "hit the enemy ship A turret", Lord George Kirkburn almost jumped up with joy.

However, the lookout sent a report like this: "We failed to penetrate the enemy's armor!"

"Damn! How can the French have such a thick skin! How can this be possible!"

When building this battleship, the British also adopted various methods to collect information on the French Augustus-class battleship. After roughly understanding the size and displacement of the French battleship, they conducted a reverse design based on the shape of the battleship to understand what thickness of armor the French can equip the battleship.

According to the British research results, at this distance, the British 305 artillery should be able to easily penetrate the armor of the Augustus-class battleship, but now, at such a close distance, the 305 artillery shells are actually used by the French. Fly!

"This is unscientific!" Lord George Kirkburn couldn't help. "These French people, don't they know to respect science? Could it be said that even science is on Napoleon's side?"

But this is actually very scientific. Science will not be on Napoleon's side, nor will it be on the British side, and of course, it will not be on the side of the king.

The reason why the British made mistakes in judgment is mainly because the British adopted the concept of comprehensive defense when they reversed the design, while the armor of the Augustus-class battleship adopted a key defense mode. The so-called key defense means that only those places that are really important have thick armor, and those places that are not critical, even if they are shot, will not directly affect survival and combat effectiveness. There is no armor at all. In this way, the French can pile up the key parts of the armor to be extraordinarily thick, and the front face of the turret is the thickest part of the armor on the entire battleship. If British artillery shells can penetrate here, the admiral Bruce on the opposite side will also shout "This is unscientific."

Hitting the opponent at such a close range should have been able to boost morale. However, the basis of a morale boost is to penetrate the opponent's armor, and once it fails to penetrate, the morale will be boosted. It was replaced by the French on the opposite side, but the morale of the British plummeted.

The French turned their guns and began to fight back. After all, the shell of the 203mm gun is lighter and the rate of fire is much faster than that of the British 305. However, the French shot all six 203 shells in the first round.

At this time, the battleship "Poitiers", which was behind the battleship "Crecy", also fired a salvo at the French. But this round of volleys was the same as the French, and they didn't hit anything.

The French redistributed firepower at this time, and the "Trajan" singled out the "Crecy", while the "Caesar" and the two supercruisers and armored cruisers behind it fought against the "Poitiers". As for the armored cruisers behind the British, because they hadn't had time to complete the steering, they were unable to join the battle for the time being. Admiral Bruce felt that he wanted to seize this opportunity to quickly kill the British.

The firing of the "Caesar" is more efficient than that of the "Trajan", which is also normal, because the "Caesar" has been in service for many years, and the soldiers are more familiar with her and operate more skillfully.

In the second round of the salvo of the battleship "Poitiers", the "Caesar" was hit, and her two shells hit the "Poitiers", but this time it was the French's turn to be depressed. . Because neither shell failed to penetrate the armor of the Poitiers.

However, "Poitiers" also missed the first round of the "Caesar" volley and hit nothing. The 305 guns of the British battleships were loaded very slowly. It took about two to three minutes to fire one shot. This time was enough for the "Caesar" 150 guns to fire five rounds.

So the "Caesar" shells came crackling again, and not only Caesar, but also the 127mm guns of the two super cruisers next to them also hit them in a head-on-head manner.

The British battleships are still adopting a comprehensive defense design. The so-called comprehensive defense is only that the defense area is larger. It is not true that there is armor everywhere. For example, the superstructure of warships is basically unarmored. This is not for other reasons, but because if these places are also equipped with heavy armor plates, the center of gravity of the entire ship will rise significantly, and then as long as there is a little wind and waves, the ship will be shaken to be unusable. If the wind and waves are a little bigger, Maybe you don't need to be beaten by others, and you can turn it over yourself.

Therefore, although the guns could not effectively penetrate the armor of the British battleships, it was enough to help the British wash the decks.

In the second round of the salvo, the "Caesar" got a hit, and in the third round and the fourth round of the volley thereafter, he got a hit. In the third round of the salvo, three 150 shells fired by "Caesar" hit the target. One of them hit the bridge, killing the captain and dozens of other officers who were commanding operations there. Fortunately, the British also had a backup deputy captain, who quickly took over command.

But this also caused a lot of trouble for the warship's combat, but immediately after the fourth round of salvo, another shell hit the combined rangefinder on the platform outside the bridge. The three-meter-long rangefinder was blown into pieces, and the officer responsible for using the rangefinder was also killed. Fortunately, in another position, there is a same rangefinder, otherwise, the impact of this gun on the subsequent operations is really great.

The fifth round of "Caesar" missed. However, the other two supercruisers gained in this round of salvo. In this round of shooting, four more 127 shells hit Poitiers, and all four shells hit the upper deck. In the building, one of them also ignited some pipelines and debris, causing a fire.

It was not until after so many hits that the "Poitiers" fired another round. One of the four shells barely hit the "Caesar". This shell flew over the "Caesar" and hit Half of the mast was broken. The resulting loss is that "Caesar" can only communicate with other warships through semaphores, instead of relying on radio to communicate with each other. Fortunately, the fog has basically dispersed at this time, so the impact on combat is not too great.

After firing this cannon, the "Poitiers" had to hard-top the French with about five rounds of 150 rounds and over six rounds of 127 rounds. Although none of these shells would cause fatal damage to it, it was still painful to let these shells wash the deck over and over again.

At this time, the "Trajan" has also fired a third round of salvos on the "Crecy". As the French ship with the largest tonnage, the "Trajan" is theoretically the most stable shooting. platform. Should have the highest hit rate. However, due to the limited training time, the first three rounds of the "Trajan" did not hit the target, but the third round of the volley achieved a straddle, which also means that the aiming is now okay. The hit is completely a matter of luck.

However, the situation of "Crecy" was not much better. They trained for a shorter time. They hit a shot in the first round, which was completely blind. They also played a round later, but none of the four shells Know where to fly.

As a result, the "Caesar" over there broke the mast, the "Poitiers" over there killed the captain, and the "Tarajan" and "Crecy" over here, the A turret of the "Trajan" fell. There was a lot of paint, but "Cressy" didn't even drop a bit of paint.

However, "Trajan" finally got a hit in the fourth round of the salvo. A 203 mm shell hit the side of the "Crecy".

The armor-piercing capability of the French 203 shells far exceeds that of the 150 shells. The armor that flew the 150 shells of the "Caesar" was far less solid in front of the 203 shells.

"It hit the port side of the enemy ship and successfully penetrated!" Admiral Bruce stayed in the armored conning tower, completely unable to see the battle outside. But he can learn about the outside world through the broadcast system. The enemy’s first round of shelling made a successful hit, which frightened Admiral Bruce’s staff. Although this shell failed to penetrate the armor, everyone knows that there is no armor on the bridge with the best view. Not to mention a 305 shell hitting it, it was the British four-inch secondary artillery shell. It was also unstoppable. Although the French did not look down on the British four-inch gun, they thought they were the same Comparing with the 100mm gun on the side, it was completely scum. Even compared with the 75mm gun on my side, it is completely scum. But this "ballistically curved like pee" scum can still kill people if it gets covered.

So Admiral Bruce was hurriedly stuffed into the armored control tower by his staff. There was armor as thick as the turret. Facts have proved that British shells cannot penetrate such armor.

Regarding the actions of his staff, Admiral Bruce expressed opposition. He said he was not afraid at all, because the British could not hit him at all. But that's what he said, but he still had to enter the armored commander tower because he couldn't help the staff.

"Good job! I just don't know what the aftereffect is?" Admiral Bruce asked into the microphone.

"General, I can't see it yet," the lookout post replied.

The shell penetrated the armor and then entered the kitchen of the Cressy. This time is not the time to prepare morning tea or afternoon tea, so there is no one in the kitchen. The cannonball exploded in the empty kitchen, exploding the kitchen to a pulp, and successfully ignited all kinds of cooking oil in the kitchen. .

However, the British's damage control reaction was quite quick and the fire was quickly contained.

After successfully hitting the enemy ship, the French's luck began to improve. Although the two volleys failed to hit again, they all formed a straddle. After the "Crecy" fired another unproductive salvo, the "Trajan" hit the enemy ship again, and this time, three of the six shells hit the target.

Two shells fired from the A turret hit the enemy ship, one of which hit the unarmored superstructure. This semi-armor-piercing projectile directly penetrated the entire superstructure, and then flew out from the other end. In addition to killing two unlucky guys, the damage caused was actually very limited. But the other shell was different, so the shell directly hit the A turret of the "Crecy". The shell pierced the shield of the turret, exploded in the turret, killing all the soldiers in the turret, and also detonated a 305 shell in the turret that had just been fitted with a fuze.

If it weren’t for the Royal Navy of this era~www.readwn.com~, in order to pursue a high rate of fire, all the fire doors from the turret to the ammunition depot were opened, otherwise it would be completely scrapped in an explosion It's not just an A turret.

The "Crecy" has two turrets in the front and the back, each with a twin-mounted 305mm gun. Now, one-half of the firepower of the main artillery has been lost in one fell swoop. This is a fatal loss in the battle.

However, the misfortune of the "Crecy" was not over yet. Two 203 shells fired from the C turret of the "Trajan" also hit him. One of them hit the upper deck, in the "Crecy". A hole was drilled in the chimney of No. The other one entered the power compartment, destroying a cylinder. The high-temperature steam ejected from this cylinder killed more than a dozen sailors working in a power cabin in an instant.

Although you can't see the problem with the power compartment of the enemy ship, everyone can see the destruction of the turret of the enemy ship A. So when the news reached Admiral Bruce, he felt that he had won the battle.

"And it was a more glorious victory for Marshal Bitterville. It was not his kind of victory that could kill a thousand enemies and hurt 800." Admiral Bruce thought.