Chapter 238: can't stand it anymore
"God! How is this possible? We obviously scored two hits, but we only caused minimal damage to the opponent." Major General Carroll looked like he had seen a ghost.
In his opinion, the two shells scored a hit, which could at least cause a lot of damage to the battlecruiser of the German Navy. In particular, there was another shell that hit the main turret of the battlecruiser 'Moltke'. If the main turret can be penetrated, not only can the main turret be destroyed, but it can even further cause greater damage.
However, the final result was completely beyond his expectations.
"Damn, are the defenses of German warships so strong? If they are all like this, then there is no way to fight this battle." Major General Carol felt a very bad feeling in his heart. .
In fact, the reason why the shells fired by the battleship 'King George V' could not penetrate the armor of the battlecruiser 'Moltke' was of course because the turret armor of the battlecruiser 'Moltke' was very thick. , Another very important reason is that there are problems with the shells fired by the warships of the British Navy. The fuzes are too sensitive and will explode upon collision, which greatly weakens the armor-piercing ability of the shells. After all, for a battleship or battlecruiser with thick armor, if you want to seriously damage the opponent, you have to penetrate its armor. However, the shells of the British Navy exploded before penetrating the armor, so naturally they could not cause more damage to the opponent.
The battle began to become more intense. However, the British Navy was very aggrieved. Their warships are battleships! But they have another feeling, as if their own battleship is a battlecruiser with weak armor, while the opponent's battlecruiser is a battlecruiser with thick armor.
This is the consequence of the different shipbuilding ideas of Britain and Germany. The German Navy focused on the defense and survivability of warships. The British Navy, on the other hand, sacrificed defense and increased the firepower and speed of its warships. However, in naval battles, you must first save yourself so that you can better kill the enemy. While ensuring its own strong defense, the German navy also made breakthroughs in firepower and speed. This allowed the warships of the German Navy to completely suppress the warships of the British Navy, and naturally gained an advantage in naval battles.
"Boom! Boom! Boom!"
Naval battles have become more and more intense, even though the British navy has fallen into a disadvantage. However, they are still insisting on fighting back. The German Navy, on the other hand, hopes to be able to injure as much as possible or even sink the battleships of the British Navy while occupying an advantage, so as to turn its external advantages into substantive advantages.
"Boom!"
The battleship 'Audacious' was hit again, this time, the command tower was hit. A 305mm artillery shell hit the conning tower hard. The armor with a thickness of 280 mm is simply unable to resist the shells fired by the main gun with a caliber of 50 times. The final result was that the armor was penetrated and the shell exploded in the conning tower.
The violent explosion killed all the officers in the command tower, including the captain. This caused confusion in the command of the battleship 'Bold'.historical
The battlecruisers 'Blücher' and 'Sedlitz' seized this opportunity and launched more intense shelling.
In the next five minutes, the battleship 'Bold' was once again hit by a full six shells, two of which were 343mm shells and four of which were 305mm shells.
A big hole was blown out at the waterline of the battleship 'Audacity', and sea water began to pour into the battleship frantically. In addition, the steering gear at the stern was also directly blown up, and the sea water poured into the battleship from the fracture.
The superstructure of the hull was also destroyed in the explosion, and a raging fire ignited.
After being hit many times, the fate of the battleship 'Bold' came to an end. For a huge battleship with a displacement of 25,000 tons, it is undoubtedly very difficult to be sunk. Of course, if the vitals are hit, that's another story.
"General, the 'Boldness' suffered heavy damage and requested to abandon the ship." The communications officer reported to Rear Admiral Carroll.
Major General Carol closed his eyes in pain, did not speak, but nodded.
Before the sinking, a considerable part of the sailors on the battleship 'Bold' evacuated to the lifeboats, but there were still many people who did not have time to evacuate in time, and sank into the cold Atlantic seabed together with the battleship.
The doom of the British Navy did not end with the sinking of the "Bold". Only five minutes later, the battleship 'Centurion' followed in the footsteps of the battleship 'Bold'.
In this round of salvo fired from the battleship "Goeben", two shells scored hits. A shell hit a funnel of the Centurion. The chimney fell, knocking out No. 3 turret and making it impossible to fire.
Another shell directly killed the battleship 'Centurion'. This shell hit the No. 4 main turret on the stern of the battleship 'Centurion'. The 280 mm thick turret armor looked so weak in front of the 343 mm shells, it was easily penetrated like paper.
What's more terrible is that at this moment, there are two 343mm shells and hundreds of kilograms of bullets in the gun bore. After the shells exploded, both the shells and the bombs were martyred as a result.
The fire spread to the ammunition depot under the barrel, and the fire door did not close in time due to a malfunction.
So, the tragedy happened like this.
Under the burning of the fire, hundreds of 343mm shells in the ammunition depot exploded.
"Boom!"
An earth-shattering explosion sounded on the sea, and the battleship 'Centurion' was lifted out of the water during the explosion, and then hit the sea heavily.
When the gunpowder smoke dissipated, it could be clearly seen that the stern part of the battleship 'Centurion' had disappeared, as if it had been bitten by some monster.
The sea frantically poured into the hull of the "Centurion" battleship, causing the battleship to sink. In the end, the battleship "Centurion" sank into the Atlantic Ocean directly with the stern down and the bow up.
After the battleships 'Bold' and 'Centurion' were sunk one after another, the situation became more and more unfavorable to the British Navy. On the battlefield, they only had two battleships left. The six battlecruisers of the German Navy were almost intact.