Volume 1 Tigers in Southeast Asia Chapter 68: Sinking
The damage control officer did not answer directly, but said: "Captain, the Moro shells are very strange, please come and take a look."
Captain Diego rushed out of the command room and came to the place where the shell exploded. He looked down and saw that a big hole had been blown in the deck and the surrounding steel plates were twisted into a tangled mess. Looking up at the chimney, he saw that a large dent had been blown at the base of the chimney.
Captain Diego's heart trembled, and he asked, "Can the chimney still be used in this state?"
The damage control officer said: "I don't know. The officer in charge of the steam engine said he had never encountered such a situation before and didn't know what to do."
Captain Diego frowned, and the damage control officer said, "Captain, the Moro shells can blow up our warship like this. The explosive power is far greater than our shells. What is going on?"
The Spanish shells were loaded with black powder, while Lin Fei's shells were loaded with trinitrotoluene, which was naturally much more powerful than black powder. However, Captain Diego did not know this, and he could not figure it out, and felt very confused for a moment.
At this moment, the sharp sound of a shell breaking through the air was heard overhead, and the damage officer shouted, "Be careful!" He pressed Captain Diego's shoulders with both arms and threw him to the deck. At the same time, a loud "boom" was heard from the mast. Captain Diego raised his head and saw a thick black smoke covering the mast. It was obvious that a shell had hit the mast.
The battleship was traveling at high speed, and soon the wind blew away the thick smoke near the mast, revealing that the watchtower on the mast was blown to pieces. After a while, a creaking sound was heard from the mast, and then it suddenly tilted and fell heavily, splashing into the water with a plop.
When Captain Diego saw the mast crashing into the water, he could not help but scream, because there was a cabin on the mast that the warship used for long-distance observation. Without the mast, it would be like someone gouging out the eyes of the warship!
Captain Diego stood up, rushed into the command room, and shouted: "Fire, fire, sink those bastards."
Chief of Staff Heradis said hurriedly: "Captain, please calm down. We are now 2,000 meters away from the opposing warships. We can't hit them even if we fire."
Captain Diego stamped his feet heavily and said angrily: "Can we only be beaten by them but not beat them?"
Chief of Staff Heradis smiled bitterly and said, "It seems to be the case now."
While Captain Diego and Chief of Staff Herades were talking, two more shells fell on the Columbus. One of them actually hit the bow turret. The huge explosive force blew the turret off. Fortunately, the Columbus did not move the shells out of the ammunition compartment and place them next to the turret, otherwise the secondary explosion would have blown off the bow of the ship.
The explosion of the shells also caused a fire, and billowing black smoke rose from the Columbus. Chief of Staff Heradis whispered to Captain Diego: "Captain, we should retreat now..."
Captain Diego frowned, shook his head and said, "I really don't want to accept this, but there is nothing I can do."
Captain Diego said loudly: "Right rudder, return!"
The Columbus was turning in a large arc on the sea. Lin Fei saw it at a glance. He picked up the megaphone and shouted, "All gun positions, switch to armor-piercing shells and attack!"
At the command, the four gun positions loaded capped armor-piercing shells into the gun barrels. This was the first time in human history that capped armor-piercing shells were used in combat.
Since the capped armor-piercing shells and high-explosive shells have different shapes, their ballistic characteristics are also different. The gunners adjusted the direction of the muzzle and pressed the firing button. Four armor-piercing shells flew towards the Columbus one after another.
The four armor-piercing shells all landed on the front side of the Columbus. Lin Fei adjusted the distance change rate, and the gunners on the four gun positions adjusted accordingly and fired again. This time the shells flew straight towards the Columbus.
An armor-piercing shell entered the water more than . The shell slowed down slightly due to the resistance of the water, and then hit the side deck below the waterline. The heavy impact shattered the cap in front of the shell. If the shell had not been capped, it would have been the shell body that was shattered, but the cap protected the shell body, allowing it to hit the side deck with huge kinetic energy.
The Columbus was just a gunboat. It had no armor on its side, only a thick steel deck. The shells penetrated the deck and shot into the hull, which happened to be the transmission compartment. After the shells flew in, they directly broke the propeller's transmission rod, and the two propellers stopped immediately.
The warship was driven entirely by propellers. Once the propellers stopped, the warship stopped immediately. The rudder used to turn the warship was only effective when the warship had a certain speed. Once the warship stopped, the rudder naturally became ineffective. Therefore, Columbus's ship could not only move forward, but also could not turn. It could only float on the sea, swaying with the waves.
As soon as the Columbus stopped, it became a complete target for the Nuwa ship. Lin Fei shouted: "The enemy ship has lost power. Get close to the enemy ship and use armor-piercing shells to sink it!"
The Nuwa ship immediately sailed towards the Columbus ship. Captain Diegol and his crew felt an unprecedented fear. Captain Diegol shouted, "Use the rear main gun to fight back."
The gunners immediately ran to the main gun at the stern, and were surprised to find that when the mast collapsed, the steel frame fell down and smashed the sight of the main gun at the stern. The main gun at the stern was now a completely blind gun!
When the sailors on the Columbus saw that the main gun at the rear of the ship could not be used, they felt that their last hope of survival had been taken away. The atmosphere of despair spread and everyone was panicked. In the midst of despair and panic, the Nuwa ship was like the god of death descending from the sky, approaching to a distance of 1,000 meters away from the Columbus. The hit rate of the armor-piercing shells at this distance was already quite high.
Four armor-piercing shells were fired from the Nuwa ship, one of which hit the starboard side of the Columbus, opening a large hole in the side. A large amount of seawater poured into the hull. Captain Diego was worried about the explosion of the boiler and the detonation of the ammunition, so he ordered the boiler to be shut down and all the ammunition to be thrown out.
However, before the sabotage explosion occurred, a large amount of seawater poured into the hull through the hole. The Columbus had poor anti-sinking ability and very few watertight compartments. The sealing rubber of the watertight compartments was also aging and could not block the seawater at all. After being hit repeatedly on the starboard side, the hull tilted more than 20 degrees to the right and eventually capsized in the water.
The Columbus capsized so quickly that the people on board had no time to put the lifeboat into the water. The Spanish sailors fell into the water one after another. They swam out of the whirlpool formed by the sinking of the Columbus and fluttered on the water. Lin Fei shouted, "Send out the lifeboat and catch them alive!"
The Nuwa ship immediately lowered the lifeboat, and Zhang Chuang led the sniper team on the boat and headed towards the waters where the Columbus sank. When the Spanish sailors saw the lifeboat coming, they raised their hands and asked for help.
Zhang Chuang looked at these Spaniards with disdain and thought to himself: "What a bunch of spineless people!" Even though he thought so, he still led his men to rescue these Spaniards one by one.
Among the Spaniards who fell into the water were Captain Diego and Chief of Staff Herades. Although Western navies had the habit of captains sinking with their ships, Captain Diego was obviously not that kind of captain.
Zhang Chuang brought the 40 captured Spanish sailors back to the Nuwa ship. Lin Fei looked at the prisoners for a while and found that many of them had taken off their outer clothes. He could not recognize their identities from their clothes. So he sneered and said, "Who among you is the captain?"
No one spoke. Zhang Chuang whispered, "I think the older one could be the captain."
Lin Fei nodded and said, "Yes, but there are also older sailors who are not reliable judging by their age."
Zhang Chuang pointed at the crowd and said, "Look, they have taken off their outer clothes. The clothes they wear are almost the same. It is impossible to tell their identities from their clothes. What else can you do?"
Lin Fei smiled confidently and said, "Of course I have a way, just wait and see."
After Lin Fei finished speaking, he turned to look at the prisoners and shouted, "Put out your hands."
The prisoners stretched out their hands obediently. Lin Fei looked at them one by one and suddenly found a pair of delicate hands. The captain did not have to do any rough work, so his hands must be more delicate than those of the sailors. Lin Fei guessed that this person was the captain. When he looked up, he saw that the owner of these hands was an elderly middle-aged man. The captain was always a middle-aged man, so Lin Fei thought he was most likely the captain!
Lin Fei asked coldly: "Are you the captain?"
The middle-aged man snorted coldly without saying anything. Lin Fei pointed to the back and said to Zhang Chuang, "Take him to the back."
Zhang Chuang rushed to the man, stretched out his hand to grab the middle-aged man by the collar, and dragged the middle-aged man backwards like a dead dog. The middle-aged man stretched out his hand to grab Zhang Chuang's hand and cursed loudly: "Hua Zhu, let me go!"
Lin Fei heard the middle-aged man yelling "Hua Zhu" and kicked the man on the waist, angrily saying, "What did you say?"
The man fell to the ground, holding his waist, unable to speak in pain. At this time, a loud voice suddenly came from the group of prisoners: "We have surrendered, you can't beat us!"
Lin Fei followed the sound and saw a middle-aged man with thin eyebrows coming out and said to him loudly: "I am the captain of the Columbus, Diego, you can't beat my men."
Lin Fei sneered and said to Diego, "You are the captain? Great!"
Diego frowned and said angrily, "What do you want to do?"
Lin Fei smiled and said, "I want to ask you something, and I hope you can be honest with me."
Diego shook his head and said, "You want me to tell you our military secrets? That's impossible!"
Lin Fei laughed and said, "Well, I won't ask about military secrets first, but something else. A Chinese merchant ship was looted yesterday. Do you know who did it?"
