Volume 1 Tigers in Southeast Asia Chapter 71: Treated as One of Our Own
While Lin Fei was thinking, another shell hit the enemy ship, bursting out a bright yellow flame. At this time, Ma Chengfeng shouted: "Report to the captain, the opposite warship has sent out a light signal."
Lin Fei asked hurriedly: "What did they send?"
Ma Chengfeng replied: "We are the Spanish Navy. What cruiser is a ship name. I don't know what it means. The back of it is, we are the same people, don't fire."
Lin Fei laughed when he heard this. It turned out that the Spanish warships on the opposite side mistook the Nuwa ship for their own people, so they did not fire, but wanted to approach our ship quickly and send a signal to tell our ship not to fire. The initial approach was most likely unintentional.
Lin Fei then picked up the megaphone and shouted, "All gun positions, switch to armor-piercing shells and sink the enemy cruiser! The Nuwa ship maintains its current course."
The gunners at each gun position immediately replaced the armor-piercing shells, and the capped armor-piercing shells flew towards the Spanish warship all of a sudden.
At this time, the captain of the Spanish warship, Balladec, was confused. He held the megaphone and shouted loudly: "Signalman, signalman, send out light signals quickly to tell the warship on the opposite side that we are on the same side and stop firing."
Lin Fei's analysis was correct. This warship indeed regarded the Nuwa ship as its own. This warship was named Queen Isabel and was an unprotected cruiser. The so-called unprotected cruiser means that the hull had no armor.
The Queen Isabel did not find the Nuwa ship at first. First, the Nuwa ship implemented a strict blackout, and the searchlight was directed in front of the warship, so the Queen Isabel could not see it from its angle. Second, the officers and sailors on the Queen Isabel were not well-trained and lacked the ability to detect weak lights in the foggy night. So it was purely coincidental that the Queen Isabel started to approach the Nuwa ship.
When the Nuwa ship fired, the Queen Isabel ship realized that there was a warship on the opposite side. Captain Baladek heard the sound of the gunfire and immediately judged that the warship on the opposite side was his friendly force. He then ordered the Queen Isabel ship to approach the Nuwa ship and sent a message with light signals, telling the Nuwa ship not to fire.
At this time, the Chief of Staff, Gasirol, came over and said, "Captain, the other side is still firing at us. What's going on? Haven't they received our signal yet?"
Baladek frowned and said, "They should have received it!"
Gasirol was surprised and asked, "Then why are they still firing? Aren't they the Spanish navy?"
Without even thinking, Baladek said, "Impossible. Apart from the Spanish Empire, no other country in this area has a navy. The Moro warships are all small wooden boats. There are no such large steel warships!"
Garcirol thought for a moment and said, "Do you remember the Cuba incident?"
Baladek said: "Of course I remember that a group of mysterious people stole the Cuba cruiser. They also looted several plantations, stole countless properties, and killed many Spaniards."
Gasirol said, "Do you think the battleship on the opposite side is the cruiser Cuba?"
Baladek said firmly: "It is absolutely impossible. That mysterious group of people disappeared without a trace. How could they suddenly appear here? And how could we meet them?"
Seeing that Baladek rejected his two consecutive hypotheses, Gasirol stopped talking. At this moment, they felt their feet shake, and Baladek and Gasirol stumbled and almost fell to the ground. Baladek asked hurriedly, "What happened?"
At this time, the coal bunker sent a message: "Report to the captain, the No. 1 coal bunker was hit by a shell, and the port coal bunker began to take on water!"
Warships of this era often placed coal bunkers on the side to use coal to block armor-piercing shells. When Baladek heard the report, he immediately said, "Repair the leak in the coal bunker quickly. In an emergency, you can close the watertight door of the coal bunker!"
At this time, the distance between Queen Isabel's ship and Nuwa's ship was only 500 meters, which was exactly the most accurate distance for naval artillery fire in this era. When firing at this distance, one did not even have to consider the rolling of the warship, because even if the warship was shaking when firing, the shells would still hit the target.
In the blink of an eye, two capped armor-piercing shells landed on the Queen Isabelle. The Queen Isabelle was an unprotected cruiser. The capped armor-piercing shells developed by Lin Fei were the world's top armor-piercing shells with strong armor-piercing capabilities. The thin layer of iron sheet on the side of the Queen Isabelle could not stop the armor-piercing shells at all. As long as the armor-piercing shells hit the iron sheet on the side, they would make a big hole in the side.
The armor-piercing shells quickly penetrated the chain locker at the bow, the coal bunker in the middle of the hull and the transmission compartment at the stern. The entire port side was flooded with water, and the Queen Isabel quickly tilted to the left.
On the Queen Isabel, the damage controller reported loudly to Balladek: "Captain, the port side is flooded. We have closed the watertight doors of three compartments and used water pumps to pump water into the starboard watertight compartments. We have temporarily maintained balance, but the enemy's shells are still coming. The port side has tilted eight degrees and is about to capsize."
Only then did Baladek realize that the opposing warship was completely intent on killing the Queen Isabel. Baladek picked up the megaphone and said viciously: "All gun positions, fire back!"
As soon as Baladec gave the order, the gunners rushed to their gun positions in a hurry, ready to fight back. However, the Spanish sailors had been without opponents for a long time, so they were usually lax in style and had very poor training levels. It took them a long time to get out of the living cabin and run to the gun positions.
During this period of time, the Nuwa ship was still pouring shells fiercely. It seemed that God wanted to help Lin Fei. The fog slowly dissipated, and the Queen Isabel ship appeared clearly in the eyes of the Nuwa ship's gunners.
As soon as the Queen Isabelle appeared in the gunner's eyes, the stereoscopic rangefinder and fire control computer designed by Lin Fei came in handy, making the artillery shells more accurate.
When Queen Isabel was hit by several bullets, a fatal weakness in its design became apparent: the reserve buoyancy was too small.
The so-called reserve buoyancy can be simply understood as how much water the hull can take in. The greater the reserve buoyancy, the more water it can take in and the less likely it is to sink. The smaller the reserve buoyancy, the easier it is to sink. The reserve buoyancy of the Queen Isabelle was very small. When a large amount of water entered the port watertight compartment and water was filled into the starboard watertight compartment to adjust the balance, the gravity of the entire hull actually exceeded the buoyancy, and the entire ship was slowly sinking.
The damage controller rushed into the command room and shouted to Balladek: "Captain, let's abandon ship!"
Baladek frowned and said angrily, "You want me to abandon the ship? Impossible! Immediately activate all the water pumps on the port side and pump out the water."
The damage controller said helplessly: "Captain, the power compartment of the water pump was destroyed by the enemy ship's shells, and all the water pumps have failed!"
Baladek shouted at the top of his voice: "Send someone to fix the water pump quickly..."
Before Baladek finished speaking, they heard a whistling sound outside the porthole. Everyone subconsciously looked out the porthole and saw something rushing towards the porthole. Before everyone could figure out what it was, it smashed the porthole, rushed into the command room, and hit Baladek heavily!
Neither the damage controller nor Chief of Staff Gasirol could see clearly what happened because the flying object was so fast. By the time they reacted, they saw that Baladek had turned into a pile of minced meat!
It turned out that the flying object was a capped armor-piercing bullet, which actually hit the command room directly and hit Captain Baladek!
The damage controller screamed, "The captain is dead, the captain is dead, everyone run for your lives, run for your lives quickly."
The damage controller rushed out of the command room and rushed to the lifeboat, shouting, "The captain is dead. Let's lower the boat and abandon the ship!"
At this time, the sailors on the ship were already in chaos. Hearing this, they rushed to the small boat. At this moment, a shell suddenly fell beside everyone. With a "boom", more than a dozen sailors, including the injured controller, were shot into sieves by the flying shrapnel.
It turned out that when Lin Fei saw the opposing warship slowly sinking, he ordered the use of high-explosive bombs to kill the personnel on the ship.
The Queen Isabel slowly sank, and only a large number of sailors were left on the sea, struggling like ants. Lin Fei was delighted and asked Zhang Chuang to lead the sniper team and take a small boat to capture these Spanish sailors.
Zhang Chuang led the sniper team to row out in a small boat. Just after rowing for dozens of meters, Zhang Chuang suddenly saw a man swimming out of the water. The man's swimming posture was very strange. He raised his head desperately to stay above the water, and his legs were paddling quickly, but his arms were not seen paddling, as if the man had no arms.
Zhang Chuang found it very strange, so he asked a soldier to catch the man with a hook rod. In order to capture people in the water, the sniper team specially made a hook rod. This thing has a hook in the front. When capturing enemies in the water, they would hit the person hard with the hook, and the hook would pierce into the person's flesh. Then they would pull back. The hooked person could not bear the pain and could only be pulled along the hook rod.
A soldier took a hook and hit the man on the back. The hook pierced into the flesh, and the soldier exerted more force and hooked the strange swimmer over.
When the strange swimmer approached the boat, everyone reached out to grab him. Zhang Chuang looked at the man's face in the moonlight and found that he was Chinese. Zhang Chuang hurriedly asked in Chinese: "Are you Chinese?"
The man was stunned and asked, "Are you Chinese too?"
At this time, everyone worked together to pull the Chinese man in the water onto the boat. Only then did everyone discover that the man's arms were tied behind his back!
Zhang Chuang asked hurriedly: "Who are you? Why did the Spaniards tie you up?"
