Volume 4: Hot! The whole world is a warring state Chapter 771: The Thunder Fleet Appears
"General, the enemy's airships are coming, about thirty of them."
"This is really unpleasant." With a long sigh, Inukai Touji said, "Inform the entire army and erect the modified machine guns to see if we can shoot down one or two ships."
"Yes, sir!"
Although the speed advantage forced the Western Austrian coalition to turn around, giving the Ming Navy nearly half an hour of unilateral bombardment. However, although the results were not small, the seven Spanish battleships still maintained their combat effectiveness, that is to say, this naval battle still did not achieve a decisive result. At this time, the opponent's airship troops actually arrived. Who knows what changes will happen to the battlefield situation?
"Colonel, we have arrived at the battlefield. It seems that we are at a slight disadvantage."
"Yeah, I saw it all."
Unlike the navy's white uniforms and blue and white combat uniforms during wartime, the airship troops' uniforms are all sky blue. At this time, sitting in the cabin of the leading airship, a middle-aged man named Lopez, with the rank of colonel on his shoulder and an eagle painted on his collar badge, carefully observed through the window of the cabin and gave the order: "Pioneers 35 and 36, maintain an altitude of 1,500 meters, hover over our fleet, and provide calibration for our fleet's artillery fire. Pioneers 3 to 32, increase the altitude to 2,000 meters, and we will try to bomb the enemy's battleships."
"yes!"
Following Lopez's order, the thirty airships adjusted their formation slightly in the air, then started to drive their motors and slowly flew towards the Ming Navy's formation. Below them, the coalition fleet, which had been under concentrated fire from the enemy for half an hour and whose morale was greatly depressed, saw their own "air force" going into battle. Everyone was like being injected with chicken blood, at least the sailors on the deck couldn't help but take off their hats, waved their arms towards their comrades in the sky, and cheered enthusiastically.
"Sir, the Pioneers 35 and 36 in the sky sent a telegram. They will calibrate the trajectory for us. 35 is responsible for the battleship array, and 36 is responsible for the heavy cruiser array."
"Excellent!" Garcia slammed the table and shouted, "Gentlemen, the battle is far from over. Cheer up, let's send the Chinese on the other side into the sea! Spain will win!"
"Yes! Spain will win!"
The coalition forces, with their morale restored, once again began to bombard the Ming navy fiercely. The Ming army also fought back without any concessions. As the battle lasted longer, more and more warships on both sides were hit, and the battle became more and more brutal.
At 5:12, the Ming Navy flagship Lian Po, which had been under concentrated fire since the start of the battle, was hit for the eighth time: this time, the enemy's shells directly blew away the No. 2 turret, destroying one-third of Lian Po's combat power. The billowing smoke from under the No. 2 turret also completely obscured the view of the command tower.
But just a moment later, at thirteen minutes, the main gun of the Li Mu also hit the Spanish Navy's flagship Fernando V: a chimney at the rear of the ship's bridge was blown away, and bursts of thick smoke filled with coal ash made Fernando V look extremely seriously injured.
At 15 minutes, Cao Sanxi, the slowest ship in the Ming battleship array, was hit by two shells in succession below the waterline. The heavy armor could no longer withstand the continuous attack on the adjacent parts. A 50×30cm hole was opened below the waterline, and a large amount of seawater poured in, causing the Cao Sanxi battleship to tilt slightly, and its speed suddenly dropped to 12.5 knots.
Eighteen minutes, twenty-three minutes, thirty-one minutes... In the short twenty minutes after the coalition forces completed their turn, the firing frequency of both sides continued to rise, and they hit each other one after another. And unlike when the battle just started, when a full-health warship was hit by one or two shots, it would not affect the battle. At this time, basically every warship of both sides was injured. So if it was hit at this time, the danger of the warship itself would rise sharply...
At 5:35 pm on September 16, 1647, a landmark moment in this plane arrived: although it was a slow-moving airship bombing the Ming army's warships below at an altitude of 2,000 meters, this was the first aerial bombing in this era.
However, although it was the first bombing of the epoch, the gondolas under the huge helium balloons of the Spanish and Ottoman airships at that time were only ten square meters in total. After deducting the motors, spare batteries, spare gas bottles and necessary space for operators, the space left for bombs was very limited. Therefore, each of the thirty airships led by Lopez had only two 250KG bombs in the gondola.
Fortunately, this is an airship developed by a time traveler, so the two bombs do not need to be thrown out by the pilot as in the original historical plane - after all, if you are not a professional weightlifter, you can't lift bombs of this weight.
60 250 kg bombs dropped from the airship's pod one after another. Their own weight plus the acceleration of gravity caused a sharp sound of breaking through the air as they fell. In a few breaths, these bombs became bigger and bigger in the eyes of the Ming soldiers...
However, although this first bombing seemed to be very powerful, its hit rate was...
Amidst the rumbling explosions, dozens of huge water columns were stirred up in the sea area surrounding the Ming army fleet. However, the Ming army's warships, the targets of these airships, at least on the surface, seemed to be unharmed.
"Ha! I thought these airships were so powerful, but I didn't expect their bombing skills to be so poor. Where are our machine guns?"
"General, the brothers at the relevant gun positions are firing into the sky."
"Well, this thing can't be used to drop bombs from the air, but it is still very useful for reconnaissance and calibration of artillery battles. Tell the brothers to work hard and try to shoot down a few. We will hand over the wreckage to those big guys in Fangshan to see if they can also get it out."
"That's right, General. It would be even better if these airships had wireless equipment."
"Oh, you're right. Damn it. Fortunately, the emperor made a plan and equipped each ship with the emergency radio that Fangshan had just made. The flagship was equipped with three. The naval battle has been going on for so long that the radios of most warships are no longer usable. Well, it would be great to get a radio from the Western pirates for reference."
"General!"
"What's up?"
"The Cao Sanxi sent a signal saying that the bomb dropped from the air just now exploded underwater about fifty meters away from the ship. This near miss caused the hole that had just been plugged to leak again. The current amount of water entering is too large, causing the hull to tilt nearly 15 degrees. In order to restore the balance of the hull, the ship had to inject water on the other side. But after the water injection, the ship's speed has dropped to 8 knots. The captain of the ship requested to withdraw from the battle line."
"I..." He stopped the curse words and nodded again: "Allow it to withdraw from the battle line and return directly to Yangon Port."
"yes!"
The communications officer had just left with a serious look on his face, and the artillery officer not far away put down the phone and jumped up happily: "General, our ship's shooting at the high-altitude airship has hit it!"
The machine guns on the ships of the Ming Dynasty Navy were not equipped as anti-aircraft guns. Although their maximum range for sea-to-sea shooting reached 3,000 meters, they certainly could not reach this height for air-to-air shooting. Moreover, their firing rate was much slower than that of professional anti-aircraft guns in later generations. However, what was flying above the Ming Dynasty fleet at this time was not an airplane with a speed of several hundred kilometers per hour in World War II, but a slow-moving airship.
At 5:50 pm, after the Lian Po's machine guns hit the target, the Ming Navy ships successively hit the target. Although the airships in the sky either tried their best to increase their altitude or evaded the enemy clumsily, in less than half an hour, 27 of the 30 airships were shot down.
The huge airbags of these airships were filled with helium, so the airbags would not directly set the airships on fire after being penetrated by the machine guns of the Ming army. But precisely because of this, once there was a hole in the airbag, the entire airship suddenly accelerated, and after making a shrill whistle, it carried the pods below and rushed around at a high speed - and at the beginning, in order to ensure the hit rate, the 30 Spanish airships were very close to each other. Therefore, it was inevitable that two or more airships would violently collide with each other at extremely high speeds.
Then, after a loud bang, the airbag ruptured, and the pod below fell straight into the sea: The most outrageous thing was the pod of Pioneer 25, which did not fall into the sea, but smashed directly onto the deck of the Wei Zhongxian heavy cruiser below, creating a hole of moderate size on the deck of the battleship - so, it could be considered a real hit.
The bombing by the airship was just a small episode in this naval battle: in future history textbooks, this bombing will have great significance. But if we really talk about the impact of this aerial bombing on this war, the biggest impact was just to make the Cao Sanxi, which was already badly wounded, withdraw from the battlefield early.
…
The time came to 6:30, and the sun began to set. After more than four hours of naval battle, both sides were already wounded and out of breath. Moreover, as the line of sight gradually deteriorated and the gun barrel inevitably fatigued after long-term firing, the accuracy of both sides also began to decline.
By seven o'clock in the evening, the lower edge of the sun had sunk into the sea. The afterglow of the setting sun coated the sea surface with a layer of brilliant golden color, and the sound of artillery fire from both sides gradually began to weaken and gradually became silent.
"Our battle for today's battleship is almost over now. Let's count the results and losses."
"Yes, General. According to our calculations, up to this point, we have sunk a total of six enemy heavy cruisers and severely damaged at least twelve. Of these twelve, at least three have completely lost their power and are just waiting to die on the sea. As for the enemy's battleships, the two Ottoman battleships have already retreated. Of the seven battleships of the Western bandits themselves, the leading flagship was at least hit, and the remaining six were at least hit by five shells.
As for our army, three of the twenty-five heavy cruisers sank and nine were severely damaged. However, all nine severely damaged cruisers were still able to move, and the slowest Gansu could maintain six knots. In addition, the three severely damaged heavy cruisers, Gansu, Guangdong, and Fujian, had already retreated with Cao Sanxi more than half an hour ago. In other words, we six heavy cruisers with serious injuries on the battlefield.
As for the battleships, Cao Sanxi was severely damaged and had to withdraw from the battlefield. The flagship Lianpo was hit by twelve bullets, and the No. 2 turret was completely destroyed. Yu Dayou was hit by a bullet below the waterline and took on more than 300 tons of water. The other ships were more or less hit by seven or eight shots to thirteen or fourteen shots, which definitely affected their combat effectiveness, but the ships as a whole were not seriously damaged. "
"Okay, order the battle fleet and the heavy cruiser squadron to evacuate the battlefield in twenty minutes." At this point, Inukai Touji hesitated for a moment, but still said firmly: "The six heavy cruisers with the most serious damage will be the rear guard."
"Huh?" After a slight hesitation, the communications officer responded firmly, "Yes!"
"Send power to the light cruiser and destroyer fleets. Leave the rest of the battle to them. Try to destroy at least one of the enemy's battleships in torpedo attacks tonight!"
