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Part One Twenty Years Chapter 11 The Moment That Changed History (1)

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    "(Section 4 of "King of the North Atlantic", the fearless men who fell like meteors)

    The situation at sea is extremely unfavorable to the British.

    The turning and formation changes of the seven-row column were originally an extremely arduous and complicated process, especially when many of the officers and soldiers controlling the battleships were newcomers who were hastily transferred to the large fleet after the battle on the Skagerrak Strait.  Furthermore, the Germans were already close at hand, and neither the senior officers of the Royal Navy nor the lowest-level sailors dared to expect that Heidi Sealem would miss the opportunity to cross the T-shaped head. The eagerness for success exacerbated the chaos of the Grand Fleet.  .

    From 11:47 when the New Zealand battle patrol watchtower spotted the Germans rushing from the southeast to 11:08 when the German Ocean Fleet completed its calibration, the second round of bombardment hit the front of the fleet like rain, but the Royal  The Navy's efforts remain clueless.

    At this time, the First Battle Fleet and the Fourth Battle Cruiser Fleet on the left wing of the Grand Fleet tried to use 14-inch guns and 12-inch guns to make some counterattacks. However, Germany's current formation and the British First Battle Fleet's poor sightings doomed them.  Hard work rarely pays off.

    Since the British have no power to fight back, the German navy, which has made a long-distance attack deep into the British nest, has no reason to forget those old and new grudges, and there is no reason not to let go and enjoy this wonderful moment!

    At sea, the combat distance between the two fleets was continuously reduced, and several subsequent German squadrons also joined the spectacular sea ensemble, using 305mm main guns and 280mm main guns to violently bombard the British in the general direction.

    At the same time, the German battle line slowly reduced its speed and adhered to the process of "school fire and shelling school fire".  After several rounds of bombardment, the cooperation between the German battleship's observation officers, gunnery staff and gunners gradually became better, and the number of near-misses and effective hits began to increase.

    In fact, the firing speed of the Ocean Fleet is not very fast.  Although the well-trained gunners of the Ocean Fleet can shoot at a speed that is jaw-dropping to the British, but before firing a real cross-fire.  They obviously don't want to waste energy and ammunition.

    At 12:11, valuable results emerged. A 350mm hardened capped armor-piercing projectile from the King-class No. 3 ship Border Governor of the Seventh Squadron accurately penetrated into the middle part of the British battlecruiser HMS Indomitable between the P turret and Q turret.  Through the gap, the rear of the chimney side of No. 2 "Chapter" hit the latter's horizontal deck diagonally.

    The steel hull of the Indomitable shuddered violently. This battlecruiser with a standard displacement of 17,420 tons had a double-layered top horizontal deck with a total of 2.5 inches specially laid for the power compartment. It was like a fragile piece of paper, equipped with a blunt fuse.  The armor-piercing bullets tore apart clumsily and violently.

    The armor-piercing bomb sank into the battleship, and the warhead equipped with TNT explosive weapons exploded violently in the power compartment of the Indomitable.

    The heavy armor-piercing part directly smashed a boiler, and the red-hot shrapnel followed, flying and smashing everything in the midship power compartment of the Indomitable.

    The chief engineer of the power cabin had no time to close the small water pipe valve.  Before he could give the order to retreat, he was swallowed up by the hot boiler water leaking out.

    The boiling water continued to flow wantonly in the narrow and hot and humid midships power compartment. The engine soldier who was lucky enough to escape the gushing boiler water covered his bloody body and fled towards the hatch as hard as he could. However, the boiling water spreading on the bilge partition was very strong.  Quickly catching up with them, the engineer soldier let out a scream and fell down.

    The midship power cabin of the Indomitable was filled with breathless white water vapor and the pungent smell of burnt human bodies.  The breath of death continued to seep out from the holes dug by the armor-piercing bombs, and the battle patrol deck was soon covered in white clouds, mixed with the choking gunpowder smoke from the explosion of the armor-piercing bombs and the black soot leaked from the exhaust pipes.

    And inside the ship.  The liaison bay leading to the secondary deck of the Indomitable was full of engineers who were fleeing in all directions.  Even though there were miserable cries and howls behind him, and even though the engineer officer shouted at the top of his lungs and ordered the hatch to be closed, the frightened engineer soldier still did not dare to stop.

    As a result, tons of boiling water from the boiler overflowed out of the power compartment, spread along the communication channels, and sent heat waves deep into the hull.

    The engineer soldier who barely escaped came to the second deck with disheveled hair, covering his burned limbs.  They almost greedily wanted to breathe a breath of cool, fresh air, but their respiratory tracts and lungs had been burned by the hot air in the power cabin. The engine soldiers could only fall down holding on to the steel plate of the secondary battery shell, coughing violently.  The moment of relief could not come until a large amount of blood was coughed up.

    It¡¯s not that the engine soldiers didn¡¯t escape lung burns, it¡¯s just that in the eyes of the medical soldiers who came after hearing the news, they were infinitely close to the ¡°god of death¡±.  The bodies of the poor engineers were badly bruised by the boiling water. Even if doctors wrapped them in thick bandages to isolate the virus, it would be difficult for them to escape the subsequent wound infection.

    The battle patrol amidships of the Indomitable were filled with flames, thick smoke and white water vapor enveloped the old battleship, and it seemed that it was already dead under the invisible thick fog.?It is hell on earth.

    However, the Royal Navy's disaster was far more than that: in order to achieve the effect of the 'ideal cruiser', the designers of the Royal Navy placed 31 naval boilers on the 172.8-meter long forecastle hull of the Indomitable battle cruiser, which were placed in four power cabins.  .  Due to damage to the midship power compartment, the Indomitable battle cruiser's speed instantly dropped by three or four knots. What was even more terrifying was that two minutes later, the battle cruiser stopped on the dangerous North Sea surface due to damage to the main shaft due to overheating.

    At this time, the Second Battle Fleet was still continuing its chaotic and disorderly turn. The First Battle Fleet and the Fourth Battle Cruiser Fleet had to slow down their speed and wait patiently for the Second Battle Fleet to complete the battle line.  As the second ship in the fourth battle patrol column formation, the battle cruiser Indomitable is only about 500 meters away from the battle cruiser Indomitable which is falling behind. In order to avoid hitting the parked Indomitable, the battle cruiser Indomitable must not  Without full left rudder, a thrilling sea drift was staged.

    About three minutes after the Indomitable was seriously injured, good news came again.

    The hit was the battleship Singapore of the Sixth Division of the British First Battle Fleet.  The battleship Rivadavia, originally ordered by Argentina from the United States, majestically appeared in the battle order of the Grand Fleet as the battleship Hong Kong of the British Empire. This was due to the skill of King Arthur Balfour of the British Navy.

    In Argentina, the Rivadavia-class battleship is the pride of the Pampas. Whether it is its standard displacement of 27,490 tons or its six twin-mounted 305mm main guns and 12 secondary guns, it is enough to attract Argentina.  Proud.

    There is another background to the Argentine¡¯s admiration for the Rivadavia class:

    The European war that was about to escalate into World War I would have a devastating blow to the credibility of British export ships.  Before the war, Armstrong Shipyard warships were out-and-out bestsellers, but after the Battle of Dogger Sands.  People began to have doubts about the quality of British goods. In 1915, the tragic battles of Ridland and Portsmouth were settled, and a group of people bought the British battleship "The Spirit of the Great Power" Chapter 11 Changed History  Moment (1)" and the second- and third-rate powers with British battleship technology finally woke up from their dreams.

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    For this reason, Argentina, one of the top three South American abcs, has laughed at the Brazilians who have a history of grievances for more than a year.  Although the Argentines failed to collect a supreme-level German battleship, compared to the unscrupulous British businessmen who had dark consciences, the Americans still put a lot of effort into the Rivadavia-class battleship in order to open up the market.

    The Americans have laid a 1012-inch waterline belt main armor on the Rivadavia-class battleship, an 89-inch upper armor belt, and a 12-inch gun mount and turret frontal armor.  Even non-important parts such as the bow, stern, and chimneys have 46-inch armor. However, the Miras Gerais-class battleships ordered by the Brazilians from the United Kingdom at the same time only had 9-inch main armor and 9-inch gun mount armor. For this reason, the Argentinians  mocked the Brazilians for many years,

    Although the reputation of British battleships has been disgraced, it is a blessing in disguise.  The devaluation of British capital ships indirectly supported the British Admiralty's booming export ship buy-back and leasing business after the Battle of Ridland and the Battle of Portsmouth.

    Back to the topic, offshore of the Orkney Islands.  When the battleship Hong Kong, which was mythologized by the Argentines, suffered a 380mm hardened capped armor-piercing projectile thrown by the Bavaria.  The myth was shattered.

    At 11:14, the battleship Bavaria, located at the forefront of the German battle line, once again focused fire on the British fleet at a distance of 14 kilometers. A 380mm armor-piercing projectile grazed the thick main armor belt of the battleship Hong Kong and hit the upper part slightly above it.  Armor belt.

    The upper armor belt usually refers to the protective area on the side of the battleship from the waterline main armor to the horizontal deck. It can be subdivided into the middle armor belt and the upper armor belt, and between the top of the upper armor belt and the superstructure.  There will be a discontinuous protective belt named the gun profile armor belt, separated by the main battery mount armor, the conning tower side armor and the secondary battery.

    The American shipyard laid a layer of 9-inch middle armor belt and a layer of 8-inch upper armor belt on the wooden back plate of the Rivadavia-class battleship.  Even the gun profile armor belt is 6 inches, and the layer behind the middle armor belt that does not bear the protective role of the leaky dome armor layer does not cut corners at all, but in the face of the 380mm capped armor-piercing projectile, all this  It can still only be regarded as a papery line of defense.

    The iron armor-piercing part of the 750-kg APC armor-piercing projectile tore through the 9-inch upper armor belt of the Hong Kong at a large angle.  The gun well of No. A turret, which is arranged on the back of the Hong Kong ship's bow, was drilled into the firing chamber on the waterline.

    "Compared with the numerous near-explosion and early-detonation explosions of British armor-piercing bombs, German armor-piercing bombs using blunt fuzes often fail to explode.question.

    On the battleship Hong Kong, German capped armor-piercing projectiles once again encountered this embarrassing situation.  Although the 380mm armor-piercing bullets easily tore through Hong Kong's relatively thick coat, its armor-piercing bullet warhead fell apart at the last moment.

    The British naval officers and soldiers shivering in the ammunition depot had no time to rejoice. A dazzling white light flashed in front of their eyes, followed by a huge impact of air waves and deafening explosions. The underwater ammunition depot of the battleship HMS Hong Kong exploded.  Got it!

    Although the warhead of this armor-piercing projectile did not live up to expectations, the flying shell fragments made the story darker.  In the narrow firing chamber, the hot fragments wiped out a series of sparks on the underwater ammunition depot of the A turret and the mine protection compartment on the bottom of the ship, igniting the nitrocellulose that only the Americans still use among the world's mainstream naval powers.  Single base hair medicine.

    Although the Royal Navy does not lack capped armor-piercing shells for 12-inch guns, after all, the technology and specifications of 12-inch guns in Britain and the United States are different, so the British still cautiously choose to use shells originating from the United States.

    Compared with the propellants used by the British themselves, nitrocellulose single-base propellants, as the American standard propellant, have the characteristics of high gunpowder power, smokelessness, small temperature coefficient of burning rate, and small ablation of gun barrels, but at the same time  It also has characteristics such as moisture absorption and sensitivity to pressure and temperature.

    The hot fragments and sparks finally ignited the ammunition depot, causing the ammunition depot to explode.

    The hull of the battleship Hong Kong trembled violently, the side armor near the bow cracked in chunks, and the only underwater protective structure, the mine-proof bulkhead, was also shattered.

    The bow of the Hong Kong ship sank suddenly, and a few seconds later, a bigger explosion sounded. The fully loaded battleship Hong Kong, with a displacement of up to 30,000 tons, jumped lightly on the sea level. Fire, air waves, and dense  Smoke, broken ground and fragments of the battleship soared from the bow of the ship and flew in all directions.

    The seemingly solid three-legged mainmast of the Hong Kong swayed violently, and the soldiers on the watchtower fell like dumplings, or hit the deck heavily and smashed into meat patties, or fell on the sea without splashing a little bit.  spray.

    The damage control alarm from the battleship's buzzer was heart-rending. Sailors and officers were running around on the deck mindlessly, trying to put out the fire at the bow, trying to lower the lifeboat, and trying to save the people trapped on the ship.  Colleagues inside the body came to the rescue.  The fire quickly got out of control. All the generator sets of the Hong Kong stopped working and the internal telephone lines were interrupted. The captain grabbed the phone and gave an order in vain to fill the underwater ammunition channels of the two turrets on the bow of the ship with water. After that, the B turret also followed.  Died.

    The explosion of the underwater ammunition depot in turret B completely tore the already crumbling Hong Kong into pieces. The steel hull was instantly torn into pieces by the huge internal pressure. The bow of the ship was separated from the hull, and seawater surged in. In the blink of an eye,  It spread across the horizontal deck of the battleship Hong Kong.

    The Hong Kong lost its command. The captain and officers were blocked in the command tower with a deformed hatch. The officers and soldiers who remained inside the ship were marked for death. The officers and soldiers who were still on the deck and superstructure were not much better.  Like a headless fly, he jumped off the warship in embarrassment and swam away as hard as he could.

    The sinking speed of the battleship is breathtaking. After the bow of Hong Kong sank, its main hull soon followed.  When the two propellers standing on the ocean disappeared into the North Sea, a huge vortex formed, including the wreckage of the Hong Kong, burning oil, crackling wood, floating corpses, trivial pieces of paper and  Everyone who was still alive was swept into the unfathomable ocean.

    In this way, the Hong Kong disappeared. As the first capital ship sunk in the Battle of Orkney Islands, it completely disappeared in this gorgeous and sad sea where countless famous ships and famous generals were buried. It was as complete as if it had never been real.  It appeared on the North Sea and had an encounter with the Germans, as if it had never truly traveled across the ocean, carrying Britain's expectations out of Scapa Flow.

    The Hong Kong was sunk, the Indomitable was seriously damaged, and the British disaster had just begun.  (To be continued.).
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