Australian Storm 1876

   Chapter 880 Victory

The terrifying battle alarm echoed on the sea for a long time. The personnel of the various U.S. combat ships rushed to the battle positions, and the battleships retracted their anchors. supercharged.

  Fortunately, all the ships did not shut down, and they acted quickly after hearing the order.

   But there were too many ships on the sea, and the battleship "Ohio" directly smashed a lightning strike destroyer across the course, and tumbled and sank to the bottom of the sea within two minutes.

The slightly injured "Milwaukee" armored cruiser collided with the 4,083-ton "Newark" protected cruiser, causing several crew members to fall into the water. Fortunately, the two ships were not seriously damaged. The bow of the "Milwaukee" ship A 5.2-meter-long laceration was knocked out, and it was still 3.3 meters above the waterline. It had little impact, but it was extremely insulting.

   The battle has not yet begun, one destroyer has been lost and two cruisers have been lightly wounded.

In the chaos, the U.S. fleet finally sailed out of the berthing waters outside the port of Hawaii, and saw the Royal Ocean Empire Royal Navy expeditionary strike formation rushing towards the front. , is chopping the waves at high speed.

   It was a fine day with clear skies and no clouds.

  Under the bright sunshine

The Royal Navy's expeditionary strike formation was leading the battle fleet with imposing momentum. The huge hull was glowing with an icy luster. cold.

The battleships Songjiang topped the list, followed by the Melbourne, Red River Valley, and Brisbane, followed by the Suzaku and Xuanwu heavy cruisers. A total of 6 powerful battleships formed a battle line, and they were seizing the "T" with their high speed. " prefix.

  On the battleship Songjiang, a blood-red battle flag with the word "Zhu" was raised high, which instantly made the blood of all the navy soldiers boil. This battle flag represented the sonorous oath of His Majesty the Emperor;

  Anyone who violates the empire will be punished even if they are thousands of miles away.

  The blood-red "Zhu" word battle flag fluttered in the wind, conveying the confidence of completely destroying the enemy bandits to every navy officer, igniting the boiling blood of young people, and shouting in unison;

   "Empire Victory!"

   "Wan Sheng..."

   The flagship "Songjiang" made a tactical action of a dragon swinging its tail, and the ships behind it followed in turn, drawing 6 clear arc-shaped snow-white tracks on the sea, and began to occupy the "T" prefix.

at the same time

  At the same time that the battle fleet seized the "T" prefix, the two cruisers on the left and the right quickly moved forward to the sides, showing a clear "eight" shape, as if to swallow the entire U.S. fleet in one bite.

   Soldiers against soldiers, against generals.

  Admiral Schroeder faced the dominant cruiser fleet of the Ocean Empire, and he could only send his cruisers and lightning destroyers to deal with them separately.

   But the action of the battleship of the Ocean Empire still made the US commander Major General Schroeder a little puzzled, because the two sides are 14 kilometers apart, almost at the limit of the 305mm main gun. What accuracy can such a long distance shelling have?

   In general

  The U.S. artillery shelling regulation is within 12 kilometers, and the best engagement distance is 6~10 kilometers. Beyond this range, it is not allowed to fire unless there are special circumstances, because the hit rate is poor, and it is purely a waste of artillery shells.

   The doubts in his heart returned to the doubts in his heart. Major General Schroeder still ordered the battle fleet to turn around and try to form a "two" parallel battle line with the opponent, so as to avoid the battle line being too passive and unable to fully utilize the broadside firepower.

   Twenty minutes later

   After several attempts, the expeditionary strike formation that used the speed to seize the "T" prefix took the lead in firing, and smashed the dense rain of bullets on the US battle fleet, which opened the prelude to the Hawaii Sea Battle.

   In the first round of salvos, a straddling shot was fired.

  The dense forest of water columns appeared around the battleship "Missouri", which ranked first. Now Rear Admiral Schroeder understands that, although the distance between the two sides is 13.5 kilometers apart, it does not affect the precise artillery fire of the other party at all.

   At this moment, his face was gray, and he seemed to have a premonition of the tragic end of the fleet.

The second round of salvos still failed, but it scared the battleship "Missouri" into a cold sweat. Several rounds of near-missing bombs exploded violently. The surging waves caused the huge hull to roll seriously, blasting high The water column fell and almost washed the deck, and the sub-gunners on the half-open gun emplacements all became scumbags.

  The US battleship also hurriedly fired the first round of counter-attacks, but the accuracy of the shelling was very touching, and it did not pose a threat at all.

The good luck of the "Missouri" battleship ends here. In the third round of shelling, two 305mm armor-piercing rounds were hit almost indiscriminately, and they all hit the bow of the ship, as if two heavy punches were directly The "Missouri" battleship tilted its head, and the crooked bow plunged into the waves at once.

   When it surfaced again, people saw that the entire bow had been blown up, the main guns of the bow were completely scrapped, and the main gun turrets were all casualties.

Before Major General Schroeder recovered from the shock, the fourth round of more ferocious blows roared again, and violent explosions sounded continuously. 305mm shells, a huge fireball enveloped the hull, making a piercing sound of steel tearing.

The battleship "Missouri" was beaten into a pile of scrap iron at sea. It has completely lost its power. It was struggling on the sea with floating and sinking. Many sailors who were on fire jumped into the sea like dumplings, trying to escape this purgatory. .

   Four rounds of artillery attacked and destroyed the battleship "Missouri". The Royal Navy's expeditionary strike formation locked the next target on the second-ranked flagship battleship "Illinois". The fifth round of artillery fire smashed down...

   At this moment, the sea near Hawaii Island was under fire, and the cruisers and destroyers of both sides were fighting each other. Looking at the battle from a high altitude, it could be seen that the Royal Navy’s strike formation’s tactic was hunting.

   One of the ship formations spread out on the left and the right forms a bracket-shaped encirclement, with 4 ships as a team, launching round after round of artillery bombardment, killing enemy ships with precise artillery.

  The "Milwaukee" protected cruiser became a big torch burning at sea, the "Newark" protected cruiser, the "Charleston" protected cruiser was shot and sank, and the "Newark" cruiser escaped with damage...

   More than a dozen U.S. lightning destroyers with a displacement of less than 1,000 tons launched a heroic charge, advancing tenaciously in the water column forest.

Today's world

In 1904, Citigroup used steam engines instead of compressed air engines to develop a new generation of torpedoes, which increased the speed of torpedoes to 65 kilometers per hour and a range of 2,740 meters. It ranks first in the world in terms of speed and range, leaving other torpedo products far behind.

  As the unique secret skill of Citi Navy, for this reason, lightning strike destroyers with torpedo attack as the main method were specially developed, and most of them have a displacement between more than 600 tons and more than 800 tons. Equipped with a 152 mm main gun, and equipped with two three-launch tube torpedoes, as the main means of strike.

   When the US fleet was facing the annihilation of the entire army, the officers and soldiers who operated the lightning strike ship stood up and launched a valiant charge against the powerful enemy. They had to drive the destroyer to within three kilometers to be able to fire the torpedoes.

   Actually

The experienced Royal Navy has taken precautions against this for a long time, and deliberately maintains a combat distance, like a master teasing a clumsy opponent, always maintaining a combat distance of more than 4 to 5 kilometers between the two sides, and responding with intensive and accurate artillery. A dead zone covered by artillery fire was formed between them, which was a one-sided massacre.

  After two hours of fierce battle, the surviving U.S. ships had already begun to flee for their lives, while some raised white flags and surrendered.

   Holding the goal of completely annihilating the enemy fleet, the Royal Navy Joint Strike Fleet completely disbanded the formation and began a sea chase.

   from a distance

  The sea is full of burning wreckage of warships. The fleeing American ships and the warships that are in hot pursuit are galloping on the vast sea.

   This battle of Hawaii, which started at 8:30 am and ended at 3:40 pm, lasted 8 hours and 10 minutes, and ended with the Royal Navy's expeditionary strike formation wiping out the US fleet, according to the post-war inventory;

The battle sank the battleship USS Alabama, USS Illinois, USS Kearsarge, USS Kentucky, wounded and captured USS Maine, USS Nebula Frightened by the brutal situation, the USS Laska surrendered under the white flag, but none of the six battleships escaped.

   9 cruisers sank 7, and 2 surrendered with white flags after being wounded.

  21 lightning strike destroyers sank 14, 2 flooded the beach after heavy damage, 4 sank in despair, and one was forced to surrender with a white flag after being unable to escape.

   In this battle, 4,377 American officers and soldiers were killed, 151 were missing, and another 2,682 were captured. No one in the entire fleet escaped.

   At this point, the entire U.S. fleet was wiped out.

   One cruiser of the Royal Ocean Empire Royal Navy was slightly injured, three destroyers were slightly injured, and 43 officers and soldiers were injured, including 29 wounded. A brilliant victory.

at dusk

The Royal Navy Combined Fleet has completely controlled the Hawaiian port and captured all 38 American freighters. Under the bombardment of naval guns, the Armored Battalion of the 3rd Royal Guards Division, which landed on Hawaii Island earlier, led the infantry regiment to attack in multiple ways. They attacked and charged with machine guns, killing and injuring more than 1,600 American soldiers and taking more than 7,300 prisoners. The rest all fled into the mountains and forests around the city.

   The remaining sporadic search and encirclement battles lasted for more than ten days. On September 29, the last 17-person U.S. military unit was completely wiped out, and the Hawaii Sea and Land War came to a successful conclusion.

   some time ago

   On September 15, the Ocean Empire signed the "Pacific Military Alliance Agreement" with the Ryukyu Kingdom, Yue Kingdom, and Lanfang Kingdom, forming the Pacific Military Alliance headed by the Ocean Empire.

   On September 16th, the Ryukyu Kingdom declared war on Citi and at the same time declared war on Argentina.

   On September 17th, the Kingdom of Vietnam declared war on Citi and at the same time declared war on Argentina.

   On September 18, Lan Fangguo declared war on Citi and at the same time declared war on Argentina.

   (end of this chapter)