Chapter 237 Harvest Season

"The fleets are ready. The enemy has entered the predetermined position. The muzzles of the first formation are to the left, and the muzzles of the second formation are to the right. All gun ports are loaded with high-explosive shells. The pre-marked range is fifty kilometers. Maintain speed and wait for the next order."

After the War God's army announcement, our fleet quickly adjusted its shooting at Zhu Yuan, and then waited for the fog fleet in front to give us guidance information. At this time, the fog fleet was busy adjusting its position.

Although the fog fleet itself has the advantage of sight distance in the fog, the problem is that the entire fleet can be inserted into the formation of the US-Russian combined fleet without being seen by the other party. This itself is not a simple matter. Although the fog of the Mist Fleet is different from the naturally formed fog, and the concentration is much higher than the normal fog, the fog is not completely dark after all, so there is still a little sight distance to the US-Russian Combined Fleet. Considering the size of the sail warships of the Mist Fleet, in order to ensure that they are not seen by the opponent, they must be at least fifteen meters away from the opponent. However, because the warships of the US-Russian combined fleet have no navigation in the fog, the distance between their fleet ships is not stable. Originally, these warships kept a distance of more than two hundred meters from each other. It was really simple for the warships of the fog fleet to pass through them without being discovered. However, after driving for a while in the fog, this distance became Quite confusing. The distance between some warships can be extended to more than 500 meters, and some are even sailing side by side with a distance of more than 20 meters. Precisely because the formation of the U.S.-Russian combined fleet is very chaotic, and the position is constantly changing, the battleships of the Mist Fleet need to be very careful if they want to insert themselves into these gaps easily without being seen. . but. Although it took a little more effort, the Mist Fleet finally arrived at a suitable location safely.

I stood on the bow of one of the ghost ships with the ghost captain of the Mist Fleet. Next to us was a row of neatly arranged front-loading cannons. A large group of skeletons, ghosts and other monsters were busy loading cannonballs. On the mast at the back hangs a large row of water ghosts wrapped in a large amount of kelp and shells. Don't think that the ghost ship will fire at you. These guys are actually better at boarding battles. These water ghosts stood on the mast just to jump down from it and use the power of the rope to swing to the enemy warship on the opposite side. Of course, their mission this time was not to play boarding battle, but to install the locator. In addition to artillery locators, we also have many locators for precise positioning, but these locators need to be thrown manually. The method of use is similar to a grenade. Although there is no safety switch, you must press the switch before throwing it, otherwise the thing will not be effective. Each of the water ghosts on the mast carries a backpack on his back. There is an opening at the bottom of the special backpack, and you can pull out a locator by just reaching out and touching it. When using it, just press the start switch and throw it out. Of course, you can also find some secret place to stuff it. This thing has its own magnetic function. There are steel structures everywhere on the battleship, so you can stick it directly wherever you stick it.

"This should be their flagship, right?" Looking at a huge black shadow a hundred meters away, I asked the ghost captain next to me.

The ghost captain was holding a tattered manual full of holes and flipping through it while comparing it with the shadow of the battleship opposite. Although the thing in his hand looks very old, it is actually quite a magical thing. This thing is called the Ghost Navigation Manual, and it looks like a hard-covered diary. But in fact, this is a treasure. Although this thing looks like only one or two hundred pages, it actually has infinite pages, if you are not too tired. Even if you copy it from the encyclopedia, it will never be filled up. Moreover, this thing is just like Doraemon's extra-dimensional pocket, it has sensing capabilities. As long as the corresponding information is recorded in it, when you want to search, just open a page in the middle and it will definitely be the content you are looking for. certainly. The premise is that this information must be recorded in it, otherwise it will not be displayed. but. Although this thing can automatically search for the information you want, you have to copy the information yourself. If someone else does it for you, you won’t be able to write a single word.

The book in the captain's hand is his personal manual. Everything in it was copied by himself, and the content contains a lot of information. It not only contains some diaries, but also introduces the ship shapes of various enemy ships, and even There are also hand-drawn sketches.

Captain Ghost held this thing and flipped through two pages before saying directly: "This is the Banshee King super battleship belonging to the Russian Banshee House. It has a displacement of 197,000 tons. It is a big guy."

"That's it." I took out eternity and asked: "The enemy's sight distance is only fifteen meters, right?"

"That's right, we can't be seen from fifteen meters away as long as we don't fire."

"Then get close to 18 meters and prepare for bombardment. By the way, let me notify the other warships. When they get close, they will follow the instructions and fire in unison."

"clear."

Because the fog fleet has a visual range advantage in the fog created by itself, when we approach the enemy ship eighteen meters away, we can already see the enemy ship clearly from the ghost ship, and even the opponent's deck The personnel on board can vaguely see a rough outline, but the other party can't even see the outline of our battleship at all.

"All ships are in position." The ghost captain quickly sent me a report.

I nodded and raised the eternity in my hand, and at the same time shouted through the communicator: "Attention, all ships in the Mist Fleet, aim at the enemy ships, prepare... to fire."

The salvo of the sailing battleship is not a salvo of the whole ship, but a sequential salvo. First, the cannon located at the bow and the highest position starts firing, and then the cannon on the lower deck fires at intervals of 0.5 seconds, and then again at intervals. At 0.5 seconds, the artillery on the side of the first artillery fire fired, and then the artillery below it, that is, the artillery on each layer fired one after another at intervals of one second, and the next layer was delayed by zero from the previous layer. Point five seconds, and if there are three or four layers of gun positions, the interval between the upper and lower gun positions will be shortened to 0.3 seconds or 0.2 seconds. Anyway, try to ensure that the first cannon on each floor can complete a round of shooting within one second. certainly. This time is only an approximate interval, because it is manually ignited, and the speed of firing of old-fashioned artillery is different every time, so the actual interval is not completely stable, but as long as it is implemented according to this standard. Even if it is done earlier or later, it does not affect the effect.

As my firing order was issued, the battleship we were on and all the battleships belonging to the Mist Fleet began to fire sequentially at almost the same time. The U.S.-Russian combined fleet on the opposite side did not expect to encounter artillery fire at this time, and they were even more stunned. What comes to mind is that the shelling position is so close, it is almost close to them and firing.

At a distance of eighteen meters, the distance between the cannonballs is almost imperceptible. Almost as soon as the sound of artillery fire was heard here, a big hole appeared on the battleship of the US-Russian Combined Fleet over there, and what was seen on the US-Russian Combined Fleet's side was one after another in the mist in the distance. The red light glows in the group and the large holes that keep appearing on the body of one's own warships.

As mentioned before, although the cannons of the Misty Fleet appear to be old-fashioned front-loading cannons, they fire solid iron bullets. Theoretically, it should not be able to cause any damage to these iron-hulled warships of the US-Russian combined fleet. But in fact, the situation is completely different from what was imagined. The naval guns of the Mist Fleet have special properties. When they fire at others, the armor of the other party's warships will become as hard as wood of the same thickness. Therefore, steel battleships are not necessarily safe in front of the Mist Fleet. It feels like the Mist Fleet. Those old-fashioned artillery fires are not solid iron balls at all, but tungsten-cored armor-piercing projectiles.

Because the shelling happened too suddenly. Therefore, the U.S.-Russian combined fleet was attacked by a dense rain of artillery shells with almost no preparation. Fortunately, although the artillery shells fired by the Misty Fleet had super armor-piercing capabilities, even their battleships might not be able to block them. But the explosive power of these shells is average. Although these shells will actually explode, their power is really negligible. Unless they hit the ammunition pile, even if they are fired into the ammunition depot and explode, they may not detonate the ammunition.

Although the power of the shells was not as powerful as expected, the warships of the US-Russian Combined Fleet did not suffer any major casualties in the first round of bombardment, but almost all the warships of the US-Russian Combined Fleet that were targeted were beaten like sieves. Almost all of the side facing the Mist Fleet warships were filled with holes, although each hole was not too big. But such a large area of ​​dense bullet holes is scary enough to look at.

"Damn it, it's the Frost Rose Alliance's Mist Fleet. Fight back, fight back." The captains of the US-Russian combined fleet on the battleship shouted, but soon they found that their orders could not be executed, because they found that, They couldn't see the enemy ships at all, and what was even worse was that they were very sure that there were a large number of their own warships in the direction where the shells were flying. In this case, the probability of firing randomly is much higher than hitting the enemy, so these captains immediately revoked the order after issuing it.

"What should we do?" The Gunslinger and the Frozen Banshee were also circling anxiously in the bridge. Of course they both also thought about the problems that the captains could think of, but like those captains, they didn't know how to fight back. Surrounded by our own warships, and what's more terrible is that we can't see the specific location of the enemy at all. We know the general direction. Although it seems that the distance is not far from the sound, what will happen if we miss it? Surrounded by his own warships, the probability of hitting them was too high, and most people would not dare to bet. Moreover, the Frozen Banshee and the Gunslinger were both the top commanders of the fleet, so of course they could not issue such an order.

The Frozen Banshee turned around for a while and suddenly thought of something, and then directly opened the guild channel and shouted: "Attention all warships, after seeing the enemy's gunfire, move closer to the enemy. As long as you get closer, you can see the enemy."

The words of the Frozen Banshee can be said to be a wake-up call. Everyone is worried about not being able to see the exact location of the enemy, but the enemy can still see the muzzle flash when they fire, so take the initiative as soon as you see the muzzle flash. Move closer to the enemy. Once you are close enough, you will naturally be able to see the enemy.

Although the U.S.-Russian combined fleet cannot see each other due to heavy fog, the guild channel is still available, but it cannot cover the entire fleet. The peripheral ships can only rely on relays to hear the sound. , and this guild channel cannot be used to maintain formation, because everyone cannot see each other at all, and there is no reference point even with communication capabilities. It is simply impossible to accurately locate oneself or others, so everyone has never thought of using this thing to locate oneself or others. However, now that the Frozen Banshee suddenly shouted such words in the channel, it has been mentioned to everyone. Wake up.

The U.S.-Russian combined fleet, which had endured a round of shelling, did not fight back at all, but only fired a few random shots from the small cannons on some battleships. And most of them missed their targets, and one of them missed one of their own. However, now with the advice of the Frozen Banshee, everyone is holding back their energy and waiting for the next round of bombardment to attack our fleet and retaliate severely.

However, what surprised the US-Russian combined fleet was that the expected second round of bombardment did not appear at all. The surrounding attackers suddenly became quiet as if they had disappeared. Although the players of the US-Russia Combined Fleet searched the sea for a long time with their eyes wide open, they still saw nothing.

"What is the Frost Rose Alliance doing?" The long period of silence made the gunman's psychological pressure continue to rise. The quieter the situation, the more nervous he was, because he knew that the enemy was around him but The feeling of not being attacked was as if he was waiting to die, which was really unbearable.

Similar to the Gunslinger is the Frozen Banshee. But she had to be a little calmer. After all, the pressure from the Russians was not as great as that from the Holy Lancers. If the Russian operation fails, the price will be that there may be no hope of returning the occupied eastern region in a short time. For the Holy Spear Alliance, failure represents a complete loss of the future. If they don't win this time, the Holy Spear Alliance will cease to exist, so the Gunslinger's side is completely fighting against the odds. Naturally, the psychological pressure will be much greater. It's not that the Frozen Banshee has better psychological quality than the Gunslinger. good.

"The Frost Rose Alliance should be planning something." The Frozen Banshee said: "But we are passive now. All we can do is keep moving forward. The Mist Fleet cannot always envelope us. We have collected information in this regard and it turns out that this dense fog state also requires the consumption of magic power and the like. It will not last forever, so we can rest assured that they are now more pressed for time than us."

After listening to the words of the Frozen Banshee, the Gunslinger finally felt a little more at ease. Just like the Frozen Banshee said, the fog in the Mist Fleet also has a time limit. So compared to them, we should be the party that values ​​time more. only. The more this happened, the more the gunman couldn't figure out why we suddenly stopped attacking after the first round of shelling.

In fact, the answer to what the Frozen Banshee and the Gunslinger were wondering about was very simple. The reason why they didn't know was simply because they couldn't see the entire battlefield in the fog.

The real reason why the Mist Fleet stopped shelling is actually to free up shooting space for our main fleet. The first round of shelling just now actually fired most of the new standard ammunition instead of attack ammunition. Coupled with the beacon launchers that the water ghosts climbed onto the opponent's warships, the warships being attacked are now covered with positioning beacons. Although they are still obscured by the fog, on our monitor here They are as eye-catching as beacons in the dark night.

"Very good, the signal is very clear." King Chuang answered my inquiry with a communicator.

After knowing that the signal mark was completed, I immediately asked the Mist Fleet to go behind the US-Russia Combined Fleet and no longer mix with them to avoid being hit by my own artillery shells. After all, the sea was so rough that our cannons might not be able to use beacons even if they were assisted by beacons. It's the one that always hits the mark. What's more, there are many Japanese warships in our combined fleet. Most of their warships are not equipped with a unified command system, so it is basically impossible to achieve our hit rate. Therefore, it is best for the Mist Fleet to open up. The distance is relatively thick.

After the distance between us was widened, I directly sent a new number to the fleet, and King Chuang immediately started shouting after seeing the signal: "Attention, all ships, start aiming according to the target position sent to you by the God of War. .”

The coordinate positions generated by the beacon transmitter are not directly input to each battleship, but are all received by the God of War, and then the coordinates are classified. Based on the tonnage and location of the marked warship, find a warship with appropriate firepower and appropriate distance in our fleet group, and then assign this target to it.

After being assigned by the God of War, each warship in our fleet only needs to attack one target. The advantage of this is that it can facilitate the unified firing of all the artillery on the warship. Otherwise, one ship will have to attack multiple targets at the same time. target, then the angle parameters will become very troublesome. in addition. Basically, the coordinates assigned by the God of War are not too far from the location of the battleship that received the mission, and they must be targets that the opponent can effectively damage. There will be no situation where the battleship is assigned to one's own destroyer for bombardment.

"Attention all units, feel free to fire after calibration is complete. Repeat, feel free to fire after calibration is complete. No need to wait."

After the final order from the God of War was issued, I put the warships in the fleet group. The warships belonging to our Frost Rose Alliance started bombarding almost in no particular order. After all, the warships in our guild already have a unified shooting parameter input system. As long as we get the enemy With the azimuth and distance information, all the firepower of the entire ship can be quickly adjusted. This is much simpler and faster than manual calculation for the warships of the Japanese fleet. so. The moment the order from the God of War was given, our warships started roaring almost simultaneously, while the warships of the Japanese fleet started firing one after another after a delay of more than ten seconds.

"Gun God? Did you hear anything?" The Frozen Banshee suddenly stood up from her seat, and then looked at the Gun God nervously and asked, while the Gun God frowned and looked at Bing Feng Banshee, apparently he heard that voice too.

"Sounds like..." The gunman hesitated for a while and then his expression suddenly changed. Then he screamed and shouted: "Shell, avoid!"

Although the gunman's reaction is quite fast, unfortunately this reaction speed is obviously a bit slower for the cannonball. Just as the Gunslinger shouted such words, a large group of cannonballs rained down, and the hit rate was astonishingly high. The surrounding warships, including theirs, were also taken care of by the barrage. While shouting "cannon fire evasion", the gunner ran towards the helmsman and was about to grab the steering wheel and feel himself flying as soon as he was halfway there. Three shells exploded on the front deck of the battleship almost in no particular order. One of them hit the bow of the ship, cutting off a section of the entire bow. The second shot hit the deck area in front of the No. 1 turret, directly opening a big hole there, while the third shot hit the No. 1 turret squarely. It instantly penetrated the armor on the top of the turret, and then exploded inside the turret, knocking parts of the entire turret everywhere.

Because all three shells hit the bow area, the front end of the battleship suddenly sank. In addition, because the bow wave breaker was blown away, the backflow structure was damaged. The sudden increase in resistance caused the battleship to come violently. A sudden brake. This is also the reason why the Gunslinger feels like he is flying.

The suddenly decelerated battleship allowed the gunman to directly mount the front console, then rolled over from the console and rolled to the edge of the front console before being blocked. However, he got a bit of an advantage in this way. Although he fell heavily, he avoided the bursting of the porthole glass. certainly. This kind of thing itself won't cause much harm.

The ship of the Frozen Banshee and the Gunslinger suddenly slowed down when the bow of the ship was hit by a bullet. Then less than two seconds later, the middle section of the battleship and the side of the central area of ​​the ship island were suddenly penetrated by a large-caliber shell, but it was unknown. Out of luck or something, the shell didn't explode. It passed through the side armor in the middle area of ​​the island and poured into the personnel rest area below. Finally, it got stuck in the central ammunition depot only separated by a wall, and did not explode in the end. However, as this shell hit the ground, another three consecutive hits followed. This time their luck was not so good.

The first shell of the second three-shot burst directly hit the side armor and exploded outside the armored belt. Because it was the thickest armored position on the battleship, the explosion only caused a large area of ​​armor to deform and failed to penetrate. However, the second shell hit almost the same position. This time it fired directly on the deformed armor. It made a big hole and then penetrated into the internal fuel tank and caused a violent explosion. The entire battleship jumped upwards, and then suddenly fell to the sea. The entire ship could be seen with the naked eye obvious deformation and distortion. However, the last shell still did not miss the battleship, but accurately hit the front shield of the fourth turret pointing in this direction. Although the shell did not penetrate the main armor, it blew up all three barrels. A huge dent appeared on the bare front of the turret, which was completely scrapped.

After these three consecutive rounds, the battleship was hit by several more shells, but all of them were near-misses and missed. However, even so, the battleship was sinking at an exaggerated speed. Even if there were no further hits from the shells, it would not be able to escape the fate of sinking.

As soon as the Frozen Banshee got up from her position, she saw the Gunslinger walking over with her head covered. Both of their expressions were not very pretty. This was the third time that the US-Russian combined fleet had changed its flagship, and so far they had In fact, there has not yet been a formal battle with our fleet.

"You'd better come to my ship." Gunslinger glanced at the Frozen Banshee and said. "Your warships always seem to receive special attention."

The Frozen Banshee did not refute this matter, but simply nodded and followed the Gunslinger out. As for this ship, there is no need to rescue it at all. The shell that hit the fuel depot has already deformed the keel of the battleship. He is angry that even if everything is broken, it can be repaired. Only the keel is the core of the battleship. Once this thing If something goes wrong, even if it can be towed back to the port, it can only be dismantled and reused, and it cannot be repaired at all.

While the Frozen Banshee and the Gunslinger were busy changing flagships, the warships in the US-Russian combined fleet that had been attacked by the Mist Fleet were successively hit by our long-range firepower, although some of them were lucky enough not to be directly destroyed. , but most of the warships suffered heavy blows, and nearly half of them sank directly.

This was the most serious loss since the merger of the US-Russian combined fleets, and this loss made both the Frozen Banshee and the Gunslinger feel that their hope of victory this time was very slim. If our previous battle could only be regarded as harassment, then this is actually a hunting operation. The attack just now on the Sino-US-Russian joint fleet sank more than 70 warships, and almost all of these warships were large warships. This is what worries the Frozen Banshee and the Gunslinger.

The attack targets on our side are all large warships, which means that we can see their warships. Otherwise, there is no way to explain how we choose the targets. But if we could see their ships, they would be under fire all the time, and since they couldn't see us, they wouldn't be able to fight back. As a result, their warships can only be passively beaten, and the loss rate is quite exaggerated, and they will soon completely lose their combat effectiveness.

Because of these discoveries, the Frozen Banshee and the Gunslinger are now very disappointed, and they are already a little at a loss. Originally, they expected to get close to Essinger, close to our country, and then force us to fight them, but they never expected that we would actually come up with such a tactic. Trapped in the fog, they have no chance to counterattack, but our warships can pour out firepower unscrupulously. If we continue to fight in this way, let alone China's offshore waters, whether we can bypass Japan is a question.

"What are we going to do?"