Chapter 441 Submarine
The tragedy of the "Dreadnought" aircraft carrier continues.
As the burning fuel spread, the fire quickly spread on the flight deck. Soon, the fighter planes that were not detonated were quickly ignited.
At this time, the British naval soldiers on the aircraft carrier should push these fighter planes into the sea, but the fire stopped them, so they could only watch the fighter planes being engulfed by flames, and then a "boom" exploded with a ball of flames and fuel leaked out.
The flight deck became the grave of the British Navy. The fuel flowed everywhere with flames, just like the lava of a volcano, burning wherever it flowed. It flowed from the deck to the cabin below, blocking the passage and cutting off the crew's escape route. Hundreds of crew members in the cabin panicked and shouted loudly, but no one could hear their voices. The soldiers had to flee into the water like dumplings to avoid being burned to death by the fire.
Compared with the British Navy and Air Force, which were caught off guard and fell into chaos, the German and Italian Air Forces had a clear division of labor and carried out this war in an orderly manner.
Generally speaking, it is very difficult to fight this battle in an "orderly" manner under such circumstances, after all, the fighter planes in the sky can be said to be "a swarm of demons" and no one can tell who is who.
But it is not difficult to say it is difficult.
The German and Italian armies made a plan before the war... The Italian Air Force was responsible for bombing warships, and the German Air Force was responsible for fighting with the British Air Force.
This allocation is of course reasonable. The Italian Air Force itself is not a match for the British Air Force. It cannot be compared in terms of fighter performance or pilot quality, so of course it cannot deal with the British Air Force.
On the contrary, it is not difficult to carry out the task of bombing British warships, because the warships are there, as long as you have the life to reach the sky above the warships... open the bomb bay and drop the bombs, and it will be done.
The German Air Force has advantages over the British Air Force in terms of fighter performance and pilot quality, so of course they are responsible for the air. Of course, because the German army also has a part of the "Stuka" bombers with excellent performance, it also takes into account the sea.
Air Marshal Kesselring said to the Italian Air Force: "For you, there are no planes in the sky, that is, no British planes or German planes. There are only you and your target... British warships on the battlefield!"
So, the Italian Air Force even knew that there was a British fighter biting him at the tail, but they turned a blind eye.
Because they knew that even if they reacted, such as evasive action, the performance of Italian fighters and bombers would not help, so it would be better to give their lives to God or the German Air Force.
The German Air Force lived up to expectations. They usually shot down enemy planes before British fighters shot down Italian fighters, or were destroyed by German fighters immediately after the British destroyed Italian fighters...This was very cost-effective for the German and Italian air forces, because it was actually exchanging an Italian fighter for a British fighter.
However, the Italian fleet could not safely fire into the air because the British Navy could not... Anti-aircraft artillery shells exploded in the air in clusters, and even anti-aircraft machine guns fired a dense barrage in the air, which was very easy to cause accidental injuries when enemy and friendly fighters were fighting each other.
This gave the Italian bombers an opportunity to take advantage of it. They dived down one after another and dropped bombs on British warships at low altitude.
After the "Dreadnought" aircraft carrier was damaged and caught fire, the "Invincible" aircraft carrier was not spared. A BR bomber dropped two bombs on the "Invincible" aircraft carrier. One fell into the sea and exploded, and the other hit the elevator and directly penetrated into the aircraft hangar and exploded. Fortunately, there were no fighters in the hangar, so the explosion only damaged the hangar and the elevator.
A "Stuka" bomber dived down from high altitude at a large angle with a sharp whistle at high speed towards the "Neptune" cruiser.
The Stuka is a dive bomber. Compared with horizontal bombers, its advantage is that it has a high hit rate, because it dives down from the air at a nearly right angle, and the bombs dropped will also fall towards the target in a similar trajectory to the bomber. This process does not even require a complex aiming system.
The Neptune also noticed this danger, and the anti-aircraft artillery shells on the warship rained down on the target like raindrops, but because the target was too fast and the angle changed too much, the anti-aircraft guns missed one after another, and instead smashed several fighter planes flying nearby in the air... Because the speed of the fighter plane disintegrated too quickly, the gunners didn't even see whether it was an enemy or their own fighter plane.
At the same time, the captain of the Neptune, Colonel Andre, urgently ordered a maneuver to evade, but it was too late. Two bombs fell from the sky with a sharp whistle... One hit the starboard side and fell into the sea without exploding. The second destroyed the chimney on the ship and exploded in the engine room, resulting in only one boiler on the ship being able to operate normally, and the communication system on the ship was completely paralyzed.
Colonel Andre was about to be thankful that the Neptune could still hold on, but he heard a soldier on the side of the ship shouting: "Torpedo found!"
Andre hurriedly ordered: "Ring full right!"
However, because the cruiser had almost lost power and was moving very slowly, Andre could only watch the torpedo draw a long waterline in the water and head straight for the side of the ship, and then exploded with a loud "bang".
After a while, all the power of the Neptune disappeared, and a large amount of seawater poured into the damaged hull, causing the hull to pour. Colonel Andre could only order to abandon the ship.
Almost at the same time, the destroyer "Northwest" which was busy shooting into the air was also hit by two torpedoes. Vice Admiral Tovey then realized that there were enemy submarines lurking in the sea...
Admiral Tovey guessed correctly that these submarines were submarines of the Toulon Fleet, five of which were German "U" submarines, which were sent by Hitler to reinforce the underwater forces in the Mediterranean, and three were French submarines of the Toulon Fleet... The German army seized 19 submarines from the Toulon Fleet, but unfortunately the German Navy did not have enough submarine crews, and the other submarines were still in training, so only three formed combat effectiveness, and finally only eight submarines participated in this battle.
But this was enough to give the British Navy a pot of water, with bombs in the air and torpedoes in the sea, and explosions were heard one after another. Some warships even collided with the fleeing transport ships, and the scene was in chaos for a while.
Finally, the Italian bombers dropped bombs and withdrew the troops, and the remaining British fighters withdrew from the battle. The German fleet circled half a circle over the fleet as a demonstration, and then flew towards Italy.
All that was left for the British was a flame and black smoke on the sea. Several warships that had sunk to the point where only a small section remained lingered for a while unwillingly, and then disappeared into the sea.