Another World: Naval Storm

Chapter 123: Fierce Battle 2

At 18:53, the Drake fleet launched a fierce counterattack, and the first round of shelling by the Moltke battlecruiser hit the Lion battlecruiser of Liam. The 280mm German heavy armor-piercing shells easily tore through the fragile waterline armor of the Lion battlecruiser and the watertight bulkhead of less than 100mm, and plunged into the midship of the Lion.

The Lion and Queen Mary belong to the same type of battlecruiser. The Lion class is a newly designed battlecruiser designed to overwhelm Drake's similar warships.

When the Drake Empire's first battlecruiser, the Von der Tann, was launched, the battleship's main guns and the cruiser's speed attracted the attention of the whole world and it was the talk of the town.

As a country that has dominated the ocean for a hundred years, Tarun would certainly not admit defeat. Less than a year after the launch of the Dreadnought, its old enemy, the Kingdom of Tarun, quickly launched a copycat version of the Indefatigable.

When it comes to battlecruisers, the naval design departments of Drake and Talen have completely opposite design concepts.

During the design stage, there was a debate in the Talen Navy about "speed or armor". In the end, the speed faction prevailed. Under the premise that the main gun caliber and full load displacement were similar, the Talen people chose speed at all costs. The maximum speed of 26 knots was enough to make the unprotected cruisers serving in the Talen Empire colonies pale. The Drakes put all their energy into protection. The thickness of the waterline armor, command tower and turret armor was not much inferior to that of the Talen Dreadnought-class battleship.

The Lion-class battleships have greatly improved artillery power and speed compared to the Indefatigable-class, but the pursuit of speed has caused the power plant to take up too much weight, and in order to install more boilers the hull length exceeds 200 meters, while the improvement in protection capabilities is limited.

The Royal Navy focused on the speed of its warships and the large-caliber guns, neglecting other necessary improvements.

The armor-piercing shells punched a large hole in the port side of the Lion, and the water from the North Atlas Sea rushed into the hull and rushed through the pipe hatch.

The Royal Navy is indeed a navy with first-class qualities. The damage control sailors in the cabin of the Lion jumped into the cold sea shouting "God save the King", and tried hard to stuff various plugs, waterproof canvas and rigging into the broken holes. However, the poor armor of the Lion battlecruiser and the poor damage control design made everything irreversible.

At 19:02, the Tarons' plugging operation failed again and the sea water flooded the second deck of the Lion.

At 19:12, under the order of Liam, Captain Wallace of the Lion ordered to abandon the ship.

At 19:21, after packing up Liam and the staff and sending them to other warships, Captain Wallace confirmed that the last sailor had evacuated and stubbornly locked himself in the captain's room, intending to sink with the ship.

Upon hearing the news, Liam was helpless and ordered the door to be broken into and the men taken away, thus preventing Brigadier General Wallace from dying.

The light cruiser HMS Tarentingham had no choice but to fire two torpedoes at the Lion to the sad and desolate melody of "The Song of the Albion" sung by the sailors.

[Congratulations, Commander. Your battlecruiser Moltke sank the enemy ship Lion]

At 19:23, the battlecruiser Lion, the first battleship to sink in the Battle of Shipwreck Bay, was buried in the cold mud on the seabed of the North Sea.

Liam, who had been transferred to the Royal Princess, immediately raised the command flag and sent an order to the entire fleet to avenge the Lion.

"Commander! The Royal Princess hit the battlecruiser Moltke!"

The flames that were reignited amidships of the battlecruiser Moltke made all the officers and soldiers of the battlecruiser Royal Princess extremely happy. You know, the most outstanding young commander of the Drake Empire, the king of Drake's naval strategy, Vice Admiral Leo, was on the Moltke.

The man who had caused the Royal Navy to suffer repeated defeats since the war began, the demon who had sunk more than a dozen warships of various types of the Royal Navy, the instigator who bombarded the naval port of the Kingdom of Talen and landed on the mainland was the Moltke!

The drama is being played out on the vast North Atlas Sea. The self-proclaimed romantics of the post-war Onebaroa see Liam and Leo, a pair of friends and old enemies in the national war, as knight heroes who fought for their king in the Middle Ages.

The Battle of Shipwreck Bay was a fierce head-on heavy armored confrontation between the Knights of the Round Table of the Grand Fleet and the Teutonic Knights of the Oceanic Fleet.

"Leo, you really give me a headache. You use four warships to hold me back. The Ocean Fleet will decide the outcome." Liam crossed her arms and said with mixed feelings, "It's a good plan, but unfortunately, my old friend, you and your Moltke won't last more than four hours!"

The Queen Mary and Tiger battlecruisers did not survive until they received support from two dreadnoughts, and sank into the sea amid countless violent explosions.

Their persistence was not in vain. The Broad had its rudder broken and could only float on the sea. In order to protect the Broad, the Von der Bella had to cruise near it, making it the best target for the Thor and the Conqueror.

"Telegram to the Von der Bella! Tell it to get out of here quickly. The Broad doesn't need his protection! Make him go away quickly!" Captain Manwen's eyes were red and he shouted at the top of his lungs.

Around the Broad's patrol vessel, countless shells kept falling, hitting the Broad and Von der Bella from time to time.

Under Manwen's constant urging, and finally the threat of suicide, the Von der Bella reluctantly left the Broad.

Seeing that they could no longer wait for the enemy to attack, the dreadnoughts HMS Thor and HMS Conqueror had to speed up to deal with the HMS Broad first, otherwise they would not be able to catch up with the HMS Von der Bella when it picked up speed.

The Guardian-class battleship is 177.1 meters long, 26.8 meters wide, and has a draft of 7.3 meters. The front armor of the main turret is 279 mm thick, the armor of the command tower is 279 mm thick, the side armor belt is 305 mm thick, the deck armor is 102 mm thick, and the full load displacement is tons. It is powered by 4 turbine steam engines, horsepower, 4 shafts, and a speed of 21 knots.

It is also equipped with 5 twin-mounted 10-gun 343㎜/45-caliber main guns, with two main turrets arranged on the bow and stern of the ship, and the other main turret is in the middle of the ship.

The rest of the small-caliber secondary guns are not worth mentioning, as their damage is too weak in the confrontation between giant ships and cannons.

Now the two dreadnought-class battleships with more than 2 14mm naval guns are pouring firepower towards the Broad cruiser. The Von der Bella can only watch all this in vain. The only thing it can do is to use a few 343mm naval guns to attack the two dreadnoughts.

The battered Broad still stubbornly floated on the sea. Until the last moment, all the men were sticking to their posts. The damage control team was still soaking in the sea water plugging leaks and pumping water, and the artillery that could still be used was also fighting back.

"Abandon ship!" Manwen gave the order with tears in his eyes, reluctantly taking a last look at the command room.