Battle of the Third Reich

The attempted torpedo raid by the British destroyer terrified Prince Eugen up and down.

After the start of the shock, the heavy cruiser was completely irritated by the attack of the British destroyer.

The fact that I was almost blown away by the torpedoes fired by the British just made the German officers and soldiers who reacted feel that their personal dignity was seriously hurt.

In the eyes of these German naval officers and soldiers, although the British were attacking themselves with fairness, this courage was indeed admirable.

However, the soldiers at sea should be able to bombard each other with cannons. It is too shameless to attack with torpedoes. It is simply a cowardly act.

So in the eyes of these glorious and proud German Sea Knights, the British became downright sneak attackers, shameless murderers, not real warriors, not really men, they were only mean on one side The bandits who cast the dark arrows and so on. . . .

The character of the poor British naval officers and soldiers was not only overthrown by the German heavy cruiser officers and men, but also stepped on more than a thousand and hundreds of feet.

And these Germans don’t want to think about the huge gap between themselves and those two small opponents, and the German navy is also good at torpedo attacks. I have never seen them have the habit of saying hello to each other before the torpedo attacks.

In fact, these German navy officers and soldiers are looking for psychological comfort for their previous mistakes. After all, as a proud naval soldier, he was almost killed by such a weak opponent. This feeling is very bad. Since I can’t find a reason for self-destruction All faults can only be pushed to the enemy.

The angrily prince Eugen sent a request to the flagship to allow it to leave the formation to attack the British destroyer, and at the same time pour full of anger at the two British destroyers fleeing wildly in the artillery, while slowly turning to prepare for the flagship to follow Admiral Sher gave way.

General Lütjens agreed to the heavy cruiser's request without much consideration.

The commander of the Ocean Fleet was also having a headache in the battle line for the battleship. In order to show loyalty to the great young head of Germany, he had to do his utmost to ensure the personal safety of the head of the warship.

Even more troublesome is that the ship is also equipped with almost half of the Imperial Naval Academy. These naval reserve officers are valuable assets for the future development of the Imperial Navy. If these non-commissioned officers suffer serious losses in battle, Marshal Del will not stick to the condiments. Eat yourself.

Lütjens put this warship in the position of a safe strategic reserve from the beginning of the plan, but did not expect that the envoy of the head of state made a request to participate in the battle. Lütjens was always cautious. Of course I dare not refuse the request of the head of state's special envoy.

So the poor admiral commanded the fleet while paying attention to the safety of the warship. Lütjens couldn't tell what was happening in his heart. He could only pray to God to bless that precious warship.

The desperate assault before the British destroyers was far beyond his expectation. These destroyers now do indeed pose a threat to the flanks of the fleet array. He was trying to mobilize a battleship from the light cruiser formation in the back to clean up these nasty boats and protect the flank of the fleet during the steering.

Since the heavy cruiser, who now occupies his place in the dangerous shelling queue, has made such a request, he has no reason to disagree.

Lütjens did not yet know that Prince Eugen had just escaped from the torpedo attack of the British destroyer. In the eyes of the fleet commander, although this heavy cruiser was a new ship, the British destroyers except those torpedoes There was no threat to her at all, it was only a matter of time to clean up the few destroyers with the firepower of this battleship.

In order to show his concern for his subordinates, it was more to let the head of state’s envoy on that battleship show his rich experience. In response to the request of Prince Eugen, Lütjens also added a sentence "Be careful of the destroyer. Torpedo attack".

The commander’s ordinary advice once again took a heavy blow to the self-esteem of the officers of the Prince Eugen, and the concern of his comrades became an intolerable irony in their eyes.

Prince Eugen quickly replied to the flagship with a "clear", and then suddenly turned the rudder to pull the whistle and rushed towards the two frightened British destroyers.

All the officers and soldiers of Prince Eugen are determined to cleanse their shame with the blood of the British, although no one except them thinks that the British have humiliated them.

"Open fire! Open fire! Tear them! Don’t stop the fire as long as they are still floating on the sea, let these British guys see what will happen if they challenge the dignity of the German naval officer. Block the enemy ship deck, I don’t want to watch it When someone is active, unless the other party expressly surrenders to our side. The port observation team pays close attention to the movement of the enemy cruiser and immediately reports if there is any situation."

Feng. Captain Hertz issued a command loudly in front of the narrow observation slit of the armored bridge.

The subordinate aviation and naval officers and combat officers stood on their respective platforms and issued the captain's combat instructions to the corresponding positions of the entire ship. Although the situation on the bridge was a bit confusing on the surface, in fact everything was in order. In progress.

The helmsman repeated the navigator's cāo rudder instructions over and over again, flexibly hit the helm wheel, and fine-tuned the course of the battleship.

The combat officer wears headphones and constantly receives feedback from various battle positions, and adjusts the firepower distribution of the battleship according to the position of the ship.

Several maritime officers stood in front of the chart and continuously observed the warship trajectory recorded by the automatic navigation instrument. The relative position and trajectory of the two sides were marked on the nautical chart according to the position parameters of the enemy ship sent from the artillery observation room.

The two British destroyers had given up the stupid idea of ​​continuing to approach the enemy ship for close-range artillery after encountering the German Navy’s fiercely blocking shot.

The rising water column around the hull finally calmed the two crazy destroyer captains.

In fact, when they saw that both battleships were aiming their firepower at themselves, they should know that nothing could be done, but their fanatical belief in devoting themselves to the British Empire made them lose their ability to judge the situation correctly.

After five minutes of struggling through the German artillery fire, the blood in the hearts of the British navy officers and soldiers began to cool down slowly.

Perhaps it was because they had successfully launched a torpedo attack on that enemy ship. At this time, no British would have expected this attack to be the result of such a dumbfounding. These British navy sailors felt that they were The king has fulfilled his responsibilities, and the German navy’s artillery has begun to become more and more dense. In this case, the instinct of human survival began to slowly overwhelm the loyalty of the empire to the king. In any case, they I have done more for the king than I thought.

But it was too late for them to wake up, and a difficult and powerful enemy had already targeted them.

The current performance of the two destroyers is described by panic. They are desperately trying to avoid the track, crossing the route back and forth, intending to avoid the artillery fire of the crazy approaching terrorist enemy behind.

Both destroyers have been injured and can't run beyond their maximum speed, but they can still escape at a speed of 30 knots.

According to this speed, it is still possible to get rid of the ordinary German warships. Unfortunately, they met the Prince Eugen who was also proud of the speed. What's more, they rushed too close to the German fleet. .

When the two destroyers changed course and began to escape towards their own fleet, Prince Eugen was already like an angry tyrannosaurus jetting flames towards the two weak opponents who had offended themselves.

This 18,000-ton heavy cruiser is as flexible as a lightning strike ship of more than one hundred tons. Before the two destroyers have reacted, the **** of death with the skull banner has occupied their left. In the side position, they began to ravage the two opponents who humiliated her with all the weapons they could reach.

The two 203 mm twin main turrets of Prince Eugen each chose a fleeing destroyer as the target to start a pleasant flat bombardment.

Since it is a destroyer, it is not on the list of captives, so Prince Eugen can launch attacks in any way she thinks fit.

However, because the Germans rushed too hard, the distance between the two sides was too close.

The bulwarks of the British D-class destroyers are notoriously low, and the bulwark owned by Prince Eugen as an assault ship fighting in the North Sea are very high. As a result, the four powerful main guns of Prince Eugen put the aiming points on the tall bridge of the destroyer inconsistently, because there was no place for them to shoot because of the insufficient angle of fire.

The three 105 mm high-level dual-purpose guns on the starboard side of the Prince Eugen have their place. This very famous excellent naval gun in World War II is best suited for this kind of medium- and short-range shooting.

So six 105-speed ship guns began a storm-like bombardment on the deck of the British destroyer in close proximity at a rate of five seconds.

The destroyer USS Defender, the closest to Prince Eugen, bears the brunt. Although the brave British sailors struggled to fight back with the two 120mm naval guns at the stern, the difference in strength between the two sides was too far.

After suffering four close shots from Prince Eugen, the Defender became a pile of burning scrap iron.

Her bridge was completely destroyed during the third salvo of the German battleship. The light-armored box structure was completely smoothed out of its base by high-explosive grenades, leaving only a bunch of flaming twisted wreckage.

The two main guns in the first part had already exploded with the first floor, leaving only the lower half of the front chimney, while the rear chimney was nowhere to be seen. The twisted steam tube madly sprayed strong steam and hot water column into the air. The destroyer has completely lost its power and slowly slowed down.

There was no visible figure on the deck of the battleship, and there were scorched black corpses everywhere.

There is no such thing as a lifeboat on the lifeboat deck in the middle. They have been torn into pieces of wood by a storm-like 37mm shell.

I once almost blew Prince Eugen directly from here to Iceland. The two quadruple mounted 533mm torpedo tubes had burnt out and they didn’t look the same. Unfortunately, they were not loaded with torpedoes, otherwise this battleship might be The pain had long ended in a roar.

The y turret at the stern became a burning bonfire. The location of the x turret is now a large hole that is spitting flames out. The deep water bomb on the deep water bomb release track may have been thrown into the sea by the British sailor, otherwise It will be a disaster, and the same will be true of the two deep-water bomb launchers, leaving only the glaring launch rod looming in the blazing fire.

The Defender has become a burning steel coffin. The Royal Navy officers and soldiers can only choose two routes. One is to hide in the burning hull and then be directly cremated or buried in the sea. The second route is to climb desperately. The upper deck was subsequently killed by German artillery and then cremated or buried there.

It was a terrible thing to be burned alive, not to mention that the battleship was slowly sinking, the Germans must have cut a lot of holes under the waterline of the ship, and the seawater quickly flooded the boiler and the engine room , Even on the deck of the Prince Eugen, you can hear the horrible popping sound when the boiler enters the water.

The double 37mm machine gun group and the quadruple 20mm machine gun group on the Prince Eugen finally stopped the blasting of the pile of debris, and various large and medium caliber artillery had already transferred the firepower to another one who was fleeing. On the enemy.

At this time, a dozen figures suddenly rushed out of the first floor of the Defender, which made the German sailors almost couldn’t believe their eyes. They couldn’t understand how the British sailors were in that terrible attack. Survived in this burning crematorium.

A quadruple 20mm machine gunner excitedly pulled the breech to fire at those figures, but was stopped by the commander of the group of guns standing behind him with a standard civilian gesture, and his head was hit hard by the officer. a slap.

"What the **** do you want to do? They are no longer resistant. We are glorious German naval soldiers, not butchers."

The British sailors first ran to the stern with the thick smoke billowing from the deck, and when they reached the stern, they found that the lifeboat had become a pile of broken wood, and then began to stumble toward the bow, and The bow has also burned into a ball of fire at this time.

Several people’s military uniforms were suddenly ignited by high temperature. They screamed over the ship’s side and jumped into the surface of the thick oil slick. Others also found that they had nowhere to go, so one by one survivors jumped into the sea. .

They were not wearing life jackets, and toxic heavy oil on the water stimulated their skin and respiratory tract. These people struggled to dissipate the sinking battleship in the thick oil slick.

Because the destroyer, which had almost been shoveled by the Germans, was making a chilling metal twisting and breaking sound, everyone knew that this battleship was about to capsize.

Prince Eugen quickly passed by the defender. She still had an enemy that had not been resolved. The pleasure was furiously fleeing in the direction of the British fleet in the dark smoke of 350 meters away from her.

The sailors on Prince Eugen looked at the broken and scorched black shell of the defender slowly tilting, but this was the only shortcut to make up for their previous mistakes.

War is cruel. As long as you wear this military uniform, you must have the consciousness of being a broken corpse. This is the unanimous idea of ​​all officers and soldiers.

The defender finally turned over after a wail, and then sprayed the water mist and water column towards the bottom of the sea, and the British sailor who had to swim out of the shipwreck in the future screamed and was sucked into the sea floor by a huge whirlpool.

The remaining ten lucky people struggled helplessly on the surface of the sea, and several seriously injured sailors began to cry for help by waving their arms to Prince Eugen, who was passing by quickly.

The battle is still going on, and Prince Eugen could not have rescued a few of the enemy's overwater crew members and risked being attacked by a live target to stop the boat, but it was not in line with the German Navy to watch those people drown alive. Knight tradition.

A large inflatable liferaft and several lifebuoys were thrown from the stern into the sea, watching the British desperately swim to those precious life-saving equipment. The German navy officers and soldiers who had just completed a killing felt a sense of comfort.

The battle continued. After all, the Pleasure was not able to run away. A 203-mm shell hit the engine room and ended her escape journey.

Steam gushed out from the exits of the various cabins. The battleship tilted forward as if tripped by something, and the bow was almost buried in the wave peak.

Pleasant continued to stride forward for a distance and then stopped, then another batch of German artillery shells accurately hit the deck of the deactivated destroyer.

Prince Eugen ruthlessly harvested the lives of officers and men of the Royal Navy, and shells of various calibers swept across the narrow warship deck time and time again.

In less than fifteen seconds, Pleasure became a broken incinerator like her sister ship defender, and before that Pleasure had only had time to shoot two salvos at Prince Eugen.

All superstructures of the battleship were completely destroyed, and the deck was burned into flames.

With the vent of the soul of the previous defender, Prince Eugen gradually calmed down, and after two secondary artillery volleys, he stopped the destruction of the destroyer. Opportunity.

Unfortunately for the German navy officers and soldiers, the British did not escape in the end.

Three seconds later, the destroyer suddenly experienced a terrible big explosion. It is unknown whether the fire ignited the ammunition depot or deep-water bomb depot on her ship.

The huge shock wave was so strong that it could be observed with the naked eye. Various pieces of steel rushed to the deck of Prince Eugen, and a Hach Case machine gun with its gun frame rolled and flew under the eyes of everyone. The distance of more than three hundred meters fell on the compass bridge of Prince Eugen.

Sooner the faster exploded into fragments in front of the German navy officers and soldiers, the remaining half-section of the first floor with the remains of a 120 mm artillery struggled on the water for four or five seconds, and inserted it with a beautiful rollback action. Entered the sea, then disappeared without a trace.

Only a large piece of heavy oil remained on the surface of the water, various fragments of burning or smoking, and various debris on the ship proved to people that a 1,900 ton floated here a few seconds ago. Destroyer.

Prince Eugen did not slow down, the battle continued, and the battleship had no time to express any emotion.

Passing less than fifty meters from the sinking place of Happy, Prince Eugen made a gentle angle turn to port.

The most beautiful heavy cruiser of the German Navy made a beautiful arc on the sea. She did not realize that she had left the original route very far while chasing the two destroyers.

Prince Eugen had unknowingly inserted the formation of the inside of the British cruiser team that was struggling with the peripheral artillery array.

Now the warship with the black skull flag has found her next target, an opponent who finally looks more in line with her identity, the British Royal Navy light cruiser Sheffield.

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