Chapter 222 Naval Battle (5)

The British fleet's anti-aircraft guns were firing at the sky like they were free. Well, they were free indeed. The British sailors were eager to use up these crappy shells as soon as possible so that they could replace them with new ones. But it was unknown when the more than 100 million rounds in stock would be used up. Even if they fired one million rounds a day, it would take more than three months to finish firing.

The Stuka that was diving down began to howl miserably. The aiming sight on the driver's dashboard was aimed at the HMS Warspite in the center of the British fleet, aiming at an anti-aircraft turret near the bow that was firing non-stop.

A fist-sized tracer bullet brushed the Stuka's wing and flew into the sky, and the Stuka also launched a counterattack without showing any weakness.

"Bang! Bang!" The 20mm cannon on the wing of the Stuka fired fiercely, and the tracer bullets flew towards their targets with light, creating a spark and smoke near the anti-aircraft turret. As the trajectory was corrected, the anti-aircraft turret was smashed to pieces. The British sailors operating the anti-aircraft guns had no time to dodge and were swept to the ground by the flying bullets and debris.

The bomb button was pressed, and the 500-kilogram bomb mounted on the belly of the aircraft broke away from the rack on the belly, and smashed towards the Warspite with inertia, with an unstoppable momentum.

Unfortunately, this bomb was not very lucky, and it brushed past the railing on the starboard side of the Warspite, crashed into a row of railings and plunged into the sea.

The time-delay fuse was detonated, and a huge water column roared up.

Pullman Cook on the bridge of the Warspite stared at the splashing water column in amazement. Although the white water column looked quite beautiful, he was not in the mood to appreciate it, and muttered. "Oh my God! When will a carrier-based aircraft be able to carry such a large bomb?!"

He was also an experienced soldier, and he could tell at a glance that the charge of this bomb was about 100 kilograms of TNT. And these bombs should be armor-piercing shells. According to the fact that the charge of armor-piercing shells is generally 20% of the bomb weight, this bomb weighs at least 500 kilograms.

If such a heavy bomb is directly dropped, can it penetrate the battleship armor? He didn't dare to take this risk. Once it was penetrated, the power of the explosion of 100 kilograms of TNT was no joke.

"Quick, quick, quick! All ships maneuver to evade! What is the air defense doing? Shoot down all those planes!!"

And just as he was shouting anxiously, the German aircraft group also rioted.

"Oh my God! That's Bazel!"

"Boobies 5! Boobies 5! Are you crazy?! Come back quickly!"

After entering the dive state, Bazel no longer cared about the air command and the calls of his comrades. He felt that today must be his "unlucky day", otherwise why did His Royal Highness board his plane and force him to fight with the British warships; under normal circumstances, he would rush down without hesitation, but now the Crown Prince was sitting in the back seat, and he dared not do anything rash.

But he was just a soldier, and the Crown Prince was like a chicken blood and insisted that he go down to drop the bomb. Unable to withstand the threats and inducements of His Royal Highness, Bazel could only grit his teeth and push the joystick to let the fighter plane dive down.

As tracer bullets passed by the fuselage, Bazel had forgotten who was in the back seat, and his whole body was focused on the aiming crosshairs. The Warspite was not stationary, it was maneuvering at high speed at this time, and Bazel had to constantly adjust his dive direction to ensure the accuracy of the bombing.

Yannick felt his body being pushed to the chair behind him, and his brain began to feel dizzy. This is because the plane dived too fast, which made the brain lack blood and the body react normally. After countless trainings, pilots can adapt to this acceleration process within a few seconds; but Yannick, an ordinary person, only felt dizzy, and the only thing missing was the stars in the sky.

More than a dozen fire whips were stirring in the air, but Bazel knew that it was difficult for this small-caliber anti-aircraft firepower to hit the Stuka that was diving almost vertically at high speed. What they feared most was the anti-aircraft bullet rain from the front. The faster they dived, the faster they died. However, all anti-aircraft weapons have a firing range, and the current anti-aircraft weapon firing range rarely exceeds 80 degrees.

Therefore, he ignored the tracer bullets that passed by, and looked at the altimeter. They had dived to 1,000 meters, but he was not in a hurry to drop the bomb. He gritted his teeth and continued to dive for 200 meters. When the altitude alarm beeped continuously, he suddenly pressed the bomb button.

Bazel felt that the body suddenly became light, and he pulled the joystick hard. The Stuka screamed and turned around to climb. Yannick, who was sitting in the back, felt that his internal organs had been stuck to his back and almost vomited.

Just after climbing for a while, there was a shocking explosion on the sea surface. The vibration caused by the explosion made Bazel clearly feel the trembling of his plane. This was completely different from the explosion caused by the bomb falling into the water. Bazel knew that the bomb he dropped hit the target.

"Haha! I hit it! Your Highness! I hit it!" Looking back, he almost fainted and screamed hysterically. "Oh my God! Your Highness was shot!"

The sentence "Your Highness was shot!" instantly made the entire flying fleet explode.

All kinds of disbelief, inquiries, and meaningless shouts instantly filled the entire communication channel, so that Yannick had to yell a few times to calm these guys down. "I'm fine! I'm fine! Don't forget your mission, completely sink the battleship below!" He really wanted to slap Bazel to faint. Damn it, just shout if you want, why are you shouting so loudly into the communication channel? Are you afraid that others won’t know that I’m injured?

Yannick was indeed injured. An anti-aircraft shell fired from an unknown warship happened to explode nearby. A piece of shrapnel directly penetrated the hatch cover, leaving a long wound from the base of his ear to his neck.

This scared him enough. If his carotid artery was damaged, he would really die. Fortunately, there was no blood spurting out for a while, so he breathed a sigh of relief. He held the wound and looked down, and saw that a big hole had been blown out at the stern of the Warspite. Thick smoke and flames gushed out. The speed of the entire warship slowed down significantly, and it was obvious that the power system was also affected.

This bomb directly penetrated the seaplane deck of the Warspite, and then stumbled all the way and fell above the boiler room of the warship, causing a violent explosion. The horizontal armor of the boiler room, which had been strengthened to 89 mm (5 inches), was also torn open and broken. In an instant, the boiler pipes burst, and the blazing steam gushed out violently, and the speed of the warship immediately dropped sharply.

Yannick found that although the speed of the Warspite had obviously decreased and the entire ship was tilted at a visible slope, it seemed that it would not be silent in a short time. If they left at this point, they might be able to hold on until returning to the port, so he had to strike while the iron was hot and sink the battleship completely.

The fleet in the sky would certainly not miss such a good opportunity. Like vultures smelling a rotten corpse, they swooped down at the battleship. Aerial bombs roared down one after another, and fighter planes also dropped torpedoes one after another to besiege the Warspite.