1890 King of Southeast Asia

At 6 pm on May 2, 80 nautical miles west of Japan, the remaining sunlight shone on a dilapidated fleet.

This is the Japanese Combined Fleet. Compared with the situation of 15 large warships in the Japanese Combined Fleet when the battle started yesterday, only 8 large warships are still gathered together.

At this time, the sea was quiet and windless, and the Rising Sun Flag drooped low on the warship. Under the setting sun, there was no vitality.

The mood of the Japanese soldiers on the warship was also very low. Many people were numbly doing their work, no longer as excited as before.

"Gaga!" Yamamoto slammed his hand on the railing and cursed.

His classmate Kato next to him glanced at him, depressed and lifeless, and did not respond.

"The reason for the failure of this battle is that the Empire's weapons and strategies have completely lagged behind China. The navy is not the 6th army. Weapons and strategies directly determine combat effectiveness, and morale is just icing on the cake."

"With backward weapons and strategies, even if the Imperial Navy's combined fleet has an absolute advantage in quantity and firepower, it cannot win."

Yamamoto 7x8 subconsciously analyzed the reasons for the failure and summarized the reasons for his failure.

However, due to Yamamoto 7x8's position, he could not access enough real information, so the analysis was only superficial.

However, this is also better than many Japanese, much better. For example, Kato, who also graduated from the Naval Academy, thinks of the war as "the Chinese are too despicable and violate the samurai spirit."

"Yamamoto, although we don't know much, based on what we have seen, it is basically certain that the Empire does not have enough resources and time to build new warships."

"So even if we know that the weapons are backward, what can we do? We have already lost."

Kato painfully recalled the two-day and one-night battle process.

Yesterday, the navies of both sides met. The enemy had only 56 warships, while the combined fleet had dozens of warships. However, after only 20 minutes of contact, the Japanese lost a large battleship.

Although the cruiser Tsushima only had 4 305mm naval guns, its firepower and armor layout were similar to those of old battleships, but its speed was faster than that of old battleships.

At first, the Japanese army classified it as a first-class cruiser, and later as an armored cruiser. After the battlecruisers appeared, this first-class warship was counted as a battlecruiser.

Displacement 13,750 tons, speed 5 knots, two twin 45-caliber 305mm naval guns, 12 152mm 45-caliber naval guns, and 12 120mm 40-caliber naval guns.

The thickness of the main armor belt on the side is 176mm, the deck is 76mm, the front armor of the turret is 176mm, and the conning tower is 226mm.

As a Class 1 cruiser built after the Russo-Japanese War, its various standards show its cruiser pedigree.

This was originally a weapon used by the Japanese Navy to deal with the South China Empire cruiser fleet. Compared with ordinary cruisers, it has a larger muzzle, larger tonnage, more weapons, and a longer range (1906).

The 176 mm armor can also resist the long-range shooting of the South China Empire cruiser's commonly used 203 mm main gun. As for the speed, it is a necessary sacrifice to achieve these standards.

However, the Japanese army did not specifically require speed. After all, the design concept is to act with the main fleet. At that time, the maximum speed of the Japanese fleet was only 107 knots and 108 knots, which was enough.

Such a fleet cruiser, which is also Japan's first-class self-produced large cruiser, was sunk by the enemy only 20 minutes after the battle.

In fact, it was just sunk. Although the Japanese are sensitive, they are not unable to accept the losses in the war.

The important thing is that during these 20 minutes, the Japanese army did not try to fire, but the distance was about 15,000 kilometers, which was beyond the effective or even maximum range of the Japanese army.

Just like the HMS Shubo, the maximum range of the main gun can certainly reach 15 kilometers, but its effective range is 9,600 meters.

Why? Because it is not accurate at a longer distance.

The observation and aiming equipment on the HMS Shubo was not advanced, or very backward. There was no dedicated large rangefinder, and the distance was mainly calculated by observation and test firing.

The rangefinder had already appeared at this time, but it had not been put on the warship until the eve of World War I, when Britain added a 5-meter rangefinder to its warships, and Germany followed suit.

If it were not for the war, Japan would have followed up quickly, but the outbreak of the Third South-Japan War made Japan lose the opportunity to import rangefinders.

Self-production? It takes time to polish the self-production of optical instruments. Nanhua introduced Zeiss production lines and mature workers with huge investments and not very fair means.

Japan has the courage, but not the brains and money.

The Germans understood the importance of Zeiss, and Nanhua paid a lot of price to get tacit approval. Even so, the output of Nanhua Optical Industry was very low and the quality was uneven.

Therefore, Zhibo could not see that far at all, let alone aim at the Java Island that was attacking him.

The high-power telescope on Zhibo could only see the huge fire when the Java Island fired, and could not judge the distance at all.

Moreover, the high-power telescope was placed on the top of the mast to search for the enemy, and Zhibo did not have a unified fire control, and could not aim with the telescope on the top of the mast.

In addition, the elevation angle was not enough, so it could not hit that far.

When the water column generated by the Java Island's shelling got closer and closer to Zhibo, Zhibo also fought back.

The shells of the 305mm main gun stirred up a column of water at a position of about 10,000 meters. With an ordinary telescope, it can be seen that the water column is still a long distance away from the Java Island.

This deeply shocked the Japanese naval soldiers and made them doubt whether they would fail.

After all, on the sea, encountering an enemy with a longer range, faster speed, more accurate shooting, and a larger caliber cannon than you basically means failure.

Then, the Shubo exploded.

A 356mm armor-piercing high-explosive shell hit the front main gun turret ring of the Shubo. The ring only had a layer of 176mm armor, which could not stop the 356mm large-caliber armor-piercing high-explosive shell at all and was easily penetrated.

If that was all, Shubo would only lose a turret.

Because the kinetic energy of the shell was too large, the 176mm armor did not hinder it for too long. The shell continued to move forward and penetrated 4 decks in 2 seconds until it reached the propellant storage room.

The high temperature outside the shell ignited the propellant, and the shell did not stop, hitting the outer shell under the turret and then exploding.

The explosion opened a large hole in the turret under the fourth deck, and the flames of the propellant explosion found an outlet and rushed directly in.

At this time, the mechanism under the main gun turret was transporting shells, and the shells loaded with picric acid were directly ignited by the high temperature, causing more and more violent explosions.

Finally, the explosion went down and affected the ammunition depot of the No. 1 main turret on the bottom floor, and the Shimbashi turned into a big firework.

The huge explosion divided the Shimbashi into two sections with the command tower as the center. The front end sank quickly, and the rear end also sank completely half an hour later.

At this time, the Japanese Combined Fleet was still surprised, and the Java Island had turned its guns and set its target on the same class ship of the Shimbashi, the Ikoma.

The Japanese did not believe that the Chinese had only one battleship, but believed that at least four fast battleships had come, hoping to set up a defensive formation first, and then fight according to the situation.

The Tsushima and the Ikoma of the same class were sent to the periphery because they were equipped with large main guns, fast speeds, and were not important battleships.

The two ships with a standard displacement of 13,750 tons only lasted 35 minutes.

The Japanese decided to adopt the tactics proposed by Yamamoto 7x8, but made some optimizations. Some of the vulnerable warships retreated, including the remaining Kongo-class battleships and a large number of cruisers and destroyers.

Some of the tough battleships and old warships moved forward and quickly approached the Java Island, forcing the Java Island to retreat.

The Japanese goal was to preserve their manpower to the greatest extent. The idea was good, but unfortunately, the Japanese army was in a circular formation that had never been seen before.

If Liu Ming saw it, this formation was very similar to the fleet circular air defense formation during World War II.

Under the Japanese order, the circular formation was divided into two parts, but not evenly, but one part of the warships in the rear moved forward, and one part of the warships in the front had to retreat.

In an instant, the fleet was in chaos. In order to avoid the friendly route, many warships began to turn randomly, and the formation was scattered all of a sudden.

The reason why things developed to this point was entirely the fault of the upper echelons of the Combined Fleet. They did not explain it clearly to the people below, and the people below thought that the warships on the opposite side would give way to them.

As a result, when the warships in front retreated, they happily cheered for the warships in the rear, and the warships in front also waved to them excitedly.

It was not until the two sides got closer and closer, and they could even see each other's faces clearly, that they realized something was wrong.

Java Island would certainly not give up this opportunity. Although they did not understand why the Japanese were in chaos after only sinking two warships, it did not prevent the main gun from attacking with all its strength.

Java Island once pulled the distance to 10,000 meters, and the main gun hit rate increased to an astonishing 8%!

The Japanese army could neither organize effective firepower defense nor effective retreat in the chaos, and could only shoot at the main gun of Java Island.

Fortunately, although the Java was large, the main gun shells carried were limited.

After consuming 70% of the shells, Xu Sunming chose to stop firing the main guns just in case.

But Xu Sunming would not give up such a good opportunity in vain.

The Japanese finally waited until the Java stopped firing, but what they encountered was a torpedo attack from 4 destroyers and 1 cruiser.

The destroyer can launch 6 torpedoes at a time, and the cruiser can launch 4, a total of 28.

For safety reasons, the torpedo range is set at 9 kilometers, and the speed is not fast.

However, the Japanese fleet was in chaos, and many warships could not dodge at all. When Xu Sunming withdrew to replenish ammunition, the Japanese fleet lost two large cruisers carrying 305 mm guns, two old battleships, 3 protected cruisers, and 5 destroyers.

Protected cruisers and destroyers mostly helped the main battleships to block torpedoes and sink, and the Japanese still had many brave men.

However, they did not know that their nightmare had just begun.