Great Warlord: The Second Ancestor of the Empire

In the end, Milician's fighter planes did not cause much trouble to Daxia's fleet, but only caused some of Daxia's warship decks to catch fire.

And the fire was not big and was quickly extinguished.

Instead, it was Daxia's air raid that dealt a heavy blow to Milician.

From 15:13, when Daxia's dive bombers began their first wave of attacks, until 16:27, in more than an hour, Daxia's achievements were brilliant.

During this hour, a total of 5 American battleships and 8 cruisers were hit by torpedoes.

Among them, the Nevada, which was the most severely damaged, was in a damaged state because it had been hit by Daxia's warship before.

When the air raid came, the slow-moving Nevada naturally became the first choice target.

During the air attack, he was hit in the middle of the battleship by two 730mm torpedoes.

The huge explosion directly broke the Nevada into two parts in the middle, and sank directly within ten minutes.

Many crew members who had not had time to escape sank into the cold water with the Nevada.

Not only the USS Nevada, but also the USS Pennsylvania and the USS Mississippi were also seriously damaged and lost the ability to continue fighting.

The Pennsylvania, in particular, was hit by a torpedo in the stern, causing the entire battleship to lose power.

Floating on the sea like a big iron coffin.

In the end, the captain of the Pennsylvania had no choice but to order the ship to be abandoned.

Even the huge battleships lost the ability to continue fighting after being hit by a torpedo, not to mention the cruisers with relatively weak armor.

Of the eight cruisers hit by torpedoes, six were sunk on the spot, and two more were sunk when they retreated because they could not block the breach.

Since then, the Milician Pacific Fleet has lost half of its main force.

After the third wave of air strikes arrived at 16:45, the strength of the American Pacific Fleet was further weakened.

By 17:37, there were less than 20 warships in the American Pacific Fleet that could continue to operate.

Among the battleships, only two battleships, the USS South Dakota and the USS Washington, were left. Although there were more than ten cruisers, they were basically all injured.

This naval battle has continued until this point and it can be said that the outcome has been decided.

Daxia defeated the American Pacific Fleet at the cost of sinking 5 cruisers, seriously damaging one battleship, and lightly damaging 3 battleships.

Surprisingly, in this naval battle, it was not the battleships that played a decisive role, but the seemingly inconspicuous carrier-based aircraft.

This also confirms from the side that Daxia's vigorous development of aircraft carriers is a very wise decision.

Before the war started, Daxia Navy actually had reservations about developing carrier-based aircraft to replace battleships.

In their view, the price of an aircraft carrier equipped with carrier-based aircraft is only half that of a Ming-class battleship.

In other words, building one battleship is enough to build two aircraft carriers. There is such a huge price difference, how could a battleship be inferior to an aircraft carrier?

People of that era generally believed that battleships were the dominant force on the sea. After all, this thing directly represented a country's maritime power.

As the saying goes, you get what you pay for.

However, since it was Lin Yi who proposed the idea of ​​developing an aircraft carrier, those people did not dare to directly oppose it.

Almost everyone is waiting for the outcome of this naval battle, which is directly related to whether the Great Xia Empire will develop aircraft carriers or continue to develop battleships in the future.

And after this naval battle ended, everyone had only one thought in their minds.

Emma, ​​this aircraft carrier smells so good.

It's cheap and easy to use. The only drawback is its lack of close defense capabilities.

But to solve the problem of close defense, we only need to prepare more destroyers and frigates. After all, the only ones that can approach aircraft carriers quietly are submarines.

This means that in the future it will be enough to guard against submarines.

And how much does a submarine hunter specifically designed to deal with submarines cost?

Senior naval officers have calculated such an account before. It would cost approximately 7200 million imperial silver dollars to build the latest Ming-class battleship.

And this is equivalent to the latest aircraft carrier, plus 4 destroyers, 6 frigates, and 6 submarine hunters.

And a Ming-class battleship can never defeat a small aircraft carrier formation.

Those naval officers who originally supported the aircraft carrier doctrine were convinced of this.

Those officers who support the battleship doctrine believe that it is basically impossible for fighter planes to sink a battleship.

But now, everything can be concluded.

Even those senior officers who supported battleships felt that Lin Yi was most correct in supporting the aircraft carrier doctrine.

If Lin Yi had not finally supported the aircraft carrier doctrine, the empire would have had to postpone the construction of aircraft carriers.

This also makes those who believe in the battleship theory feel lucky. Fortunately, they did not compete with those who believed in the aircraft carrier theory back then.

For example, Liu Yuxi was a firm believer in the battleship doctrine before.

Although as the commander of the Second Combined Fleet, he would not specifically target aircraft carriers, but once he encountered a war, he would immediately think of using battleships to resolve it.

Just like this time the Battle of Midway. When he discovered the American Pacific Fleet, he asked the aircraft carriers to retreat, and then let the battleships go up.

The purpose is to prove that battleships are better than aircraft carriers.

In addition to the previous Kyoto Bay, he did not bring an aircraft carrier...

However, after this naval battle, Liu Yuxi completely changed his mind.

This aircraft carrier is really fragrant.

At the same time, he felt a little pity.

You must know that in this naval battle, Daxia was sunk five cruisers.

Although the construction cost of cruisers is not as high as that of battleships, five cruisers can build seven or eight aircraft carrier detachments.

When he thought that this battle was equivalent to losing seven or eight aircraft carrier formations, he felt panicked.

So, he looked at the American Pacific Fleet, which was already preparing to escape, with a fierce look on his face.

The American Pacific Fleet had cost him seven or eight aircraft carrier formations inside and out. How could he just let the other side run away?

So Liu Yuxi ordered half of the ships to catch up, closely following the American Pacific Fleet.

The other half of the ships were sent back by Liu Yuxi to protect the eight aircraft carriers.

It was going to be night soon, and he was afraid that Millijan would let the submarine attack him.

Now Liu Yuxi regards these aircraft carriers as big treasures, but he is reluctant to let any accidents happen to these aircraft carriers.

At the same time, Liu Yuxi did not plan to fight with the American Pacific Fleet anymore. He now felt that fighting with those American fleets would be a loss.

He has a high choice, and he would be crazy to use expensive battleships to fight against others.

Wouldn't it be better to just follow the opponent and wait until dawn, then send carrier-based aircraft to bomb them?

It saves money and reduces casualties.

Thinking of this, Liu Yuxi showed a sneer on his face.