: Battle of Forty Orans
This is a naval battle that is very beneficial to the Italian Navy. The Italian Navy has 4 battleships, and the only ones the British can fight are the Hood and the Warrior.
Moreover, the Italian Navy has submarines in the nearby waters to help disturb the British, and the formation is also more favorable to the Italians.
Battleships may be the most spectacular super war machines built in the era of naval warfare when humans rely on artillery to attack each other.
The Veneto-class battleship has a full-load displacement of more than 45,000 tons, which is not inferior to the German-proud Besmarck-class battleship.
The whole ship is 240 meters long and 33 meters wide; the draft is 10 meters deep, it is definitely a terrifying monster.
Such a huge warship is driven by 8 boilers and 4 steam turbines. The output power of the main engine is a full 130,000 horsepower.
The four propellers combined with the power of 130,000 horsepower allow the maximum speed of the warship to reach 30 knots.
Compared with the battleships of other countries in the world in the same period, the Italian battleships are absolutely advanced in other aspects except for the obvious lack of endurance.
In fact, the main reason is that the Italian Navy has positioned itself as a Mediterranean Navy from the very beginning, so the requirements for endurance are very low.
With Italy, the unsinkable aircraft carrier and supply ship in the Mediterranean, the Italian Navy believes that they do not need a useless indicator of endurance.
On the contrary, unlike the French battleships, the new Italian battleships are equipped with 381mm main guns, which are obviously stronger in firepower.
Obviously, the Italian and French navies have different goals. The French had always been allies of the British, so they had been targeting the weaker Italians and the German navy.
But Italy and the German navy have always used Britain as their defense object, requiring their warships to have the ability to challenge the British navy as much as possible.
This kind of persistence has made the two sides in today's naval battle at the same level in terms of firepower.
"Boom!" The huge naval guns fluctuated with the waves on the sea, and with the huge recoil after firing, the cannons shrank back a short distance with thick smoke.
Watching his battleship fire at the enemy, the commander of the Italian Navy had a satisfied smile on his face.
I have to say that the Italian Navy is much more powerful than the Italian Army.
Just like the Russian military, which has a higher naval combat capability, well-educated naval units tend to be more powerful in combat.
Compared with the entire World War II, the performance of the Italian Navy and Air Force was indeed better than that of the Army.
"Soon, our warships will bite the British's tail, and today it is possible to sink more than two British warships, weakening their strength in Gibraltar!" He stood proudly on the bridge and boasted to the German officers. road.
With all the advantages, the Italian navy shelled the British navy violently, but unfortunately their attack accuracy was not very good, and the two consecutive shellings did not hit any targets.
The British were busy dodging nearby torpedoes, and the accuracy of the shelling was not high. After three rounds of shelling, they also didn't hit anything...
Well, if you insist on what they hit, both sides hit the same thing - the sea.
The violent artillery bombardment went on for seven rounds in one go, and neither side was able to achieve any results. At this time, the distance was also shortened, because Resolve, which was not running fast, dragged down the entire British H fleet.
With this wounded warship, the British fleet could only fight and retreat, and could not maintain the proper distance from the Italian fleet.
Seeing that the Italian Navy had caught up, it was already around 19:00.
It is obviously too late to take off the Swordfish attack aircraft on the aircraft carrier Ark Royal at this time.
If you tangle, these planes will be able to return when the sky is a little dark... This is a great risk.
At the same time, the battleship Determination followed the observation post of the destroyer beside it during the movement, and the scouts once again saw the torpedoes fired at the battleship Determination.
Italian submarines found themselves naive in their attempts to expand their results.
When the opponent is obviously vigilant, the success rate of forcibly attacking the opponent's warship is very low.
After thinking about this, the submarine of the Italian Navy turned around and started to attack the already wounded Resolve!
The battleship Resolve, which was originally forgotten and slowly retreated, was unlucky this time.
"Torpedo! Torpedo!" The destroyer that followed the battleship Resolve shouted more and more quickly.
Unfortunately, there was nothing they could do, they could only watch the torpedoes galloping in the distance, rushing towards the battleship behind them.
Because torpedoes have a fixed depth before they are launched, these torpedoes do not worry about hitting destroyers with a shallower draft.
Soon, with a loud noise, the torpedo fired by the Italian Navy submarine hit the bow of the battleship Resolve again.
This time, the explosion caused a large amount of water in the battleship Resolve, and the huge shattering reduced the speed of the battleship Resolve to less than 5 knots.
Seeing that the Resolve could not be saved, Somerville finally decided to stop the loss of his H fleet.
He issued an order to abandon the battleship Resolve, and told the sailors on the battleship Resolve to stop the repairs and abandon the ship to escape.
"Let the crew on the Resolve abandon the ship! In this case, it will drag down the H fleet and put the entire fleet in danger." Somerville felt that his heart was bleeding.
Surviving with a broken arm requires great courage and perseverance. Although survival is correct, the pain of the broken arm is still real.
Although the sailors on the Resolve were reluctant to give up, they still carried out the order according to the appraisal.
These well-trained soldiers unscrewed the sea valve, then left the warship they fought with tears in their eyes, and boarded the small boat and fled to the destroyer not far away.
Unfortunately, it was obvious that the Italian Navy did not intend to miss such a good opportunity. The two cruisers took the destroyer to the vicinity and started shelling the British Navy who saved people.
On the other side, Somerville had ordered the fleet to speed up and focus fire on the Italian battleships that followed.
Because of the difference in speed, the distance between the two sides was pulled apart a little bit. Behind the Italian fleet were two older battleships, and the overall speed of the casual fleet was not fast.
After the British broke, the faster battlecruiser Hood and the battleship Warrior were faster than the Italians.
"Boom!" With another loud noise, the battlecruiser Hood fired her own shells again.
The shell crossed a long distance, swept across the sea, and landed on the deck behind the broadside secondary guns of the Italian battleship Veneto.
The huge impact smashed the wooden deck at once, and even deformed the turret of a 90mm anti-aircraft gun on the side.
Then the shell exploded, causing the entire hull of the battleship Veneto to tremble.
The huge vibration caused everyone on the bridge to stagger, shaking for a while before they stood up.
"We were hit! The hull was damaged!" an Italian officer screamed loudly.
The Veneto was hit and the smoke rose, making the commander of the Italian fleet terrified.
He was worried that the excellent combat capability of the British navy would cause the Italian navy to suffer more losses in the pursuit.
Looking at the black smoke and flames rising from the side of his battleship, he hesitated and glanced at the German officer beside him: "It seems that there will be trouble if we pursue further."
Seeing that the pale-faced German officer didn't speak, the Italian admiral hurriedly issued a solution that he thought was safe: "Turn the fleet and annihilate the British destroyer fleet!"
Where is the British destroyer fleet, they are just two destroyers responsible for rescuing the drowning officers and men of the battleship Resolve.
As a result, the two hapless destroyers had just rescued more than 700 sailors on the Resolve, when UU read www.uukanshu.com found themselves surrounded by dozens of warships of the Italian Navy.
"Accelerate! Launch torpedoes and fight with these Italians!" This was the first reaction of many people on the British Navy destroyer.
They are the invincible Royal Navy of the British Empire. Even if they are at a disadvantage, they must fight to the end!
This is what General Nelson told them a hundred years ago, and they remembered it for a hundred years and insisted on it for a hundred years!
As a result, in the past 100 years, the British Empire's navy has never admitted defeat. They just defeated the German High Seas Fleet more than 20 years ago!
"What are you kidding? If it's just our two destroyers, what if we die here?" The British captain clenched his fists and said to his servants.
He looked at the sailors and soldiers on the battleship Resolve waiting for rescue on the sea in the distance: "Our ship is full of soldiers from the Resolve... What will they do if they fight?"
Yes, what about the drowning soldiers on the battleship Resolve, which was just picked up from the water?
Everyone stopped talking, everyone looked at their captain, the captain reluctantly let go of his fist: "Hang the white flag, we surrender!"
"Send a telegram to request the Italian Navy to help rescue the drowning soldiers." He finally added a rescue order.
At 19:10, the Battle of Oran was over, and the Royal Navy's H fleet returned to Gibraltar after leaving the battle.
During the naval battle, HMS Resolve and one cruiser were sunk and two destroyers were captured.
The Italian navy battleship Veneto was wounded, and the French navy Brittany was seriously wounded. It can be said that under the command of Li Le, the Axis navy won a victory.