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Chapter 10 Brilliant Victory (4)

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[The previous chapter had torpedo deep-deep and diesel engine bugs. I don’t want the golden finger of the snorkel to come out too early. I’d better modify the chapter. In addition, there will be two updates for the twitch tomorrow.-./-./]

In the English Channel, the sunny April days have come to an end.

The blood-red setting sun sets in the distant corners, and the inclined light shines on the sea off Portsmouth Harbour. The Isle of Wight, the mountains extend from the west coast to the Culver cliffs on the east coast, and until the plain on the northeast, the lush pine and cypress common in Europe are not sparse.

The fishing boats returning home were full of harvests, stepping on the reflection of the setting sun, gradually sinking into the shadow of the Culver cliff, and then quietly slid towards the deep and shallow harbor in the northeast corner of the Isle of Wight.

The fishermen's wives were on the shore early, and when the small fishing village's most precious wealth - wooden fishing boats that could fish offshore were drilled out from the side of the Culver cliff. The wives wade through the waist-deep sea water to help men to drag the wooden fishing boats worth 5,000 pounds ashore.

"The price of bread on the island has increased a lot, a damn war!" The men towed the fishing boats to shallow water, then climbed onto the fishing boats, and moved baskets of cod off the boat. While carrying baskets of cod on the shore, Allen's wife was whispering to his husband who had returned from sea: "Turner has written a letter back. Thankfully, he was not sent to France by the Army Department of Conscience, but sent to Scotland as a coast guard. But I heard that our Hampshire County sent a letter to inform Newport, asking all retired sailors registered in the Admiralty Department of Wight to go to the local recruitment office as soon as possible."

When Allen heard that his eldest son Kent was not sent to dangerous France by the Army Department, there seemed to be a little more blush on his dark face. However, the recruitment from the Admiralty shocked Xiao Xiao for many years to retire.

"Guinievia, what happened to the Kingdom of Britain? It is so critical that it needs to recruit old sailors like me who have been retired for more than 20 years to enrich the navy?"

Allen once served on the Iron Craftsman Berlesl. This 4,000-ton Iron Craftsman with sailing equipment was originally an ironclad ship ordered by Turkey from Samda Shipyard. Due to the outbreak of the Russian-Turkish war, Britain announced its neutrality and terminated the transaction without any surprise, and then repurchased the Iron Craftsman at an extremely low price.

Allen served on this coastal defense ironclad ship for five years, in 1890. The old Berleser ironclad ship was converted into a target ship. Allen did not follow his comrades to transfer to another warship to serve, but retired early as a naval corporal.

More than 20 years of fishing life have allowed memories to stay in the darkest and most glorious era of the Royal Navy, Alan's thinking cannot keep up with the changing era. The former Navy corporal half-squatted on the soft beach. He took out inferior tobacco leaves wrapped in kraft paper from his pocket, gently twisted a small pinch and stuffed it into his pipe.

"Who knows." Allen's wife will hear in Newport, and some incredible rumors reposted: "I heard that the Germans bombarded Greater London. Perhaps the Admiralty was disappointed with the young people and wanted to recruit you experienced old sailors to take charge..."

Alan's wife was still whimsical, and the old navy didn't care. She tried to hold back her smile and smoked her pipe in a mess, looking at the calm sea bored.

"Ellen, listen, Patel's Cook is also a reserve officer. After the war broke out, he was recruited by the Admiralty and died in the Mediterranean. It is said that even the bones cannot be found. The Germans are very powerful. Especially Heidi Sileme, it is said that he is invincible. Alan, you can't obey the recruitment of the Admiralty..."

The woman persuaded Alan with great thought, but the old sailor had no time to pay attention to his nagging wife this time. The old sailor who had been wandering on the sea for half his life was once again attracted by the deep sea. Even the pipe that looked like a treasure slipped from his fingers and did not notice it.

"What's this? Exercise?!"

Alan stood up unconsciously, and his azure blue pupils were accidentally dyed the blood red of the sea. Alan's wife stopped the topic at the right time and followed her husband's sight and found the root cause of her husband's loss of composure.

On the main channel east of the Isle of Wight, the meter flag flutters high. A giant steel ship with a tonnage of more than 20,000 tons crushes the waves and sails by.

This scene that originally made the British proud, but strangely, there were three light warships with smaller tonnage but extremely fast speeds in the southeast direction of the steel giant ship. Although Allen has not served in the navy for a long time, he could see that the little ones were pursuing the slightly embarrassed 10,000-ton giant ship.

"Torpedo attack exercise?"

Allen was confused. In Allen's impression, the Dreadnought is a well-deserved overlord, and the overlord is unlikely to be chased by three little guys with a total tonnage that may not exceed the Berlesl Iron Crafts that Allen once served. The only possibility is torpedo attack and act.

"The Admiralty is really confused. How can the acting be performed on the busy main channel? Although both sides use empty-packed bullets and empty-packed torpedoes, it still poses a great threat to civilian ships and transport ships entering and leaving the port! Furthermore, if this is a torpedo attack, the formation of the destroyer's marching attack is too clumsy! No destroyer dares to launch a swagger without protection and restraint, and it is difficult to calculate the inclined sprint charge in advance. Isn't this seeking death?!"

Witnessing the poor torpedo combat skills of three British light warships, even retired naval corporals in the Victorian era had to shake their heads and curse them against each other's worse than the previous ones.

This farce outside Portsmouth Harbor attracted the villagers of the small fishing village. At this time, the third party fought out from the Portsmouth Harbor impatiently, and cut across from an old reconnaissance cruiser and four A-type destroyers regardless of the danger of impact.

"Is it a torpedo offensive and defense exercise?"

The fierce posture of the intercepting fleet made Alan nervous. Old Yangu subconsciously sucked the pipe, but found that there was only a little ashes left in the pipe. His hand that reached into the pocket of the tobacco leaves also touched the air. Alan hurriedly searched for the tobacco leaves. The moment he lowered his head, an explosion came from the sea.

"This is not an empty bullet!" Although it was a sunny day in April, the old sailor still felt his spine cold and blood coagulated. "Little bastards, that is not an empty bullet. You have caused an exercise accident!"

The old navy was still compassionate to the heavens on the beach of Isle of Wight, but in his eyes, the interceptor team that had caused a big disaster did not seem to regret or stop at all. Instead, they continued to fire at the small fleet that launched a torpedo attack on the dreadnought.

The 76mm cannon that had removed the cannon suit early, the 47mm cannon and the pounding cannon fired, and shells of various caliber fell on the side of the torpedo attack team like raindrops.

The power of the small-caliber shell explosion is even worse than the 12-inch guns installed by the Iron Crafted Ship of the Berles. However, the torpedo attack team is also light ships, which may not be able to resist these small-caliber shells. The rapid-fire guns set off a ball of water after ball on the sea surface, creating a purgatory-like fire blockade line on the torpedo attack team's route.

The torpedo attack team did not mean to fight back. Relying on the speed advantage, three light warships rushed left and right in the rain of bullets, trying their best to pursue the dreadnought.

The rumbling sound of cannons shocked half of the Isle of Wight and also shocked Portsmouth. Looking at the boiling ocean, fishermen in the fishing village were randomly guessing the reasons, but Allen saw a hint of flaws and guns from the three-party game.

"Damn it, that's not an exercise, it's a German!"

(--Gorgeous dividing line--)

On the main waterway outside the sea, less than 30 kilometers away from the Portsmouth Harbor waterway, the setting sun leans against the cypresses on the cliffs of Culver, the Celestials of the Isle of Wight, sprinkles the lost temperature on the hull of the Collingwood, and plates a bleak blood red for the battleship Collingwood, which has just escaped from the Portsmouth Harbor repairing the dock.

The Collingwood engine room has tried its best. In order to save time to transport coal, the boiler cabin is used to store coal in boiler rooms that can only be used in emergency situations. The boiler soldier used his hands covered in coal ash to apply a sweaty face, pressed his arms, waved his shovel hard, and sent the high-quality Welsh white coal in the colander-shaped coal storage bin on both sides of the boiler cabin into the boiler. The chief engineer stared at the steam pressure gauge and asked his subordinates to turn on the fan.

The fan forced the air to increase the atmospheric flow and pressure in the furnace, making the combustion reaction of high-quality Welsh white coal more violent than usual, thereby obtaining a higher furnace temperature and significantly increasing the output power. As for long-term pressure ventilation, it may intensify the ablation loss of boiler parts materials, and the negative effects of steam pipeline seals due to excessive pressure, such as leakage, the Collingwood people no longer care about it.

The Collingwood dragged the choking soot and rushed towards Portsmouth Port. Under the pressure of the fictitious First Reconnaissance Fleet, the Collingwood even broke through the 22.1 knot overload speed that ran out of the light-load sea test outside Portsmouth Port in 1910, reaching a daunting 22.4 knots.

The 20,000-ton steel ship was running wildly. Although the British Channel was in good condition, the body of the Dreadnought's steel ship was still shaking slightly, and even the commander tower with shock absorbing devices could feel the faint shaking.

Overload navigation made the iron men in the power cabin exhaust their strength, and the watchtower became a severely affected area. The trembling watchtower almost couldn't stabilize his body. The strong sea breeze penetrated through the gaps in the collar, blowing away the warmth of the lookouter. The lookouter had to tie himself to the main mast and report to the lookouter with his head shrinking.

"Commander Tower, I saw the support fleet led by Major Brown. They opened fire at the Germans. The Germans did not fight back. They were still chasing us, about 10,500 yards away! In addition, no First Reconnaissance Fleet was found, repeated, no First Reconnaissance Fleet was found!"

"Send a report to Major Brown, telling them not to fight with the Germans, to cover the Collingwood retreat into Portsmouth Port as the top priority!"

The anxious captain Colonel Clement Ley asked the confidential officer to record the telegram. When the confidential officer handed over the telegram book to the captain for the signature, Colonel Ley seemed to have remembered something, either in the consideration of reminding friendly forces, or in order to hide his inner fear, the confidential officer added a sentence to the telegram book:

"The Mediterranean Rescue Fleet has lost contact, and the first reconnaissance fleet commanded by Heidi Sileme may have gone north!" (Your support on this site.com is my greatest motivation.)-
Chapter completed!
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