Chapter 382 Italian Noodles 8
"This is the critical moment to determine whether the Roman Empire can stand again in the Mediterranean. I order every Italian plane that can fly to the battlefield to join the war immediately! I ask every Italian air force fighter who believes in fascism to fight with the greatest enthusiasm! History will remember today, and will remember the day when the Roman Empire rose and the British Empire collapsed!
Fight, air force fighters of the National Fascist Party! Fight for the motherland and for the glorious fascism!"
When Hessman Jr. and his comrades flew 8 Fokker Zero fighters to the sea east of the Calabrian Peninsula, Italian leader Mussolini delivered an enthusiastic speech at his Air Force Headquarters and issued an order for the "Italian Air Force General Assault".
The fascist leader has always loved the air force. Many of his confidants can fly planes, and they have all participated in the Abyssinian War. But no one told leader Mussolini that most of the air force fighters of the National Fascist Party could not identify who the ships on the water belonged to from the air because they had not received relevant training.
In addition, most of the Type 79 medium bombers, which were the most dangerous to the British Mediterranean Fleet, could not carry torpedoes, and there were no armor-piercing bombs in the ammunition depots at the airports where they were located to deal with battleships. However, this did not affect the fascist fighters from flying planes to attack...
"Enemy ship!" With the loud report of the lookout officer on the battleship Count Cavour, the fleet decisive battle known as the Battle of Ponta Stiro by the Italians was finally about to take place. About 15 minutes later, Admiral Compionni discovered a series of flashes in front of a battleship coming at high speed from the west. This was the 15-inch cannon on the battleship HMS Warspite firing. The shells whistled at a very fast speed and landed on the sea 1,500 meters in front of the right side of the Count Cavour, stirring up several huge water columns.
"26,000 meters!" The rangefinder on the bow of the Cavour began to work, and the sighting officer immediately read the distance between the two sides.
"Left rudder 15 degrees!" Admiral Compioni decisively gave the rudder order, and then shouted, "Order the Caesar to follow and prepare to seize the T-head position."
The Italian admiral knew very well that his advantage was speed. During the large-scale modification, the Conte Cavour and the Caesar spared no expense to strengthen the power, increasing the main engine output power from 31,000 horsepower to 93,000 horsepower, so the speed was also increased from 21.5 knots to 28 knots.
The theoretical maximum speed of two of the three British battleships, the Queen Elizabeth class (HMS Warspite and HMS Malaya), was only 25 knots, while the maximum speed of the other Revenge class battleship, HMS Sovereign, was only 21.5 knots. If the three British battleships formed a bombardment formation, their maximum speed would be limited by the fact that the Sovereign had a maximum of only 21.5 knots, so it would be easy for the two Conte Cavour class to seize the T-head position.
If the British fleet only used two Queen Elizabeth-class ships to form a bombardment formation, the firepower comparison between the two sides would be Italy's 20 320mm/43.8-caliber main guns against Britain's 115-inch)/42-caliber main guns.
"The British ships also followed the turn, two battleships!" Rear Admiral Baroni reported.
That is, two Queen Elizabeth-class ships against two Count Cavour-class ships! Although the Count Cavour-class still has a speed advantage of 3 knots, this speed advantage is not enough to help the Count Cavour-class grab the T-head position.
"The enemy fleet turned right!" The lookout sent a new situation.
Now the Italian fleet and the British fleet are heading head-on. The British fleet is heading from northwest to southeast, while the Italian fleet is heading from southeast to northwest. In addition, from the position of the Italian fleet, the Italian fleet is on the right, while the British fleet is on the left. Now the Italian fleet is turning 15 degrees to the left, while the British fleet is turning right (from the position of the British fleet), and the two sides are actually sailing in the same direction.
"Prepare to fire!" Admiral Compionni ordered, "Target, Count Cavour aim at the enemy flagship, Caesar aim at the enemy battleship No. 2."
The way he chose to fight was not to concentrate firepower, but to engage in a one-on-one confrontation.
Two or three minutes later, the gunnery officer of the Count Cavour reported loudly: "Aim at the target! Aim at the target!"
Major General Baroni, who was also the captain of the Count Cavour, shouted: "Fire!"
Ten 320mm naval guns spewed out orange-red fireballs, and white smoke rose on the deck. Ten armor-piercing shells whizzed towards the Warspite battleship more than 20,000 meters away. At the same time, the second round of salvos from the Warspite also came over, and the shells landed more than 800 meters in front of the port side of the Count Cavour, exploding seven or eight water columns tens of meters high.
Seeing the British shells landing closer and closer, everyone in the command tower of the Count Cavour felt terrified. The 381mm caliber guns were obviously not something that a battleship of the rank of Count Cavour could withstand. Admiral Compione did not dare to let the warships continue to approach the other side, and ordered the warships to turn right 15 degrees again to increase the distance between the two sides.
At the same time, the two Italian cruiser fleets began to approach the C fleet behind the British B fleet - because the maximum speed of the battleship HMS Sovereign and the aircraft carrier HMS Britain in the C fleet was only about 21 knots, so they fell behind after the B fleet had traveled at 25 knots. They became the prey of the Italian cruisers approaching at high speed!
At around 3:30, the eight Ansaldado 1 main guns of the Italian heavy cruiser Zara opened fire. The target was the British battleship Sovereign 25,000 meters away. Later, another five Italian heavy cruisers also joined the exchange of fire, all aiming their main guns at the Sovereign. Although their 203mm main guns could not cause fatal damage to the Sovereign, it was still quite spectacular that 48 203mm guns of six cruisers (four Zara-class and two Taranto-class) fired at the same time.
Moreover, the guns of these Italian cruisers were well aimed. At 3:38, the first to fire, Zara, fired a cross-fire. Two minutes later, a shell hit the tall main mast of the Sovereign. The main mast shook violently, the mast top was blown off, and the 279 radar was also damaged.
At the same time, several Italian light cruisers and destroyers began to pounce on the "Eagle" and "Glorious" aircraft carriers, which were heavily protected by British destroyers. The two aircraft carriers had already ejected all the Seafires and Swordfishes. Fighters were whistling in the air, and torpedoes were dropped like raindrops. The Italian cruisers and destroyers had to dodge left and right. Although no torpedo hit (the distance of the torpedo was too far), it interfered with their impact. The British destroyers escorting the aircraft carriers took the opportunity to release smoke and surrounded the two British aircraft carriers.
Just as the Italian light cruisers and destroyers dodged the torpedoes and prepared to move forward. A huge fireball suddenly rose on the sea. It turned out that a 15-inch shell fired by the Warspite hit the Italian battleship Caesar. The shell exploded on its lower deck and caused a fire. The flames rotated through the ventilator, extinguishing several boilers and slowing the ship from 28 knots to 19 knots.
"Let the destroyers release smoke around the Caesar!" Compionni received the loss report of the Caesar and immediately ordered the destroyers to release smoke.
"We have to lure the two British battleships away," the Italian admiral said to Major General Baroni beside him, "Caesar must retreat!"
The speed of 19 knots could not guarantee that the distance between itself and the British battleships was far enough. If two British battleships with 15-inch guns were allowed to approach the Caesar, this Italian battleship of more than 20,000 tons would definitely be blown to pieces.
However, Compionni's worries soon proved to be unnecessary, because after damaging the Caesar, Cunningham ordered Fleet B to turn around and rescue Fleet C, which was under siege. Fleet C had two valuable aircraft carriers, and Cunningham would rather let the distressed Caesar go than let these two carriers take risks.
And at this moment, the 279 radar on the Warspite suddenly made another discovery!
"Admiral, enemy planes are approaching! They are coming from the northwest."
"It should be G.50," said Rear Admiral Crutchley. "There is an Italian fleet consisting of two battleships and an aircraft carrier to our northwest... I think they are less than 100 nautical miles away from us."
"Don't worry about them!" Cunningham said calmly, "Let's kill an Italian heavy cruiser first."
However, the message sent by the Illuminati aircraft carrier soon surprised Cunningham.
"It's a Fokker Zero!" Rear Admiral Crutchley reported, "There are 9-12 of them, fighting with the Seafire."
"What?" Cunningham took a breath. There were 12 at a time. Was this going to launch a large-scale air strike?
"Admiral! The radar found enemy planes again, more than 10, due east!"
Just one minute later, the radar of the Warspite found the target again, which was an enemy plane flying from the east.
"Is it G.50?" Cunningham asked.
The answer soon disappointed him. It was 12 S.M.79 medium bombers. After two months of inaction, the Italian shore-based aircraft finally took off! And these 12 S.M.79s were just the first batch of Italian bombers that were going to drop bombs indiscriminately today! They flew over the British C fleet and two Italian cruiser fleets that were engaged in a firefight, dropping 60 high-explosive bombs at an altitude of three to four thousand meters. Although they did not hit any targets, they frightened the British and Italian naval generals into a cold sweat. And this was just the beginning of the Italian Air Force's general assault...