Empire Conquest
Chapter 341 - 337: The Enemy’s Radar

Chapter 341: Chapter 337: The Enemy’s Radar

It had just passed 6 AM.

Those four Newland battleships had surprisingly fired first, and at a distance of over twenty kilometers!

The lookout had spotted the muzzle flash from the Newland battleships’ main guns, and radar had measured the distance as over twenty kilometers.

Clearly, in the ten or so minutes before firing, the four Newland battleships had definitely altered their course to the east, increasing the distance.

As the alarm sounded, the captain issued battle orders.

Subsequently, shrapnel-proof armor fell into place in the command bridge, and the Imperial Guard soldiers closed the 500-millimeter-thick hatch.

Longxing surged forward first, accelerating and turning, followed by the three other battleships also beginning to turn.

Truth be told, it didn’t make much difference.

The enemy was just probabilistically firing, not aiming at the battleships, and they couldn’t aim.

Moreover, previously cruising at only 15 knots, the massive battleships couldn’t possibly change speed as easily as fighter jets. Even with all boilers at maximum pressure, it would take several minutes to increase speed to over 20 knots.

The key question was, how did the four Newland battleships aim!?

Although both sides had been firing illumination shells beforehand, Zhang Guozhu had long issued a combat readiness order, and all four battleships were under lighting control.

Even under clear night skies, it was definitely impossible to see clearly over more than twenty kilometers.

The notion that eating carrots and cod liver oil could enhance night vision was just a trick invented by intelligence agencies to deceive, and was utterly useless.

While Zhang Guozhu pondered this issue, the enemy’s shells had already flown towards them.

Judging by the sound of the shells hitting, the impact points weren’t largely deviated.

Afterward, the lookout’s report also confirmed this.

Though the twelve shells fired did not achieve straddling shots and all fell to the right side of Longxing, meaning the impact points were distant, the deviations weren’t large, with one shell falling within 500 meters of Longxing, and the furthest at about 2000 meters.

In a night gun battle, moreover, with a combat range exceeding twenty kilometers, this accuracy was exceedingly high.

The lookout also reported that the other three battleships had been bombarded, with shell impact points showing not much deviation.

By 6:05 AM, the enemy had fired a second salvo.

By this time, Longxing’s speed had reached 20 knots, and the four battleships had spread out to a distance of over 2000 meters.

The dispersion range of the enemy’s second salvo shocked Zhang Guozhu even more.

The deviation of the impact points decreased even further, with the nearest shell falling less than 300 meters from Longxing, and the landing point was on the battleship’s port side.

That meant the enemy had adjusted their aim between the two salvos, but had overcorrected.

As expected, in the subsequent rounds of salvos, they would definitely achieve straddling shots on Longxing and enter the covering fire stage.

In fact, the second enemy battleship had already achieved straddling shots on Holy Martial, which followed behind Longxing.

This was just after two salvos.

If only one enemy battleship’s shells had been precise enough, one could attribute it to luck.

But now, all four enemy battleships exhibited notable accuracy.

To claim these results were obtained using optical equipment would be sheer nonsense!

Up until now, the four battleships of the 42.1 Subsquad hadn’t even opened fire yet.

Could it be that the Newland battleships have targeting radars!?

This sudden thought made Zhang Guozhu shudder violently.

Although the "Longxing" class had not yet been equipped with targeting radar, Zhang Guozhu was very aware of the powerful capabilities of targeting radar.

Don’t forget, during the last great war, Zhang Guozhu served as captain on the "North River."

In the first half of the year, the "North River" and "Nanjiang" had used the opportunity of changing main gun barrels to install the same type of targeting radar as the "Xu Sea" class, and later tested it during sea trials. The results proved that the use of targeting radar could increase the accuracy of the main guns by more than tenfold in long-range gun battles.

Moreover, radar was unaffected by combat distance, almost maintaining the same accuracy within the full range of the main guns.

To be precise, radar-directed gunfire meant that the primary factor affecting the spread of shells was no longer measurement error but the inherent accuracy errors of the naval guns.

Of course, the foremost value of radar was its ability to detect and lock onto targets at night.

To put it simply, the advent of radar completely changed the tactics of night gunfights, rendering special training for night combat entirely meaningless.

Amid his shock, Zhang Guozhu did not forget to do the most important thing, which was to have the Communication Advisor send a telegram.

Although it was just his speculation, there was reason to believe that those four Newland battleships definitely had radar, and even advanced targeting radar at that.

So, what about other Newland warships?

If they had targeting radar, would they lack anti-aircraft search radars?

The "Longjiang" sent out the telegram at 6:15.

At that time, the four Newland battleships had already fired their third salvo and were preparing for the fourth.

The four "Longjiang" class had sequentially conducted a semi-salvo aimed at calibrating their guns around 6:10, in preparation for their first full salvo.

About 100 kilometers southeast of the 42.1 Subsquad, the four fast battleships of the 43.1 Subsquad were speeding east at a speed of 28 knots.

Leading them was the "Xu Sea."

Commanding the 43.1 Subsquad was Li Jie, although he was not the commander of the Special Mixed Fleet 43. Special Mixed Fleet 43 didn’t have a fleet commander.

Among the four special mixed fleets, Special Mixed Fleet 43 was the most unique.

Special Mixed Fleet 43 was originally temporarily assembled. Aside from the "Xu Sea" and "Flame Sea," the other warships originally did not belong to the Fourth Fleet but were transferred from the Second Fleet, only assigned to the Fourth Fleet because they were assembled at Nagiu Port.

Additionally, Special Mixed Fleet 43 was the smallest in size.

Besides the four fast battleships of the 43.1 Subsquad, there were only four light cruisers of the 43.2 Subsquad and four destroyers of the 43.3 Subsquad.

They didn’t include any heavy cruisers because there were no heavy cruisers available!

Before the war, the Imperial Navy had a total of sixteen heavy cruisers. The four "Kunzhou" class built after the last great war were already obsolete due to the nearing end of their service life and were left in the rear as training vessels. Among the remaining twelve, four were with the 41st Special Mixed Fleet, four with the 42nd Special Mixed Fleet, and the other four were deployed to the Flame Sea to monitor the two heavy cruisers of the Newland Navy’s Nanzhu Country sub-fleet.

For Special Mixed Fleet 43, whether or not they had heavy cruisers wasn’t a big issue.

In traditional fleet decisive battles, the main role of heavy cruisers was to cover the main battle ships, intercept enemy light cruisers and destroyers to prevent torpedo attacks on the main battle ships. However, in decisive battles led by fast battleships, speed was the best defense.

Exercises conducted before the war had already clarified that fast battleships could deal with attacks from enemy destroyers by relying on their speed.

Moreover, the Imperial Navy’s fast battleships had all been enhanced in anti-air firepower, most notably by replacing the secondary guns with large caliber high-altitude guns.

The Imperial Navy’s 130mm high-altitude guns were absolutely powerful against small and medium-sized warships.

Although the power of 130mm shells was not comparable to 150mm shells, the advantage in firing speed was enough to compensate for the lack of shell power.

This was precisely why fast battleships often did not require the protection of cruisers.

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