Empire Conquest
Chapter 343 - 339 Encounter Battle

Chapter 343: Chapter 339 Encounter Battle

Li Jie’s judgment was not wrong.

At 6:28 a.m., about ten minutes after receiving a telegram from the 42nd Special Mixed Fleet, Li Jie ordered the radar to be switched on, and in less than five minutes, the flagship of the 43.2 Subsquad leading the way, the "Tancheng" Light Cruiser, reported that it had spotted several suspected Main Battle Ships of the Enemy Fleet.

In less than a minute, another Light Cruiser from the 43.2 Subsquad, "Mengcheng," reported seeing flashes from the enemy ships’ gun muzzles.

Shortly after, four Light Cruisers reported being under artillery fire.

Because the distance was sufficiently close, they used a short-range radio, and when the Captains reported back, Li Jie could clearly hear the sounds of explosions.

Indeed, they were Main Battle Ships.

According to the reports from the Light Cruisers, the shots fired by the enemy ships were large-caliber shells, and the number of enemy ships was exactly six.

The Captain of "Tancheng," Lieutenant Colonel Jian Yifu, Commander of the 43.2 Subsquad, reported that the enemy might have mistaken the Light Cruisers for Battleships.

This speculation was not unreasonable.

At distances exceeding twenty kilometers, on the radar screen, whether it was a Light Cruiser or a Battleship, it was just a bright dot.

Let’s not forget, the 43.2 Subsquad’s Light Cruisers were also four in number.

As for speed, it was clearly not a basis for judgment.

Although Fast Battleships would definitely not be as fast as Light Cruisers, under normal cruising, the speed difference between the two types of ships was not large.

Without special circumstances, no type of ship would navigate at high speed.

The most crucial point was that the enemy ships opened fire from twenty kilometers away.

If the enemy had already identified them as four Light Cruisers and not Fast Battleships, what reason would they have to open fire from such a long distance?

Fear of torpedo attack?

Not to mention that the Imperial Navy’s heavy torpedoes had a range of about ten kilometers, the Saiyi Navy’s "Spear" torpedoes had a maximum range of only twenty kilometers.

If the range was too long, there was no guarantee of hitting the target, equating to a waste of torpedoes.

In fact, the Imperial Navy had never placed much emphasis on torpedo warfare.

In the words of Marshal Chen Bingxun, "Only a weak navy would resort to trickery, while a strong navy could crush all opponents with sheer power."

Before the rise of the Air Force, Naval guns were the orthodox and legitimate approach, while torpedoes were considered underhanded tactics.

Only by mistaking the four Light Cruisers of the 43.2 Subsquad for Battleships would the Newland Battleships fire first, seizing the initiative at the start of the battle.

Indeed, the 43.2 Subsquad did not retreat immediately but played the role of bait in front of the enemy.

The four Light Cruisers performed a port turn, sailed northward for a few minutes, then executed an even wider tactical port turn. While increasing the distance from the enemy ships, they changed their course to the south. However, throughout this time, the four Light Cruisers did not fire at the enemy ships.

Using the Main Gun would give away their identity to the enemy ships.

To confuse the enemy, the four Light Cruisers took advantage of the turns to fire illumination flares from their High-altitude Guns mounted on the flanks.

Overall, the goal was to make the enemy believe that the four Fast Battleships of the 43rd Special Mixed Fleet did not have gun-laying radar, or that the radar was malfunctioning and couldn’t be used normally.

At the same time, the 43.1 Subsquad had already turned eastward.

The tactic was very simple: the 43.1 Subsquad seized a favorable position in front of the Enemy Fleet, and then the 43.2 Subsquad led the Enemy Fleet towards them.

Seizing the opportunity, just a few salvos would be enough to destroy or at least incapacitate the leading few enemy ships.

Availing of this opportunity, Li Jie adjusted the combat tactics.

The only key point was to utilize the advantageous situation at the start of the engagement for the four Battleships to concentrate their firepower and destroy, or at least cripple, the two leading enemy ships.

In doing so, by the time the Enemy Fleet completed its tactical maneuver, only four of their Battleships would be able to continue fighting.

Performance and combat power set aside, in a fleet’s decisive battle, manpower, or rather the number, still remains the primary decisive factor.

When two fleets engage in one-on-one combat, the side with fewer battleships is surely at a disadvantage.

Fighting with naval guns is not like a duel between martial arts experts but more akin to street thugs brawling in a group—it’s often about who has the numbers.

If you can eliminate the numerical disparity, you can fully leverage the performance advantage and ensure an "easy battle."

The 43.2 Subsquad changed course to head south at 6:42 AM.

At 6:48 AM, shortly after sunrise, the radar on board the "Xu Sea" detected six enemy ships approaching from the northeast.

At that time, the distance was approximately 28 kilometers.

At 6:53 AM, when the distance was roughly 25 kilometers, the "Xu Sea" took the lead and fired the first salvo.

Although the sky had already lightened, and the lookouts could see the outline of the enemy ships, the four fast battleships still relied on gun-aiming radar to provide fire control data.

In long-range gun battles, the accuracy of the gun-aiming radar is actually superior to that of optical rangefinders.

To say, the gun-aiming radar is essentially a rangefinder with especially good anti-interference performance.

As for the horizontal azimuth, it is not measured by radar but by the angle at which the base, which moves in a circular motion, is positioned when the radar receives the reflected signal.

Using radar for aiming, there wasn’t even a half-salvo for calibration.

It wasn’t until this moment that the lookouts on the Newland battleships made an accurate judgment, confirming that the fast battleships coming from the south belonged to the Liangxia Navy.

At that time, the four light cruisers of the 43.2 Subsquad were to the west, illuminated by the dawn just a few minutes earlier.

The sun rises from the east, so to the west, tens of kilometers away, the sunrise came a bit later, in fact, just a few minutes later.

A few minutes earlier, the lookouts on the Newland battleships still couldn’t see the four light cruisers and thus could not visually determine their identity.

Furthermore, the four light cruisers weren’t heading straight south but southwest.

The deviation angle was only a few degrees.

This small deviation was equivalent to putting more distance between them and the Newland battleships.

In short, when dawn shone on the six Newland battleships, the 43.2 Subsquad’s four light cruisers were still hidden in the dark.

Besides, there was also the morning fog to consider.

Given the circumstances at the time, it was very possible that the commander of the Newland Fleet mistook the four ships detected by radar to the south as light cruisers and suspected that the main force to the west was deliberately distancing itself to force a chase, allowing the light cruisers from the south to launch a torpedo attack.

If the Newland Fleet pursued to the west, it would be exposing its broadside to the "Light Cruisers."

In short, it wasn’t until the "Xu Sea" and the other three fast battleships opened fire that the lookouts on the Newland battleships confirmed they were indeed four fast battleships.

Firing from 25 kilometers away certainly indicated they were battleships.

The reason is simple: besides the main guns on battleships, no other naval guns possess enough power to be effective at such a long range.

In fact, 25 kilometers was too far even for 14-inch naval guns.

Many old battleships’ main guns, due to their maximum elevation limits, had a maximum range of just over 20 kilometers. After the previous great war, the first improvement the Great Powers made to their retained old main battle ships was to increase the maximum elevation of the main guns to extend their range.

With this, the battle between the 43rd Special Mixed Fleet and Newland’s 11th Special Mixed Fleet commenced.

As the ten battleships from both sides began bombarding each other with their massive guns, not just the gunners inside the turrets but even the commanders in the Command Tower had no time for anything else.

Aerial attacks?

Who would care about those before taking out the enemy in front of them?

The threat from ship-borne aircraft could be immense, but it paled in comparison to shells fired from 16-inch or 400-millimeter naval guns 20 kilometers away!

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