The Rise of the Empire

If the Manila naval battle is an isolated evidence in history and cannot be counted, then the San Diego naval battle is enough to show how rubbish the quality of the Spanish navy is! Let's see how the 4 battleships of the Spanish fleet died!

The flagship Maria Teresa was hit 2 by the 12-inch gun, 3 by the 8-inch gun, 4 by the 6-inch and 5-inch gun, and 1 by the 4-inch gun. After being hit by 12 rounds of 57MM guns, the battleship caught fire, and then ran aground on the beach. This injury is very common. After all, this is a warship of more than 6,000 tons. If the damage is well managed, it will not be destroyed. But this is already the best performing warship in the Spanish fleet!

The Okendo was hit 4 rounds by the 8-inch gun, 4 rounds by the 6-inch and 5-inch gun, 1 round by the 4-inch gun, and 53 rounds by the 57MM gun, and these bitterness Acid high-explosive bombs burned the battleship alive... Although there is a problem with the small defensive area, it is shameful to be burned to death by a 57MM cannon. After all, the shell of the 57MM gun only weighs 6 pounds!

The performance of the Biskaya is even worse! A cruiser of more than 6,000 tons was hit by 5 rounds by 8-inch guns, 5 rounds by 6-inch and 5-inch guns, 4 rounds by 4-inch guns, and 9 rounds by 57MM guns! And then the ship surrendered.... Surrender like this!

Of course, the worst thing was the Cologne. This ship was hit 4 times by 6-inch and 5-inch guns, and 3 times by 57MM guns! Then the Spaniards surrendered, please, you are Garibaldi! Later generations were taught sacred objects by a certain god! In the end, instead of dying in battle, he surrendered! This way of dying is too embarrassing, right? This will to resist is not as good as the Qing Army during the Sino-Japanese War!

And according to the situation of these hit bombs, it can be seen how poor the quality of the Americans is. In a battle where the opponent has no fighting spirit and the own side is completely hanging and beating children, they actually hit such a small hit! This shit is a fool, none of the 12 13-inch guns on the 3 battleships hit! A total of 46 8-inch guns hit 12 rounds! The Americans won not because of how elite they were, but because their opponents were too weak!

In this battle, the performance of the Spaniards also surprised Majifen, "They are shooting at the sun! The shells fired at a distance of 2,500 meters pose no threat to us at all, except for one or two The nearby spray reminds us that the opponent is firing at us, and we hardly feel a little bit of pressure from the opponent!" After the war, Magiffin described the Spaniard's artillery.

Of course, the American gunnery is not so smart. Except for the 57MM gun with an extremely fast rate of fire, the Shelly fleet did not hit the opponent with a single shell larger than 5 inches after fighting for a quarter of an hour! , and at this time, the combat distance between the two sides has been shortened from 3,500 meters to 1,800 meters...  

But only from a strategic point of view, the Shirley fleet's goal has been achieved, and they further delayed the retreat of the Spanish fleet. With Dewey's acquiescence, the cruisers of the American fleet finally abandoned the slow-moving USS Iowa, and the remaining five armored cruisers approached at a speed of more than 20 knots. The battle line formed by the five armored cruisers was like a swimming dragon. Passing quickly from the tail of the Spanish fleet, accompanied by the order to fire, the side string firepower of each cruiser burst into groups of frightening flames!

Dozens of medium-caliber and above artillery pieces and nearly a hundred small-caliber artillery pieces projected several tons of ammunition in a very short period of time, and a wave of fire formed by shells directly submerged the two unprotected Spanish cruisers at the back.

The explosion sound of the high-explosive bomb was almost integrated, and the two battleships were instantly covered by orange barrages. Groups of flames jumped and spread on the deck, and the hull without any protection was torn into pieces by the violent explosion. Before the Spanish soldiers made any evasion, they were beaten to a pool of blood by the brutal firepower. The two unprotected cruisers were sent to the bottom of the sea without even holding out for 5 minutes!

"This is really terrifying!" Sevilla never dreamed that he would encounter such a powerful fleet in the Far East. He even thought that even if he fought with the Royal Navy's Far East Fleet, it would be nothing more than that. The opponent's crazy firepower made him immediately lose his position, and then he issued an order that was quite controversial for future generations: "Disband the fleet and run for their lives!"

And when this order was issued, the Spanish fleet, which was already on the verge of collapse, immediately fell apart, and the only three remaining large ships began to disperse and flee. The Americans reacted quickly enough, but they made mistakes in their busy schedule. Brooklyn and New York immediately went to catch them. The closest Princess Maria, Rurik and two other Russian armored cruisers went to capture the Okendo, while the strongest, fastest and best defensive Carlos V was ignored ! The warships closest to this Spanish ship are actually three protective cruisers commanded by Brigadier General Shirley! And the remaining US and Russian warships are either busy with other things, or the distance is too far away!

"Let's catch the biggest one, it will be the most flamboyant target in this naval battle!" Naturally, Shelly, who was on the battlefield for the first time, would not miss a chance to beat the dog in the water. The three dome cruisers chased after him at the fastest speed. Going up, Ma Jifen couldn't help but wiped a cold sweat, and said in his heart: "As long as the opponent has a little fighting spirit and the level can be regarded as passable, then it is a proper anti-killing plot!"

However, Magiffen obviously overestimated the fighting power of the Spaniards, or in other words, his integrity. After being intensively strafed by high-explosive bombs for ten minutes, the Princess Mary decisively announced her surrender, lowered the battle flag, and then rushed to the beach, and the personnel began to evacuate. And the performance of the Okendo was not good. After being caught up, it struggled for more than half an hour and announced its surrender. The Spaniards could do nothing else, but they still remembered to open the sea valve. The armored cruiser finally sank to the bottom of the sea. .

The only survivor in this naval battle was General Sevilla's flagship Carlos V! This armored cruiser ran for more than 3 hours at a stretch with the output of 3 American dome cruisers! When Shirley and the others suddenly realized that they ran out of ammunition, they were already more than 50 nautical miles away from the main battlefield! "Just let this guy run away, the German ship is strong, we almost used up all the ammunition, and we couldn't even slow it down!" Looking at the armored cruiser Carlos V on fire on the deck in the distance, thank you Li said angrily.

This battle, later known as the Battle of Morro Bay, was the first naval battle fought by the American fleet since it entered the steam age, and it was also the first victory in the steam age. In this naval battle, the Americans easily crushed the The opponent, Spain lost 3 gunboats, 2 unprotected cruisers and 2 armored cruisers. The total tonnage is close to 20,000 tons, and the only one that slipped through the net is General Sevilla's flagship.

Thanks to the book friends flying in the universe of stars, classmates are in love, bighill1982 for the reward~~~, and book friends Jianxian Shushan, Bai Dinglai, Pilgrims, nkj8084, Hotbed for their monthly support~~~! Subscription is very weak recently--! The author is depressed--!