Chapter 564 Chinese Leopard PK German Leopard

The "Big Bad Wolf Fleet" of the Irish Navy stayed at its base in Ireland for several months, mainly because Germany strongly protested that the Chinese Empire had exported a large number of advanced weapons and equipment and strategic materials to countries in the Allied Power camps such as Britain and France. Especially after the Allied Power Air Force first bombed the Romanian oil industrial zone, Sino-German relations became quite tense.

After Germany and the allied countries received a request from the Imperial Chinese Navy to visit their main port cities and naval bases, leaders of allied countries such as Hitler and Mussolini refused to visit the Imperial Chinese Navy on the grounds that "the North Sea and the Mediterranean are in a state of war and are inconvenient to receive."

For the Chinese Empire Navy, this global navigation was to greatly enhance the deterrence of the Imperial Navy. If it was rejected by Germany, Italy and other countries, it would be a major blow to the Chinese Empire. Therefore, after discussing with Wang Guoming, Li Dingxin decided to stay in the Irish naval base for the time being, waiting for the imperial government to put pressure on Germany and Italy to resolve the matter.

During this period, both the Allied or Allied camps did not want to be suppressed by the Imperial Navy. While the Imperial Navy showed their muscles to them, they also wanted to show the Imperial Navy their naval power in response.

Therefore, during the few months when the Chinese Navy stayed in Europe, the German and Italian navies successively fought fierce battles with the British and French navies in the Mediterranean, North Sea, Atlantic Ocean and Baltic Sea, and the two navies fought fiercely in the North Sea, with more than 30 large and small naval battles.

In the Mediterranean, while Italy refused to visit Rome by the Chinese Empire, the Italian Navy broke out in the Pontastillo naval battle with the British Navy. This was the largest naval battle in the Mediterranean since the outbreak of World War II. It was also the first time the Italian Navy challenged the British Navy. It was also a demonstration instructed by Germany to express its maritime power to the Chinese Navy in the Mediterranean.

For the Allies, although Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire had already penetrated into the Mediterranean Sea after the merger of Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the size of the German Navy's Mediterranean fleet was not large, even worse than that of the Greek Navy. This was mainly because the naval power of the original Austro-Hungarian Empire was too weak and the naval bases in the Mediterranean was seriously lacking the infrastructure of various large warships, which led to the main ships of the German High Seas Fleet being unable to deploy in the Mediterranean Sea. Although Mussolini repeatedly expressed his willingness to provide Italian military ports to the German Navy, Hitler did not trust him very much and therefore did not agree.

With the outbreak of World War II, the main force of the German navy was restrained by the British navy in the North Sea and the North Atlantic Ocean. The Chinese Empire controlled the east-west and east-west exits and various throat positions in the Mediterranean. Hitler once planned to send a fleet into the Mediterranean to cooperate with the Italian Navy to launch the North African battle and occupy France and Britain's colonies in North Africa. However, due to the tense relationship between Germany and the Chinese Empire, the German Navy believed that if the main fleet entered the Mediterranean, it would turn the Chinese Empire down.

The Suez Canal and the Strait of Gibraltar, the German fleet will be locked in the Mediterranean. The Chinese Empire has a Cyprus island base, a Crete base and a Corte base in the Mediterranean. It is easy to eat the German navy with the Imperial Navy. Therefore, Hitler eventually gave up the decision to let the German high seas fleet enter the Mediterranean. The German Navy only retained a small-scale near-shore defense naval force in the Mediterranean, allowing Italy and Spain to fight Britain and France in the Mediterranean.

For the Italian Navy, we naturally could not count on the pitiful naval power of Spain. Therefore, the important task of fighting the British and French navies fell on the Italian Navy itself.

Fortunately, the main force of the British Navy was restrained by the German Navy in order to protect trade routes. Its power in the Mediterranean was not strong (after the Suez Canal and Gibraltar base were taken away by the Chinese Empire, the British Navy abolished the Mediterranean Fleet). Mussolini was confident that he would fight against the British Navy alone.

After the outbreak of the Greek-Italy War, Mussolini was angry about the performance of the Italian army on the Greek battlefield, so he decided to send a navy to destroy the supply routes that Britain and France had given Greece from the sea. At the same time, he refused to visit Rome by the Chinese Empire, and expressed strong protests to the Chinese Empire for the advanced weapons and equipment it exported to Greece.

Mussolini said in cheering the Italian Navy: "We want to win a great victory at sea to show our strength and let a certain country (the Chinese Empire) know that they have helped the wrong person (Greece)!"

In Libya, North Africa, Mussolini ordered the Italian Marshal Graziani's army to attack the French Algerian colony in order to restore the defeat on the French Algerian battlefield.

However, the Italian army in North Africa was also bad. It was stubbornly resisted by the French army and was also unable to capture for a long time. Soon, due to the lack of preparations of the Italian army.

Starting from August 6, the Italians organized a large-scale transport fleet for the first time, carrying a large number of urgently needed military supplies and personnel to Benghazi Port in Libya. Due to the importance of this transportation mission, the Italian Navy sent a powerful fleet to provide escort for the transport fleet, which was commanded by Lieutenant General Kampiony. It was specifically organized into 2 battleships, 7 heavy cruisers, 8 light cruisers, 32 destroyers, and 1 torpedo boat.

At the same time, the British were also implementing their transportation plan. The British transport fleet transported supplies to Greece to support the Greek war against Italy. The transport fleet was escorted by three British fleets commanded by Lieutenant General Cunningham, a total of 3 battleships, 1 aircraft carrier, 5 light cruisers, and 16 destroyers. It was divided into three fleets a, b, and c, and was commanded by Lieutenant General Tovey, Lieutenant General Cunningham and Lieutenant General Vilax.

Cunningham hopes to find opportunities for Italian fleets to fight. So a large-scale maritime war led by transportation missions is about to begin.

At that time, the Imperial Chinese Navy's global navigation fleet was resting at the Crete base and loading various arms to warring countries in Europe. General Li Dingxin, who received the information, also wanted to touch the bottom of the British and Italian Navy and see what strength and combat effectiveness they had. Therefore, he sent a naval observation fleet, led by Wang Guoming, with the help of the Imperial Air Force reconnaissance aircraft, to estimate the possible battle locations of the British and Italian navies and wait in nearby waters.

On August 7, Cunningham led the fleet to set off from Marseille, France. The Italian fleet obtained information about the departure of the British fleet from various channels at the beginning. Lieutenant General Campione ordered the transport fleet to change its course. On the afternoon of August 8, Lieutenant General Campione ordered the fleet to face the British fleet based on air reconnaissance (3 British fleets and 8 dds), in order to prevent the British from launching a possible shelling attack on Benghazi.

But soon after, he discovered that a fleet of the Chinese Navy was cruising around there. Since the Chinese Empire recently exported advanced weapons and equipment to Greece, the Italian military believed that the main reason for the Italian military's failure in combat, the relationship between China and Italy was very tense. Mussolini refused the Chinese Navy's visit to Italy. This made this tension even public. This made Lieutenant General Campignho unable to determine the intentions of the Chinese Navy. After reporting it to the Italian Navy headquarters, Mussolini soon ordered Campioni not to fight with the British Navy first and wait for the results of negotiations between the Italian government and the Chinese Empire.

In this way, no battle broke out at the location where the British and Italian navy might have been fighting for the first time, and the Italian navy missed a good opportunity.

Soon, after the Italian government negotiated with the Chinese Empire, he learned that the fleet of the Chinese Empire was just trying to observe the battle between the British and Italian navy. The Chinese Navy once again expressed his strict and neutral attitude, which reassured Mussolini.

On the evening of August 8, the Italian Navy's cover fleet returned to sail. At this time, the British had already known that they were almost attacked by the Italian Navy and were alert. Like the Italians, the British began to look for each other.

At 2 p.m. on the 9th, the Italian Navy Headquarters ordered Campioney to go to the waters 65 miles southeast of Pontastillo, Calabria Peninsula, Italy, waiting for the British fleet that was expected to appear there. In addition, since the possible battle location is close to the Taranto military port, two Italian Veneto-class battleships could also consider entering the battle, but they gave up because there was no extra destroyer escort.

Meanwhile, at noon on July 9, Cunningham led the British fleet 90 miles east of the Italian fleet.

Italian Air Force reconnaissance aircraft discovered the British fleet, and soon more than a dozen fighter jets and bombers of the Italian Air Force attacked. The British destroyer Imperial and the light cruiser Gloucester were severely injured by the Italian Air Force, with more than 20 casualties.

Soon, the British Navy launched revenge. At 12:00 and 1:30 noon, the USS Eagle aircraft carrier took off 15 swordfish fighters of two waves to attack the Italian fleet, but none of them hit.

After receiving the news of the British and Italian naval firefighting, Wang Guoming quickly led the observation fleet toward the battleground. The observation fleet consisted of more than 600 naval officers at all levels of the imperial imperial army, riding on the Ming-class battleship Zhu Yuanzhang, two Typhoon-class air defense heavy cruisers and two rainstorm-class hunting ships as escorts. In addition, the officers of the naval aviation force boarded the Pegasus transport plane to observe from high altitudes.

At three o'clock in the afternoon, the British Navy's light cruiser Neptune, the light cruiser of the British Navy Fleet, took the lead in discovering the Italian fleet. The British fleet then launched tactical deformation and prepared to fight against the enemy fleet.

Almost at the same time, the Italian Navy also discovered the British fleet and also launched tactical deformations to enter a state of combat.

At three o'clock, the Italian fleet, which was not confident, decided to take the initiative and fired first at a distance of 21 kilometers.

"Dongdongdongdongdongdong!"

Accompanied by the roaring cannons, the officers and soldiers of the Imperial Navy, such as Wang Guoming, who were observing the battle, suddenly became excited, as if they were fighting. The Imperial Navy had not fought a war for a long time, which made many officers and soldiers itchy and wanted to do a big fight immediately before they could enjoy it.

"Your Highness, who do you think will win?"

"British!"

Wang Guoming subconsciously replied that after all, the British navy is a traditional maritime power. Although they were once severely repaired by the Chinese Empire and were defeated by the German navy, their strength is still strong. As a third-rate naval power, the Italian navy will be very difficult to defeat the British navy (the Chinese Empire is recognized as the only first-rate naval power in the world, and Britain and Germany are second-rate, France, the Soviet Union, Italy, the United States, Mexico, etc. are defined as third-rate).

At this time, the light cruisers of the 4th, 7th, 8th fleets of the Italian Navy and the destroyers of the 9th fleet had already been put into battle with the British Fleet A. Judging from the firepower of both sides, the Italian Fleet's firepower was becoming more and more accurate, and the blasting points were constantly approaching the British warships. On the contrary, the blasting points of the shells fired by the British Navy seemed to be much more scattered, and for a long time, they did not hit the opponent's shells.

"Oh, I didn't hit it again! What a stinky hand!"

The emperor is not anxious. The eunuch is anxious! The officers and soldiers of the Chinese Empire naval during the battle are more anxious than the warring sides. Seeing the British naval shells away from the enemy ships by 108,000 miles, they are really anxious for the British.

An officer immediately curled his lips and said, "At this level, all the new recruits from the Imperial Navy can beat them."

Wang Guoming said: "It seems that the British Navy is really declining! I have always regarded the British Navy as a strong enemy, and it seems that it is too high to look at them. This level is not worth our worries."

Although the Imperial Navy has not conducted naval wars for many years, compared with the navies of various countries around the world, the Imperial Navy's simulated military exercises are extremely frequent and the practical background is extremely high, making the training time of the Imperial Navy more than several times higher than that of the navies of various countries.

At this time, the Italian Navy's light cruiser Garibaldi first hit the British Navy's light cruiser Neptune, which damaged her plane and catapult.

Seeing that the situation was not good, the British Navy Fleet commander Witt immediately ordered the fleet to turn around and evacuate.

The officers and soldiers of the Chinese Empire in the distance suddenly sighed and scolded the British as cowards.

At 33:00, the first round of war between the British and Italian Navy ended. In a report to the British Navy, Witt said that his fleet hit an Italian cruiser, but was refuted by the Italian Navy.

On the other hand, the Italian Navy's battleship and heavy cruisers turned to the direction of the British Navy's main battleship, the Battleship of the War, and was ready to enter the battle.

At 3:31, two light cruisers dabarbiano and digiussano of the 4th Italian fleet entered the range of the battleship of the British B fleet battleship. The battleship of the warship issued several volleys, but none of them hit. At the same time, the battleship of the warship took off two seaplanes to help the ship conduct air fire control command and carried out S-type maneuvering tactics in order to allow the battleship of the Malayan battleship of the C fleet to catch up and form a formation to fight.

At this time, the British Navy's Battleship of the King of the King and the Warcraft were still quite far from that of the war.

The artillery techniques of this generation of British navy really made the officers and soldiers of the Chinese Empire complain, and at the same time greatly boosted the morale of the Italian navy soldiers and further improved the attack power.

At 3:52 pm, the Italian Navy battleship Julio Caesar carried out the first round of firepower salvos at a distance of 26.5 kilometers. The shells landed less than 200 meters in the British Navy's Battleship. The shells bombed and exploded, causing waves all over the sky.

Not only were the British naval officers and soldiers in the battle surprised, but even the imperial naval officers such as Wang Guoming who were watching the battle were surprised.

"When did the third-rate Italian Navy also have this level of first-round strike accuracy?"

In Wang Guoming's view, if the first round of fire volleys is to reach an error of less than 200 meters if it wants to perform a first round of fire volleys above 26 kilometers, his naval artillery commander needs to train at least one year. If the Italian Navy's training intensity is used, it is really not easy to achieve this. Although the Chinese Navy's artillery command has reached the level of accuracy of this first round of volleys within 200 meters thirty years ago, now it can be controlled within 110 meters with advanced central fire control command radar and photoelectric aiming range measurement technology in the first round of fire volleys, which is many times stronger than the Italian Navy, but Wang Guoming was still surprised by the improvement of the combat effectiveness of the Italian Navy.

"Compared with the Italian Army, their navy has won some face for Mussolini!"

The Italian Navy Earl Cafur battleship that arrived later did not fire, but followed the experience of the Jutland Naval Battle and waited to exchange fire with the USS Malaya battleship or the USS Monarch battleship, which had weaker firepower in the British fleet.

At 3:53, the Battleship Warcraft began to counterattack and carried out the first round of fire volleys. Her front and rear turrets aimed at Julio Caesar and Earl Cafell, respectively, but none of them hit, and the bounce point deviated nearly 300 meters away from the target. At the same time, the British artillery commander did not see that only Julio Caesar was firing in the Italian fleet, which shows that the combat effectiveness of the British Navy declined greatly.

At the same time, Julio Caesar fought back again. After this fire volley, the shells landed between the Battleship War and the escort destroyers hereward and decoy, causing the destroyers hereward and decoy to be affected by near-arrow bombs at the same time. Due to the explosion of large-caliber shells, although they were near-arrow bombs, they also seriously injured the two destroyers without any protection and were forced to withdraw from the battle sequence.

Within an hour of battle, two destroyers of the British Navy withdrew from the battle. However, the Italian Navy was unscathed.

As the two British Navy destroyers withdrew from the battle, the British Navy's face suddenly became unstoppable.

Four minutes later, the British Navy's USS Malaya battleship opened fire outside the range, intending to distract the Italians and give the two British destroyers time to exit the battlefield.

Starting from 3:55, the Italian warship Trento fired three consecutive firepower volleys at the Battleship War, but none of them hit. Campione hoped to play to his advantage in the number of heavy cruisers, but except for the Trento, other cruisers were entangled by the cruisers of the British Fleet A who returned to the death.

At this time, nine swordfish fighters that took off from the Eagle flew to the battlefield and attacked two Italian Navy Pola-class heavy cruisers that were mistaken for battleships, but none of them hit.

This time, the Chinese Empire naval officers and soldiers who were watching the battle complained again and raised their middle fingers to the British Navy Aviation Corps.

In the last minute of 3:00 pm, the Italian ship Julio Caesar's seventh fire volley, and a shell hit the port side of the War Warfare, but unexpectedly, the shell did not explode. It was just embedded in the armor on the side of the War Warfare.

"I just praised the Italian navy for its good combat quality, but it finally hit a shot. But it was still a dud."

Everyone sighed, and Wang Guoming also said: "This means there is a problem with the Italian naval industry and it doesn't seem to be afraid."

The USS Julio Caesar had already captured the battleship of the warship, which made the British Navy feel that the situation became dangerous. Soon, the British Navy released smoke bombs to confuse the Italian Navy's sightseeing officer's judgment.

At the same time, the Battleship Warship quickly fought back. A 381mm shell hit the rear deck of Julio Caesar. A large amount of smoke caused by the violent explosion was sucked into the engine room, and as a result, four of the eight boilers stopped working, causing the Julio Caesar's speed to drop from 25 knots to 18 knots in 2 minutes. At the same time, the power on the ship was also suspended for 30 seconds. This time, the hit also killed more than 20 people and injured many.

“The distance is 22,000 meters!”

The rangefinder on Zhu Yuanzhang quickly reported that Wang Guoming and other imperial naval officers immediately knew that at this distance, the British navy's hit rate was still very high.

"The best attack distance for our super warships is over 30 kilometers, so there is no need to worry about losing when fighting with the British."

For the Chinese Empire Navy, its powerful radar technology has enabled the optimal attack distance of the main battleship to reach more than 30 kilometers. According to the long-distance combat tactics of the Imperial Navy to play to its strengths and avoid its weaknesses, the British Navy cannot pose a threat to the Imperial Navy.

Everyone nodded and agreed with Wang Guoming's view.

The Battleship of the USS War did not pursue the victory, but followed the previous orders to turn again so that the USS Malaya and the Battleship of the Junquan behind them could catch up quickly. Due to the maneuverability of the steering, the Battleship of the USS Warship had to lose speed.

Just after four o'clock, although the battleship Julio Caesar was shot, the combat effectiveness was not greatly lost. After emergency repairs, the two boilers resumed operation and their speed returned to 22 knots. Campioney ordered the destroyer to release smoke and prepare to strike lightning under the cover of smoke. At the same time, the two battleships also turned away under the cover of smoke.

At 4:03 pm, the rear turret of the Battleship of the USS War-Yang issued a last volley of fire, but none of them hit. The USS Malaya battleship was still firing, but the shells only landed about 2,700 meters away from the Italian battleship. The USS Malaya battleship then joined the USS War-Yang battleship formation. The battleship between the battleships of the two sides was declared over.

After the battleships between the two sides ended, cruisers and destroyers on both sides continued to fight. The flexible maneuver of British light cruisers made it impossible for Italian heavy cruisers to maintain continuous shooting.

At 4:07, the Italian destroyer Afieri was slightly injured due to a near-arrow bomb. The Italian heavy cruiser Bolzano was hit three times, and the rudder failed for a while. In the following time, the destroyers on both sides carried out fierce lightning strikes, but neither achieved the intended effect.

Because the Italian Navy and the British Navy were very cautious, the two sides fought until 5 pm and both chose to retreat to end the naval battle.

On that day, the British Navy felt very embarrassed, so the British aircraft carrier Eagle sent another bomber group to attack the port of augusta on Sicily, Italy. The destroyer Pancaldo, the 14th Detachment, was sunk.

Thus, the British government claimed that they had won the Battle of Pontastilo.

The Italian Air Force was also unwilling to be outdone and retaliated for a tit. The next morning, the next day, sent a large group of bombers into the Mediterranean to find targets. The British H fleet was heading eastward to carry out feint tactics to cover the Cunningham fleet, but it was subjected to fierce air strikes by the Italian Air Force. The destroyer Escort was seriously injured in the air strike and was sunk by the Italian submarine Marconi when he returned that night.

Subsequently, Mussolini claimed that the Italian Navy won the Battle of Pontastilo.

Both Britain and Italy claimed that they had won. As the only witness, Wang Guoming believed that the Italian Navy had won, but considering that the fleet was about to leave the Mediterranean to visit Britain, it claimed that it was a draw.

As Greece was destroyed by the German army, the British navy had to evacuate from the Mediterranean, so the Italian navy gained sea control in the Mediterranean.

The Italian Navy, which seized the Mediterranean sea control power, undoubtedly had a face for Mussolini and the entire Italian military. At least in Hitler's eyes, the Italian Navy was quite good, and it would not be as cowardly as the Italian Army. Forget it, it would be a cowardly. The Italian Army was not a strong army at all. What Hitler could not tolerate was the Italian army's frequent mistakes.

In the past, when the Italian army fought alone, it would be fine if it fired artillery at its own troops. In the Greek battle, the Italian army could actually shoot shells to the German positions, which made Hitler speechless and once thought that the Italian army had the intention to rebel.

Fortunately, Mussolini hurried to Berlin to lick Hitler's leather shoes. He said all the good things to make Hitler dispel this idea, but his trust in the Italian army was further weakened.

As the Italian Navy seized the Mediterranean sea control, the Italian Army and Air Force were able to carry out further military operations in North Africa.

However, the problem facing Italy is that the real overlord of the Mediterranean is the Navy of the Empire, because the Chinese Empire has a large number of military locations in the Mediterranean and are all very strategically located. If Mussolini wants to launch a smooth military operation in North Africa, he must appease the Empire.

So Mussolini put aside Hitler's opposition and took the initiative to invite the Chinese Empire Navy to visit Rome, which eased the tension between China and Italy.
Chapter completed!