Shortly thereafter, Vice Admiral Morrow received bad news from the engine room: the ship's port side stern had suffered heavy damage, causing a Magic Steam Engine to stop working and the left propeller to fail.
The battleship "Crown Prince" was powered by twin engines, and now the left engine was shot and scrapped, leaving only the right engine still powering, forcing the huge battleship to circle the sea in a counterclockwise direction.
It is undoubtedly very dangerous to find yourself in such an embarrassing situation on a battlefield where artillery fire is intertwined.
General Moreau was so anxious that he broke out in a cold sweat, and hurriedly urged the mechanical squad to repair the damaged engine as soon as possible, and at the same time ordered the chief navigator to find a way to control the battleship and get out of the warring sea as soon as possible.
General Morrow must then report his fate to the flagship, and he has so far been unable to figure out the cause of the damage to the Crown Prince Frank.
General Moreau never dreamed that the 1st Submariner Squadron of the Far East Navy was lurking in deep water less than two nautical miles from his battleship, and had just used his battleship as a target to test the actual combat effect of some secret weapon.
The battle beneath the surface was completely beyond the experience of the Imperial Admiral's life, and he could only look at his own fate according to conventional lines, believing that the "Crown Prince Frank" was in trouble because of bad luck, either because a heavy shell from the "Canglong" pierced the armor and injured the engine, or because it ran into a mine laid by the Far Easterners in the nearby waters.
Of the two possibilities, the latter seemed more convincing, so General Moreau explained to Admiral Lucien that he and the "Crown Prince Frank" had to withdraw from the battlefield in the name of "Thunder".
When General Lucien received the bad news, he shrugged his shoulders at General Moreau's bad luck and wrote back to comfort him to take care.
The Empire's three main battleships were surrounded by a large group of destroyers and frigates, and their main mission was minesweeping and air defense.
To put it bluntly, even if there are mines in the warring waters, it should be "cannon fodder" such as destroyers and frigates that first block mines for the main battleship.
General Lucien had to be suspicious of Moreau's Moldy Star Cover, otherwise how could he encounter such a catastrophe with an extremely small probability "This kind of bad guy will infect his comrades with bad luck, and it is not a good thing for him to withdraw from the battlefield."
General Lucien muttered to himself.
He didn't think that the small probability of a heavy damage to the capital battleship would happen again, just as he didn't think that his luck was as bad as that of Vice Admiral Moreau, and it would be unfortunate to overreact to this unexpected event, so he decided to put the hapless Moreau and the "Crown Prince Frank" behind for the time being, and concentrate on directing the increasingly fierce battle at sea.
At this time, even a layman could see that the Imperial Fleet had gained the upper hand in a head-to-head duel with the Far East Fleet, and as time went on, the above advantages would become more and more significant, and even if the "Crown Prince Frank" was wounded and retreated, the general situation on the battlefield did not change significantly.
The battle on the sea had been going on for a full hour, with thousands of tons of steel colliding violently on the blue waves, shelling each other, explosions and shrapnel flying everywhere on the battlefield, and the afterglow of the sunset over the Golden Horn Bay was obscured by the smoke rising from the sea.
At 7:15, when the sun was about to sink into the western horizon, the naval battle reached a white-hot stage, and an armor-piercing projectile fired by the imperial flagship "Charlemagne" hit the Far Eastern flagship "Sea Palace" 7,000 yards away, hitting the anti-aircraft turret located above the stern, and detonating the ammunition depot where the anti-aircraft shell chain was stored.
More than 200 officers and men from the Far East operating near the stern of the ship were affected by the explosion and all of them were killed in the moment when the flames rose.
Even with such a heavy blow, the sturdy "Sea Palace" and all its officers and men did not lose the motivation to continue fighting, but launched an even more fierce and vengeful artillery bombardment against an enemy who was clearly stronger than itself The Venerable "Charlemagne" was a little dazed by this hail of bullets, two of which caused heavy damage to it: one shell penetrated the deck and exploded violently, causing water into several waterproof compartments; Another shell pierced the armor belt below the waterline and nearly overturned the massive battleship.
Fortunately, the above attacks seemed wild but not fatal, and after a terrifying and violent jolt, the "Charlemagne" finally regained its balance, and the flooded compartment was sealed by the navigator in time with a "force field wall", successfully preventing the ship's hull from rolling significantly.
The shells continued to explode in front of his eyes, and the intense flash of light accompanied by a rumbling roar made the commander of the Imperial Navy, Charles Lucien, can't help but boil his blood.
The smoke obscured the narrow force field portholes, and the Navigator was too busy casting spells to repair the shell-damaged hull or fend off the Far Eastern Air Force attacks overhead, and there was no room for the smoke to disperse the smoke that obscured the Commander's view.
General Lucien did not bother to stay in the control tower with thick armor, so he simply climbed onto the open platform of the bridge, personally cast a spell to disperse the gunsmoke, and while observing the overall battle situation on the sea, he calmly issued orders to direct his flagship to make the necessary maneuvers.
The 10,000-ton steel giant ship transformed into a light dancer, dragging a zigzag track on the sea, trying to dodge the rain of bullets from the opposite side, and at the same time launching a more violent counterattack.
General Lucien condescended, quickly checked the overall situation of the battlefield and confirmed that the situation was very favorable to his side.
The battle has continued to this day, most of the Far Easterners' warships have suffered some degree of damage, and the "Yanbo", which is second only to the flagship in the fleet, was defeated in a one-on-one confrontation with the "Empress Teresa" commanded by General Verneuve, and is fleeing with smoke and "Queen Teresa", while the "Empress Teresa" is in hot pursuit.
On the other hand, on the Imperial side, except for the unlucky "Crown Prince Frank", which was defeated by a mine, the other two battleships and six cruisers were in good condition, and so far none of the main battleships had been heavily damaged, and they all had a clear upper hand in the confrontation with their respective opponents, and it was only a matter of time before they sank the opponents.
However, just when General Lucien was complacent, a raging undercurrent suddenly struck beneath the surface of the sea, beyond his sight, and quickly shifted the scales of the battlefield in favor of the Far Easterners
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