What the hell is a private enterprise?

Chapter 267 The End of the Great War
We rammed and sank an enemy warship.

【Our battleship is sinking! 】

As the battle intensified, the command of the USS Iowa prepared for the ship to sink.

However, after discovering that the captain of the Scharnhorst was likely to escape by plane, this idea was put aside, and they abandoned ship as quickly as possible.

Although both were flooded, the Iowa was much more severely damaged than the Wisconsin.

The USS Wisconsin only suffered damage to its bow; with strong damage control, it could potentially be salvaged and towed back for repairs.

However, after suffering a devastating impact, the entire Iowa ship was deformed to varying degrees, rendering it beyond repair even if it did not sink.

Moreover, the two warships are now tightly interlocked and cannot be separated, so at least the crew of the Iowa cannot stop the Scharnhorst from taking on water.

At that moment, they had no other thoughts but to save themselves.

At this point, only the Bismarck and the New Jersey remained to fight at sea.

Having witnessed the tragedy of the Iowa, Dalton did not hesitate to stop turning and try to widen the distance again.

With air support, only a fool would risk their life!

The most important thing now is to take down Bismarck as quickly as possible, and then rescue the two warships and their crew!
He kept calling for the F14 squadron to launch an attack, but the latter was also having a lot of trouble.

"Kate, Kate, kill those damn mosquitoes!"

Squadron 147 launched all 32 short-range missiles and shot down 29 Ar 196s, but the problem is that there are still more than 20 in the air.

These twenty-odd Ar 196s, completely disregarding the tragic fate of their fallen comrades, continued to obstruct their attack route.

The two F-14s that first released guided bombs emptied their loadouts and joined the battle with their machine guns.

Although the all-metal body and high speed allow it to easily hunt down Ar196, its attack efficiency is still too low.

……

On the bridge of the Bismarck, the entire ship was still fighting dutifully against the New Jersey, but in reality, it was also entering its final countdown.

Two more GBU bombs would sink the Bismarck.

"Commander, we are going to fail."

The ship girl lowered her head slightly, looking dejected as if she had done something terribly wrong.

"No, we have achieved our goal. Sometimes victory is not necessary."

Tang Wen had moved past the initial tension and enthusiasm of the battle and began to calmly assess the situation.

It's no longer possible to ram and sink the USS New Jersey, and the Tirpitz formation is also in trouble.

Why did eight F-14s arrive?

Because the remaining four aircraft went to find Tirpitz's formation.

The air attack on Tirpitz occurred almost simultaneously. The two Hipper-class heavy cruisers put all their air defenses into trying to shoot down the guided bombs, but in the first wave of attacks, the Hipper had its engine room blown off its deck and sank instantly.

The Blücher was badly damaged and was hiding in the smoke of the Tirpitz, barely clinging to life.

But the George carried far more than just that number of planes.

More F-18E/Fs are on their way, and there might even be EA-6Bs monitoring them from the sky.

Even if they use sheer numbers, the USS George can slowly wear down the Second Fleet.

If it weren't for the time required for preparation and load adjustment, the USS George alone could have wiped out the Second Fleet, even with its hit rate severely hampered.

Modern carrier-based aircraft can launch attacks from tens or even hundreds of kilometers away, and the Second Fleet has no air defense capability whatsoever.

Dalton was thinking the same thing as Tang Wen, and had already begun to analyze the gains and losses of this battle in advance:
The biggest problem is that it happened suddenly, and there was no time to create distance.

If there is a distance of more than 20 kilometers beforehand, it is unlikely that a battleship will sink in two hours, and it can almost hold out until the B1B arrives and bombards it.

Neither the Second Fleet's high mobility nor its smoke generators actually possessed the ability to reverse the course of the battle; they simply happened to play a role.

Good news: The mysterious "Second Fleet of the High Seas" is not very powerful. As long as you remember not to be reckless and get too close, it does not pose a particularly great threat.

The bad news is that the primary responsibility for this battle lies with poor command, and the commander must bear the consequences.

After the Bismarck was hit again, Dalton called out to the other side:
"Captain Bismarck, you and your friends have proven your courage with your lives. If you surrender now, you will still be protected and receive the highest level of treatment. You will certainly not be imprisoned."

His response was the roar of 380mm cannons and the raising of the cross flag once again.

At 15:17 PM, the Bismarck, having exhausted all its damage control, met its end.

几十架破烂的水上飞机连掩护都不到，被找准机会的三架F14丢下8枚GBU-31和4枚GBU-16。

Upon hearing the warning from the reconnaissance plane, Tang Wen felt somewhat regretful that he hadn't equipped all the warships with torpedo launchers.

He hadn't anticipated engaging in combat at such close range; otherwise, if he had deployed the E-class's 95-knot light-speed torpedoes, with four quintuple launchers on each ship, the battle would have been one-sided. In the final moments, Tang Wen stood at the bridge hatch and looked up to see a small dot approaching from the sky.

Being attacked by an F-14 ground attack is a special privilege that others don't receive.

Sixteen bombs penetrated the superstructure and armor in succession, reducing the Bismarck's health to zero, and the flames of the explosion were finally no longer obscured by the smoke.

【Our battleship is sinking! 】

In fact, three out of the first six guided bombs hit their mark and sank the Bismarck. The subsequent ten were simply desecrations, continuously unleashing terrifying explosions on the Bismarck.

According to the safety rules for takeoff and landing, carrier-based aircraft are not allowed to land with live ammunition, so the remaining two F-14s also launched the remaining eight guided bombs in retaliation against these ruthless Hans.

The Bismarck, which was already sinking slowly, was hit by eight more bombs and broke in two during the secondary explosion, sinking rapidly.

Dozens of Ar 196s in the sky seemed to lose their footing after the warship sank, ignoring attempts to surrender and crashing into the sea one after another.

The once lively sky fell silent again with an eerie speed.

The USS New Jersey sailed toward the nearest USS Iowa and also sent some small boats to approach the USS Wisconsin, which was not yet fully submerged.

Meanwhile, two European destroyers that had been hesitant to join the battle arrived from afar.

While the HMS Sofia was trying to rescue the crew of the HMS Wisconsin who were scattered at sea, the HMS Southampton headed straight for the nearest HMS Glaisenau.

During the last naval battle in the Gulf of Aden, the investigation team found no wreckage or evidence, resulting in a lack of compelling physical evidence.

This time, Philger didn't plan to wait until after the event to salvage the ship. Instead, he wanted to retrieve something from the unsinkable warship now, or even see if there were any surviving crew members.

But at that moment, the Gresenau, which had been halfway up the sea, suddenly changed and began to sink into the seabed at a speed visible to the naked eye.

Because of the rapid descent, a small whirlpool was formed, and the massive ship began to spin within it, almost disappearing from the surface of the sea.

Felger immediately increased his speed, but less than half a minute later, the last trace of the Gneisenau disappeared from the sea.

Looking at the Bismarck again, this battleship, which had broken in the middle, was sinking just as quickly, with only a small section of its bow remaining.

While the sinking of the two warships might be somewhat understandable, the sinking of the Scharnhorst was far too obvious:
The stern of the USS Iowa didn't even leave the sea level; it was just tilting to the right and forward, indicating that it still had strong buoyancy.

The Scharnhorst, as if being dragged by a force, sank rapidly like the other two warships, even taking the Iowa down with it.

Dalton was the first to understand what had happened, and then he had someone on the USS New Jersey shout into the sea:
"Quickly, everyone in the sea, swim over here! Don't get sucked into the whirlpool! They've opened the sea valve!"

Such a rapid sinking speed can only be achieved by opening the main sea valve and all the sealed compartment doors.

Although he was shocked by the fact that none of the three warships escaped and instead voluntarily sank with them, he didn't think too much about it. He just didn't want the crew of the USS Iowa to be involved.

However, Philger panicked and shouted loudly into the radio:

"Organize them, Chief of Staff Dalton, quickly organize them to sink, and please board the ship to see if you can find their crew and equipment!"

Dalton frowned slightly: "This is the outcome chosen by the Second Fleet itself, and I respect them. As for the warships, frogmen and ships will come to salvage them later."

Seeing the ship sinking rapidly, even dragging the bow of the HMS Iowa down to the bottom of the sea, Philger shouted desperately:
"Think about the Battle of the Gulf of Aden. Once they sink, we'll get nothing!"

"The priority now is to save the surviving crew members; these warships are sunk here."

"If you want to salvage it, please do so!"

Dalton was a little annoyed. It was just salvaging a few shipwrecks, why was there such a rush?
If the sailors knew that Dalton was the kind of person who didn't prioritize crew members who fell overboard, that would truly make him infamous for eternity.

Signs of a whirlpool forming around the Scharnhorst were already visible. Dalton took one last, heartbroken look at the Iowa before continuing to direct the rescue efforts.

With a look of despair in Filger's eyes, the Scharnhorst towed the Iowa into the water before the Southampton even arrived.

A moment later, the whirlpool on the water disappeared.

At this point, all three battleships had disappeared from the sea.

Dalton hurriedly continued leading his men to rescue the USS Wisconsin, which was already half-sunk, but he still wanted to try to save it.

While salvaging the crew, the USS New Jersey assembled a damage control team of several dozen people, who climbed aboard the USS Wisconsin in an attempt to seize one last chance.

Every rescued Atlantic Fleet crew member involuntarily looked out to sea.

The Second Fleet in the High Seas was not only completely sunk, but all the crew members, including the commander, also went down with it. Not a single person called for help or took the initiative to escape.

When the HMS Southampton and HMS Sofia arrived a dozen minutes later to join the rescue team, an anxious Felger personally launched a small boat to the spot where the HMS Gresenau had just sunk and ordered divers to go down and collect evidence.

Half an hour later, Philge looked at the divers shaking their heads helplessly, his face pale, and he fell backward onto the small boat.

He then immediately inquired with the George and learned that the Tirpitz formation had sunk completely 20 minutes earlier under the attack of 4 F-14s and 4 F-18EFs, and a Ticonderoga-class destroyer was on its way at full speed to obtain certification.

The captain of the USS George proudly told him that the Second Fleet had been completely annihilated, but Philger was speechless for a long time. After a long while, he gave a chilling smile and muttered to himself:
"Time travel, is it really time travel?"

(End of this chapter)