Munitions Empire-Chapter 1166: Dawn is Approaching 1086

The Tang Army was, of course, expanding its victories—not only on South Island but also by continuing to attack the main fleet of the Mirage Country Navy at sea.

This time, the offensive was launched by the 7th Destroyer Flotilla of the Great Tang Navy. Positioned on the flank of the Mirage Country fleet, their angle of attack was far superior.

As the frontline commander, Shen Haifeng had been waiting for about half an hour but still hadn’t received a reply from headquarters. His request to allow damaged warships to retreat had disappeared like a stone sinking into the sea, with no response at all.

The Great Tang Navy gave Shen Haifeng no time to wait. According to their plan, they launched an even more ferocious assault about 150 kilometers from the landing zone.

One Styx Anti-ship Missile after another penetrated the Mirage Country Naval fleet. In just 15 minutes, two cruisers were struck, and a battleship was damaged.

Although the damage to the ships hit this time didn’t seem particularly severe, certain details filled Shen Haifeng with dread.

These warships weren’t hit in any vital areas, which could be considered good news for the Mirage Navy—but every hit landed on the warships’ sides!

All the signs pointed to the presence of a Great Tang fleet on the Mirage flank, armed with those bizarre weapons that boasted terrifying accuracy!

Worried about the vulnerability of his fleet’s flanks, Shen Haifeng feared even greater losses from exposure.

From his perspective, the forward profile of a warship presented the smallest target area, while the side was significantly larger—and worse still, many parts of a ship’s side lacked proper armor protection, making them its weakest points.

Sure enough, while Shen Haifeng was fretting over more losses, a Styx Anti-ship Missile directly struck the side of the Mirage Navy’s Courage Battleship.

Although the Courage was an older battleship, it was still a crucial component of the Mirage Navy’s firepower. freeweɓnøvel.com

The Courage Battleship, armed with 10 main guns of 350mm caliber, had a conventional turret layout: Turrets #1 and #2 were stacked at the bow, a third turret was positioned between two smokestacks midship, and Turrets #4 and #5 were stacked at the aft.

This arrangement allowed the battleship to protect more firepower with relatively short stretches of armored defense, considered a mature design. However, its design had one glaring issue—its magazines and boiler fuel were located in proximity beneath the gun barrels, posing a significant safety hazard.

Normally, few enemy weapons could penetrate a battleship’s thick outer armor to damage its internal structure and expose this vulnerability.

But the Tang Army’s Styx Anti-ship Missile easily pierced the Courage’s 200mm to 300mm main armor belt—as though it was paper.

The missile’s furious jet of heat tore through every compartment in its path, ravaging them until its energy was fully dissipated.

With a 500-kilogram warhead and nearly supersonic penetration capabilities, the missile effortlessly delivered flames to the core of the battleship.

The Styx Anti-ship Missile that breached Courage’s side armor directly ignited its boilers… Flames erupted instantly, and the boilers, subjected to high pressure, exploded. The explosion then destroyed the watertight division, spreading fire to the midship magazine.

Before anyone could flood the magazine compartments to contain the fire, the Courage Battleship’s magazine detonated! A massive explosion tore apart the middle of the vessel, twisting its structure and hurling its superstructure into the air.

One of the smokestacks collapsed entirely, while the smaller-caliber guns and the recently added anti-aircraft guns were all obliterated. A moment earlier, the battleship had been accelerating to keep pace with the fleet, but its speed now plummeted to under 10 kilometers per hour.

With the side plating collapsing under the vibrations, seawater rushed into the ship’s interior. The Courage was now forced to slow down for damage control in a desperate attempt to save itself.

The strike demonstrated to Shen Haifeng that, while most Tang attacks targeted superstructures, they could still inflict catastrophic damage on a massive ship displacing over 30,000 tons at full load!

Yet before Shen Haifeng could even regret his situation, the outermost heavy cruiser of his fleet took a direct hit from a Styx Anti-ship Missile.

Flames soared immediately, and the fire spewing from the cruiser’s smokestack terrified sailors on nearby Mirage ships.

Moments later, the cruiser named Divine Tiger broke in half. It became the first Mirage warship to sink that night, beating the second by a full ten minutes.

The Divine Tiger was not a new vessel to begin with, designed heavily in favor of speed, which allowed it to keep pace with the fleet.

However, its weak defenses and poorly designed ammunition stowage made its demise seem almost inevitable.

The ship’s elongated hull was nearly over-penetrated by the Styx Anti-ship Missile, but the missile fortuitously struck its smokestack and an ammunition magazine for its newly installed anti-aircraft guns. These compartments acted as an additional layer of armor, allowing the Styx Missile to unleash its full power.

The ignited ammunition triggered a chain of explosions, transforming the cruiser into a spectacular fireball.

"General! If this continues, the entire fleet will be annihilated!" an anxious staff officer warned Shen Haifeng, hoping the commander would order a retreat. But such hopes were destined to be dashed.

Shen Haifeng sighed and replied, "Headquarters’ orders are that the fleet must head south! Maintain speed! Execute the orders!"

The staff officer froze for a few seconds before nodding heavily and returning to his station. Meanwhile, the Mirage battleship New Island had just been struck by a Styx Anti-ship Missile and was also ablaze.

As the Mirage Navy fleet pressed forward, more warships sustained damage. Their previously organized formation began to resemble a chaotic arrowhead <----- formation.

To Shen Haifeng’s bitter amusement, nearly half the fleet’s ships were burning, making the fleet look like it was marching forward with torches held aloft.

The good news was that it was already five or six in the morning; if they could persevere a little longer, they might hold out until dawn. The bad news? Daylight didn’t seem likely to offer them any advantage.

In its current state, even if this fleet reached the Tang landing zone, Shen Haifeng doubted they had a chance in a gun duel with the Tang fleet.

According to Mirage intelligence, the Tang Navy had at least six modern battleships deployed. On paper, the fleet under Shen Haifeng’s command was already at a clear disadvantage.

The Shen Battleship and its sister ship, the Goblin Battleship, represented the Mirage Navy’s ultimate treasures. Each was equipped with formidable 460mm-caliber main guns. The technology for these guns was partly purchased from the Shireck Consortium.

It was said these gun designs were largely completed by the Great Tang Group, but due to their high cost, they had never been deployed on Great Tang Navy battleships.

Yet for Mirage Country, the weapons were a treasure beyond compare, and they had installed a total of 12 of these main guns on their battleships! Yes, their new battleships featured a 2-barrel-per-turret configuration with two turrets forward and one aft.

The Shen-class was not a direct copy of the Yamato-class but a scaled-down version. Mirage lacked the resources of Japan to build such massive warships.

In reality, the displacement of the Shen Battleship and Goblin Battleship was only about 50,000 tons—far short of Yamato-class behemoths. Mirage could only build so many battleships by downsizing.

The Mirage strategy aimed to leverage the caliber advantage of their new battleships’ guns to overwhelm Tang battleships in artillery duels… But thus far, they hadn’t even had a chance to directly engage the Tang Navy battleships.

The pre-dawn hours were always the hardest, and for Shen Haifeng, it was no exception. He racked his brains for a way to face the potential appearance of Tang aerial forces after dawn.

By then, he would have to endure attacks from the same devastating missiles that had punished them all night, while also contending with a barrage of enemy aircraft… He wasn’t even sure if they could close the distance to the Tang landing zone, which seemed simultaneously within reach and impossibly far away.

He hoped for support from Zero Fighters at daybreak, but unfortunately, Shenwu Zhong couldn’t muster enough aircraft to make Shen Haifeng optimistic: Shenwu Zhong promised air support but could provide only 20 Zero Fighters and 18 Dragon Bombers...

Yes! Shenwu Zhong had sent everything he had to cover the navy, even deploying outdated Dragon Bombers as fighters.

While Shen Haifeng was strategizing how to cope with a battleground about to grow more complex at dawn, a lookout on one of the Mirage Navy’s outer destroyers spotted something approaching across the sea.

Suddenly, he realized it was a Tang torpedo! He rang the brass bell beside him and yelled down to his comrades, pointing at the approaching object.

A torpedo had already crossed paths with their destroyer. Many sailors saw its white trail intersect with the destroyer’s side but braced in terror, expecting the dreaded collision and explosion to follow—but nothing happened.

The white streak passed through the destroyer, speeding toward the heart of the Mirage fleet. That’s when they realized the torpedo’s depth setting wasn’t meant for smaller ships like theirs.

"Quick! Send a transmission! Alert the fleet! Torpedoes! Watch out for enemy torpedoes…" the destroyer’s captain shouted, his face pale. As soon as he issued the warning, a massive fountain of seawater erupted alongside a cruiser twice the destroyer’s size in the fleet’s rear.

The torpedo’s warhead exploded underwater, twisting the cruiser’s frame, lifting it out of the water, and then slamming it back down violently into the waves...