Munitions Empire

"We're finished." As he watched warships catching fire and exploding in the distance, the Navy Commander of the Gobur Kingdom turned his head and said to Commander Shireck beside him, "My family works for your company and gets paid by you, so I have no choice but to stay here. But in fact, you know better than I do that our best option right now is actually to surrender."

"Impossible! If we surrender, I, you, all of our families, none of us will have a good ending! You know this better than I do!" In turn, Commander Shireck pointed his finger at the Navy Commander of the Gobur Kingdom, loudly reminding him.

They had long since sold their souls to the devil, and everything they had no longer belonged to them. So they had no choice but to follow this path into the darkness.

The Navy Commander of the Gobur Kingdom sighed. He knew he had no choice, so he moved his chest away from the other's finger and continued to watch the distant sea, watching another warship blow up.

They brought a total of 45 warships, and now only 30 remained, fleeing like panicked deer chased by a pack of wolves.

They ran in a frenzy, as the wolves behind them kept slaughtering them relentlessly, until the entire army was lost without any chance of escape.

In despair, he closed his eyes, not wanting to see those hopeless scenes. But the terrifying sound of explosions still echoed in his ears, making his body tremble uncontrollably.

"Boom!" Another Stuka Dive Bomber dropped its bomb. This time it missed, exploding in the sea and creating a huge splash, making the warships nearby seem much smaller by comparison.

There were still many Tang Army planes, but indeed few carried bombs. After all, most Stuka Dive Bombers had been sent to the Qi Country front, and there weren't many left. Your next journey awaits at My Virtual Library Empire

However, these few remaining Stuka Dive Bombers made such a shocking impression with their attacks that they left a deep mark on everyone.

Seeing these damn Tang Army planes buzzing around like flies that wouldn't go away, Commander Shireck became agitated again.

He always felt that his warship would be sunk soon, even feeling as if he could already sense the soggy feeling of being submerged in the water.

"We should think of a way..." He hadn't finished speaking when he heard the crew outside the bridge shouting loudly.

He saw them pointing at the distant sky, seemingly spotting some remarkable sight. He quickly pushed past the other officers on the bridge and went to the wing bridge, looking up to see groups of Flying Fortress Bombers.

The Flying Fortress Bombers flew at a very low altitude, so low that one could see the bomb bays already open on the planes skimming above the sea.

These bombers were arranged in a very dense formation, like dark clouds obscuring the sky, evoking a sense of despair in anyone who looked at them.

Even the Navy Commander of the Gobur Kingdom, who had never seen such a sight, became panic-stricken, as the bombers were obviously planning to fly across his entire fleet.

This action couldn't be a mere whim; it had to be based on some rationale. At that thought, he immediately had a bad premonition.

Soon, he witnessed what these planes were really up to. As the first bomb dropped, a rain of bombs began to fall from the large bombers.

At first, the bombs were somewhat scattered and clustered, but soon after being split by the turbulent air, they adjusted their angles—now all pointing nose-down, plummeting straight toward the sea surface.

At the rear of the fleet, water columns suddenly erupted from the ocean, followed by a second explosion into the sky, then a third, a fourth...

These water columns chased after each other, catching up with a warship at the very end of the fleeing Shireck fleet, and then its stern was rocked by a dreadful explosion.

The next second, a small black spot dived towards the bridge of this warship, followed by an awful explosion that blew the bridge into the air.

Water in the ship's gaps boiled again as the explosion lifted water columns high into the sky. The warship, speeding between such columns, appeared utterly disheveled.

The warship that had just managed to dodge and survive by turning, that Shireck warship, tried the same trick again, beginning to swerve for evasion.

But as it turned, a bomb that was falling directly hit the front deck in the midst of its motion, piercing through the armor and entering directly beneath the forward turret into the ammunition storage.

A spectacular explosion instantly blew off the bow of the ship; the lifted deck armor twisted and warped, with the severed part carrying the forward main gun turret flung into the neighboring waters.

That was several hundred tons being tossed aside, indicating just how powerful the explosion had been.

The warship, which had completely lost its ability to maneuver in an instant, had its front end pierced into the water, and with every rotation of the propeller at the stern, it pushed the vessel further into the sea.

"Motherf*cker!" Shireck's commander cursed aloud as he watched the dense explosions about to engulf them.

He truly hadn't anticipated that the enemy would use such a ruthless and immoral tactic to attack his fleet.

The previous dive-bombing seemed like a mere appetizer compared to the level bombing they were now facing.

"Damn it…" The commander in chief of the Gobur Kingdom's Navy watched his fleet being destroyed and cursed in despair.

Until moments ago, he was relieved, thinking that the number of enemy aircraft was decreasing and that they might have a chance at escape.

But in the blink of an eye, more planes arrived and launched a new round of attacks with even more brutal and unreasonable tactics.

As they both cursed the shameless and despicable air force of the Great Tang Kingdom, bombs poured down like rain where they were.

Warships in the distance burst into flames, explosions blew off parts from the decks, and the devastating blasts engulfed the entire bridge; the towering masts of the vessels slowly snapped, presenting a pitiful sight.

On the other side, a bomb directly hit the flagship of Shireck's raiding fleet, blossoming into an explosion on the aft deck, shredding the wooden deck and blowing away half of the stern.

The massive shock knocked everyone in the bridge to the ground. Shireck's commander looked toward the stern, and although the wall to the rear blocked his view, he still looked in the direction of the vibrations.

Then, a second bomb exploded in the middle part of the ship, swallowing a Maxim heavy machine gun that was firing at the sky, along with its gunner whose body was shattered into pieces, which, alongside the Maxim's parts, were flung into the sky.

Another bomb then struck the bow of Shireck's fleet flagship, blowing away the turret there. Thick smoke obscured the bridge's view as the fiery gusts poured into the bridge, and the foul stench of char made it hard to breathe.

Since the bombs carried by the Flying Fortress bombers were relatively small, mostly 250 kilograms and some even smaller aerial bombs, their penetration effect was slightly lacking.

Furthermore, most of these bombs hadn't yet been fitted with the cutting-edge delay fuses and were only equipped with traditional impact fuses.

Such fuses are generally less effective when it comes to damaging a ship's hull, but they are exceedingly effective at destroying the superstructure of a warship.

Even though being hit by these bombs didn't cause the warships to take on water rapidly and sink quickly, after such a blanket bombing, the ships' speeds had all decreased, and their deck firepower had almost completely fallen silent.

Barely managing to get on his feet, the commander in chief of the Gobur Kingdom's Navy, leaning on the nautical chart table with his hand, surveyed the havoc within the bridge.

Some, injured by the vibrations, lay bloodied on the floor, while others got up staggering, their arms clearly broken.

Although they hadn't been directly hit, it wasn't easy for the commanders inside the bridge. By the time they remembered who they were, their warship had already begun to tilt slightly.

The explosions and vibrations hadn't directly destroyed the hull, but they were still able to twist the steel plates, leaving cracks and gaps in the ship's body. The seawater pouring in from these wounds was not inconsiderable, and without proper damage control, it could become even more severe.

"Quick! Repair it! Repair the warship!" The somewhat experienced commander in chief of the Gobur Kingdom's Navy immediately issued the order. Having commanded sailing warships, he knew full well the catastrophic consequences if the ironclad warship wasn't saved in time.

The commander from Shireck, who had just managed to get up, was already shell-shocked. Lacking any real combat experience, and having just walked through death's door, he was paralyzed by fear.

The other warships at the front were now engulfed in the rain of bombs dropped in the carpet bombing, catching fire and exploding one after another.

The entire fleet had descended into an inferno. Aboard the leading warship, a gunner heroically raised his Maxim heavy machine gun and aimed at the dense cloud of bombers overhead, squeezing the trigger.

"Die, you devils! Ah!" He roared desperately as the side of the machine gun rattled with the jumping chain of bullets, and the casings clinked crisply as they fell onto the deck at his feet.

As he screamed, an aerial bomb plummeted straight down, growing ever larger in his eyes. Eventually, the bomb hit the machine gun's position and exploded, engulfing everything around it instantly.

The formation of Flying Fortress bombers roared past the fiery explosion, startling the pilot of one aircraft that was suddenly hit by bullets.