Fox of France

During the turn, the distance between the two sides approached to about four kilometers, and the British finally began to fire back at the French. However, the result of the British shelling was the same as that of the French - the shells didn't know where they flew, and none of them hit anyway, and the most recent one fell one or two hundred meters away from the target.

This is actually a very normal thing, because the naval guns of this era do not have stabilizers, and they are greatly affected by the sway of the ship. The North Atlantic Ocean is also notorious for its rough winds and high waves. So at this distance, it is really normal to miss the target.

The distance between the two sides continued to narrow. The number of French warships is larger, and in terms of speed, they also have the upper hand.

In fact, there is not much difference in the level of steam engines between Britain and France. If there is any gap, it is that the French steel is cheaper, so they don’t care much when they use steel, so it may be in terms of performance. The stability is slightly better.

However, because of the gap in ship type and propeller manufacturing, French ships are generally faster than British ships even if the performance of the steam engine used is comparable. Also because of this gap, in the civilian steamship market, British ships are almost completely unable to compete with French ships except at home and in their own colonies.

In addition, the British "Queen Elizabeth" had to control the speed due to damage, so the speed of the entire formation was suddenly pulled down a lot.

Fortunately, the British have long noticed that the French have an unshakable advantage in speed reduction, so when designing and building these ships, they simply abandoned the excessive pursuit of speed, and paid more attention to the stability and flexibility of the ships. .

A more stable ship can improve the accuracy of shelling, and more flexible steering can also make it difficult for opponents to occupy their own T heads. In addition, giving up certain requirements for speed is also convenient for adding armor, so the British warships of this era are quite similar in style to warships of a certain country in another time and space-they are all heavy armored cannons and iron turtles.

Of course, this is just a helpless approach. Because adopting this method, you may not suffer a loss in a specific battle with equal or even weaker troops, but you have to pay a strategic price, that is, the initiative on the battlefield. That is to hand over the initiative of whether to engage in the battle and whether to end the battle.

This choice is actually quite unfavorable for a country like Britain, which is full of colonies all over the world. If possible, the British, or the generals of the Royal Navy such as Nelson, would prefer to have an egg that can swing a hammer and jump around, and they don't want such a group of iron turtles.

However, this is no option. The strategic situation is also not their choice. If they only have a group of jumping eggs that can wield a sledgehammer, then when the French drive a group of tortoises wielding a sledgehammer to rush to land on the beach, they will be in trouble again. What's more, if everyone makes eggs, the French's eggs may roll faster.

The British felt that, relying on thick armor and large-caliber artillery, they could run faster against the French, but their armor was thinner, especially warships with significantly smaller cannons. Although they were at a disadvantage strategically, they were tactically inferior It has advantages. But now that they are fighting, the British discovered that there was a major problem with one of their original predictions.

The British divided the performance of warships into six aspects, namely, speed, maneuverability, and maintainability that belonged to nautical capabilities, and firepower, protection, and damage control that belonged to combat performance.

The British felt that French warships should be better than British warships in terms of speed and maintainability, while British warships had obvious advantages in vitality, protection, and maneuverability. As for damage control, the difference may not be too much, so the British feel that although the choice of fighting or not fighting is in the hands of the French, but in a real fleet decisive battle, as long as the number of the two sides is equal, the British should still have a slight advantage.

But judging from the tentative shelling at the beginning, the British must have made many mistakes in their estimation of the French warships, such as firepower. Although it seems that the artillery of the British battleships is much larger than that of the French, look at the French. With the amazing rate of fire of the artillery, Nelson felt that the British might not have any advantage in firepower.

As for defense, British battleships theoretically had thicker armor. But considering the level of smelting, it is actually hard to say whether the defense of British warships is really better than that of the French.

What's more terrible is that the numbers of the two sides are not equal in today's battlefield. In Admiral Nelson's squadron there was only one new battleship, and three so-called supercruisers (the British supercruisers were a bit smaller compared to their French counterparts, and had the same speed as the French supercruisers , but it is only at the level of an ordinary armored cruiser in terms of defense. Of course, the British super cruiser is also cheaper in terms of cost.), and six armored cruisers.

But the French don't have to worry about the British army landing on their own coast. Therefore, they can naturally send much more warships in this operation, so the French army has a clear advantage in terms of numbers. Today, in the fleet of Admiral Treville, there are two battleships, two super cruisers, and as many as fifteen armored cruisers. Excluding battleships and super cruisers, the number of armored cruisers is more than double that of the British army.

In order to effectively exploit the numerical advantage, Marshal Treville divided his fleet into two detachments. The first detachment consists of the "Inberado", the battleship "Caesar", and six armored cruisers. Their task is to suppress the British battleship "Queen Elizabeth" and three other super cruisers. The second detachment is composed of the super cruisers "National Wealth" and "Eternal Peace", as well as nine other cruisers. Their task is to first attack and destroy the British cruisers, and then focus on attacking the British main ships.

After seeing the lineup of the French fleet, General Nelson understood that there might not be any good results in this battle. The opponent's advantage is too obvious. Nelson feels that if he is the commander of the French fleet, most of the British fleet will not be able to escape.

So while the two sides were still slowly finding their heads with shells, Nelson gave the order to break out of the siege to the super cruiser "Yorkshire", which was in the best condition in the fleet.

There are two considerations for this command. The first is to let the country quickly know the battlefield war that is happening here. The prospects for this war are quite bleak, and if the country knows nothing about the situation of this war, it will lead to more dangers. Therefore, there must be ships to break out and bring the news of the battle back to the country.

Secondly, in the French army, only their supercruisers could catch up with the British supercruisers. In comparison, the French supercruisers had the superiority in both firepower and defense. However, the speeds of the two sides are actually about the same. After all, the British sacrificed protection and firepower, so they can't get nothing, right? And super cruisers are, by nature, crispy. The armor of the French super cruiser is designed to withstand the artillery of ordinary armored cruisers, so although the armor of the French super cruiser is slightly better, it cannot stop the cannons of the British super cruiser. Of course, in order to obtain enough artillery power to penetrate the French supercruisers, the British had to reduce the number of cannons. Therefore, the superior firepower of the French supercruisers refers to their more cannons, not the greater power of the cannons.

So in the current situation, if the French use a super cruiser to chase the British super cruiser, then the French may have a certain advantage in the battle between the two sides, but victory may not be guaranteed. Be careful, it is not impossible to be killed by the British. But if two super cruisers are sent to catch up, the pressure on this side can be reduced a lot.

After giving the order to break out, Nelson ordered the "Z" flag to be hoisted on the mast of the "Queen Elizabeth", and at the same time issued instructions to other ships in the fleet through the semaphore: "The United Kingdom requires all soldiers to perform their duties."

A ship or two might be able to escape, but the entire fleet is absolutely impossible. So, the only thing they can do is to keep fighting and try to cause more damage to the enemy.

"Even if we are all sunk by the French, we must at least make the French fleet lose the ability to continue fighting for a short time. In order to buy more time for the United Kingdom."

The French simply ignored the "Yorkshire" that escaped from the team, but continued to use the first detachment to oppress the British fleet to turn, and at the same time the second detachment began to circle towards the rear of the British fleet.

Nelson noticed his opponent's move to split the fleet into two. He understood the opponent's meaning, first used two battleships to hold back his main force, and then used other battleships to wipe out his armored cruisers first, taking advantage of their numerical advantages Take out those armored cruisers quickly, and then focus on the "Queen Elizabeth".

Nelson knew that because of the huge gap in strength, he was actually unable to break the opponent's move. If Nelson divides the few warships in his hands into battle, it will be in the arms of the French. So Nelson decided that, regardless of the French's tricks of splitting into a joint attack, he would directly use all his strength to pounce on the French first team.

Nelson knew that this move was actually expected by the French. He even knew that in the French plan, the first detachment with two "Inberado-class" battleships was like a chopping block, while the second detachment, which was faster and had more ships, was the hammer. If one's own fleet falls into the pincer attack of these two detachments, it will be very dangerous.

But Nelson still chose to hit it head-on. Because the cooperation of the hammer and the anvil takes time. Nelson knew that because of the disparity in strength, he had no chance of winning this battle. Therefore, the goal of this battle was not to win, but to make the French pay the highest price possible. out of combat. So he decided to take a risk, to take a gamble, betting that he could do enough damage to the Frenchman's anvil before the Frenchman's hammer fell from behind his back.

The first detachment of the French was still pressing down on the British fleet and turned around. In this way, after a few more turns, the second detachment could get in with a T-head advantage and hit the British with fierce artillery fire. And if the British fleet doesn't turn around, they will face the T-head bombardment of the first detachment.

But at this time, the "Cambridgeshire", which was at the forefront of the British army, seemed to have turned its rudder counterclockwise, suddenly turned sharply to the right, and then rammed straight towards the first detachment.

This is tantamount to sending yourself to the position of the enemy's T head. But because the distance between the two sides was already quite close before, as long as they bite the bullet and endure one or two rounds of shelling, the British fleet will have the opportunity to insert directly into the formation of the French first detachment, allowing the positions of both sides to change from T to T. became X.

Of course, in this process, the "Cambridgeshire" supercruiser, as the first capital ship, will definitely be attacked by the French army, but her actions can cover the "Elizabeth" behind. By the time she was sunk, the "Queen Elizabeth" was very close to the enemy. She has fairly strong defenses, and her cannons are surprisingly powerful, although they don't have a high rate of fire. As long as even one or two shots can be effectively hit, it is enough to cause huge damage to the French warship. Even if it is not enough to sink them, it will keep them in the shipyard for a while.

Of course, if the "Queen Elizabeth" rushed up like this, and was bombarded by the first detachment at such a short distance, she would only be beaten worse. I'm afraid that the entire long-story building will be smashed to pieces by the French. But these damages will not make the "Queen Elizabeth" lose its combat effectiveness, her engines can still roar, and her cannons can still roar. It's just that her cannon fire rate is too slow, much slower than the French.

"The main gun is ready to fire, and it must not be fired without our order." Nelson issued such an order again. Since it is difficult to hit with long-distance fire, it is better to rush to the same distance as the bayonet and use the main gun to fire against the armor of others.

The British warships turned far more flexibly than the French, so when the British made a sharp turn and hit them head-on, the French had no time to turn and avoid. But Admiral Treville felt that he didn't need to turn to avoid at all. He knew exactly what Nelson's move meant. If he was in Nelson's position, he would also take this approach, because this is the most likely way to cause more damage to the French under the current situation.

But Nelson's doing so meant that the "Elizabeth" had to bear the fire of the T-head. Admiral Treville felt that it was completely possible to fight against each other.