The Sun Never Sets In Spain

When the reconnaissance ship of the main fleet came near the "Cunningham", it happened to collide head-on with the Italian ship.

At this time, the decoy fleet was still being chased and running around, but the "Gran Canaria" and "Island Reef" that came to investigate did not see them.

But since the Italian ship is here, the decoy fleet must be around.

This made the sailors on the reconnaissance ship breathe a sigh of relief. It was almost 5:30, 2 hours later than the scheduled ambush time. They were all worried about what happened to the decoy fleet.

After the two sides saw each other's figure clearly, the Italians fired at the first time, apparently taking the opposite ship as part of the decoy fleet.

This was exactly what the Spaniards had. Neither "Gran Canaria" nor "Island Reef" meant to fight back, so they chose to flee all the time.

The two commanders Rodriguez and Badoglio didn't know about this small conflict, and they didn't even know that an Ottoman merchant ship was sunk by Italy.

The Italian fleet is tired of chasing on the high seas, especially when the other side takes itself in circles like this, it is ill-intentioned no matter how you look at it.

Badoglio believes that the Spaniards have either contacted France or are waiting for reinforcements from Rome.

He guessed that the harassment fleet ahead might have an agreement with the large forces in the Roman port. When the time is up, there will be a main fleet to support it.

Although determining the location is a hassle, many merchant ships passing by can provide assistance.

If it hadn't been for the sinking of an ironclad ship before, it would be difficult for them to go back, and they would have retreated long ago.

"Turn around! Let's retreat!" Badoglio retreated from the deck and ordered in a deep voice.

Major General Catano waited for a few moments and wanted to say something, but in the end he kept silent.

This is already the second time Bagdoglio has proposed to return, and anyone can see that he is much more determined than before.

In fact, Bagdoglio still has a thought in his heart, that is, the Spanish harassment fleet is likely to continue to interfere with their return journey.

Saying that he can't take this opportunity to make the other side pay some price, at least it can make this operation appear less failed.

Therefore, although he ordered the return journey, he still put the gunner on standby and stretched the formation of the fleet.

It is a pity that he miscalculated. In the previous series of operations, the decoy fleet suffered heavy losses. Rodriguez believed that he had no ability to continue the mission.

Not to mention how much risk would be taken to provocation, even if it succeeded, without the cooperation of the main fleet, their efforts would be futile.

A group of Spanish officers just stood at the stern, silently watching the distance between the Italian warships and them grow further and further.

Seeing that the atmosphere was somewhat depressed, Osvaldo comforted: "Well, we sank an ironclad ship on the opposite side. Even if the mission fails, it cannot be considered a failure."

Everyone nodded in agreement, sinking the iron armored ship with a wooden warship, this is the first time in history, and they will definitely be rewarded for this incident.

Rodriguez sighed, "I just hope that Major Ruben is still alive..."

Everyone just wanted to agree with their boss and chased the heroes by the way, but their thoughts were disrupted by the sudden change.

In their sight, a small cruiser that hadn't disappeared in the distance fired a cannon at the distance inexplicably.

Even if the ocean is generally calm, the sound of the waves and sea breeze will never be small. If the shells didn't hit them, nothing could be heard.

After the initial consternation, everyone suddenly thought of a possibility.

"Quick! Give me the telescope!"

After taking the binoculars from the watchman, Rodriguez glanced hurriedly.

He was immediately sure—a naval battle of a large scale was taking place over there!

"Hahaha, turn around, go and join the Lieutenant General!"

...

The fleet at war with Italy in the distance is naturally the main Spanish fleet led by Morales.

After receiving reports that the "Gran Canaria" and "Island Reef" had discovered the Italians, they rushed here at full speed, and now they just collided with the returning Italians.

There is no nonsense when the two meet, just to open fire is to do it.

The difference is that the main Spanish fleet has 11 armored ships, while the Italian fleet has only 9 armored ships after sinking one.

In addition, because the Italian fleet has been chasing the decoy fleet at high speed, the formation is very open, rather loose, and the ships cannot take care of each other at all.

With mental arithmetic and unintentional, the Italian fleet fell into a great disadvantage at the beginning.

At 6:57, the two sides launched an artillery bombardment. The Italian ship hurriedly met the enemy and directly exposed the ironclad ship "Roma" to the group of enemies from Rome.

The huge 280mm artillery equipped on the Zaragoza directly smashed the propeller of the Roma, making it a floating target on the sea.

Next, the Spaniards only need to continue to project firepower on it, and then they can steadily capture the head of another ironclad ship.

However, they did not do this. Morales' tactical thinking was much bolder than the Italians. After an initial round of firepower projection, he directly seized the opportunity of the loose Italian formation and entered with a column of iron-clad ships. Among the enemies.

It only took 20 minutes for Morales to complete this action, and almost no Italian counterattack was received during the whole process.

At this time the Italian warships were still trying to gather in order to obey the command of General Badoglio.

It's a pity that they can't presume this point. A cluster of 11 iron-clad ships lay in the center of the battlefield, like an insurmountable copper wall and iron wall, which strongly divided the Italian fleet into two parts of 3+5.

The battle quickly turned into a melee.

Spain has an absolute advantage in close combat, because the three iron-clad ships completed in the past two years from 1869 to 1870 were equipped with collision angles.

And these 3 iron armored ships are all smaller escort-class iron armored ships, they are flexibly interspersed in the battlefield, whenever anyone can't stand the fire suppression and tries to evade, they will rush up to those guys.

Relying on this simple and easy tactic, the losses of the Italian fleet have increased sharply, while the losses of Spain are very few.

Especially after the decoy fleet came to support.

How can the Italians not know that they are in an ambush?

They are at a complete disadvantage in terms of quantity, morale, tactics, firepower and other factors that can affect the situation of the battle. The situation is far worse than the 1866 Battle of Lisa!

The Italians who knew that there was no chance of winning tried to escape, but they did not have a unified dispatch and fell into close combat. It is undoubtedly an idiot to want to escape with the power of a ship.

The Spanish warships quickly caught up and sent them into the sea one by one.

The escape of a single ship accelerated the defeat of Italy.

The battle lasted only three hours, and the remaining Italian fleet all raised the white flag.

From today, one of the most powerful naval forces in the Mediterranean will no longer exist.