Ming Zuo

Chapter 1624 Edinburgh Naval Battle (4)

The bottom deck of a Tier 140 battleship is equipped with twenty guns.Seven warships fired a salvo and could fire [-] shells.

This number is really not much in today's naval battles, so the momentum is not very violent.

But in the end how powerful it is, the British who have been hit know best.

This round of salvo has indeed caused a lot of damage to the British.

It is not because of the high accuracy of the empire's artillery, but because of today's naval warfare tactics, the salvo shells will almost fall within a coverage area.

Linear arrays haven't been widely used outside of Imperial.

The tactics of the British Navy are still a swarm of bees.

The small boats rushed ahead, providing cover for the larger battleships and serving to confuse and harass the enemy forces.

Large warships are divided into several squads, and after close contact with the enemy, they concentrate their firepower in a local area to fight more and less.

Accumulate small victories into big victories, and finally achieve a comprehensive victory.

Before the invention of the linear array, this style of play was quite effective.

Both the British Navy and the Dutch Navy are masters of this tactic.

It's a pity that the British Navy encountered the Imperial Navy that had evolved in advance.

Without giving the British fleet a chance to rush in and strangle at close range, the Imperial Navy took full advantage of the longer range of its guns, and started artillery strikes from far away.

From the perspective of the imperial fleet, the dark British fleet covered the entire sea, as impenetrable as a herd of bison.

Although this formation is massive, it also increases the chance of hitting the Imperial Fleet's artillery.

Anyway, the cannonball hits in a straight line, and if it hits from the front of the British fleet, it may hit some ship.

Of course, even so many shells fell into the water.

But one-third of the shells have brought good results.

Because the British fleet is coming head-on, as long as it is hit by a shell, it will go deep from the bow of the ship to the interior of the sailing ship, forming a bloody wind all the way, and causing a lot of chaos.

Not to mention small ships, even large battleships cannot stop the artillery shells of the Imperial Navy.

Robert Blake watched with his own eyes that the Ark Royal battleship next to him was hit by a shell, and as a result, the entire bow of the ship was completely destroyed. The screams and smoke rising from the cabin even affected the vision of friendly troops.

The most serious was the Yorkshire.

This warship, which has gone through many battles and made outstanding achievements, is very unlucky.

A shell penetrated the interior, causing extensive damage and eventually knocking out the powder keg.

The cannonball itself has a scorching high temperature, and there are still flames under the friction all the way, which ignites the gunpowder on the spot, thus forming a martyrdom explosion.

A black cloud suddenly rose from the middle of the hull of the Yorkshire, and then the strong explosion shock wave pushed all the surrounding warships away.

The Yorkshire was broken into two pieces on the spot, erected straight towards the sky one after the other, and then sank slowly.

Many crew members hugged the broken walls, and the sound of crying and howling shook the sky, which also made many British people pale.

Robert Blake had no choice but to keep shouting.

"Speed ​​up, bite the Chinese fleet, and make them pay the price. Order the artillery on the bow of each ship to fire immediately!"

Heavy artillery is deployed at the bow of large warships to avoid dead ends.

Because this kind of artillery is placed alone, its caliber is very large, its power is unparalleled, and its range can reach an astonishing 500 meters.

At this time, the British warship had no way to cross the hull and attack the Imperial fleet with a side-spinning artillery group.I had no choice but to charge while fighting back with the artillery on the bow.

Although there are not many such artillery pieces, they are better than none at all.

As a result, it is conceivable that the sparse shells flew over, and all of them landed in the empty space, causing no damage to the imperial fleet.

When the imperial fleet attacked the British fleet, it covered one side, so it was able to achieve results.

When the British fleet fought back, it had to hit a thin line, and the difficulty can be imagined.

Not to mention today's smoothbore guns, even if a battleship during World War II wants to hit the enemy, with various technical bonuses, the probability is still very impressive.

After the guns on the lower deck are fired, the next is the upper deck.

De Ruyter did not run up to admire the artillery firing, but focused on observing how the Imperial Navy sorted out the artillery after firing.

He noticed that the naval guns of the Imperial Navy did not use two ropes to limit the recoil as in Europe, but the base was fixed in a huge iron frame.

The base of the artillery also has four wheels, which are precisely stuck in the inner frame of the iron frame.

After firing, the artillery recedes, but because of the restriction of the iron frame, the artillery will not leave the fixed range.

When the cannon retreated to the bottom of the iron frame, there was obviously something in the frame that acted as a buffer, causing the cannon to slowly stop.

De Ruyter quickly got down and looked into the iron frame.It turned out that there were two huge iron pieces on each of the two corners inside the iron frame.

He understood it all at once.

This should be a springy reed.

This discovery made him admire the whimsy of the Imperial Navy.

The next thing that deserves his attention is how the Imperial Navy handles the fired artillery.

I saw a soldier holding a huge iron cylinder, almost as thick as a shell, and then stuffed it through the muzzle.

There was only a sound of squeaking inside the barrel, and when it was taken out again, there was the sound of water flowing inside the iron cylinder.

He saw the soldier running away holding the iron cylinder, and after opening the back cover, what poured out was actually hot water.

Then I opened the tightly sealed box next to it, and the cold air hit my face.

This box is actually full of ice cubes.

The soldiers put the ice cubes into the iron cylinder, sealed it up again, and then concentrated on waiting for the next operation.

De Ruyter quickly came to his senses.

This iron cylinder is actually used to cool down the inside of the gun bore.

There is no doubt that this method is much more advanced than that of Europe.

On the European side, after the artillery is fired, it is necessary to use a wet mop to stuff it into the barrel, while cleaning and cooling down.

In many cases, it is even necessary to change the mop several times to cool down the temperature inside the bubble hall.

The moisture must then be removed with a dry mop before the cannon can be used again.

But such an approach must have seriously hindered the efficiency of artillery firing.

The Imperial Navy used iron cylinders filled with ice to cool the inside of the gun barrel without getting wet, and the speed was many times faster.

As for whether the paper-shell propellants used by the Imperial Navy will remain in the bubble hall...

De Ruyter found that the paper used by the Imperial Navy burned very quickly, leaving almost no noticeable residue, and of course it had little effect on the next use of the artillery.

Looking at each link, De Ruyter already felt that this time it was worth it.

(End of this chapter)