Warhammer: Hail to the Void Lords!.

Chapter 390 05.0389: "Great Turn in Front of the Enemy"

"Lord Daros (Moonlight-class cruiser), I am the acting captain of the flagship, and I am here to convey the order from the fleet commander.

Please immediately make an emergency vector turn to a 90-degree azimuth, then accelerate. Our ship will follow your wake and perform accompanying maneuvers."

"Acting Captain? Wait, are you sure about this order?"

The captain of the Lord Daros looked at the holographic projection of a captain who seemed too young and felt a little unbelievable about the order.

But almost at the same time, the voice of the fleet commander, Commodore Edward Perroux, came from the holographic projection: "Execute the order immediately, Captain Rotheram. Whether the fleet can survive the pincer attack depends on the maneuvers that can be carried out now."

"But is it too early to turn now? And turning at a 90-degree angle is likely to cause confusion in the maneuvers of subsequent ships."

Horatio was certainly aware of Captain Rotheram's concerns.

This nearly right-angle turn requires the warships to immediately activate their side high-energy steering boosters, and all warships must execute it in a uniform manner after arriving at the designated time, not too early or too late.

However, the engine output and acceleration of the Imperial Navy cruiser, the Voss-class light cruiser, and the Dreadnought-class light cruiser are different.

If one is not careful, a huge gap will appear in the line of the entire fleet, and it may even hit the engine of the turning battleship in front, which requires extremely high accuracy in controlling the speed.

At the moment, they are about to be attacked from both sides. If a gap is revealed by a sharp turn in front of the enemy, or a collision accident occurs, it will be tantamount to exposing their own weaknesses. Such a wrong decision may destroy the entire fleet.

"I believe in the organization and training of our naval colleagues on board. We are the Gothic Fleet, the heroic fleet of the Human Empire. We can do what others cannot do, and we can do better than others!"

Brigadier General Edward Peru spoke eloquently and seemed to have great confidence in his subordinates.

"Colonel, the Chaos Fleet intends to cut through the center of our fleet if we do not make a large turn in front of the enemy and speed up.

Then when we maneuver with the shortest turning radius of the fin rudder, the enemy ship must have calculated the corresponding interception route, and we will still be caught in the middle and attacked from both sides. "Horatio explained.

What the young captain said made sense. The silent naval colonel immediately compared the distance between the Chaos Fleet and the Gothic Strike Group, then used a scriber to compare the lateral maneuvering space and found a problem.

Hiss, at this distance, even if the maneuver is successfully executed, won’t the enemy ships still have room to maneuver and insert themselves into the battle line and cut off the battle line?

Although it is a bit difficult, if the opponent is not afraid of death and just rams into us, we can still force a path through our fleet.

When the colonel was about to raise this point, he looked up and caught a glimpse of four Cobra-class destroyers appearing 300 kilometers to his left.

They did not sail in silence, but instead all ship systems were running at full power, making a big show of their presence, as if to let the enemy see that they were on high alert, ready to release torpedoes.

The colonel immediately understood the young acting captain's arrangement.

"Yes, report to the flagship. Our ship will immediately execute the maneuver order."

Afterwards, Lord Daros activated its side high-energy steering thrusters, and the entire warship suddenly turned sideways as if being held by an invisible giant hand, making a nearly right-angle turning maneuver.

"All ships will immediately turn sharply to a 833.439-degree angle when they reach coordinate 90. At the same time, Ikaros Storm (Provocation-class light cruise carrier), your ship will now turn in an arc to the port side of our ship to receive combat protection.

When the Ikaros Storm was maneuvering, the Ultramar Cavalry (Dreadnought-class light cruiser) and the War Will Forever (Dreadnought-class light cruiser) from the Karl Dunyash fleet immediately increased their power to shorten the distance between them, and the light cruisers maintained a compact maneuvering distance of 6 kilometers apart.

Commodore Peru calmly watched as Horatio issued a series of fleet maneuver orders that were almost completely consistent with his own strategic conception based on the plan he had previously submitted, with a faint smile on his face.

As soon as the order was given, the Defiant-class light cruiser carrier slowly turned, broke away from the battle line, and headed towards the side of the Indefatigable, protected by the Indefatigable's broad and slender hull from behind.

Then, two Dreadnought-class light cruisers of the Carl-Duniyash fleet followed immediately. Horatio sat on the command throne and watched the Lord Dalros turn and speed forward, but the arc it turned was slightly too far, so the port steering booster was pushed briefly again before it corrected to a 90-degree angle and continued sailing.

This caused the Lord Daros to waste some of the afterburner's reserve energy, which in turn resulted in its afterburner cruising distance being shortened by nearly 100 kilometers.

Horatio saw this, and he deployed the Cobra destroyer squadron in order to increase the tolerance rate of the fleet's maneuvers.

Lord Daros entered the expected battle line, and now it was the turn of the battlecruiser Indefatigable.

"Power department, all high-energy steering thrusters on the starboard side are at three-quarters power! Helmsman, full left rudder!"

"Yes! Full left!" the helmsman shouted, repeating the young acting captain's order in reverse.

"Yes, sir! Broadside power group, immediately activate the starboard high-energy steering afterburner boost engine at three-quarter power!"

The huge 5.3-kilometer-long hull of the Indefatigable turned urgently like a dragon swinging its tail, propelled by the sudden force of the side attitude adjustment nozzle.

The scene outside the porthole in front of Horatio changed rapidly, and even a shadow appeared for a moment. Many reserve officers who had just boarded the ship half a year ago had adverse reactions when they saw the colorful scene in front of them, and some people even vomited.

But Horatio was not at all dizzy. He was fully focused, using a compass in his mind. When the compass in his mind was almost at the 90-degree angle, he immediately gave the order to turn the rudder.

"Straighten the rudder!" He stood up and shouted to the helmsman.

"Straighten the rudder!" The helmsman quickly turned the rudder straight with the help of his assistant.

Unlike the Lord Daros, the Indefatigable's high-energy steering was perfect, almost pointing straight to a 90-degree azimuth in one go, with a deviation of no more than 1 degree. There was no need to correct the course, and there was no need to open the port steering afterburner for additional thrust.

Commodore Edward Perroux observed Horatio's command and asked the clerk who was in charge of recording the log beside him to add another entry to the captain's log:
Acting Captain Horatio Cochrane executed a textbook perfect emergency turn at 8:21 Terra time today.

The greenskin fleet, emitting billowing smoke, continued to charge, but even with the magical creations of Anxunsi, these crudely made engines had to temporarily sail at cruising speed and be cooled by the big mechanics after a long-term afterburner charge that even the Imperial Navy warships could not withstand.

The nearest of them was about 2300 kilometers away from the most prominent Endurance-class light cruiser of the Gothic Strike Group fleet.

For a moment, shells flew across the space. The Gothic fleet made a sharp turn while calibrating the trajectory and fired at the green gunboats and attack ships running around between the two.

The candidate officers on the Macro Cannon and Light Spear command platforms were sweating profusely as they quickly retrieved the calculation formulas in their minds. In this difficult environment, even many experienced warrant officer gunners encountered the phenomenon of missing shots with large errors.

As a result, the macro gun officers and light spear officers had to personally help the candidate officers on the starboard gun control command platform to correct the parameters.

"Report! The enemy Chaos Fleet is trying to make a sharp right turn, blocking our maneuvering route and cutting into the port side of our fleet!"

The Lookout sent the latest maneuver warning of the enemy fleet.

"Mr. Peru, it's time." The acting captain looked at the fleet commander, and the two nodded to each other.

"'Abyss Destroyer' destroyer squadron 1, launch the first round of torpedo salvos, forcing the enemy's lead ship to abandon its turn!"

"Yes, Commander!" The silent holographic projections of the four naval lieutenant colonels who had been on standby all the time responded in unison.

laugh!
16 Helios-class torpedoes, with flames gushing from their tails, charged into the cold void with sharp weapons.

(End of this chapter)