Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 557 The Tyrrhenian Sea ([-])

Another shell hit the poop of the "San Diego", the glass shattered and the captain's cabin was full of mess.

"Your Excellency, the 'Saint Nicholas' has withdrawn from the battle, the ship is taking in water, and the situation looks very difficult." A series of anxious reports sounded in Baron Guevara's ears. The baron of the nightmarish Downs sea battle tightly pursed his lips and said nothing.

In fact, there is no need for him to say anything more. The people on the east coast have unexpectedly many large-caliber artillery, and their power is also unexpectedly large, and their navy's professionalism is also unexpectedly professional. In short, in this battle It is a shame that the Mediterranean Fleet Task Force, which has the upper hand in the number of ships, has gradually fallen into a disadvantage.Baron Guevara even recalled involuntarily that during the Battle of Downs, the Spaniards, who had 70 warships, initially faced an enemy (the Dutch) with only a dozen warships, and their tonnage was not as good as them.

However, the ability of the Dutch in melee combat was unexpectedly strong. In the close-range melee, the Spanish navy performed poorly in the initial battle with the Dutch due to the smoke and low visibility on the battlefield, coupled with their chaotic command and dispatch. The Spanish ships were wounded by shelling from their own warships.At this time, their commander was unforgivably shaken, and ordered 70 warships in the entire fleet to flee into the Downs anchorage in front of more than a dozen warships in the Netherlands. The fleet grew to over 100 and was eventually dealt a devastating blow by the Dutch fleet.Since then, the Spanish navy has lost its ability to take the initiative to attack. The remaining navy can only barely defend the Caribbean Sea, the Southern Netherlands and the mainland, and its strength and morale have fallen to the bottom.

For the Spaniards, the past few years should have been a good time to clean up military discipline and restore strength, but because the Spaniards were trapped on multiple fronts, their national strength was wasted.Coupled with the continuous evacuation of the Genoese from Spain for many years after 1627, Spain's economic situation deteriorated rapidly, and the government did not have much financial resources to rebuild the navy.In the past few years, only two or three ships have been launched every year, most of which are of poor tonnage and artillery, and there is not even a single ship like the "San Diego" that can serve as the flagship of the navy.The glorious Spanish navy, whose morale, morale, and strength have fallen to such a low level, always makes its own people feel sorry for them, and makes the enemy applaud.

"Boom! Boom!" The 24-pound and 32-pound shells tore through the air with a sharp piercing sound, and slammed into the "San Juan Baptista" just to the southwest of the "San Diego". " on both sides of the sign.These four powerful battleships on the east coast are not only extremely fast and flexible in steering, but also have powerful firepower. Just now, the slamming attack forced the 300-ton brig "St. Nicholas" to withdraw from the battle.The sailors of the poor Spanish warship are currently struggling with the accumulation of sea water in the cabin, but it seems that the situation is not good, and they seem to be difficult to plug the hole before sinking.

The four "August [-]th" class battleships were like ferocious hyenas on the African prairie. Relying on their flexible steering, they began to besiege the peripheral Spanish warships one after another, beating the enemy to the ground.After the enemy ship escaped, they stopped pursuing and continued to attack inward. After all, their primary goal was to ensure the safety of the merchant fleet.If the entire merchant fleet was wiped out, even if they wiped out the Spanish fleet, it would be a great failure.

After spending more than half an hour knocking the "San Juan Baptista" out of the battle and fleeing to the southeast, the four battleships ignored the little shrimp and turned to rely on the upper hand again. The advantage seized the T prefix, and then continued to fire at the largest warship on the battlefield today-the "San Diego".At the same time, they also used their flexible maneuverability to repeatedly adjust the course, so that the "San Diego" was still unable to engage the enemy with all its firepower, and could only face the enemy with some artillery. This made the Spanish ship that had already endured fifty or sixty shells today The flagship looked precarious, as if it would be sunk in the blue Tyrrhenian Sea at any moment.

"Sir, the 'Rock of Cadiz' is entangled! The 'Abbot' was attacked by a Spanish brigantine and was shot more than ten rounds by visual estimation; The sailboat is surrounded, it looks very bad, those Spaniards must want to seize the ship! They brought a lot of troops, and they tried to capture our transport ship completely!" Jiang Yaohui swallowed, and the hands holding the binoculars were tense. The joints are white.

"Use more hot bombs and chain bombs to speed up the settlement of the 'San Diego'. You don't need to sink it, just force it to withdraw from the battle." Lu Ming put down the binoculars, his expression was not very good.The forced breakout tactics I developed before the war now seem to be wishful thinking. The Spaniards have galley warships that can sail freely in shallow waters. They can easily bypass waters where large ships dare not go, and then attack weak merchant ships. team, and now two transport ships have already started to get into trouble, and what's worse is that this is just the beginning.

Just as Jiang Yaohui was about to say something, a shell suddenly hit and hit the bridge fence firmly.The splashed sawdust hit Lu Ming's forehead, and a large stream of blood immediately flowed out.Jiang Yaohui also splashed some sawdust on his body, and the oozing blood stained his sky-blue military uniform darkly, but he didn't dare to hesitate, and immediately crawled down to the deck and began to give orders to the gunnery officer.

The "San Diego" saw something was wrong early on, so it quickly adjusted its course, and fled in the direction of due east desperately.Both her front two masts were hung with square sails, and she hadn't suffered any major damage, so she ran quite fast, and soon got into the suspected shallow water area that warships on the east coast dared not approach.

However, people on the east coast are not ready to take care of the "San Diego". The most important thing now is to solve the merchant fleet that has gradually fallen into trouble.The fleet serving as the rear guard is still fighting fiercely with the powerful "San Salvador" and the "Virgin Mary" which has been refitted with a spare canvas, and it is rare to escape for a while.The five warships including the "Rock of Cadiz", which served as the assault fleet, were replaced by the "San Miguel", "San Francisco", "Palma", "Napolitan", and "San Pedro". The USS is tightly entangled, and is currently facing the fierce artillery fire of the enemy ship and is beginning to turn with difficulty, preparing to move closer to the merchant fleet, but it seems that it will be difficult to make it for a while.

"Turn around! Let those galleys know how powerful we are." Lu Ming said to his back, but after talking for a long time, he found no response. He turned his head and saw that the two trainee officers from the sailing school were both lying in a pool of blood.It seems that a solid iron ball hit an officer standing not far behind Lu Ming, and then the shell touched the poop wall of the "August [-]th", which was covered by extremely flexible Brazilian mahogany. After rebounding, he hit another officer who was acting as a replacement.Lu Ming, who knew he had just wandered around the gate of hell, sighed, and then ran to the second floor to give the order to the navigator himself.

The "August 264th", which was breathing black smoke, took the lead, followed by the other three battleships, dragging their scarred bodies, and approached the fleeing merchant fleet at high speed.At this time, there were no Spanish warships along the way to stop them, and the four war behemoths rushed towards the low Spanish galley warships with [-] powerful artillery pieces.

The battle started ten minutes later.The two Spanish galley warships on the outermost periphery had to turn their bows and escape towards the shallow water on the east side after only a few rounds of shelling. After igniting the inflammables on the ship, they took several small boats and rowed frantically away from the combat zone.

There was no suspense in the battleship's attack on the galley. Seeing them attacking, the Spanish small transport ships and the galley fleet stopped fighting one after another, and at the same time turned to the shallow water area to escape to the east.After defeating these little bugs, Lu Ming took a quick glance and found that the transport ship "Abbot" was severely damaged. The hull, canvas, and mast were damaged many times, but it seemed to be able to sail barely. The sailors are currently under the command of the officers. Time to replace sails and repair easily replaceable decking.As for the Portuguese transport ship "Cold Current" rented by the people on the east coast, it has been submerged in the raging fire, and the captain Assuncao and the fourteen Portuguese crew members are probably in dire straits.

After cleaning up the galleys and small transport ships that threatened the transport fleet, the battleship formation did not pursue any pursuit, but turned its head towards the "Rock of Cadiz", which was fighting fiercely with five Spanish warships, and several other ships. The battleship moved closer.Behind them, the four escort gunboats of the guard fleet are still engaged in battle with the two Spanish warships. It seems that they have gradually gained the upper hand. The Spanish "San Salvador" and "Virgin Maria" have been exposed. There is a sign of defeat.

At this time, no matter which direction the battleship formation goes to support, it can basically help one direction to win quickly, and then defeat the enemy in the other direction. It can be said that the victory of the East Coast people is set at this time!

The fighting finally came to an abrupt end after dark.The few remaining warships in Spain ran wildly in the dark. The commander of the escort fleet on the east coast, Lu Ming, was concerned about the safety of the escort fleet, so he resolutely gave up the pursuit order, and began to count the losses, urgently repair the ships, and rescue the crew who fell into the water. , After busy most of the night, the team was hurriedly formed, and then headed towards the Strait of Messina.

In this battle, the east coast escort fleet lost two flute-shaped transport ships (one sunk, one seriously injured) and the cargo they carried. In addition, almost every naval warship suffered damage to varying degrees, especially the escort gunboat "Big Ship". "Salmon", the side of the ship was penetrated, the water was seriously flooded, and it was already on the verge of abandoning the ship.The loss of personnel in this battle was as high as more than 340 people, including more than 20 officers, and the casualties were not insignificant.As for their opponents, the Spaniards, according to the summary statistics of the East Coast Navy that participated in the war, it was found that the enemy "San Nicolas", the "Virgin Maria" and the "San Pedro" were sunk. These three ships were all more than 300 ton of two-masted battleships.In addition, the "San Salvador" with a displacement of more than 800 tons escaped into the shallow water on the east side and sank without hitting a rock. This is the biggest victory for the people on the east coast in this battle.

The "San Diego", which was shot more than 150 rounds, dragged its body and disappeared, which made all the East Coast Navy present feel sorry; Five ships, including the "Napoli", as well as a large group of galleys and small transport ships all managed to escape on the spot, but then the two small galleys ran aground and sank in the dark without knowing where they were going, and about 70 Naples officers and soldiers drowned; The boat accidentally ran aground and was only rescued several days later.All in all, in this battle, the people on the east bank sank a transport ship and seriously injured one; an escort gunboat was seriously injured and waited to be sunk, with more than 340 casualties; while the Spaniards sank four warships and two galleys, with more than 1200 casualties .

The number of sunken ships and the number of casualties on both sides properly reflected the results of the naval battle in the afternoon.Regarding the impact of this naval battle, from a tactical point of view, the people on the east coast won the victory. They repelled the interception of the Spaniards and preserved the safety of most of the transport ships.But from a strategic point of view, they still face the crazy interception of the Spanish navy, and the future is still full of difficulties and dangers.

(End of this chapter)