Crusade against the Pope

Chapter 289 The Naval Battle Begins

If it was the era of sailing battleships, it would be fine to set up a line of artillery to fight.

But the problem is that the fighting style of a galley is actually very rough. If we classify it, it can even be said that there are only three types, namely accelerating and ramming with a ram, trying to board the opposite ship and kill the bastards, or using weak long-range projectile weapons to weaken the enemy on the opposite deck.

When they gave up speed and instead formed a defensive formation, it actually meant that they had given up the collision method of fighting.

Zakaria, as a naval commander of the Ayyubid dynasty, was forced to take the position. He did know a little about how to fight a naval battle. After all, he was a pirate and a looter in the Mediterranean.

However, the Saracen pirates of today are not the dreaded Barbary pirates of the future.

When the Barbary pirates were at their peak, they said they could confront the Holy League's navy head-on, and they had the Ottoman Empire as their godfather behind them.

What did Zakaria have? At the time when he had the most brothers under him, he only had more than 30 people, a 15-meter paddle boat as the flagship, and many small boats less than meters long, which he would row and jump onto the merchant ships.

Then it was Saladin's turn to recruit soldiers. He brought his brothers to join him early, and relying on the fact that he knew more about water than those landlubbers, he climbed higher and higher.

But the problem is that fighting a naval battle with dozens of ships is completely different from taking brothers to rob merchant ships in the past. When being a pirate, you should bully the weak and fear the strong. If you can survive, don't be reckless. If you can run away, don't think about fighting.

But now it’s different. He has become the naval commander of the Ayyubid dynasty. Saladin has ordered him to fight. Can he escape without a fight?
Even if he escapes, can the captains under his command run away with him?

He had no idea how to fight. After thinking about it, he could only rely on the large number of people on the ship and think of boarding the enemy. Apart from this method, what other methods could he use? Anyway, he couldn't think of any other way.

Then again, now that they have traveled such a long distance north, why haven’t they discovered the Frankish fleet yet?
"The enemy fleet has a total of 35 galleys, with an average speed of 2.5 knots. Their leading ship will pass the engagement point in about fifteen minutes. So, if we attack with all our strength in ten minutes, taking into account the time required for acceleration and increasing the speed to about 7.5 knots, we can directly hit the middle of the enemy fleet. Even if they react, they will need time to regroup."

Walter and the captain performed complex calculations, listed formulas, and drew graphs based on the data. Arnault, standing by, looked confused. Who am I, where am I, and what are they doing?

Apart from anything else, the concept of the festival had not yet been born in the European navy of this era.

For ships sailing in the Mediterranean, finding a reference point is fairly simple, but sailing in the oceans is another matter.

In fact, it was not until the 16th century that clear nautical units of measurement were developed.

Throwing a rope to count knots is a fairly simple and practical method.

First, prepare a long rope, and then tie a knot on the rope at every fixed length.

In this way, the rope is evenly divided into several sections. Next, fix one end of the rope to a wooden object with a counterweight and ensure that the other end can be released naturally.

Throw the wooden objects into the sea from the stern of the ship and use an hourglass to tell time. Due to the counterweight, the wooden objects will encounter great resistance when sinking into the water, so the sea surface is almost still.

As the boat continues to sail, the wooden structure will naturally pull the ropes on the boat out.

This allowed sailors to describe the speed of the ship by determining how many knots of rope were released at the end of the hourglass period.

Based on his own pace, Gellis roughly determined the most basic unit of measurement: the step.

The so-called step refers to one step taken by each foot, and this was used as a unit of measurement and began to be promoted in the military.

In later times, one step of Gellis would actually be about 1.5 meters, or maybe even less.

There was no need for Garys to invent a unified unit of time, because in the 1000th year of the Chinese calendar, Islamic culture already had the same concept of minutes and seconds as later generations.

The Jerusalem Navy's navigation unit "knot" is actually calculated based on the "step" of guerres and the concept of minutes - in half a minute, the ship sailed how many 10 guerres steps, that is, how many knots.

In later generations, it is about 1800 meters, which is close to a nautical mile.

It's not possible to achieve extreme precision, but it's definitely good enough for use these days.

To extend this, there is actually the concept of a thousand steps, which can be said to be exactly what Garys is doing by measuring the earth with his feet.

From a theological point of view, there are also relevant explanations. After all, everyone must follow the right path of following Garys.

"Pass on the order, Arnot. The Venetian fleet will depart with this flagship later and proceed as planned."

Although Arnott was confused, at least he understood the map and realized that Watt and his men had indeed calculated the time of the battle based on mathematics. As long as they entered the battlefield at the right time, they could catch the Saracens off guard.

Ten minutes later, Water gave the attack order to other ships through flag signals. Everything went as planned, and the prey that stepped into the trap did not notice their presence.

Zakaria was a little uneasy, he felt something was wrong. This intuition had saved his life many times. In the past, whenever he noticed something was wrong, he could always find some signs and then deduce the possible risks.

But today was different. He felt uneasy for no reason. No matter how he looked, he could not find any danger in this calm and vast ocean.

Then, several black spots appeared where the sea and the sky met.

"What is that? A passing merchant ship?" Zakaria would never have thought that he had already been discovered by the enemy, nor did he think that he had stepped into the battle site scheduled by Water and his men.

So it was not until he identified that the black spots in the distance were actually galleys that he hurriedly ordered the ships to prepare for battle.

At this time, the navy of the Kingdom of Jerusalem and the navy of Venice had already increased their speed to the extreme, while their Saracen fleet was still sailing slowly with the help of sails.

Faced with this sudden enemy situation, the ships did not know what to do for a moment. In naval battles of that year, there was no radio, and even the meaning of the signal flags was quite primitive.

As for Zakaria, he didn't even know what a signal flag was, so when facing a naval battle, he could only fight on his own, or several ships would huddle together and communicate through shouting.

This chaotic situation continued until the five warships of Jerusalem began to slow down at a distance of 500 meters between them.

Then Zakaria heard some dull cannon fire and realized that the Franks were firing at them.

Cannons were a new thing, but Zakaria knew something about them. To be precise, he had several of them on his ship.

When Saladin was building cannons, he was not doing it only in Acre. His base was Egypt. Only in Egypt could he mobilize sufficient manpower and resources to carry out this costly operation.

While Adil built a large number of artillery for Saladin, he also left some to provide to the local Mamluks and the navy docked in Egypt.

Although there were not many guns, at least Zakaria recognized the power and effectiveness of artillery and knew what advantages artillery could bring in naval battles.

However, precisely because he had some knowledge of artillery, he did not take the Franks' artillery fire seriously. After all, the distance between them was several hundred steps, and on a bumpy sea, so how could they possibly hit accurately?

Zakaria obviously had some misunderstanding about the artillery level of the Kingdom of Jerusalem.

In any case, the level of Gellis' artillery is actually at the level of the 15th and 16th centuries. This level only refers to the casting level, and if it comes to things like artillery, it is far ahead.

What was the range of engagement in naval battles in the 16th century? Generally speaking, it was maintained at a range of 100 to 500 meters.

Although it is still quite difficult to hit the target efficiently, for the fleet of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, a salvo of fire at a distance of 200 steps is more than just the sound of a gun firing.

The bow of the flagship was modified and equipped with a total of 6 guns, while ordinary standard ships were equipped with 3 guns, which means that the five ships of the Jerusalem Navy could fire a maximum of 18 shells in one round.

When the captain of the flagship Tyre gave the order to fire, the other four ships nearby also opened fire one after another. The target they were aiming at was the same ship, No. 16.

Before the battle, Walter and the captain had already numbered the ships according to their formation positions and some inconsistencies in ship shapes. Although these numbers were only temporary, and with the start of the war, they became difficult to accurately identify after the enemy fleet's formation changed.

But at least in the first round of shooting, the five ships were firing at one enemy ship.

With the concentrated firepower, two shells actually hit the deck of the galley.

It was a 25-meter-long paddle boat, about 3.5 meters wide, small in size, with only one deck. The deck area of ​​the ship was about to square meters, but at least people were crammed in, including rowers, soldiers, commanders, and helmsmen.

The hull of a galley was not as thick as that of a later battleship. When shooting from a distance of two hundred steps, or three hundred meters, it was naturally impossible to just hear the sound of the hull hitting the target.

The shell penetrated the side of the ship and wreaked havoc in the narrow space of the deck. In just a moment, a bloody alley of flesh appeared on the deck.

Everyone was stunned when the wounded groaned.

This was the first time that artillery was used in a naval battle, and no one had ever imagined what it would look like when a galley filled with people was hit by artillery fire.

"It's like being in hell. It's a warning from the devil to the world."

Just this one shell hit the ship and threw it into panic. No one dared to say that anyone would survive if it was hit again.

Blood was flowing, and the smell of internal organs filled the deck, roaring and groaning continued, but what awaited them was not salvation, but another round of merciless bombardment.

When another shell hit the group, some people could not bear the pressure and jumped into the sea, while the wiser but hysterical Saracen sailors were already shouting to turn the ship around and evacuate the battlefield.

The chaos of the first artillery battle caused the ship to stop moving, slow down, and finally just drift with the current.

After seeing the situation on the ship clearly through the telescope, Walter ordered to change the target.

These days it is very difficult to sink a ship of 20 to 30 meters in length with a cannon. After all, wood is lighter than water.

Instead of focusing on attacking that one ship, it is better to shoot at a few more ships before engaging in battle, if for no other reason than to clear out the people on the opposite deck and reduce the pressure for the subsequent boarding battle.

"The Jerusalem Fleet follows the flagship and retreats! Switch the target to No. 19, fire three salvos, then switch the target to No. 20, fire three salvos. After six salvos, everyone is free to do what they want!"

The flag signalmen on the Tyre ship passed orders to the rest of the Jerusalem navy, and at the same time as they were passing the orders, the Venetian fleets pounced on them like wolves and tigers.

(End of this chapter)