Chapter 237: 237 I asked a question
Chapter 237 237 I asked a question
In the time and space that Tang Mo is familiar with, on November 27, 1853, a Turkish small fleet arrived at the port of Sinop. The Turkish fleet commander commanding this fleet ordered his men not to fire first.
Soon, the Turkish fleet discovered six Russian battleships patrolling outside the harbor. He sent an urgent message requesting reinforcements, but these distress letters were ignored.
These Russian battleships came from Sevastopol, a hundred miles away, and belonged to the Russian Black Sea Fleet, commanded by Vice Admiral Pavel Stepanovich Nakhimov.
On the morning of November 30, the Russian fleet entered Sinop Bay and asked the Turkish fleet to raise the white flag and surrender. The Turkish commander refused to surrender and ordered the gunfire. A few minutes later, the Russian battleship opened fire.
This was the last glory of the wooden sailing battleship and the last glory of the Russian Black Sea Fleet. This naval battle also went down in history as the last large-scale battle in the era of the sailing fleet.
It was during the Crimean War that steam-powered battleships were widely used by Britain and France, and the advantages of technological weapons were greatly reflected.
Russian warships used explosive bombs. This was the first time that explosive bombs were used on the naval battlefield, and the effect was amazing. Although the Russian army's artillery fire was not very accurate at that time, the new type of explosive shells exploded inside the ship after hitting the enemy ship, causing great damage to the wooden warship.
Half an hour after the war started, the outcome was doomed. An hour later, the Ottoman Turkish fleet was completely wiped out, and the warships burst into flames.
Nassimov then commanded the fleet to turn its artillery fire to the Turkish coastal forts. Soon the coastal forts were also caught in a sea of fire. The fire reflected the charred wreckage of the Turkish warships, and the water on the shore was full of corpses.
In this battle, the Russian army annihilated more than 3,000 Turkish troops at the cost of more than 200 casualties, and captured 150 people, including Osman Pasha, the commander of the Turkish fleet. Only a small steamship, the Taif, escaped and brought the tragic news back to Constantinople.
Then, the tide turned. In this battle, the Tsarist Russian navy, which used explosive bombs to savage Turkey, was vulnerable to the British and French fleets that arrived later, and was defeated by the opponent's steam-powered warships.
Times are progressing, and the importance of technology in war is vividly reflected in this war.
In the world that Tang Mo lives in now, the armored battleships of Datang Group are almost using the technology of around 1890 to crush the battleships of 1750.
This was really not a battle, but a brutal massacre. When the commanders on the Talon Kingdom's first sailing battleship realized this, it was actually too late.
Their warship exploded and broke in the middle. Water poured into the cabin like a beast, sucking the sailors who suffered heavy casualties into the whirlpool.
Seeing as the battleship's masts began to break, the sails on it twisted and fell. On the second warship that followed closely behind this warship, the sailors of the Talon Kingdom were so shocked that they could not speak at all.
Just as they were thinking about how to rescue the friendly forces who had fallen into the water on the battleship ahead, explosions and screams came from behind them.
The third battleship was also hit by a cannonball, and most of the entire side hull was blown off. Before the sailors above could recover from their sluggishness, the battleship began to roll.
Subsequently, the incoming cannonballs baptized almost all the remaining sailing battleships of the Talon Kingdom. Before their fleet commander could figure out what was going on, four battleships were sunk.
Of the remaining three warships, the commander of one warship was the smartest. He gave up the idea of fighting or escaping, and instead immediately rushed his warship to Dragon Island.
Before being sunk, he commanded his warship to run aground under a cliff, giving the sailors on his warship a chance to escape to the shore for refuge.
The other two warships resisted stubbornly, and the results can be imagined.
One of them is the flagship of this fleet, and the commander on it is the guy who dreamed of attacking Dragon City before.
His battleship was blown to pieces by artillery fire, and the explosive gunpowder blew up most of the battleship. Almost no sailors survived.
The last battleship tried to escape, but they were overtaken and sunk during the turn, leaving only a mess of debris on the sea.
The entire naval battle took a total of 27 minutes, which was not sloppy at all. The Tarun Kingdom's fleet only had time to fire two cannons before they all lost their combat effectiveness.
One battleship was stranded and scrapped, and the remaining six were all sunk without exception. During the entire artillery battle, the closest distance between the two sides was more than 700 meters. This distance was far beyond the familiar combat distance of the Talon Kingdom warship commanders.
This is also an important reason why the battleship of the Kingdom of Talon only had time to fire two cannons before the battle ended - even these two hastily fired cannons, none of them hit the target.
Taking advantage of its own sight, the Bunas 4 battleship's hit rate reached an astonishing hit rate of more than 60% at a distance of about 800 meters. A battle comes and goes as fast as the wind, and it seems to have a lingering flavor until the end.
The raging waves crashed against the cliffs, roaring like thunder. It was like the crisp thunder on the sea just now was beating on the chest of the panicked person.
Depressing and heart-stopping.
A white wave rolled over the rocks, leaving behind an embarrassed sailor as it receded. He struggled to a sitting position and poked his head out of the water before the next wave hit.
He breathed heavily, enjoying the opportunity he finally had in his hands to start over again. After enjoying the joy of life, he suddenly turned around and saw the broken wreckage on the sea, as well as the terrifying black battleship in the wreckage.
That is not an ordinary ship, it is a beast lying on the sea, spitting thunder from its mouth, and full of domineering, as if it is the ocean and it controls the life and death of everything in the ocean.
"Heh...heh..." Breathing the air greedily, the sailor who was lucky enough to escape the disaster climbed up with lingering fear, stood on the reef, and let the sea water beat and roll under his feet.
Not far behind him was the cliff, and not far in front of him was the battleship Big Red Fish that had just run aground on the reef area and was then blown into pieces by several cannonballs.
Now only the fallen masts of the battleship are left, and the burning hull is still exposed on the water. From the burning firelight, you can still vaguely see the brown king's flag embroidered with the steering wheel.
Everything was finished. A huge fleet, a total of 7 warships, was wiped out in an instant, and nothing was left.
Thousands of sailors died at sea, and now there may not even be single digits left. As a sailor, he still had no idea what he had gotten himself into.
"Help, help." At the foot, a sailor who was hit by the waves on the rocks shouted weakly. The sailor from the Talon Kingdom who was looking at the Bunas 4 battleship in a daze quickly lowered his head and looked for the voice. source.
Then he saw an injured sailor struggling in the sea, holding on to the rocks with one hand and the other hand covered with blood.
In panic, he pulled his comrade onto the rock, and then saw a wooden board stuck on the other's shoulder.
The sharp wooden board was inserted into the sailor's shoulder like shrapnel, and the blood on the other man's arm flowed from here.
"You're injured! I can't help you bandage it! There's nothing here! Just hold on! I'll think of a way..." The young sailor looked nervously at his injured companion.
At this moment, the injured unfortunate man only had the strength to breathe. After a long while, he regained some strength, then struggled, grabbed the young sailor's arm, and weakly warned: "Go back! Go back! Let them go quickly...go quickly..."
After saying this, his hand lost its strength and hung down on the rock. The young sailor raised his head in confusion and saw some sailors on the terrifying battleship, using long poles to salvage sailors floating on the sea.
“The other party doesn’t want to eat them, right?” This absurd idea appeared in the young sailor’s mind, and then he was so frightened by this idea that he lay on the rock, not even daring to raise his head.
The salty seawater washed away the scratches on his face, and the stinging pain made him sober again. When he mustered up the courage to raise his head again, the battleship on the sea had already sailed far away.
In front of him, there was only a cold body and some broken boards washed up by the sea.
Different from the attack on Nanshui, this time the sailors of the Datang Group did not kill them all, but picked up a few prisoners from the water.
Because Bunas 4 needs information, and needs all the information about this operation in the Talon Kingdom. Including the size of the fleet, the movement of the fleet, the size of the landing force, and the specific movements of the landing force, etc.
The sailors from the Talon Kingdom who were fished out knelt on the deck, looking in shock at a pair of shiny black leather shoes walking back and forth in front of their knees under a pair of white trousers.
Immediately afterwards, a middle-aged man's voice rang out: "Whoever is willing to answer my questions will have food and can live... It doesn't matter if you don't cooperate, I will throw him back into the sea, you can do it yourself choose…"
"I say! I know everything!" "I say first! We are sailors of the Kingdom of Talon!" "I am an officer! Let me say first!..." Several prisoners almost started a struggle, until several Datang Group The sailor gave each of them a rifle butt, and then they became more honest.
"Since you are all willing to cooperate, then... I have a question..." The captain stopped pacing, looked down at the prisoner who just claimed to be an officer and asked: "How many ships do you have in total?"
(End of this chapter)