Chapter 645: 645 Missed Volleys
Chapter 645645Missed Volley
“Start attacking!” When the fleets of both sides approached about 12 kilometers, Bernard gave the order to open fire.
He did not raise his voice, but gave a very ordinary order in the way he usually spoke.
The adjutant was startled for a moment, then stood at attention, saluted, and loudly repeated the commander-in-chief's order: "Fire!"
"Boom!" The battleship's main gun, which had been prepared long ago, roared almost at the same time, but only one gun in each turret sprayed out flames.
A few seconds later, the muzzle of another gun raised high also spurted out flames. The deafening and overwhelming roar sounded again, and the shock wave from the muzzle blew away the waves on the side of the ship.
This sudden artillery fire startled the Mirage Navy. They did not expect that the Tang Army's artillery began to attack at such a long distance.
But soon, these shells began to fall, and the water column stirred up was almost two hundred meters away from the Mirage Navy's battle line, basically posing no threat.
Although the power of the shells fired by the 305mm-caliber heavy artillery is really terrifying, these shells only hit amazing huge water columns, but did not damage the Mirage warship at all.
But such terrifying power still made Mirage's naval commander Mirage Kazuo frown—his artillery had a larger caliber, but it was not much more powerful than the enemy artillery shells in front of him.
So, is the poor fifteen-millimeter caliber that Cyric worked so hard to improve really of any use? At this moment, Mirage Yinan couldn't help but start to doubt.
Just when he was doubting, on the side of the Tang Army fleet, in the slightly dim turret, an exquisitely designed automatic loading machine was working. The chain rolled the long rod and pushed forward slowly, and a new shell was loaded into the Within the barrel.
Immediately following the movement of the machine, the long rod retreated, the hatch on the side opened, and three packages of cylindrical charges rolled into the groove. The long rod pushed forward again, pushing the propellant into the gun barrel.
When the long rod was withdrawn, the gunner closed the breech skillfully, and then raised his arm towards the gunner. The gunner was ready to launch, but stood there, waiting for the new launch order to come.
At almost the same moment, behind the observation equipment on the side under the battleship's command tower, the observer reported a series of data: "Miss! The distance is remote! About 100 meters! Give the data to the computing center."
The officer holding the phone nodded slightly, then released the phone receiver he was covering with his hand, and shouted loudly: "Missed, the distance is far away! About 100 meters!"
Inside the battleship, in the cabin responsible for ballistic calculations, the noncommissioned officers skillfully turned the ruler disk and checked the shooting parameters. They used a mechanical computer with a very complex structure. They all relied on the combination of mechanical gears to calculate the shooting parameters.
“Lower the muzzle, parameter 5!” After comparing the calculated results, the officer behind the sergeant immediately grabbed another phone: “Lower the muzzle! Parameter 5!”
In the four turrets aiming at the enemy's battle line, all the firing command officers received the call at the same time and issued orders to modify the firing parameters almost at the same time.
This is the benefit of the unified caliber of artillery. It adopts unified command and unified dispatch to increase firepower density, improve shooting accuracy, and increase hit rate. This is the advancement of the dreadnought ship's fire control system.
Following the orders, the muzzles of all the cannons began to lower slightly, followed by a brief silence.
Within a few seconds, the battleship was finally returning to a balanced state as the waves rolled left and right. The roll monitoring equipment in the battleship showed that the battleship was about to trim left and right.
At the moment when the battleship was balancing, half of the cannons were fired again, and eight shells flew rapidly towards the target. The next second, the remaining half of the cannons fired again.
Holding the telescope, Bernard was still looking at the impact point of his artillery. A column of water quickly rose up there, and he could not see clearly whether his artillery shell had hit the enemy.
“Is that ballistic computer thing useful?” Bernard felt that the actual performance of the mechanical equipment on his battleship was really poor.
It looked okay during previous training, and it seemed that it could significantly improve the hit rate of our own artillery, but now it seems that it is not as useful as imagined.
At least at a distance of more than ten kilometers, two salvos have been fired and have not yet hit the enemy's warship. Isn't this a lie?
“Theoretically, it is very advanced. That thing is much more advanced than the equipment used on cruisers.” The adjutant was unsure, because after all, this was the first battleship battle in the world.
Bernard didn’t say anything. He also knew that he might be a little impatient, but in a naval battle of this scale, victory or defeat could only happen in an instant, so it was natural for him to be anxious.
It would be true nonsense to say that anyone can really face such a battlefield and remain indifferent - people will be nervous, especially at such a life-and-death moment.
"Missed! The distance is remote! About 100 meters!" The observation post of the school shooter repeated what he said before.
His words made the officer who delivered the order speechless for a while: Why the **** was the distance just now 100 meters away. Even after lowering the muzzle, the distance is still 100 meters away. Are you looking for a shot? The observer was also embarrassed. He made a helpless expression and explained: "It is indeed remote, and there is nothing I can do."
"Damn it! Sooner or later you will kill me!" The officer cursed, released his hand covering the microphone, and repeated what he had just said: "Missed, the distance is remote! About 100 meters!"
“Are you sick?” Sure enough, the officer in the computing department immediately became a little annoyed after hearing the exact same parameters.
However, he still conveyed the parameters faithfully. Of course, this time the non-commissioned officer in front of the calculation device did not count and directly gave the correction parameters.
Their commander was also happy and passed the same parameters directly to all turrets: "Lower the muzzle! Parameter 5!"
Soon, all the turrets completed their adjustments, once again waited for the hull roll to return to zero, and then fired a salvo.
This time, the enemy ship was very close. The huge water column even made the Mirage battleship look very small, and the splashing water even fell on the high-rise buildings of the Mirage battleship.
Mirage Kazuo had already started to feel frightened, thinking that the pressure brought on him by the opponent's shelling was too much.
The rate of fire of the large-caliber artillery on the opponent's warship was incredible. In just a few minutes, two consecutive salvos were fired.
You know, although the caliber of the cannon is larger, the rate of fire of the main gun of the battleship customized by Mirage from Cyric is really hopelessly slow.
If they can fire one artillery shell in fifteen minutes, Mirage Kazuo will feel that his own artillery has performed beyond its level.
What frightened him even more was that the opponent's artillery was calibrated very accurately. Even though it had been almost twenty minutes since the war started and he hadn't been hit once, Tang Jun's artillery fire was obviously getting closer and closer to him.
"If you're aiming, fire when you find an opportunity!" Feeling a little impatient, he looked at his adjutant and ordered.
The other party was a little embarrassed and tentatively explained: "General, the enemy has not yet entered the maximum firing range. If you fire at this time, you may miss the opportunity to fire in the first round."
"The opponent has fired two rounds of volleys! If we wait any longer, it is very likely that the next round of volleys will hit us!" said a man from Mirage somewhat depressedly.
He also did not dare to easily modify his route to avoid the enemy's salvo, because this was completely a matter of chance.
Sometimes if you walk in a straight line, the enemy may not be able to hit you with several rounds of volleys. But you got scared and changed your route. You might just happen to run into the enemy's test-firing artillery shells that were being corrected.
Not to mention, keeping the course unchanged can also make it easier for one's own side to calibrate shooting, so few generals in naval battles order frequent course changes.
Of course, there is no absolute in everything. When one side has a huge advantage, or when one side wants to slip away and wait, there will be situations where a turn is ordered.
"When the distance reaches 10 kilometers, conduct a calibration fire! You can't be passively beaten!" After thinking about it, Mirage Kazuo decided to fire back at the extreme distance.
On the one hand, it is to boost the morale of one's own side. On the other hand, Kazuo Mirage also considers that one's own side also needs to test the range, and his Mirage navy does not have the ability to hit the target in the first salvo.
So, all he can do now is wait, wait for the distance between the two sides to get closer, get closer.
At this time, the battleship of Datang Group, which had once again completed its loading, fired another salvo.
This round of salvo once again crossed the battle line of the Mirage Navy, but it was closer to the battleships of the Mirage Navy.
The distance between the warships on both sides was getting closer and closer, and soon the distance reached about ten kilometers. A few minutes later, both sides fired a salvo almost simultaneously.
Bernard was also startled by the sudden roar. He saw a flash of fire on the opposite Mirage naval battle line, followed by white smoke.
He waited nervously, waiting for his fate to judge him. To his relief, the God in heaven seemed to be fair. He did not favor the Mirage Navy and did not grant miracles to these goblins.
The cannonball fired by the Mirage Navy landed almost 500 meters away from the battle line of the Tang Navy’s fleet. Although it also stirred up water columns that reached the sky, Bernard did not let himself get nervous again no matter what.
And this round of salvo fired by his fleet still brought some encouraging good news: Although it still did not hit the opponent this time, the impact point of the shells was already between the two armies, and there was no crossing again. The battle line of the Mirage Navy!
(End of this chapter)