The sun rises as usual every day, and the first thing to see the light is the Datang Group's naval fleet lying on the sea.
At this time, Datang Group and the approaching Mirage Navy almost simultaneously discovered the billowing smoke across the sea.
That's right, when both sides have steamships participating in the battle, it is easy to spot the enemy's fleet from a long distance.
The next second, the Datang Group's fleet found that it seemed to be caught in the middle - to their south and north, a fleet appeared respectively, and they were menacing and had no good intentions at first sight.
Bernard put down his telescope and made a battle plan. He ordered all the slower Bunas-class ironclads in his fleet to stay behind to cover the transportation and landing fleet. The faster Wolf-class cruisers were grouped separately and headed towards the south.
The Mirage fleet in the direction of Fengshun City killed them.
According to Bernard's idea, he should command the faster cruiser fleet and quickly go south to eat up the Mirage fleet in the direction of Fengshun City, which should be weaker.
After completely eliminating the threat in the south, he will use the faster speed to lead the fleet in a circle, and together with the remaining Bunas-class ironclads, they will attack the enemy fleet coming from the north.
Soon, the cruiser Wolf 1, along with the Wolf 3 and Wolf 4, broke away from the landing fleet. The three warships formed a long snake formation and quickly rushed towards the enemy fleet in the south.
At the same time, the fleet heading north from Mirage Kingdom toward Fengshun City also discovered that the enemy was approaching them.
As a result, the commander of the Mirage Kingdom, who was familiar with naval battles, immediately ordered his fleet to cross the bow of the ship and set up a flanking formation to meet the enemy, with the paddle steamer as the core, preparing to face the oncoming Datang fleet.
The atmosphere suddenly became tense. The waves were lapping against the hull. All the gun windows on the hull were opened. One Cyric muzzle-loading cannon was pushed out, and the muzzles were pointed at the black smoke in the distance.
In the Mirage Captain's telescope, three black battleships were speeding towards them, at an incredible speed.
Those warships that looked very far away seemed to be turning their bows slightly, as if they were preparing to bite the tail of the mirage fleet.
"The opponent's speed is very fast..." A mid-level military officer from the Mirage Nation put down his telescope and said worriedly.
The opponent's warship looked more slender than their paddle steamer, and seemed to be traveling faster, making it obviously less easy to deal with.
This is not Zheng's backward, powerless sail warships. Just judging from the momentum, the enemy in front of them is definitely more than ten times more difficult than Zheng's navy.
"It seems that they are very confident in their speed, and they are actually ready to bite our tail." The commander standing next to the middle-ranking officer of the Mirage Navy also put down his telescope and said. He is the captain of this battleship,
He is also the commander-in-chief of this fleet.
"Obviously, their speed is indeed fast enough and worthy of their trust." The middle-level commander looked at the black smoke getting closer and said slightly uneasily.
"Don't be afraid, we are armored battleships, they are definitely no match for us!" The captain sneered, a little dismissive.
He also trusts the battleship at his feet, because this battleship is a wooden and iron-hulled battleship, and its defense is obviously several times stronger than ordinary sail battleships!
What's even more advantageous is that this kind of paddle-steamer warship not only has a slight advantage in speed and is slightly faster than a sailboat, but also lacks the sails and masts that are most vulnerable to attack on a sailboat.
Without these easy-to-hit targets, his warships are even lower and can be described as technologically superior to sailing ships.
The 130 mm caliber cannon he relies on adopts the latest breech loading technology, has a faster rate of fire, and the power of the shells is stronger. Therefore, even if there are only two cannons at the front and tail, the firepower still beats traditional sailing ships.
In fact, his battleship not only has two 130 mm caliber main guns, but also four 75 mm caliber cannons on one side.
This kind of artillery is also a product copied from the Datang Group by Cyric. It is much less powerful and is just a secondary weapon used to make up for the damage.
However, even this unremarkable secondary weapon is already much more powerful than Cyric's previous muzzleloader cannon.
At least they were breech-loading guns, which allowed the crew to hide in the cabin to load the shells, were protected and had a high rate of fire.
But what they didn't know was that each of the battleships rushing toward them was equipped with millimeter-caliber naval guns, which could concentrate 6 guns on the sides, making them much more powerful than them.
At 5 o'clock in the morning, the distance between the two sides was very close, and the Datang Group's warship began to turn under the command of Bernard, showing its flanks.
Because of its absolute advantage in speed, the slender Wolf-class cruiser quickly showed its fangs.
At 5:11, the prepared cruiser fleet of the Datang Group began the bombardment, firing fiercely at a distance of 1,300 meters.
The sudden artillery fire made all the Mirage Navy sailors shrink their necks. They had never seen an opponent fire at this distance.
But soon reality made them nervous - with the opponent's continuous artillery fire, the sail warships at the rear of the Mirage Fleet began to be shot and sunk one after another.
It was obvious that the attack by the Tang Group's naval warships was effective. The Mirage Navy was caught off guard and did not even have a chance to adjust, so it fell into passivity.
A few minutes later, Bernard began to bombard the paddle steamer in the middle of the enemy fleet. At this moment, the distance between the two sides had been shortened to about 1,200 meters.
The paddle wheels of Mirage country's paddle steamers are protected by iron armor, and the outer layer of the constantly rotating water wheel is protected by iron plates ranging from 4 mm to 20 mm.
Logically speaking, these iron armors can resist enemy missile attacks at longer distances, and their defense power is much higher than that of wooden boards.
But it is obvious that such iron plate defense is not prepared for the 150mm caliber artillery of Datang Group.
This chapter is not over yet, please click on the next page to continue reading! The main gun on the Wolf-class cruiser of the Datang Group, which had completely excess firepower, suddenly found its sense when attacking the wooden paddle steamer with iron plate defense.
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Those impact fuzes that were not suitable for attacking wooden sailing ships were fully unleashed when bombarding this iron-clad paddle steamer with a wooden hull.
The impact fuse would have exploded inside the hull after impacting the wooden hull. Due to the ventilation characteristics of the wooden hull from all sides, the damage effect could only be described as average.
The actual result of destroying a sailboat with one cannon was actually entirely dependent on the super-excessive power of the cannonball itself, not the rationality of the types of ammunition.
Well, now, when the fuse that explodes on touch attacks an iron-hulled ship, the time when the shell explodes happens to be at the moment when it penetrates the hull, so the destructive force is completely exerted on the hull, and the damage effect is even more obvious.
The direct result of this was that when a cannonball hit a paddle steamer of the Mirage Navy, the explosion blew off one oar of the paddle steamer!
It is no exaggeration at all. The explosion suddenly caused the oar on this side to fall off and fall directly into the sea water.
The wooden iron-hulled paddle steamer, which was basically invincible against solid bullets, exposed its various problems the moment it collided with a real steel cruiser.
However, as the main force of the Mirage Kingdom, the combat effectiveness of the Mirage Navy is still very strong. Even after the battle broke out, they knew that they were passive and already at a disadvantage, but they still fought tenaciously.
They kept firing at the Datang Group's warships, and even caused a lot of trouble for the Datang Group for a while.
For the first time, a 130mm-caliber shell hit a Datang Group warship. The shell hit the side of the ship, leaving a fist-sized hole in it.
The explosion caused the Wolf-class cruiser to tremble, but since it did not cause any greater damage, the battleship continued to open fire.
Compared with sail battleships and muzzle-loading guns, the new paddle boats and breech-loading guns have indeed caused some trouble for the Datang Group's naval fleet.
The stronger hull has indeed significantly reduced the speed of the Datang Group Navy in sinking enemy ships. No matter how bad it is, it is an iron ship, which is definitely much stronger than a wooden ship.
There was an iron-hulled paddle steamer that was still floating on the water even after being hit by 13 cannons, which made Bernard very helpless.
Seeing that this warship of the Mirage Navy was almost beaten to the point where only a hull was left, but it did not explode or capsize. It just floated on the sea like a tomb.
However, the Mirage Kingdom's fleet heading north to Fengshun City has completely lost its combat effectiveness. All 15 sail warships have been sunk here.
Both paddle steamers are now paralyzed, one is sinking slowly, and the other seems to have only a hull floating on the sea.
Bernard, who was already very anxious, immediately asked the Wolf 3 battleship, which had just been shot and wounded, to stay and continue firing to ensure that all Mirage warships were sunk, while he himself took the Wolf 4 battleship and immediately headed north to reinforce the trapped enemy.
The hard-fought landing fleet has gone.
Because, just when he completely wiped out the fleet heading north to Fengshun Port, news came from the landing fleet that the enemy fleet had entered the landing site and began to attack the free ship.
This news made Bernard extremely anxious, because if there was a problem with his landing fleet, even if he wiped out all the enemy fleets in this battle, it would definitely be a disastrous defeat.
Therefore, he hurriedly led two cruisers back to the battlefield and headed north to drive away the enemy fleet that entered the landing site.
For a time, the sea was covered with battle clouds. Who could win this naval battle was still a question mark. At this moment, the sun had crossed the coastline and shone on Dongwan Island. The army troops of both sides finally collided with each other.
