According to the British's inference, the "orca" had been chasing a speed-fleeing clipper boat at high speed for most of the day. In this process, the steam engine of the "Orca" must have been in a state of heavy load. The British did not know the level of the steam engine of the French, but it was no better than that of the British. After all, Britain is the home of the steam engine.

If the steam engine on a British ship continues to run at high load for so long, there is a certain chance that it will fail. So they decided that if they accelerated their pursuit, they would be able to catch up and destroy the French steam cruiser.

"It would be nice if we could capture this warship, after all, it also has something stronger than us, and it is worth learning from us, for example, it does not have a paddle wheel. One big weakness is missing. On the steam frigate "Trembling" at the forefront of the pursuit formation, the commander, Lieutenant Commander Neville, thought so.

After completing the turn, the Orca began to accelerate hard, but it did not accelerate very quickly. The distance between the two sides continues to grow.

Indeed, just in terms of the level of the steam engine, the steam engine on the "Equality" was no more advanced and more powerful than the steam engine on the ships of the British. However, in terms of propulsion mode, the propeller is far more efficient than the paddle wheel. Coupled with another bulbous bow that is hidden underwater and cannot be seen under normal circumstances, the resistance that the "Equality" needs to overcome when reaching a considerable speed is significantly smaller than that of the British steamer. Combined, these two things made it possible for the Equality to reach a speed of about eleven knots without the need to run the steam engine at full capacity.

Therefore, whether it is a sprint or a long race, the "Equality" is far superior to the British steamships he faced. In fact, if he just wanted to get away from the pursuit of the British, Major Marten only needed to keep the "Equality" accelerating. It won't be long before he can throw the British far behind.

However, Major Marten did not want to do this. Because he knew that after the good results of his first sortie, several shipyards under the military-industrial complex were preparing to switch to the production of such warships. Maybe it won't be long before a second or third such warship will be launched.

Marten knew that when that time came, it would be much more difficult to brush up on the record again. When the time comes, there will be too many wolves and too little meat - when will you become a general? You know, General Napoleon Bonaparte is a year younger than himself, and he has already become the first consul!

So Marten secretly made up his mind that he must play big, so that the British will never forget him and his ship for the rest of their lives.

But Marten did not dare to rush directly to the war with the British, who had more ships and more artillery. But the ships of the British had obvious weaknesses, their paddle wheels were so big, so important, so vulnerable. Just a few shells hit the paddlewheel in battle will make it incapacitated. If Marten had been an Englishman, he might have really screamed and pounced. But who made him French?

Over the years, when the French Navy faced the British Navy, except for the battle on the North American continent, which was won because of the British's own command mistakes, the rest was basically a history of being beaten by the British. Therefore, the French Navy is always very weak in the face of the British Navy. Basically, without overwhelming superiority, they would not dare to take the initiative to attack.

For example, in the original history, the combined French and Spanish fleets had even a slight advantage over Nelson's fleet in terms of strength. A big reason why they were hoisted up and beaten by Nelson at Trafalgar and played a disproportionate exchange was that the first thought of the French and Spanish navies after seeing the British fleet was "Run!" The second thought was, "Be sure to run faster than the Spaniards!" ”

Not only wanted to kill these British ships so that he could become a general, but also was quite jealous of the British Royal Navy, so Marten chose to drag the British first with a lewd style.

Marten had been on the steamers of the British, and knew that about eleven knots was their limit, and at such a speed, at most, they would have to reduce the pressure of the steam engine to avoid a breakdown at night, or they would not be able to move. When the time comes, he can take the opportunity to rob while the fire is hot.

But Marten soon found that he did not need to wait until evening, and at about four o'clock in the afternoon a dark cloud came from the west, and the wind on the sea began to grow, and the waves became stronger, and the paddle steamers could not keep up with him.

On the rocking sea, the paddle wheels of the British steam frigates were sometimes completely submerged in the water and sometimes completely exposed to the surface with the shaking of the hull, and the propulsion efficiency was greatly reduced. Their speed also dropped rapidly, even to the point where they were inferior to ordinary sailboats.

"Damn it! Now let the French run away again! This damn wind! Lieutenant Colonel Neville punched the side of the ship. Before that, they had already chased not far from the enemy ship, and if they got closer, they could fire at the target with the 24-pounder gun in the bow. But now, it is clear that they will not be able to catch up with the "orcas".

"Lieutenant Commander, enemy ships, enemy ships are turning!" At this time, the shouts of the lookout suddenly sounded in his ears.

Lieutenant Colonel Neville hurried to look ahead, only to see the French steamship turning rapidly in the wind and waves. The boat's movements were so swift that its power didn't seem to be too affected by the wind and waves.

"What do they want to do?" Lieutenant Colonel Neville was taken aback. Logically, shouldn't the French take the opportunity to run away, what are they turning to?

But Neville quickly figured out the intentions of the "orca".

"The Orca is commanded by a very brave and very cunning opponent. He noticed the predicament we were in right now and wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to break us individually. ”

"The wind and waves have made our paddle wheel difficult to use, and our ability to maneuver has been greatly reduced, and he must have hoped to take this opportunity, taking advantage of his speed, to penetrate into the rear of our flanks, to skim in the direction of our stern, and to attack us from our side and the stern of the artillery with his broadside guns!"

Thinking of this, Lieutenant Commander Neville immediately ordered "All ships, immediately unfurl their sails and prepare for battle." ”

Now that the paddle wheel is no longer good, then simply spread the sails and use more reliable sails to steer the ship and compete with the French.

All six steam frigates of the British spread their sails and turned into sailing ships again.

But these steam frigates have far fewer sails than normal frigates because their chimneys take up space. And the two paddle wheels on both sides of the ship, if they continue to be powered, this power will be on the port side for a while, on the starboard side for a while, and there will be a while, and there will be no serious impact on the steering and other actions for a while.

But if you just let the paddle wheel stop, this thing is increasing the resistance. The steam frigate was originally slow and clumsy when using only sails because of the lack of sails, and this resistance made it even worse.

On the other side, the "Equality" began to increase the pressure of the boiler, and in the wind and waves, the speed not only did not decrease, but increased further.

The "Equality", with full horsepower, swept from the starboard side of the British, out of the range of the guns, and then began to turn, ready to insert into the stern direction of the British. The British fleet began to turn, trying to keep the side of the ship on the "Equality", and the two sides circled in the wind and waves.

This maneuver is called "grabbing" in naval battles. Generally speaking, the guns of warships of this era were mounted on the side of the ship, and only when the side of the ship was pointed at the enemy, the maximum number of guns could be fired at the same time. And if the bow or stern of the ship is facing the other side, there are very few cannons that can fire.

Therefore, in naval warfare, once one side gains the position to fire its guns at the side or stern of the enemy ship with its broadside, the advantage in firepower is almost overwhelming. Therefore, warships at war will always try to fight for such an advantageous position by maneuvering. Even until many years later, the struggle for T-head superiority was one of the important principles of naval artillery warfare.

For example, in the later life of another time and space, the combined fleet led by Heihachiro Togo took the risk of taking the maneuver of "turning back in front of the enemy" in the Battle of Tsushima in order to seize such a positional advantage; In the final battleship artillery battle, the Battle of Suligao, the U.S. Navy, which had a T-head advantage, also easily defeated the Japanese fleet at an insignificant price.

Both the steering and sailing of a sailboat are greatly affected by the force of the wind. But Equality is not affected by this. Faster speed and more agile steering gave the Equality an easy upper hand in the game of grabbing the British team's clumsy steam frigates.

The "Equality" first approached from the flank of the "Calm", where the British troops had fallen behind, and then quickly turned and swept in the stern direction of the "Calm", while firing a salvo at the Equality with eight cannons on the starboard side.

In this salvo, the "Equality" used chain bombs, in order to naturally destroy the sails of the "Calm" and further reduce its sailing ability.

Because of the relative speed and the strong swing at sea, and the fact that it was the first time for Major Marten to play this trick, he was conservative, and when his side was aimed at the tail of the enemy ship, the distance was a little farther away, and the accuracy of this round of shelling was a complete mess - none of the eight shells hit.

But Marten was not discouraged, he now had the initiative, but the enemy ships had no effective means of counterattacking, and they missed one round, big deal, just another round. As long as the wind and waves did not stop, he had the confidence to send these British ships to the bottom of the sea one by one. Now, the British ships had become prey, and he was the real hunter.

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