In the turn, the distance between the two sides was about four thousand meters, and the British finally began to fire back at the French. However, the result of the shelling of the British was the same as that of the French - the shells did not know where they flew, and they did not hit a single shot anyway, and the most recent one was one or two hundred meters away from the target.

This is actually a very normal thing, because the naval guns of this era did not have stabilizers, and they were very affected by the rocking of ships. The North Atlantic, too, is notoriously stormy. So at this distance, it's really normal to miss the target.

The distance between the two sides continues to close. The French had a greater number of warships and, in terms of speed, also had the upper hand.

In fact, there is not much difference between Britain and France in the level of steam engines, if there is any gap, it is that the French steel is cheaper, so they don't care about it when they use steel, so it may be slightly better in terms of stability of performance.

However, because of the difference in ship type and propeller manufacturing, even if the performance of the steam engine used was comparable, the French ship was generally a little faster than the English ship. Because of this gap, British ships are almost completely unable to compete with French ships in the civilian steamship market, except at home and in their own colonies.

In addition, the British's "Queen Elizabeth" had to control its speed because of damage, so the speed of the entire formation was suddenly slowed down a lot.

Fortunately, the British noticed early on that the French had an unshakable advantage in speed, so when designing and building these ships, they simply abandoned the excessive pursuit of speed, and paid more attention to the stability and flexibility of the ships.

A more stable ship will allow for more accuracy when shelling, and more agile steering will also make it difficult for opponents to occupy their T-heads. In addition, it is also convenient to increase armor by giving up a certain requirement for speed, so the British warships of this era are quite similar in style to the warships of a certain country in another time and space - they are all heavily armored cannons and iron turtles.

Of course, this is just a helpless approach. Because by adopting this method, it may not suffer a loss in a specific battle in which the strength of the troops is equal or even weak, but it pays the strategic price, that is, the initiative on the battlefield. That is, the initiative of whether to engage the battle and whether to end the battle was handed over.

This choice is actually quite unfavorable for a country like Britain, which is a colony all over the world. If possible, the British, or perhaps the Admirals of the Royal Navy, such as Nelson, would prefer to have an egg that could swing a hammer around, rather than a bunch of iron tortoises.

However, there is no option for this. The strategic situation did not allow them to choose, and if they only had a bunch of eggs jumping around with sledgehammers, then it would be troublesome for the French to rush to the beach in a flock of sledgehammer-wielding tortoises. What's more, if everyone makes eggs, the French eggs may roll faster.

The British felt that relying on thick armor and large-caliber artillery, they could run fast against the French, but the armor was thinner, especially the battleships with significantly smaller cannon calibers, although they were somewhat strategically inferior, but they had a tactical advantage. But now as soon as the war began, the British realized that there was a major problem with one of their original expectations.

The performance of the British warships is divided into six aspects, namely, speed, maneuverability, and maintenance that belong to the seafaring ability, and firepower, protection, and damage management that belong to the combat performance.

The British felt that the French warships should be superior to the British in speed and maintainability, and that the British warships had a clear advantage in vitality and protection, as well as maneuverability. As for the damage management, it may be about the same, so the British feel that although the choice of war or not is in the hands of the French, but in a real fleet decisive battle, as long as the two sides are equal in number, the British should still have a slight advantage.

But judging from the tentative shelling at the beginning, the British must have been wrong in their previous estimates of the French warships, such as firepower, although it seems that the guns of the British battleships were much larger than the caliber of the French, but looking at the astonishing rate of fire of the French guns, Nelson felt that the British did not have any advantage in firepower.

As for defense, theoretically British battleships had thicker armor. But considering the level of smelting, it is difficult to say whether the defense of the British battleships was really better than that of the French.

What's worse is that the two sides are not equal in number on the battlefield today. In General Nelson's detachment, there was only one new battleship and three so-called supercruisers (the British supercruiser was a little smaller than its French counterpart, and it had the same speed as the French supercruiser, but only defensively the average armored cruiser). Of course, the supercruisers of the British were also a little cheaper in terms of cost. ), as well as six armored cruisers.

But the French did not have to worry about the landing of British troops on their own shores, so they were naturally able to send much more warships in this operation, so in terms of numbers, the French army had a clear advantage. Today Marshal Trevier's fleet has two battleships, two supercruisers, and up to fifteen armored cruisers. Excluding battleships and supercruisers, the number of armored cruisers was more than double that of the British.

In order to effectively exploit the numerical superiority, Marshal Tréville divided the fleet under his command into two detachments. The first detachment consisted of the battleships "Imperator" and "Caesar", as well as six armored cruisers, whose mission was to suppress the British battleship "Queen Elizabeth", as well as three other supercruisers. The second detachment consisted of the supercruisers "Abundance of All" and "Long Peace", as well as nine other cruisers, whose mission was to attack and destroy the British cruisers first, and then concentrate fire on the British capital ships.

After seeing the lineup of the French fleet, Admiral Nelson understood that this battle might not end well. The advantage of the other side was so obvious that Nelson felt that if he were the commander of the French fleet, most of the British fleet would not be able to escape.

So while the two sides were still slowly finding their heads with shells, Nelson gave the order to break through to the supercruiser "Yorkshire", which was in the best condition in the fleet.

There are two considerations for this order. The first is to let the country know quickly about the battlefield battles that are taking place here. The prospects for this war are rather bleak, and if the country does not know anything about the situation of this war, it will lead to even more dangers. Therefore, there must be ships that break through and bring the news of the battle back home.

Secondly, in the French army, only their supercruisers could catch up with the British supercruisers, and in contrast, the French supercruisers had an advantage in both firepower and defense. However, the speed of the two sides is actually about the same, after all, the British sacrificed protection and firepower, and they can't get nothing, right? And the supercruisers are all crispy in nature. The armor of the French supercruiser was designed with guns that could withstand ordinary armored cruisers, so the armor of the French supercruiser was slightly better, but it could not stop the cannon of the British supercruiser. Of course, in order to obtain artillery power sufficient to penetrate the French supercruiser, the British had to reduce the number of cannons. So, the superiority of the firepower of the supercruisers of the French refers to the fact that they have more cannons, not that the cannons are more powerful.

So in today's situation, if the French use a supercruiser to pursue the British supercruiser, then in the battle between the two sides, the French may have a certain advantage, but it does not necessarily guarantee victory, in case of carelessness, it is not impossible to be killed by the British. But if two supercruisers are sent to catch up, then the pressure on this side can be reduced a lot.

After giving the order to break out, Nelson ordered the "Z" flag to be hoisted on the mast of the "Queen Elizabeth", and at the same time issued a command to the other ships of the fleet by means of the flag: "The United Kingdom demands that all officers and men shall perform their duties with due diligence. ”

One or two ships may be able to escape, but it is absolutely impossible for the entire fleet to escape. So, their only thing to do is to keep fighting and try to inflict more damage on the enemy.

"Even if we are all sunk by the French, we will at least let the French fleet lose the ability to continue fighting for a short time. in order to buy more time for the United Kingdom. ”

The French did not bother with the fleeing Yorkshire, but continued to press the British fleet with the first detachment, while the second detachment began to circle the rear of the British fleet.

Nelson noticed his opponent's move to split the fleet in two, and he understood what the opponent meant, first dragging his main force with two battleships, then using the other ships to prioritize his own armored cruisers, using their numerical superiority to quickly take out those armored cruisers, and then concentrating his fire on the "Queen Elizabeth".

Nelson knew that because of the huge disparity in strength, he would in fact be unable to crack his opponent's move. If Nelson divided his already small number of warships into battle, he would have played into the hands of the French. So Nelson decided, regardless of the tactics of the French to divide the attack, and directly pounced on the first detachment of the French with all his strength.

Nelson knew that this move was in fact expected by the French. He even knew that in the plans of the French, the first detachment with two "Anbradot-class" battleships was like a chopping block, and the second, faster and more shipped, was a hammer. If your fleet gets caught between these two detachments, it will be very dangerous.

But Nelson chose to hit him headlong anyway. Because it takes time for the hammer and anvil to work together. Nelson knew that there was no chance of victory in this battle because of the disparity in strength, so the goal of this battle was not to win, but to make the French pay as high a price as possible, preferably to make their fleet ineffective for a certain period of time. So he decided to take a risk, to take a gamble, to bet that he would be able to inflict enough damage on the Frenchman's anvil before it fell on his back from behind.

The first detachment of the French was still pressing the British fleet to turn in circles, so that with a few more turns, the second detachment would be able to insert with a T-head advantage and shoot at the British with ferocious artillery fire. And if the British fleet did not follow the turn, they would have to face the T-head shelling of the first detachment.

But at this time, the "Cambridgeshire", which was at the forefront of the British army, seemed to have been turning the rudder counterclockwise, and suddenly turned sharply to the right, and then ran straight towards the first detachment.

This is tantamount to sending yourself to the T-head position of the enemy. But because the distance between the two sides was quite close before, as long as they were hard and subjected to one or two rounds of shelling, the British fleet had the opportunity to insert directly into the formation of the first detachment of the French, so that the positions of both sides changed from T to X.

Of course, in this process, the "Cambridgeshire" super cruiser, as the first capital ship, will definitely be attacked by the French army, but her actions can cover the "Elizabeth" behind. By the time she was sunk, the Queen Elizabeth was very close to the enemy. She has a strong defense, and her cannons, while not having a high rate of fire, are incredibly powerful. As long as even one or two effective hits can be effective, it is enough to inflict great damage on the French battleship. Even if it's not enough to sink them, they'll be able to stay in the shipyard for a while.

Of course, the "Queen Elizabeth" rushed up like this, and at such a close distance, she was shelled by the first detachment, and she would only be beaten even worse. I'm afraid that the entire long-rise building will be smashed to pieces by the French. But these injuries will not make the Queen Elizabeth ineffective, her engines can still roar, and her cannons can still roar. It's just that the rate of fire of her cannons is too slow, much slower than the French.

"The main guns are ready to fire, and they are not allowed to fire without our orders." Nelson gave another order. Since it is difficult to hit from a long distance, it is better to simply rush to the same distance as a bayonet and fire with the main gun against someone's armor.

The British's warships were far more agile than the French, so when the British swerved and collided head-on, the French had no time to turn and dodge. But Admiral Treyville didn't feel the need to turn to evasion at all. He understood exactly what Nelson meant by this move. If he had been in Nelson's position, he would have done the same, because that was the most likely way to inflict more damage on the French in the current situation.

But Nelson's doing so meant that the "Elizabeth" would have to withstand the fire of the T-head. Admiral Trevil felt that it was entirely possible to fight against each other.