readx;

86_86661 "Commander Chen said it very well. The author of the "Fun" Pavilion www.biquge.info also believes that in the history of naval warfare, although the Battle of Trafalgar was not a complete war, as a battle, its wonderful and bold breakthrough style of play can be brilliantly recorded in the history of the most classic combat methods of the navy, and also provides us with a realistic lesson plan for cracking the T-shaped ship formation.

Captain Xu, you are the only one in our Hainan fleet who participated in the Battle of Dadonggou in the First Sino-Japanese War, how do you view and understand the formation of the First Sino-Japanese Naval Battle and the tactical thinking in the Battle of Trafalgar that Commander Chen talked about? What lessons will these two naval battles have for the naval battle in the Sea of Japan that our Hainan Fleet is about to fight? ”

Xu Chunsheng said: "The Battle of Dadonggou ten years ago is unforgettable. I still remember it vividly. In the past ten years, I have been thinking about the fact that in fact, we have a lot of opportunities to win that battle.

As for the formation of the fleet in the fierce battle, there is no superiority or inferiority in itself, I think it is only the slow speed of our fleet that pulls the back legs.

At that time, the capital ships of our Beiyang Navy were initially arranged in two columns, and then, with the two main ships in the fleet, "Dingyuan" and "Zhenyuan" as the core, the other ships changed their formations to the two wings, forming a horizontal formation that resembled a slight herringbone, and finally launched a fierce battle with the Japanese Combined Fleet arranged in a single column in this formation.

Since its establishment, our Beiyang Navy has particularly strengthened its training in horizontal formations and chaotic war tactics.

In that naval battle, when facing the Japanese fleet, and the Japanese fleet was lined up in columns, our Beiyang Navy would undoubtedly use this kind of goose formation and tactics called "column nemesis".

However, one factor is that the most critical factor in a successful attack is speed.

Our Beiyang Fleet must rush to the best moment when the columns of the Japanese Combined Fleet appear directly in front of them, and charge, approach, and melee in time.

However, our Beiyang Navy's warships are old, their boilers are close to scrapping, and they are still using low-quality coal, and they cannot achieve the required high speed despite all their efforts.

As a matter of fact, as far as the speed of the ships is concerned, from the moment the battle is launched, it is already doomed that the Beiyang Fleet's chaotic war tactics will not be able to give full play to it at all, and this is of course the deep-seated reason why our Beiyang Navy has failed in adopting a cracked goose formation.

In this sense, there is no superiority or inferiority in the formation itself, but the hardware facilities of the Beiyang Navy have been disconnected from this formation and fighting style that requires high mobility. In the tactical use of the "horizontal line" advance, a fatal mistake was made.

In today's discussion, I have to be offended to say that the tactic of "always facing the enemy with the bow of the ship" adopted by our Lord Ding Ruchang is wrong and a fatal mistake

Although, this tactic can give full play to the heavy artillery firepower of the bow of the ships of the Beiyang Fleet.

However, it is precisely the tactic of "always facing the enemy with the bow of the ship" that carries a fatal mistake, because this tactic violates the basic law of the action of the fleet or ship formation in naval operations.

In this era of naval warfare, in which naval artillery is the main weapon, the tactical application of naval fleets or ship formations in naval warfare is to correctly implement the combination of maneuver and timely concentration of firepower, that is, the organic combination of maneuver and firepower.

Therefore, I believe that the most effective combat method is to run through the formation, that is, to arrange "columns", and the most effective combat method is mobile tactics.

Therefore, from my point of view, if we put aside political factors in the Battle of Dadonggou ten years ago, the biggest reason for its failure was that our army did not have enough ship speed to attack the other side in the face of the Japanese T-shaped horizontal formation, and the speed of its artillery was not as fast as that of the Japanese army.

Here I will draw a simple diagram of the operation to analyze the advantages and disadvantages of the T-type ship formation. As shown in the figure:

A 1 →

2↑

1 is the enemy fleet, 2 is our fleet

The direction of the arrow indicates the heading.

For enemy fleets, the guns in the bow and stern of the ship can attack us, and the hit rate will be greatly improved.

For our fleet, only the bow can exert its maximum power, and at the same time, because the enemy is moving to the right at high speed, if the speed of our ships is not enough, we will only be beaten.

If we have enough speed, the situation will be different. Our fleet can approach and insert into the enemy formation at high speed, divide the enemy formation into two sections, and our side will occupy the head of the T-shape, so that the battlefield will become advantageous to our army.

Therefore, the main problem of winning a naval battle is how to concentrate firepower - to concentrate the bulk of the fleet's firepower and to attack a small number of enemy ships in the advance or rearguard.

This tactic was extremely simple, and Clark had advocated that the British Royal Navy concentrate its forces on attacking a part of the enemy ships, that is, attack a small number of enemy ships with all our warships.

The basis of this principle is a fundamental fact of the fleet: the speed of the ship determines the maneuverability of the battleship. For example, it is possible to attack and destroy the rear guard ships in the enemy column before they have time to turn for rescue, because it often takes half an hour or more for the battleship to turn.

Therefore, the first point planned for the Anglo-French naval battle was a "close and decisive battle", which was Nelson's consistent goal.

In such a battle, the generals should not wait for a signal, but act on their own initiative, and in order for them not to cause chaos in the whole order of the battle, they must have a full understanding of the "pattern" of attack of the commander-in-chief.

Nelson did not use battle as a means to carry out a plan; On the contrary, he uses planning as a means to achieve the goal of executing a battle. There is a big difference between the two.

The "pattern" of the attack was as follows: when Collingwood attacked twelve ships in the second half of the enemy line, Nelson was to attack the central part of the enemy to prevent it from attacking Collingwood, while his ships were to be sandwiched between the enemy center and the advance guard, preventing the latter from turning around to aid the enemy's rearguard.

At this time, the "advance detachment" interjected, and they were supposed to be positioned in front of the enemy's center, three or four ships apart, with the aim of searching for the enemy's commander-in-chief with all their might, since this was also the command and mental center of the enemy's fleet.

Nelson said: "Some things must be given by chance, especially in naval warfare, and nothing is certain for sure. Cannonballs can destroy enemy ships, as well as friendly ships. But I have confidence in victory before the enemy avant-garde has time to support the rearguard, after which we can be prepared to accept the surrender of the enemy's remaining twenty ships, and if they attempt to escape, then we can pursue them with all our might.

Nelson's tactical concept is very similar to that of Epaminondas at Levktroe. In that battle, the right flank of the Theban army monitored the left and center parts of the Spartan army, while the left flank of the Theban army destroyed the right flank of the Spartan army.

In the Battle of Trafalgar, Nelson also controlled the Franco-Spanish combined ship with a focused attack.

...