October 20, 58 B century, the first day of the war, the first day of the intercontinental war in the colonies of the B century. Pen, fun, and www.biquge.info

The advance fleet of the United Empire of St. Roman-Santa Sunia, a total of 11 Selena-class cruisers, all entered submarine mode on this day. For the first time in the country's naval warfare, all the participating units were defeated by the enemy. The first battle of the fleet was unfavorable, although it was not a complete defeat, but the record of 11:1 was similar to a complete defeat. On the evening of the first day, the army landed successfully, on a completely defenseless beach, and it is strange that it was unsuccessful.

On October 21, 58 B, the second day of the war, the enemy army on Curry Island began to rely on the forts around the port to defend it to the death, and the ground offensive of the army was not smooth, and the enemy's infantry was very strong and fierce. In the early hours of October 22, the Saint-Roman Army finally captured the military port of Curry, a ruined military port with a group of valiant defenders. After the war, less than half of the men in this division remained.

In the first naval battle, the advance fleet was completely destroyed. In the first land battle, more than half of the participating troops were lost.

The expeditionary fleet on October 22, 58 B century needed a victory more than ever. That morning, the chance of victory came, and I came to the door by myself.

At 8 a.m. on 22 October, reinforcements from the Marnerocco Imperial Army arrived, and the garrison naval detachment and the reinforcement fleet departed from the port to meet the reinforcement fleet. At 12 noon, the fleet still did not leave, but wandered outside the military port, which clearly wanted to fight a battle before leaving.

Since the Marne-Rocco fleet wants to fight, then the St. Roman expeditionary fleet can only be accompanied. At 14 o'clock in the afternoon of the same day, the decisive battle in the first battle of the war finally began. It was the largest naval battle ever fought between the two armies.

The first decisive battle fleet of the Marnerocco Empire: 2 main battleships of the Naru type, 3 ordinary battleships of the Yanar type, 10 large cruisers, 15 medium cruisers.

The "First Battle Fleet" of the Saint-Roman Empire: 2 large Odessa-class battleships, 20 Penguin-class pocket battleships, 150 Selena cruisers.

(The technical performance parameters of the ships of the Saint-Roman Empire and the Marne-Rocco Empire are all described in the description section of the relevant work.) For the ships of the Marnerocco Empire, a chapter will be devoted to the comparison of armament ideas and the advantages and disadvantages of shipbuilding technology)

The two armies face off, which side has the more victorious appearance? Quantity brother? Quality brother?

Even if dozens of Selenas were left with the landing force and supply fleet to prevent the enemy from sneak attack, our Saint Roman Imperial Naval Fleet still had an absolute numerical superiority.

The plan of the expeditionary fleet of the Saint Roman Empire Navy is like this, first leave enough warships to watch the supply ships and land forces at the landing site, and the rest. The soldiers who went up were divided into two ways, and the Selena-class cruiser was in front of the enemy; 2 Odessa-class large battleships and 20 Penguin-class pocket battleships detoured the enemy fleet (codenamed Flotilla A) and set up an ambush on the way back of the enemy fleet to give him an ambush at sea.

At 13:45 on the afternoon of the 22nd, the two fleets that were fighting head-to-head began to engage the enemy. The enemy fleet is to the east, our fleet is to the west, and both sides are in horizontal formation, with the bow facing the enemy. This formation is extremely advantageous to our army, and the main advantage is that it is convenient to give full play to the power of the main gun; The Marnerocco Imperial fleet was inconvenient to use its main guns to the fullest. At that time, the fleet of the Marne-Rocco Empire was lined up in a horizontal line, and our Saint-Roman Empire had many warships, so it was lined up in three horizontal columns. There were about 70 ships in the first column, and the second and third columns were moved forward to replenish the battle damage in the first column. The whole fleet consisted of 50 ships in one squadron, and the 70 ships in front of the enemy fleet belonged to three squadrons, and from the north to South Africa were the B, C, and D fleets.

At 13:57 p.m. on the 22nd, all the warships of the Marnerocco Imperial Fleet, the enemy in front of our naval fleet, began to fill the rudder on the right, and the whole fleet on the right full rudder, and the fleet sailed towards the open sea in the depths of the ocean. At 13:59, the enemy's entire fleet, 2 main battleships of the Naru type, 3 ordinary battleships of the Yanar type, 10 large cruisers, and 15 medium cruisers, formed a column in front of our fleet. At that time, the Imperial Navy of Manlocco adopted this formation in order to give full play to its firepower, and in order to exert its firepower, the entire fleet had already appeared in front of our troops in front of the projected bombed area (bombed area) to the maximum. Unfortunately, the distance between the two fleets was about 10 nautical miles, which was already a terminal trajectory for Selena's 150-mm guns, and could not cause great damage to enemy ships. The distance of 10 nautical miles is too long, and the probability of hitting a torpedo is also very low, and it is close to the limit of the torpedo range. The frontal fleet of the enemy, all Selena cruisers, had nothing to do but sit back and watch the enemy army go by, without the right weapons to strike at the enemy.

Compared with the helplessness of the Saint-Roman Expeditionary Fleet, at this distance, the large-caliber main guns of the Manrocco Imperial Fleet can effectively hit Selena-class cruisers, especially the 280mm naval guns equipped with those battleships, as long as they hit, it is devastating damage, even close-arrow shells are enough to cause the hull of Selena-class cruisers to rupture into water (theoretically, the toughness of the hull of wooden-hulled ships is better than that of iron hulls, and the ability to resist near-arrow damage is stronger than that of ordinary iron-hulled ships).

At 14 o'clock, the Marnerocco Imperial fleet opened fire, and the battle officially began. From the perspective of our cruisers, the 280mm guns of those enemy battleships were held high and spewed huge pillars of fire; Dozens of seconds later, at least 100 280mm shells began to land in the group of our warships, and the column of water that soared into the sky was accompanied by a huge explosion. Before the sea was calm after the cannon had been disturbed, there was another column of rushing water, and the second salvo of shells began to fire again......

Naru type capital battleship, main guns: 12 x 280mm/45x diameter Krupp SKL/45 main guns, 6 twin turrets; Ordinary battleship of the Yanar type, main guns: 8 x 280mm/45x diameter guns, 4 twin turrets. In this formation, 8 guns of the 4 main guns of the Naru class can be used, all the main guns of the Yanar class can be used, 4 8 guns can be used, and the front and rear 280 mm twin main guns of the old large cruisers can also exert their power, and the total number of enemy forces participating in the battle of 2 Naru class, 3 Yanar class, and 10 old cruisers is calculated, 2 * 8 + 3 * 8 + 10 * 4 = 80. According to this calculation, the Marnerocco naval fleet could fire 280mm shells per salvo of 80 shells.

The 280 mm main gun used by the Marnerocco fleet, with an actual caliber of 11.1 inches (282 mm), can reach a rate of fire of 3 rounds per minute, with a muzzle velocity of 844 m / s, and mainly fires 302 kg armor-piercing shells, with a barrel life of 210 rounds and a burst shell life of up to 400-600 rounds. The artillery range was 20 meters at an angle of fire equal to 18900o, and 12000 inches of homogeneous steel armor that could penetrate at a distance of 8 meters.

Considering the level of fatigue that the shooters could tolerate and the contact time of the salvo, it was stress-free for the Marne-Rocco Imperial fleet to bombard the Saint-Roman Imperial fleet at a firing rate of 160 rounds per minute. This incoming fleet has fully communicated with the fleet stationed on the island, and for these new cruisers that are not in the ship identification manual, it is enough to use blasting shells, and armor-piercing shells should be kept for fighting battleships.

The Macron Imperial fleet opened fire and headed south, intending to keep a distance from the enemy fleet while inflicting enough damage on the enemy fleet. Wave after wave of blasting shells smashed into the fleet of the San Roman Empire, and finally a warship was hit by a decent shot, and many warships had already been damaged by enemy close-in bullets, and the hulls of the ships were broken, repairing the loopholes, and stopping the advance.

The battle went on until 14:07 pm on the 22nd, when the cruiser with the number F094 was hit directly by a 280-mm shell, which was located on the foredeck below the bridge. The blasting shell went in, and the inertia caused the shell to break into the cabin, and then exploded violently. The surrounding friendly ships clearly recorded the situation at that time - "The bridge of F094 flew away, and the captain, first mate, and helmsman inside flew out of the warship. The flames engulfed the entire warship, the entire warship was shattered, and I didn't think there were any survivors on that ship. ”

The F094 hit was a 280mm grenade with a charge of about 105 kg, 105 kg of picric acid explosive, which is equivalent to 105 kg of C4, to put it more bluntly, close to 1 ton of civilian TNT. The grenade exploded at the moment of detonation, and the main gun ammunition depot under the foredeck was barely armor protected by the main gun ammunition depot of this class of warships, except for the ammunition to be placed below the waterline. Cheap warships, that's all.

(Military TNT is actually not pure TNT, and it is also frequented for civilian use, but the purpose and effect are the opposite of military ones.) Picric acid is a light yellow bright flake crystal or powder, soluble in hot water, melting point 122.5 °C, density 1.763g/?3. The explosion speed is 3977.5KJ/100g, and the explosion speed is 7350m/s. The power and intensity are greater than the famous general demolition road goods TNT. One kilogram of standard TNT explosion produces 4.2 million joules of energy, or 420 KJ/100 grams. Look at the power of this product, there is a reason why the Japanese use this product. ）

As the distance between the two fleets approached, the Selena-class cruisers exploded one after another, which was a sight to behold in the Marnerocco Imperial fleet, but they also came into the effective range of the Selena cruiser's main guns.

From 14:20 p.m. on the 22nd, a number of warships of the Marnerocco Imperial Fleet were shot, and at 14:25, some ships of the fleet were hit by bullets and caught fire. At 14:30, the closest distance between the two sides was less than 5 nautical miles, the battle continued, as the Marne-Rocco Imperial Fleet moved south, the fleet successively left the San Romain Empire B Fleet, C Fleet front, the Marne-Rocco Imperial Fleet began to turn to the left, the fleet ships reached the predetermined turning point and turned left, the fleet exerted its maximum firepower to bombard the D fleet, and the D fleet ships were hit by many more bullets.

At this time, the Saint-Roman Empire's D fleet also began to turn, keeping the bow facing the enemy. At around 14:31, the commander of the D fleet ordered all ships to fire torpedoes at the turning enemy fleet. There is also a theory that the order was for the ships to fire torpedoes at the burning enemy ships, and the specific order is no longer clear, and most of the survivors claim to have received the first order, but one thing is very consistent: the cruisers fired at least two waves of torpedo salvos, but because of the lack of training of the sailors, the torpedoes were very chaotic and failed to form a salvo. At 14:38, the flagship of the D fleet, the cruiser F126, was shot. The ship was shot in the middle of the hull, and soon an explosion occurred, and at 14:40, the ship basically sank. This meant that the D fleet lost its unity of command. Immediately, the D fleet was brought into battle only in units of various cruiser squadrons.

At 14:41, the B and C fleets of our expeditionary fleet began to turn in a large arc of the overall formation, keeping the bow aimed at the enemy fleet.

At 14:42, the expeditionary fleet finally had the first result of this battle, and the torpedo fired by the D fleet hit an enemy medium cruiser, which was shot in the middle, and the torpedo exploded and exploded into the sky, and the column of water was higher than the ship's mast. A large hole was blown open in the middle of the hull, and the sea water poured into it, and in less than a minute, the ship began to tilt badly, and it was a matter of time before it sank.

At 14:45, a medium-sized cruiser at the rear of the ship came to the vicinity of the ship to slow down and dock, trying to rescue the friendly forces that had fallen into the water.

At 14:46, the righteous and brave man who stopped next to the Zhonglei warship was unfortunately hit by a mine, and the third cruiser did not hesitate to lean up, this is a large cruiser, at the rear of the overall position of the Marnerocco Imperial fleet. These two brave men fell behind the back of the line.

At 14:50, the B and C detachments of our expeditionary fleet, which had completed the turn, launched an attack on the three enemy warships gathered together, firing a volley of torpedoes.

From 14:55 to 14:57, the sky-high column of torpedo explosion continued to rise around the three enemy warships, and these warships were hit by at least two mines, and even one torpedo hit the enemy lifeboat. The enemy warships soon began to sink, and at 15:10 they almost disappeared from the sea.

From 14:45, the battle between the D fleet and the main forces of the enemy fleet entered a state of melee, so that the two fleets of BC were unable to torpedo the enemy ships. The D fleet rushed up and engaged in a melee with the enemy forces, and the fight was bad...... After the war, it was calculated that this detachment was almost annihilated by enemy troops.

From 15:05 to 15:07, two enemy Yanar-class battleships were hit by large-caliber close-arrow shells, and the ship leaked, and one of the main battleships of the Naru type was hit by a chimney, and the violent explosion completely shredded the chimney and the nearby mast. These artillery fires came from the main guns of the battleships of our A fleet.

At 15:03, our fleet A returned to its position and began to carry out long-range fire strikes on these enemy ships, picking the big ones first.

At 15:08, the enemy flagship, which was lucky not to be hit by our fleet, ordered to retreat, with the battleship going first and the cruiser behind. The enemy ships turned to the west and fled in a hurry. Our battlefleet carried out a fire pursuit, hitting the aft deck of the enemy Yanar-class battleship, and another large cruiser was shot in the superstructure, and the mast was blown off.

At 15:10, our A fleet began to divide its forces to attack the enemy's rear fleet. These enemy armored cruisers scattered and fled for their lives, and most of them took advantage of the chaos to escape, and many of them were damaged by various fires from our troops. In the melee, an enemy medium cruiser was sunk by our torpedoes.

At 15:15, the remnants of the D Fleet intercepted three partially enemy cruisers became the targets of the artillery shelling of the battleships of our A Fleet. These three enemy ships gave a signal to surrender, but our troops completely ignored them (one said that our troops did not pay attention to or did not understand the enemy's signals), and still concentrated all kinds of heavy firepower to completely destroy them. Two of them exploded violently and sank, and the other was completely destroyed and drifted on the water, and our cruiser fleet fired torpedoes at close range to sink them.

At 15:30, all the enemy ships in this sea area disappeared, and the naval battle was over, and only a few wreckage of our warships were still burning on the sea.

The result of this quantitative vs. qualitative contest was that the Imperial Expeditionary Fleet, which had absolute quantitative superiority, paid absolutely huge losses in the face of an enemy with absolute quantitative superiority, with pitiful results.

The expeditionary fleet of our empire sank 7 enemy ships, one large cruiser, six medium cruisers, more than half of which were sunk by torpedoes. All the officers and men of the fleet agreed that torpedoes were definitely the nemesis of enemy ships, and many previous naval battles had repeatedly proven this. In terms of specific results, three cruiser squadrons sank four enemy ships, and the other three were sunk by roundabout attacks by the battlefleet.

Their losses were that fifty-four cruisers were sunk. The result of this battlefield is 54:7, a very cost-effective exchange ratio, regardless of the tonnage, quantity, and personnel loss ratio, in many respects, this is a super defeat. Counting the eleven ships that were previously sunk and the other two that were lost, our Selena-class cruisers have been sunk by sixty-seven. Objectively speaking, the warships of our army are somewhat like Shermans, like lighters, and more appropriately, giant sea Molotov wine bottles. As soon as the large-caliber guns of the enemy ship hit our ship, the huge sea wine bottles would ignite, until the battleship sank, or it exploded violently, and the warship and crew quickly disappeared. The advantage of the damaged ship sinking in such a rapid mode is that there is no need to think about the rescue of people who have fallen into the water, and the other ships can concentrate on combat. (Nima, I don't know if this is a war or a death!?) ）

Compared with the huge losses of their own side, the results of the battle are really pitiful. The wreckage of your own warship floated everywhere on the sea, which seemed to symbolize the victory of the enemy. This opening battle can be described as an absolute loss-making deal. It's just that our cruiser fleet, which was divided into battlefields, achieved an absolutely non-losing result.

At about 13:30 in the afternoon of the same day, a Yanar-type battleship of the Marnerocco Empire raided the landing force, and was forced to abandon the original ship's plan to slaughter the transport ship under the impact of dozens of Selena cruisers. There are too many steppe wolves, and no matter how strong the forest tiger is, it can't stand it! Run for your life decisively.

When the ship turned the rudder, the stern was hit by a torpedo fired by the cruiser, and the steering gear was damaged, so it could only spin in place and could not be withdrawn. Immediately afterwards, another mine was hit in the aft aft compartment of the ship, which was supposed to be the engine room...... After two thunderbolts, the warship stopped on the surface of the sea and could not move.

The commander of the Selena-class cruiser convoy saw that the enemy ships could not move in the mines, and ordered the ships immediately. Torpedoes were fired at the hapless Yanar-class battleship. The enemy ship was mined again......

This time, it was only a few seconds of mid-mine strikes, and this powerful battleship was over. It's not sinking, it's not sinking a warship of this size in a few seconds. It blew up. Explosive! Rumble! The brilliant explosion came just seconds after it hit the torpedo for the second time. This Yanar-class battleship declared our army victorious with a tragic explosion pattern of the whole ship. The ship sank only 2 Selena-class cruisers of our army.

On the whole, the Saint-Roman Empire's naval expeditionary fleet was really beaten by the Marne-Rocco Empire, and after such three tragic decisive battles, this expeditionary fleet would be over, it would be all over, and not a single one would be gone. This time, Nima was a little too bad. However, everyone in the upper echelons of the Saint-Roman army saw this as a real victory—a great strategic victory. Here's why:

First of all, "the enemy fleet was encircled by our warships and fought desperately with all their might to break through the encirclement" and "the enemy was forced to abandon Curry Island". Our army has a base for advancement. Although this base must be repaired before it can be used.

Secondly, almost all of the enemy's main ships were damaged by our troops, and the colonial ports had limited ability to repair warships, and the enemy forces would not be able to dispatch a sufficient number of capital ships to fight our troops for a long time. Before the enemy repaired the warships or drove new ones, our troops temporarily gained sea supremacy.

In addition to these two articles, military historians have summed up another result of this naval battle, which can be described as the greatest result of this naval battle.

After the war, military historians considered this naval battle to be the greatest victory, if not a decisive victory, in the early stages of the war, and it allowed the Marnerocco Empire to solidify his theory of quality victory. If it weren't for the experience of winning this battle, the Marnerocco Empire could have built more warships in this war. Quality! Quality? For the sake of quality, the output of warships can be lower, and the number of front-line ships is much less. This may mean that the numerical superiority of our fleet will be weakened, and our fleet will not have so many "idle warships" to do "very bad things."

In terms of tactical experience, our army had an extremely important windfall in this battle.

The torpedo in the Yanar type battleship actually exploded on the whole ship, another cruiser also blew up by the torpedo, and another cruiser exploded violently after being hit by a high-explosive bomb on the superstructure and then sank with a secondary explosion, these circumstances made the United Imperial Navy feel as if it had discovered the weakness of the Marnerocco Imperial warship, and the enemy's warships that looked very powerful only looked powerful, and once a certain point was hit, it would be fatal.

The idea that "torpedoes are the nemesis of enemy ships" led directly to the creation of the Selena II mine-strike cruiser 10 months later; In a series of subsequent operations, our army coincidentally discovered a more effective weapon than torpedoes -- high-explosive bombs, or grenades.

Grenade: also known as flowering/high-explosive shells, it is the "patriarch" of artillery shells, it is the earliest "born", the longest used, and the most descendants. The earliest high-explosive shells were made by the Chinese around 1000 AD. Meng Ge Khan, who was on the edge of Diaoyu City, tasted it very happily. Tastes great. "Khan was injured by the cannon wind and died the next morning" praised the Song army grenade projectile artillerymen in Diaoyu City!! It can be seen here that the grenade is characterized by a relatively large number of explosives and a thinner shell, which mainly uses the huge shock wave generated by the projectile explosion to destroy the target. The deck of the enemy ship is lined with rockets filled with picric acid, and the explosion of grenades at close range can completely detonate the picric acid and propellant in these rockets, and then the rockets stored in the nearby magazine will also be detonated, and the whole warship may be blown into a fireship under the high temperature generated by the burning of picric acid...... After many battles between the main fleets of the two sides, the Imperial Navy of Marnerocco realized that it was extremely foolish to place these dangerous goods on the deck of their warship, but by then it was too late.

………

In the months that followed, it was time to wait. Both sides are waiting for reinforcements, for logistical supplies, and for anything else needed for the operation. These things are almost there, and another fleet showdown will begin. These days, our fleet is not idle, not just waiting. These Selena-class cruisers and later replenishment ships took full advantage of the numerical superiority of warships to engage in a smashing engagement against enemy transport forces—a sea strangulation battle in the pre-senseless ship era.

Appendix:

Selena-class cruiser of the Saint-Roman Expeditionary Fleet: Iron-ribbed wooden hull, displacement of 1,300 tons, length of 86 meters, width of 11 meters, depth of 7.6 meters, draft of 5.3 meters, 1,500 horsepower, speed of 16 knots. Armament of 2 150-mm guns (twin front main guns), 4 120-mm guns (layout on both sides), two torpedo tubes; The crew is 160 people. A total of 366 ships of this class were built.

Marnerocco Imperial Navy

Naru-type capital battleship:

(Similar in appearance to the German Nassau class, with significant data changes)

Displacement: 14,800 tons (design) / 18,535 tons (maximum)

Dimensions: Length 166 m (full length) / Width 28.6 m / Draught 7.76 m

Power: 12 Sulzer-Sannikrovt boilers, three three-cylinder reciprocating steam engines, main engine power 22,000 horsepower, 3 shafts, 2 rudder parallel configurations

The maximum speed is 20 knots, and the cruising range is 9400 nautical miles / 10 knots; 2800 nautical miles / 19 knots

Main guns: 12 x 280mm/45x diameter Krupp SKL/45 guns, 6 twin turrets;

Secondary guns: 12 x 150mm/45x secondary guns, 12 x 120mm guns, anti-torpedo boats, all broadside single-mounted.

Others: 16 700 mm rocket launchers, divided into two sides of the hull.

Armor: main armor belt 100-200 mm; three armored decks of 25-30 mm each; turret 90-180 mm; Conning tower 300 mm.

Crew: 1,050 in peacetime, 1,350 in wartime (51 officers).

Normal battleships of the Yanar type:

Displacement: 11,370 tons (design) / 13,300 tons (maximum)

Size (m): 148.6x26.6x7.17 (draft)

Powerplant: 18 boilers, 2 Parsons steam turbines, maximum power 42,000 hp (79,000 hp with modifications);

Speed: maximum 20.8 knots, endurance: 4400 nautical miles at 14 knots, 3520 nautical miles at 18 knots

Main guns: 8 x 280mm/45x guns, 4 twin turrets

Secondary guns: 8 x 150mm/45x guns, 12 x 120mm guns, all single mounted on the broadside.

Others: 12 700 mm rocket launchers, divided into two sides of the hull.

Crew: 923 people, 41 officers.