In the afternoon, the smell of gunpowder smoke off the harbor of Honolulu was still pungent, and several burning ships were floating on the sea, and there were many sailors who had jumped into the sea nearby.

At this time, on the Taiyuan, Colonel Guo Yi's arm was tied with gauze, and in the battle just now, his ship was hit by a shell from a British warship, and the wood fragments hit his left hand.

But at this moment, he didn't feel the pain in his hand at all, but continued to hold the telescope in one hand and looked at the three enemy warships that had gradually moved away!

The current Colonel Guo Yi doesn't know whether to be happy or depressed!

In the past several hours of fighting, except for the initial battle under the command of Colonel Guo Yi, the subsequent battle was basically completely chaotic, and each ship was fighting on its own, and there was no way to carry out the basic tactics of long-distance artillery bombardment set by Colonel Guo Yi.

In the end, the ships of the two sides were 800 or 900 meters away, and only about 1 or 200 meters close, and there were even cases of direct collision with enemy ships.

At the beginning of the battle, although the Imperial Navy's Hawaiian task force relied on long-range accurate fire to take the lead in achieving multiple hits, to be honest, the shells in these years did not hurt much, and they could only damage enemy ships, and it was still relatively difficult to completely sink enemy ships.

However, although the Imperial Navy made a good start, the combined fleets of Britain, France and the United States soon closed the distance under the command of the British, and when the distance between the two sides was closer, the two sides completely lost their formation, and the battle turned into a melee.

In the next battle, Colonel Guo Yi could not actually command his own fleet at all, and each ship could only fight on its own.

However, even if they fought separately, the commanders of the ships of the Imperial Navy still clearly remembered their strengths and weaknesses, and repeatedly distanced themselves in battle. In order to avoid the blow of enemy fire, and at the same time use the range and accuracy advantage of their own rear-loading rifled naval guns to strike at long distances.

After a scuffle, an American battleship was the first to withdraw from the battle.

The wooden battleship was flanked by the Taiyuan and Ningbo and was hit by multiple grenades, which exploded destroying its sail system and detonating their gunpowder. This in turn caused explosions and fires.

Explosions are nothing, the real key is the fire, the wooden battleship of this year has a very low defense against the fire, once a fire occurs, it can basically be declared a failure.

It was less than an hour before the war began, and the American battleship was completely incapacitated because of the flames, and at first they could continue to drive with steam power, but soon his steam power was also destroyed by the fire, and finally floated on the surface of the sea like a dead fish, and the captain soon gave the order to abandon ship. A large number of sailors voluntarily jumped into the sea to escape, leaving only a burning battleship floating on the sea.

However, the Imperial Navy did not keep its good fortune for long, and soon the Ningbo was hit by the same number of shells, which destroyed the gun positions of many of their main guns, and directly destroyed the mast of the sail, and then a large-caliber solid ball cannonball shell directly penetrated the wooden armor, and then penetrated deep into the ship's hold, directly destroying the boiler room.

Later, the Ningbo, which lost the dual power of sails and steam, was attacked intensively. It soon followed the fate of the previous American ship, after failed efforts to extinguish the fire. The captain was forced to give the order to abandon the ship.

After one of the two sides was beaten to death, the battle continued, and the battle mode continued the previous battle mode, both sides mainly destroyed the superstructure of the enemy ship with grenades, first destroying the sail system and the guns on the deck, reducing the speed and firepower of the enemy ship. Then concentrate the fire to deliver a fatal blow, either inflicting a large number of casualties on the enemy ship's personnel, or causing a fire on the enemy ship, or a large-caliber solid ball shell penetrates deep into the internal compartment of the enemy ship and destroys the steam engine power system.

Wait until after one o'clock in the afternoon. A British battleship because the fire was not timely, and then led the detonation of ammunition, this time the explosion was extremely powerful, but not only destroyed the internal compartment, suffered casualties as simple, the huge explosion power directly blew out a big hole on one side of the hull, and then the more than 1,000-ton battleship sank quickly because of the flood, dozens of minutes later, the British battleship sank directly.

At 1:40 p.m., a fire broke out on the Imperial Navy's Tianjin, and because the fire was too large, the captain tried to fight the fire while trying to rush the stall, so he withdrew from the battle.

By the time the battle reached more than two o'clock in the afternoon, the ships on both sides had already suffered heavy casualties, the Ningbo and a British battleship had been sunk directly, and the Tianjin of the Imperial Navy had run aground on the beach and was now fighting the fire with all its might, but there was basically no way to save the fire.

However, the American battleship that was the first to withdraw from the battle, although it had been burning on the surface of the sea for several hours, the crew had already jumped into the sea to escape, and now the battleship, which no one has controlled or put out the fire, has been burning a lot, and it is still smoking and has not sunk.

Most of the other ships were not in any better condition, the superstructure of Colonel Guo Yi's ship, the Taiyuan, was full of bullet holes, there were many traces of fire, blood was flowing on the deck, people could slide up to it, and the wounded crowded the infirmary and even on the deck.

The battle has been fought to this point, in fact, both sides have lost the ability to continue fighting, although the combined fleet has three warships left, while the Imperial Navy still has two warships, this fight is definitely a lose-lose situation.

And this situation is very advantageous for the Imperial Navy, for which their task is to stop the attack of the Combined Fleet and hold Hawaii, even if it is to sink all the battles for this.

However, for the British, French, and American combined fleets, their goal was to capture the port of Honolulu, and if they continued to fight, they would no longer have enough capacity to cover the landing force for the landing.

When the stalemate lasted until 3 o'clock in the afternoon, the remaining three warships of the Combined Fleet began to retreat on their own initiative, joining up with the transport ships anchored in the open sea.

Watching them leave, Colonel Guo Yi knew that today's hurdle had been passed!

Although tactically today's battle was a lose-lose one, and no one had any gains, strategically it was the Imperial Navy's victory.

For this, he should be happy, but at this moment he is not happy.

The battle seemed to be a duel between warships, but in reality the casualties were very large.

The protection capability of wooden battleships is too scummy for contemporary artillery, even if it is a front-loading smoothbore gun, especially in the face of contemporary howitzers whose lethality and reliability have been greatly improved, wooden battleships can basically be said to be undefended.

After a battle, the crew of Colonel Guo Yi's ship was reduced by at least one-third!

And when the final casualty results came out in the evening, Colonel Guo Yi's face was even more ugly.

In today's battle, more than 100 soldiers died for the empire, and more than 200 were wounded, a casualty ratio much greater than the army's most brutal line operations.

However, according to their predictions, the enemy army was no better, and since the enemy retreated on their own initiative, the crews of the two ships left behind were either killed or later salvaged and taken prisoner.

Although the detailed number of enemy casualties is not known, it is almost certain that the enemy casualties were at least 300 or more, and they also recovered about 90 prisoners of war.

In terms of battleships, one British battleship and one American battleship were sunk, and the remaining three ships were seriously damaged.

On the imperial side, the Ningbo sank, although the Tianjin rushed to the stall and finally extinguished the fire, but after observation, it was found that the hull burned too badly, and there was basically no possibility of repair, so it could be counted in the ranks of the sunk, but because it was a successful stall, the ship's guns and other materials could be dismantled and continued to be used.

The remaining two ships were also seriously damaged!

And this naval battle has three very striking things in common, that is, the sail systems of both sides were destroyed one after another in the battle, and halfway through the battle, both sides relied solely on steam power for maneuvering.

At the same time, the wooden warships of both sides could not effectively protect the enemy's grenades or even solid bullets, the protection was too fragile, and frequently caused large fires, and when hit, the flying wood caused a large number of casualties.

The third is that unprotected naval guns have become the hardest hit area of casualties, often when the enemy's howitzer hits a gun position, the heavy naval guns are fine, but the gunners will be collectively reimbursed.

That night, when Guo Yi was writing a combat report, he emphasized the above three aspects, and suggested that in his capacity as a front-line officer, the navy's top brass should abolish as soon as possible the sail system, which has been of little use in actual combat, in the future, and at the same time further strengthen the protection capability of warships and gun emplacements.

And the above three points are also the main reasons for the current implementation of all-round ironclad ships in the Imperial Navy, but in the past, these were just theoretical inferences, but now Guo Yi has given them real combat results, and has proved that wooden sail warships are completely unable to adapt to the naval warfare of this era.

Basically, it is conceivable that after Colonel Guo Yi's battle report is transmitted back to China, it will have a profound impact on the future warship design of the Imperial Navy, and will be more determined that the Imperial Navy will develop and build a new type of warship, that is, a new type of warship that concentrates the three main elements of 'pure steam power, updated wrought iron armor, and rotating turrets with all-round protection capabilities'.

However, the future impact of this naval battle of Honolulu on the Imperial Navy will not be mentioned, these are all things in the future, and the current Colonel Guo Yi and Shi Yezhi still need to face the situation in Hawaii. (To be continued.) )