At two o'clock in the afternoon of April 3, two fleets of straight hedges collided first, and in less than a minute, the British Hector and the Chinese Yandi opened fire one after another, thus starting the official duel of this naval battle!

When the distance between the two sides was shortened, the close observation of the British Hector and the Resistance made many naval officers of the Imperial Navy feel a sense of powerlessness.

One of these two warships is more than 6,100 tons, while the other is more than 6,700 tons, which is a full circle larger than the Yandi and Shaohao.

The only thing to be thankful for is that although there is a difference in the tonnage of the two sides, there is not much difference in the protection performance and firepower of the two.

Even the Yandi still has a certain advantage in speed and firepower.

In this era, there is still a great difference between the development of ironclad ships in China and the ironclad ships of Britain and France, first of all, the ironclad ships in the imperial navy are basically fast warships.

In addition, the ship's guns have completely abandoned the front-loading guns, and the 150-mm or 120-mm rear-loading guns are used as the main guns, and the secondary guns are mainly 80-mm rear-loading guns. Unlike ironclad ships in other countries, there are large-caliber smoothbore guns at the same time as rear-loading naval guns, and then there are front-loading rifled guns, and various calibers are also very complex.

Then there is also a very noticeable feature of appearance, which is the possession of a low superstructure, the bridge.

You must know that the ironclad ships of contemporary other countries basically continue the appearance of wooden warships, and there is no tall superstructure on the deck, they are all empty.

In addition, the empire is limited by its own research and development capabilities. It is not possible to build a battleship and develop one, but to carefully select and develop one of them. Whether it is the Pangu level or the Yandi level, the estimated number of its construction is quite large. Four Pangea-class ships have already entered service, with one more under construction, and the Navy intends to continue to order subsequent modifications. Two Yandi-class ships have also been commissioned, and another one is under construction.

Therefore, the ship type is relatively unified, and the pressure on logistics and maintenance is relatively small, and it will not be like the British There are only one or two first-class warships, there are many of them, and there are more models, but the British have money and willfulness. They build so many types of ironclad ships, mainly for exploration and experimentation, which is always at the forefront of the world at a cost of more than others.

A brief description of the data of the main warships of the two sides that are fighting at the moment can see a greater and obvious difference.

The British Resistance, with a standard displacement of 6,150 tons, was equipped with six 7-inch breech-loading rifled guns, ten front-loading guns of sixty-eight pounds, and two thirty-two-pound front-loading guns. The armor is a contemporary classic teak wrought iron hybrid armor with a thickness of 4.5 inches. The lining was eighteen inches thick, steam-powered two thousand five hundred and forty horsepower, and the maximum speed was eleven .62 knots.

The Yandi class of the Imperial Navy has a standard displacement of four thousand tons. Equipped with sixteen 150 mm breech-loading rifled guns and six 80 mm breech-loading rifled guns, the armor is also the standard hybrid armor of the modern era. The armor was four and a half inches thick, lined with planks eighteen inches. The steam power is 2,300 horsepower, and the maximum speed is 13.5 knots.

Such a comparison. That is, the six main guns of the British were of a larger caliber, but in smaller quantities, and as for those sixty-eight and thirty-two pounder front-loading smoothbore guns, to be honest, they were already behind the times. On the other hand, the Yandi class, although the caliber of the guns is smaller, but there are many of them, and the main guns are all 150 mm naval guns, and the bow and stern and side sides are deployed with a full sixteen guns, although only six of them are deployed on the open-air rotating turret, and the remaining ten are on both sides of the side of the division, but there are sixteen anyway!

As for the six 80-mm rear-loading guns, the caliber was too small to basically affect the combat effectiveness of the battleship in a decisive battle, so it could be ignored.

The protection is almost the same as everyone touches, at most the detailed design of the hull is different, but the difference is not big!

The speed of the Resistance is only more than eleven knots, but the pure steam speed of the Yandi is thirteen.5 knots, which is about two knots short.

As for the other British battleship, the Hector, its firepower was changed, and the main guns were four seven-inch rear-loading guns, twenty sixty-eight-pounder front-loading guns, and four five-inch rear-loading guns, with a maximum speed of 12.6 knots. The protection is unchanged, with the same 4.5-inch armor and 18-inch lining planks as the Resistance and the Yandi.

From the specific analysis of the above performance, in fact, although the tonnage gap between the two Yandi-class ironclad ships and the British Resistance and Hector is a little large, the actual combat effectiveness gap is not large.

However, there is also a very crucial point that after a series of battles between ironclads in the American Civil War, it is fully proved that the existing naval guns and shells are powerless against the armor of ironclads.

This is also the reason why the Imperial Navy, as well as the navies of Britain and France, maintain basically the same armor thickness among the ironclad ships with huge tonnage differences.

The armor thickness of the British ironclad ships of tens of thousands of tons is also 4.5 inches, and those ironclad ships of more than 1,000 tons also have an armor thickness of 4.5 inches.

The British were like this, and the warships of the Imperial Navy were no exception, such as the Nusnail class, the Pangu class, the Yandi class, and even the Washington sold to the Americans, whose armor thickness was a uniform 4.5 inches.

That is to say, as long as the contemporary ironclad ships are passable in tonnage, they are basically equipped with 4.5 inches thick armor as standard, of course, this only refers to some more regular ironclad ships, represented by British battleships, supplemented by Chinese warships that learn to imitate British battleships, as for the ironclad ships of other countries, such as the United States, which used a large number of ironclad ships in the civil war, their ironclad ships are messy, all kinds of them, the only common thing is that the vote of ironclad ships in the American Civil War is except for only a few, The others basically do not have the ability to fight a decisive battle in the ocean, and they are all offshore inland river gunboats.

But no matter what type of ironclad ships in that country, they all have the same characteristics, that is, the protection is unprecedentedly strong, enough to make all the current naval guns powerless.

This kind of protection ability is fully displayed in the current naval battle of the Pearl River Estuary!

When at two o'clock in the afternoon the flagships of both sides took the lead in firing. Several ironclad ships behind the two sides also fired one after another, although the rate of fire was not fast. But the number of naval guns on both sides is also quite large, and more importantly, the distance is close.

So soon there were shells hitting the battleship!

The first hit in the naval battle was a seven-inch shell fired by the British Resistance. And this shell hit the side armor of the right front of the Yandi solidly, and the result?

That is, to knock out a small crater in the armor belt of the Yandi, and the Yandi did not have anything to do!

The same thing happened with the Imperial Navy's shelling of the British ironclad, and a number of 150-millimeter shells hit the side armor of the Resistance or Hector, and all of them, without exception, failed to penetrate the armor of the battleship.

In the first fifteen minutes of the battle, although there were not many hits, there were seven or eight on both sides combined, but except for those shells that hit the deck or superstructure, there were some successes. The shells that hit the broadside armor were basically useless.

This situation was soon discovered by the commanders of both sides, and Rear Admiral Liszt personally watched one of his gunboat's shells hit the Chinese battleship, but the opposing battleship did not have any, not even a trace of injury.

It can't go on like this, otherwise you won't be able to sink the opponent even if the shells run out, so you have to rush forward quickly, and when the time comes, you will use the side guns of your many wooden battleships to destroy the opponent!

Immediately, Rear Admiral Liszt once again issued a flag, asking the warships in the rear to follow closely. The formation of an inverted V formation continued to rush forward, intending to completely disrupt the formation of the Chinese Navy.

Just when Liszt wanted to change his formation and launch a melee attack, Lin Tongshu was also writing and drawing on the chart. While thinking quickly.

Immediately, a captain walked over quickly: "Chief of Staff, the enemy fleet has changed formation!" ”

Lin Tongshu quickly walked up to the conning tower. Without binoculars, he could see that the enemy's fleet was beginning to change formation. And the use of the most classic contemporary inverted V formation, the British are going to rush up to fight a melee!

This time. Shen Tongdeng on the side also walked over: "Staff Officer Lin! ”

Although Shen Tongdeng didn't ask directly because of the commander's face, others could also hear that Shen Tongdeng was in a hurry, he wanted to ask the opinion of the staff group, whether to change the formation in time to maintain the current distance or to rush directly to fight a melee!

Lin Tongshu pondered for a while and said: "They only have three ironclad ships, the others are wooden battleships, and the protection ability is quite poor, while our main fleet is all ironclad ships, and the previous battle has proved that the enemy's naval guns can't bring too much damage to our warships, I suggest maintaining the current formation, using the column to penetrate directly into the core of the enemy fleet, and give full play to the side firepower on the Yandi and Shaohao, as long as they pass through the enemy's three ironclad ships, then those wooden battleships behind them can't stop us at all!" ”

Lin Tongshu had also considered turning to continue the column to quickly penetrate to the front of the enemy fleet, so that the broadside fire could be discovered to the greatest extent, and once it succeeded, it could also start to turn to the left, and then insert into the middle of the three ironclad ships of the enemy fleet and a large number of wooden battleships, and divide them.

However, this tactic requires quite a lot of the officers and men of the fleet, and the ships must cooperate perfectly to maintain the entire formation, and at the same time, the enemy's two ironclad ships are not slow, and if they are not careful, the turn of their own fleet has not yet been completed, and the two ironclad ships of the other people will directly rush up, and completely cut off the formation of their own fleet, and divide and outflank them.

This kind of risk is something that Lin Tongshu is unwilling to bear, this naval battle is related to the fortunes of the country, and he cannot be allowed to adopt such risky tactics!

So he prefers to adopt a hedging tactic that estimates that the loss will be larger, but the overall risk is smaller.

After Shen Tongdeng heard Lin Tongshu's words, he didn't think much about it, and immediately ordered: "Order all ships to maintain the formation!" ”

As one order after another was issued, the main fleet of this huge combined fleet maintained the current formation of two columns!

The first column is two Yandi-class and four Pangu-class, and the second column is two Nuluo-class and three Zhenguang-class.

These two columns, like two sharp arrows, rushed directly towards the inverted V formation of the British!

And the Yandi, as the flagship of the first column, took the lead, rushed forward with full horsepower, and at the same time issued a flag: "Follow the ship closely, fire freely!" (To be continued.) )