On August 4, 1899, the Russian Far East Fleet, led by the flagship Navarin, sailed out of the port of Muroran. The fleet was divided into 3 groups, and the main fleet was led by Makanov himself, with three battleships, namely Navarin, Petropavlov and Poltava. There were two armored cruisers, the Pearl and the Goddess. They will set up an ambush in the preset theater off the coast of Mutsu and wait for the arrival of the Beiyang Fleet. In addition, there are more than 10 mine-strike ships of various types to provide cover for the fleet. The decoy fleet was led by Essen, and the warships under its command were the Prince, Rurik and Russia. They will serve as a decoy for the enemy fleet. The remaining two armored cruisers of the Sea of Azov were formed into a reconnaissance fleet and were to join one of the other two fleets in battle if necessary.

"God will bless you for the glory of St. Andrew's Banner." After arriving at the preset position, Makanov's flagship raised the flag and wished the two fleets victory in their mission!

Subsequently, the two detachments left the main fleet and went to the dangerous Hachinohe coastal waters to search for the Hokyang Fleet and the Japanese transport fleet. The Essen fleet went directly to search near the route frequented by Japanese transports, and the two armored cruisers of the reconnaissance fleet went to the vicinity of Hachinohe. It is naturally more difficult to search for enemy ships on sea transport lines of tens of nautical miles. The reconnaissance fleet that went directly to the Hachinohe landing site quickly discovered the opponent, and in the sea about 8 nautical miles away from the Hachinohe landing site, the Samurai's lookout first spotted two cruising Beiyang cruisers in the distance!

"Captain, those two ships should be the Guiyuan armored cruisers of the Beiyang Fleet, and they should be on perimeter alert." The first mate said, pointing to the two ships that were turning.

"Damn, I didn't expect the Beiyang Fleet to deploy the cordon so far, at this distance, we don't know the situation near the landing site at all. They burned anthracite. We simply can't tell by the smoke if the other person is nearby. The captain of the samurai said with some depression.

"What do we do now? Engagement? Looking at the two approaching warships, he asked sharply.

"Nope. Wait a minute, if we rush into battle, once we are entangled and other warships in the North Ocean rush over, we will be dead, withdraw one after another, and close the distance between us and General Essen. The ship hesitated for a moment and ordered.

And just when the Samurai and the Parada chose to evade temporarily, Sa Zhenbing, who commanded the two Guiyuan armored cruisers, immediately sent the location of the Russian fleet to Lin Taizeng, Yang Yonglin and others by telegram. The arrival of two cruisers of the Sea of Azov type by the Russians absolutely meant the arrival of the main forces of the Russian Far Eastern Fleet, since the Russians would not have deployed two weak ships alone in such dangerous seas.

"Your Excellency. Are we keeping up? Looking at the Russian fleet that was leaving in the distance, the deployment next to him asked.

"Leave them alone, our mission is not to fight but to reconnoitre, and they are heading northeast. There is the voyage of the transport fleet. If nothing else, they will run into Admiral Lin's fleet cruising nearby, and we will now head southwest. Let's see if we can spot any other Russian ships. Sa Zhenbing said after thinking for a moment.

The purpose of the reconnaissance fleet is to detect the opposing side and send the information out in time, not to see how many opposing ships are sunk in a skirmish. There is Lin Taizeng's fleet in the west, and they should be able to spot any Russian warships cruising near the route, and in the southwest offshore is the main fleet commanded by Yang Yonglin, and the only possible loophole is in the southwest offshore waters! If there are no Russian naval warships here, then there really can't be anywhere else.

"Order the Suiyuan to continue patrolling the nearby waters. I led the Kaiyuan ship to the southwest offshore sea to search. "In order to prevent the main fleet of the opposing side from taking advantage of the situation. Sa Zhenbing left behind a battleship. With only one Kaiyuan heading towards the dangerous seas, Beiyang and the Russian Navy reached a potential tacit understanding. The Beiyang Naval Division will not easily enter the sea area east of Hachinohe, and the Russian Navy will not easily enter the sea area west of Hachinohe. And Sa Zhenbing, when there is only one 5,000-ton cruiser, actually dares to enter the sea area where the Russian fleet may appear at any time, which really requires great courage!

And just when the two reconnaissance fleets were entangled with each other, the Essen fleet, which was searching near the Japanese transport line, finally discovered their target, a Japanese transport fleet and the Beiyang Fleet that escorted it!

"This fleet is a bit big, we can't eat it." Looking at the Beiyang Fleet in the distance, General Essen said a little depressedly, and after carefully comparing the identification patterns, Essen finally knew what they were facing. 3 King-class armored cruisers of the Foreign Fleet: Taipei, Kaohsiung, Fuzhou. As well as two armored cruisers of the PISA type of the Beiyang Fleet, Tianjin and Dalian. Except for the Tianjin, which participated in the Sino-Japanese War 4 years ago, the remaining 4 warships are all new ships in Yishui! It can be said that this fleet in front of you concentrates all the elites of the fast fleets of the North and Outer Seas!

"What should I do?" Essen's mind was a little confused. The other side obviously has an advantage, whether in terms of firepower, number or speed, the Russian fleet suffers, although the theoretical speed of the warships on both sides is about the same, but the rest of the Tianjin is a new ship! I haven't even run the ocean, and I'm in pretty good shape. If not, where does this mission of luring the enemy come from? The intelligence sent by the reconnaissance fleet just now shows that other warships in the North Ocean have not appeared nearby, which means that the Far East Fleet is safe for a short time. If you can lure the other side into the ambush circle and inflict heavy damage, then the situation in the Far East will be completely changed!

And just as the Essen Celestials were fighting, Lin Taizeng's fleet moved! Three King-class battleships left the formation and rushed towards the Russian fleet, while the remaining two PISA-type armored cruisers remained with the convoy.

"What a chance!" Seeing the other party's actions, Essen almost knelt down and prayed to God! 3 to 3 even if Essen can't beat it, but no one can stop him if he wants to go, if he transfers the reconnaissance fleet again, it will be 5 to 3! Since you have the advantage, it will be too unreasonable if you don't fight! So the Russian fleet drew a beautiful arc on the sea, and 3 10,000-ton warships headed by the Prince rushed towards the ocean-going fleet in the distance!

There is no fancy in small fleet engagements. The slowly rotating turrets of the three King-class battleships were aimed at the enemy in the distance, and the six huge twin-mounted 11-inch 40L guns slowly adjusted the pitch angle. On the other hand, there are 4 12-inch 40L guns, 6 274-inch guns and 2 10-inch guns of the Russian Navy. Both sides are full of turret guns with similar rates of fire. The amount of fire projection from the main guns is also basically similar. In long-distance engagements, the firepower of both sides depends more on the quality and fire control of the combatants!

"Admiral Lin. Zhao Guandao (Zhao Yuanjie) said that he would rush over to support us after letting the Japanese land at the nearest Chong Tan. An officer whispered.

"Don't be in a hurry, don't scare our guests away." Lin Taizeng smiled slightly. Judging from intelligence, the Russian side still has 2 armored cruisers of the Sea of Azov cruising nearby, and if the 5 armored cruisers in the North and the Outer Ocean press up together, the Russians will definitely choose to retreat. Therefore, the two armored cruisers of the PISA type in the North Ocean should not arrive too early, and they should arrive at the same time as the two Azov-type armored cruisers of the Russians at the earliest. Only in this way can the drama be played, so as not to scare the Russians away at once!

In addition, Lin Taizeng had other thoughts, on naval battle command. He is like Yang Yonglin, Liu Buyun and others. But Lin Tai once had an advantage, that is, he was very good at studying naval techniques. To put it in more detail, that is, there is a study of gunnery. Since the end of the First Sino-Japanese Naval War, he has begun to study the characteristics and effects of artillery on both sides during the First Sino-Japanese War. After many comparisons, he found that the 6-inch rapid-fire guns and 8-inch rapid-fire guns, which were sought after by some people after the end of the war, were not particularly effective. It can be called formidable against the dome cruisers, and it is okay against the old armored cruisers. But when dealing with the new style of patrol, it is seen as a tragedy. The large armor coverage allowed the rapid-fire gun to shoot high-explosive shells that left only pits in the heavy armor.

And this was the case in the Spanish-American War. The warships of both sides dropped high-explosive shells with 6-inch and 8-inch rapid-fire guns for half a day. The speed does not decrease, and the rotation is free. The 11-inch and 10-inch heavy guns that can really cause damage to large warships, and even when dealing with those iron turtles of the US Navy, the 10-inch heavy guns are not particularly useful. Although the two sides did not use armor-piercing shells at the time, hundreds of kilograms of shells still caused various injuries such as cracking the armor or shattering the backplate after hitting the armor. That is to say, for a well-protected capital ship, a large-caliber naval gun is stronger than those small- and medium-caliber naval guns, of course, there is a premise that the rate of fire of large-caliber naval guns should not be too tragic!

So after comparing the data of a number of naval battles. Lin Tai once believed that after being equipped with cap-piercing shells, future naval battles would be attacks with main guns at long distances. And not like in the Sino-Japanese War. The two sides desperately approached and then suffocated their opponents with high-explosive shells. The power of the main gun is one thing, and there are enough of them! But alas, the Kings of the Ocean Fleet had only 4 main guns. Although it is more powerful, the rate of fire has definitely come down.

In order to be able to hit at a long distance, Lin Tai has improved the main gun shooting technique, and the biggest changes are two points. First, in the process of firing, direction and then distance measurement are carried out, that is, the first target of the artillery is not to let the shells fall near the enemy ship as much as possible, but to ensure that the shells fall on the line between the artillery bubble and the enemy ship. Make sure the direction is right, and then adjust the distance. The second advance was to use the graph method to determine the trajectory of enemy ships, to determine the speed and direction of the opponent by means of constant observations, and to record the span difference and draw it on coordinate paper. Shelling with the corrected trajectory of enemy ships.

In the test, the new artillery technique obtained good results, although the projection per unit time at long range is not as good as hand-to-hand combat, but it can protect itself from the opponent's attack to the greatest extent. And because of the telegraph, different warships can coordinate with each other through telegraphs and attack one target in the opposing fleet at the same time. in order to get hits in a shorter period of time. Of course, there is a premise for all this, that is, the opponent's artillery skills are low in long-range hits, and your own warships can bear a certain amount of firepower. And today, Lin Tai will test his new fleet artillery skills for the first time in actual combat, if the sinking of turquoise is the victory of the armor-piercing shell and the rangefinder, then today, Lin Tai will try the tactics of the fleet's long-range fire design!

Thanks to the book friend athlon9527 for the monthly pass support. There are less than 200 new chapter subscriptions, and 350 new subscriptions throughout the day. The author worked hard to code words, and as a result, subscriptions hit a new low. (To be continued.) If you like this work, you are welcome to vote for recommendation and monthly passes, and your support is my biggest motivation. )

!