Chapter 506: Decisive Battle at Sea

The sound of a whining conch echoed between the sky and the sea, continuously. Pen × fun × Pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ

Standing on the slipway of a tall whaling ship, Lorist held a polished brass monocular in his hand, looking at the shadows of sails at the sea level in the distance, and curled the corners of his mouth: "It seems that Sambawood still didn't hurt them." As it were, I thought they would use a night attack to avoid artillery attacks, but they still set up a battle to the death with us. I don't know whether to say that they are pedantic or courageous, but I like such enemies......"

It's June 7th, it's a sunny morning, the wind is mild, the sun is shining, and it would be very pleasant to have a seafood barbecue on the deck. It's a pity that Lorist stayed up all night last night to prepare for the night attack of the Armada, and didn't take a quick nap until early in the morning. But not long after closing his eyes, Genorio came in and woke him up, as the Armada began to attack.

Lorist did not understand why the Armada had missed such a good opportunity last night, after all, under the cover of night could reduce the accuracy of artillery strikes. But the Armada didn't know why it had been anchored all night, and it wasn't until dawn that it launched a decisive charge against the Norton family's ship array.

"This must have come out of the nest......" Lorist admired, though he thought the commander of the Armada was stupid. Letting the fleet charge when he knew that the long-range attack of the Norton family fleet was fierce, it was not bravery, but commanding his own subordinates to die. Although the navy is an offensive technical arm, such a brainless offensive wise man is not a good one.

Sixteen huge whaling ships were lined up in a horizontal formation, all facing the direction of the enemy on the port side. Because of the headwind, Lorist ordered all the ships to drop anchor, not to retreat, and fight a face-to-face naval battle with the enemy. Even with a downside in the wind, Lorist was confident that he could defeat the Armada with a bronze cannon, a long-range attack weapon that surpassed his time.

Each whaling ship has a row of ten black whirring windows on the port side, which is the gun porthole arranged on the second floor of the whaling ship, and thanks to the sturdy hull structure of the whaling ship, only the whaling ship can transform twenty gun operation cabins on the second floor. However, a whaling ship can only be equipped with ten ship-type bronze guns, which is a lot inferior in firepower compared to the eighteen bronze guns on each side of the lightning battleship.

Since adopting the strategy of Marek to destroy the Armada and capture the bay of Zangjin and land on the city of Morent, Master Sid has been tired and tired throughout the winter, working day and night, plus the previous reserve and newly built ship bronze cannons, there are only more than 320 guns. Half of the sixteen whaling ships were divided, and the remaining 160 or so bronze guns were evenly distributed among more than 40 large armed warships.

In order to compensate for the lack of firepower, Lorist also pulled Schward's artillery training camp to the whaling ship, and arranged ten bronze guns of the land combat type on the deck. Anyway, the whaling ship has a spacious deck, and the bronze guns of the land combat type are equipped with wheels, which can change direction at any time. The remaining 40 or so Marine Bronze guns were placed on the medium-sized fast armed warships that had been reinforced and refitted, one by one, to deal with the small rapid-ramming warships of the Invincible Armada.

Now only the Golden Archer Josk and Genorio are standing by Lorlist's side, while Reddy and the Archswordsman of Hughes are placed on the other two whaling ships on the left and right flanks, which is also to prevent the high-end combat forces of the Armada from rushing to the whaling ship in the event of melee combat. And Josk is one of the only two Golden Knights of the four main legions of the Norton family to be accompanied by the name of Lloris, and one is the former bandit Ovikis.

There are two reasons for Joske to accompany him, after all, although this guy made the mistake of taking the Chasseur Legion to attack without permission, it was also to avenge Lorist, and he has always been a close confidant of Lorist, and was later punished by Lorist from the position of Legion Commander to the Corps Commander, but the Chaser Legion was formed by him. In order to keep Farea, who took over as the Legion Commander, not too much trouble, Lorist decided to take this guy with him for a while before putting him back. At the same time, Lorist remembered the awesome act of this guy when he broke through the Golden Bay with one arrow, and was ready to let Josk participate in this naval battle so that he could make up for it.

As for Ovikis, this time it's a return to the old business. Lorist found that even though ten bronze guns for land warfare were placed on the deck of the whaling ship, the deck was still empty. This can't be helped, the whaling ship is too big because the hunted whales are dragged to the deck for on-site cutting and storage, and there is no place to place the captured whales.

So Lorist ordered Ovikis to reorganize three hundred and twenty catapults and pull them to the whaling ship, twenty to one ship. In naval warfare, catapults are much more suitable than steel crossbows, even if the distance is pulled to more than 200 meters, a stone weighing more than 100 pounds is smashed down from the sky, and any battleship can not bear this stone falling from the sky, the only disadvantage of naval warfare is that the battleship will move, and the catapult is not accurate, and the stone has to fly in the air for a period of time after the stone is thrown, which is easy for the enemy to react and dodge......

The horn sounded loudly, and the lookout on the lookout on the mast was reporting the enemy situation loudly with a hissing voice: "There is no armada in front, more than sixty large armed warships are in the front, and the ones behind are not clear, it is expected that there are nearly four hundred, and four Sepnim sea castle battleships are in the center, with a speed of about nine sea knots, and a distance of five hundred sea yards......"

Five hundred sea yards, there is still a distance of one thousand meters, and it is estimated that the battle will be fought in about twenty minutes. The only unfavorable situation today is that the enemy warships are tailwind, and the Norton family fleet is against the wind, and the whaling ships and more than forty large armed warships equipped with bronze guns are all set sail and anchored, which is the rhythm of the front.

"Order Sambarwood to lead the lightning strike fleet to meet it and carry out a flank attack from the periphery, and give the Invincible Armada a blow first, why dare you be arrogant in front of our Norton family, do you really think that more ships can overwhelm people?" Lorist ordered with a sneer.

Genolio quickly wrote the order, stamped Lorlist's seal, and released the petrel in a small silver cylinder tied to the feet of a petrel in a cage behind him. Five minutes later, a loud horn sounded from the Thunderbolt battleship, and the Thunderbolt fleet sailed from the periphery of the sea route to meet the charging Invincible Armada.

In less than ten minutes, the rumbling of artillery bombardment was heard on the sea, and from the monoculars, it could be seen that Sambarwood commanded fourteen thunderbolt battleships to skillfully circle in a circle, turning into a large armed warship of the charging Armada and carrying out a fierce artillery bombardment on the flank of the charging Armada at a distance of two hundred meters......

The fierce salvo of artillery fire caused bursts of white gunpowder smoke to rise from the side of the ships of the lightning strike fleet, but the thunder was heavy and the rain was small, except for the two large armed warships that gradually slowed down due to the shelling, the large armed warships on the other flanks still maintained their original speed and continued to sail forward, but there were also bursts of white fog on those battleships. After two rounds of shelling, not a single battleship was sunk, and Lorist couldn't help but be surprised.

"Two hundred yard......s away," the lookout on the mast loudly reported the distance between the two armies.

Lorist held a monocular and stared intently at a battleship that was shelled on the enemy's flank, and finally saw clearly that the enemy ships were stacked with bags on the side of the ship, and after being shelled, these bags were shaken open or collapsed, and bursts of white smoke rose up......

"Smart man......" Lorist didn't expect that the Invincible Armada would use sandbags to avoid and slow down the damage of the battleship from artillery bombardment, no wonder the Thunderstrike Fleet shelled three rounds but did not sink even a large armed battleship of the Invincible Fleet. However, it would be a mistake if the Armada thought that they could use this method to close the Norton fleet and turn this naval battle into their specialty of melee and gang hopping, and Lorist didn't mind letting them know what a long-range enemy annihilation tactic was.

"The first round of shelling was launched at a distance of three hundred meters, and then the ...... of chain shells, targets, masts and sails of enemy ships"

If you want to change the chain shell now, the artillery launcher has to take out the iron projectile loaded into the gun chamber first, which will delay for a longer time and be more troublesome, so it is better to shoot the iron projectile first and then install the chain projectile. Having said that the Invincible Armada in front of him had not yet tasted the taste of chain bullets, the four attacks launched by the lightning strike fleet led by Sambarwood used iron projectiles and shotguns, because he did not need to slow down the movement of enemy ships.

"Three hundred meters away!"

With the roar of the lookout, a series of rumbling sounds rang out deafeningly, and the guns began to fire almost at the same moment. The huge ship under his feet shook backwards violently, but fortunately, the people on the slipway were already familiar with the vibration of this kind of cannon fire. Aside from the twenty catapults on the deck that were tied up and rolled backwards to break the ropes, nothing unexpected happened.

The sixteen whaling ships arranged in a horizontal formation and the large armed warships in the middle almost simultaneously rose up the white smoke of the cannon fire, and from a distance, it seemed as if a white wall had appeared on the sea. But soon the gentle sea breeze blew the white wall away, revealing the large and small warships lined up in a horizontal formation.

The rumbling sound of cannon was still ringing in his ears, but Lorlist, who was holding a telescope, was disappointed. More than 500 artillery pieces were fired at the same time, but nearly 200 or so iron projectiles hit the sea surface and caused a splash of water that soared into the sky, only the two large armed warships that rushed to the front slammed down, and the bow of the ship appeared obviously twisted and a few holes, and the sea water quickly poured straight in, and the speed of the ship slowed down suddenly.

Lorist sighed, no way, these artillery firing teams that have just been practicing for three months are obviously very inexperienced, not only can they not aim accurately when they are about to fight, but even their luck is not very good, more than 500 bronze guns have only destroyed two battleships, this result is too speechless. However, this is the first round, and a few more launches should be a good point......

"Release!" Schward waved the small red flag in his hand down, and the ten bronze guns on the deck roared again, and the mournful "woo" sound was accompanied by the rumbling cannon sound, like the ominous cry of the night owl piercing the entire sky, and rushed forward.

The nearly sixty large armed warships at the front of the fierce Armada broke their sails in that terrible sound, and the speed of the battleships that suddenly lost their charging posture dropped sharply, and they became chaotic, and there were faint screams, cries and cries for help, and even the battleships that charged behind were huddled together more than two hundred meters away from the Norton family fleet because they couldn't avoid it and directly hit the battleships in front......

The sharp brass whistle sounded, and the ears that were rumbling by the cannon fire could still be heard through the earbuds, which was an order to stop firing. Lorist didn't think there was a need to waste ammo, and now it was the catapult's turn to show its might.

"Launch!" Ovikis's loud voice sounded on the surface of the sea, "Bang bang bang", and one after another catapults sent 100 pounds of stones into the sky, smashing them into the group of battleships of the assembled Armada with the sound of howling wind. In land warfare, the stones fired by catapults are basically round, because the elasticity of the ground is used to make the stone balls bounce and kill more enemies. However, the slings used in naval warfare are angular, which allows the slings to have sharp corners to smash the planks of enemy warships.

The first round of firing was just to ask for directions for the stone, to better estimate the approximate distance and the range of the fall, and after a short adjustment, the second round of stone-throwing turned into a flaming flint projectile. These flint bullets are simple to make, by tying a rope soaked in fire oil to a stone, lighting it and throwing it out. When the stone reaches the target and falls, the fire rope on the stone has almost burned into a section, and as the stone falls, it splashes in all directions, increasing the threat of fire.

The dozens of large armed warships that charged at the forefront were already blazing into the sky, all of them turned into huge fires, and from time to time I saw some small black dots jumping from the burning battleships into the sea, which were the crew and sailors who had escaped. The next few large armed warships had lost their masts and sails, but were still moving down the river towards the Norton family.

A terrible whine sounded again in the distance, and it was the Lightning Strike Fleet, which was also using chain bombs to block the charge of the Armada's follow-up warships. On the Lorist side, there is basically no threat, except for those large armed warships that are burned like torches, and there is no follow-up enemy ship to bypass those fireships and continue to charge.

"We have won this naval battle!" Lorist thought very smugly, the fire in the distance was in the sky, the smoke was misty, and he couldn't see the situation behind him. Perhaps the Arma suffered such a big loss and is now turning around and retreating, and the lightning strike fleet commanded by Sambarwood is now using chain attacks to stop the escape of enemy ships.

"The enemy ship is one hundred and fifty meters away!" shouted the lookout on the mast in alarm.

"What?" said Lorlist.

"The enemy ships continue to approach us with fireboats on their heads!" said the lookout.

"Ovikis!The catapult continues to fire at the back of the fireship, and it's okay if you can't see the target!!," Lorist hurriedly shouted at Ovicis on the deck.

I made a mistake, but I didn't expect the large armed warships that were charging in front to burn and also obscured my vision, and the enemy ships that had been hiding behind behind used the fireships in front as shields and continued to approach my side against the burning fireships, instead of turning around and fleeing as I thought......

"Danger!" Genolio shouted and pounced, and Lorist looked up to see countless glowing cold lights from the smoke of the burning fireship in front of him, rushing towards the battleship on his side.

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