The officers of all ranks on the cruiser [Stern] gave orders to the whole ship.

"All into combat positions!"

"Put away the mainsail and prepare for the gun battle, and remove all flammable materials from the open deck."

"The lower artillery deck dismantled the living facilities and went into combat condition ..."

A group of lieutenants and alternate officers, dressed in neat uniforms, surrounded by Lieutenant Commander Harold and Baron Adonis, walked to the command position on the rear deck.

Everyone looked at the pirate ship not far ahead, and all of them looked unkind.

"Damn pirates can run like that? The battle should have ended half an hour ago.

When I catch them, I must crush the bones of these miscellaneous bodies one by one! ”

That's what most of them have to say.

You know, the first time to decide the ownership of the throne a few days ago.

Many of the Channel Fleet's cruisers were tasked with blockading the coastal waters and recovering all the property of Lancaster and its vassals.

In addition to the Stern, there are many sixth- and fifth-level cruisers in the fleet that perform the same mission.

They're all contenders.

If you take one more bite, I'll only have one less!

Originally, it was expected to catch up with the [Maneater] within 2 hours.

I don't know what went wrong in the middle, they started at 1:35 p.m. and pursued until more than 4 p.m., before finally entering the range of one kilometer of artillery.

It also made a group of navies chase impetuous.

The fifth-class ship [Stern] is 39 meters long and has a capacity of 200 people.

There was a forerunner gun deck with 20 12-pounder guns, and an open-air deck with 12 6-pounder guns, for a total of 32 guns.

Both the personnel and the firepower are enough to easily crush the opponent.

They didn't take the other party's pirate ship into account in the first place, and at this time, they even left all tactics behind.

I just want to use the most direct and violent force to let these damn pirates understand who the master of this sea is!

"Order, load!"

Under the leadership of the gun commander, the gun crews on the upper and lower decks completed the loading of all the guns on both sides of the ship at the fastest speed.

And with the gun carriage will push the gun out of the muzzle.

Of course, for a large mobile artillery platform at sea, such as a sail battleship.

Of course, the range of artillery can reach one kilometer, but the real effective range is actually only one or two hundred meters.

Until the sailors of these two sailing ships were able to see each other's faces clearly.

Captain Harold suddenly brandished his gilded command knife:

"Port ready for a salvo, three, two, one, fire!"

Rumble! Rumble! Rumble! Rumble! ...

White smoke rose up, and orange-red cannon flames lit up the sea at once.

Sixteen fiery cast-iron cannonballs, with a piercing roar in the air, flew towards the [Maneater].

A large part of the waves fell into the water because of the bumps of the waves, stirring up huge snow-white waves.

Only a few smashed down on the pirate ship.

At such close range, the shells pierced the oak hull on the side of the ship, carrying countless pieces of wood and bouncing across a large area of the lower deck.

Luckily, the lower deck of the Corsair is the cargo hold and living quarters, and there are no combatants.

However, one of the shells happened to land on the edge of the open deck, a 6-pounder bronze gun that had not yet had time to counterattack.

Smash the wooden gun carriage holding the cannon to pieces!

A tonnage bronze cannon barrel immediately rolled from side to side on the deck like an out-of-control wild horse, and ran over the lower bodies of the two gunners.

Terrible screams resounded throughout the ship.

"Ahhhh

Fortunately, after Byron's [spirituality] awakened, the sense of crisis bound to the five senses and even the sixth sense was extremely keen, and he had already swooped out to the side in advance.

Not only did they dodge the shells and splashed pieces of wood, but they also dodged the heavy cannon that rolled wildly.

Grab a piece of "rigging scuff sheet" made of cotton wool textile on the deck with strong friction.

It took a clever effort to throw it far away, which prevented the cannon, which had turned blood-red, from continuing to wreak havoc.

Several brave pirate gunners hurriedly rushed up and re-bound it with a few stout rigging rigging to restrain the "wild horse".

But without the gun mount, the gun could no longer be used in this battle.

The two sailboats continued to approach in the wind.

Taking advantage of the gap between the opponent's reloading and ammunition, Captain Salman's eyes burst out with a scarlet blood light full of wildness and murder, and finally brandished his scimitar and let out a roar:

"Fire!"

It's the same as the popular queue shooting tactic in this era.

With the loading efficiency of the front-loading smoothbore gun, there is only one chance to fire a salvo with the greatest threat, and the closer you get, the higher the hit rate and the stronger the lethality!

The artillery battle at sea is not only a duel of equipment and gunnery, but also a fierce collision of courage.

And the bravery of the individual is not worth mentioning at all under the might of artillery.

Rumble! Rumble! Rumble! Rumble! ...

The momentum of the seven 6-pounder guns was indeed much weaker than the opponent's 12-pounder guns.

relied on a higher hit rate to barely pull back a city.

A cannonball was like a divine help, and it happened to break a sling with a sail boom on the foremast of the Stern.

This caused 50% of the sail to fall down with the heavy boom.

Anti-personnel are still secondary, the key is that the loss of mobility of the [Stern] is less than half, and it is absolutely impossible to make up for it in a short time.

"Well done! The cannon crew that fires the cannon will be rewarded with an additional two barrels of rum after the battle! ”

The pirate ship was cheering.

It was this cannon that made the possibility of their escape a few points higher.

The next moment, the [Man-Eating Shark], which was in a downwind position, was drowned by the smoke of gunpowder raised when the two sides opened fire.

But Byron, who graduated from the Royal Naval College, knows best the current situation of the two sides.

"Occupying the upper hand position firmly occupies a tactical advantage, and even if the cruiser loses some of its maneuverability, it is still not difficult to block the [Maneater].

A broadside battle is certainly inevitable. ”

What does it mean to have the upper hand?

At this time, the [Stern Number] is!

There is a tactical move equivalent to a martial arts starting style in battleship fighting, which is called "Grab the Wind".

Whoever can gain the upper hand in battle, that is, attack from the direction where the wind is blowing, will have the advantage in all aspects of the battle.

Intuitively, it is easier to use a parabola to hit the underwater hull of the downwind opponent, and the thick smoke from the artillery will also be blown downwind.

The fundamental reason is that as long as you have the upper hand, you have the "tactical mobility" to chase and escape.

Because when the wind blows over the battleship with the upper wind, it will be disturbed by the mast and sail rope of the battleship.

Like a rock standing in a large river, when the water flows through it, it forms a large chaotic "wake".

The length of the downwind extension of the turbulence zone can generally reach four to five times the sail height of the battleship, which is about 200 meters.

During the artillery battle, the downwind battleship was exactly in this turbulence caused by the upwind battleship, resulting in a significant reduction in the engine power of the downwind battleship.

This means that the upwind ship will add a mobility buff, and the downwind ship will add a mobility debuff.

If there is no sudden change in wind power, the downwind battleship caught in the wind turbulence will not be able to run away even if it wants to.

The reality of the war was exactly as Byron had predicted.

After a few rounds of free fire from the gunners, the Stern, which was already very close to the Maneater, turned its steering wheel and crashed into the pirate ship.

"Broadside ——!"

"Marines, Pitch!"

More than a dozen iron hook claws tied with thick ropes were thrown by the Navy soldiers, firmly hooking the bulwark of the [Maneater].

At the same time, the sail boom, which can accommodate dozens of people standing side by side, has also crossed the sky above the two warships.

Many impatient sailors took their sailor knives in their mouths, grabbed the ropes tied to the sail booms, and swung like spiders.

Obviously, it's not what many people think.

In naval warfare in this era, artillery was not the decisive force, and it was far less powerful than the future "god of war".

Unless it can be used with a parabolic trajectory, it happens to hit the ammunition depot located below the waterline, causing the entire ship to be destroyed.

Otherwise, relying on these solid pimples of cast iron, it may not be possible to sink a wooden ship into a honeycomb.

The broadside battle is the main dish that can determine the outcome of the battle.

There are even military experts from various countries who call naval warfare a siege war at sea, and the marines on board are the key to determining the victory!

Six of the Ten Commandments of Pirates: [Those who delay the fighters, those who escape from the battle will die!] 】

After the pirates lined up to fire a salvo of muskets and welcomed the navy with a blazing buckshot storm, the bloody white-knuckle battle began.

"I'm invincible!"

"Kill! None of the pirates remained! ”

In the midst of a hail of bullets, a burly naval lieutenant wearing silver chain mail and holding a snowy boarding axe jumped over the bulwark from the [Stern].

Like a whirlwind, it swooped down on Byron, who had already been waiting at the edge of the deck.

At this time, there are still ten minutes left before the change of the celestial phenomena in the perception of [Weather Intuition]!