Volume 2: Soaring! The Overlord of the Region Chapter 227: Trash among the Aboriginals (Part 3)
"Preparación~Fuego!"
"Ready~Fire~!"
As the Spanish flagship opened fire first, the British fired back, not to be outdone. As a result, the sea near Bilbao, which had been relatively quiet, suddenly became rumbling and water columns rose in all directions.
Of course, the distance between the two sides was actually very far, so the accuracy of the shells could not be relied upon. But in general, even if the Spanish shells fell into the sea, they were only two or three hundred meters away from the nearest British ship. The British shells were much farther away from the enemy's warships.
At this moment, the Spanish fleet formed two parallel lines, with the large ships in the back and the small ships in the front, and they charged from the eight o'clock direction to the two o'clock direction. In order to compete for the T-head, the British quickly advanced from the six o'clock direction to the twelve o'clock direction. There must be an intersection between these two tracks, and whoever can reach the intersection first will grab the T-head.
"Hurry, hurry, hurry~~! Tom! I want you to make full use of every sail! The Spanish artillery has a longer range than ours. If we don't want to lose the army in the rear, we must win this naval battle! And to win, seizing the T-head is more important than anything else!"
"Yes, sir, our sailing team has gone all out!"
When the commander on the British side was giving orders to the sail chief of his flagship, suddenly everyone on the deck felt a darkness above their heads!
"Oops! It was a straddle shot!"
…
"Sir, our artillery shell just now hit a cross-fire!"
Unlike the British, who felt their hearts sink suddenly, the Spanish cheered. Fleet Commander Barudis pulled his beard excitedly and said, "Continue the bombardment! Order our five King-class ships to focus their fire on the enemy's leading ship!"
At 11:30, the Spanish fleet appeared on the sea.
At 12:40, the distance between the two sides was shortened to two thousand meters, and the Spaniards fired the first shot.
At around 13 o'clock, the Spaniards took the lead in scoring a cross shot.
At 1:20 p.m. that day, the 24-pound shell fired from the Philip IV finally scored its first hit.
This huge solid iron ball, with the powerful potential energy given by gunpowder, whizzed down in the air and accurately hit the deck on the left side of the British flagship. After a moment of futile resistance, the thin and low outer deck board immediately cracked and then shattered completely. Then the shell went through the hole in the board and drilled into the deck.
At this moment on the deck, a British sailing team leader was shouting at his sailors to operate the huge sails. His sailors were still trying their best to carry out the leader's orders, but suddenly they felt that their ears were quiet.
When he came to his senses and turned his head, he saw that the team leader who was standing next to him and yelling just now had fallen down, and blood was spurting from his headless neck. And the team leader's head? At this moment, it had been smashed to pieces by the shell and could no longer be distinguished.
The sailor had no time to express any emotion, for his feet immediately told him that the ship was still shaking violently, and other parts of the ship must have been hit by bullets again!
His feeling was correct. In addition to the shell that landed on his position and killed his team leader, three shells from other King-class battleships successively hit the Elizabeth. Fortunately, two of the four shells hit the side and two landed on the deck. Although it caused some casualties to the personnel on the deck, the shells at this distance could not directly break through the thick ship wall under the deck. Therefore, these shells neither caused the gunpowder to explode nor slowed down the speed of the ship. At most, it could only be considered a minor injury.
"Don't be afraid. The brave British Navy will not be frightened by such a small shell. Guys, keep going north with all your strength. We must..."
Just as Commander Johnson was loudly encouraging his men, a panicked scream from a mix of men and women was heard at an extremely inopportune time on the command deck on the stern of the flagship.
“Ah? Ah~~! Ah~~~!”
"Your Excellency the Duke, please calm down!"
"I can't stay calm! Commander, look, that shell just now killed five sailors on the deck, and two of them broke their legs... Retreat! Retreat, let's go back to Great Britain!"
"Sir, what are you talking about? Behind us, thirty bulky troop transport ships have all run aground, and the Spanish fortress guns are destroying them one by one. Our army has been defeated and is now floating on the sea relying on those small boats. If we don't repel the Spanish fleet in front of us, what awaits them is annihilation!"
"Don't worry about them, we can't save them! Let's take care of ourselves first! Hurry up, where's the helmsman? Head southeast, we don't want to fight the Spaniards!"
"Asshole!" A loud slap sounded, and Johnson yelled, "Someone, the Duke is sick, send him below the deck."
After the commander dealt with all this, when he looked up again, he found that the distance between the two fleets had been shortened to about 600 meters.
At this distance, the sailing warships of this era could already fire at full power! The hit rates of both sides began to increase significantly, and the battlefield became more tragic.
At the beginning, as the leading ship to seize the T-head, the Elizabeth on the British side accepted the concentrated fire attack of the Spanish. However, the distance was relatively far, so the Spanish fired hundreds of shells, but only four hit. But when the follow-up warships of both sides gradually approached, the leading Elizabeth was covered by strong artillery fire!
In an instant, the entire ship became a living hell, with heavy solid bullets constantly making holes in the side strings of the ship. The canisters fired by small-caliber artillery were wantonly harvesting the lives of sailors on the deck. What made Johnson even more trembling was that chain bullets appeared in the sky! Although the mast and sails of the ship were not hit at this moment, with the increase in the number of chain bullets, this was a matter of time.
What made the commander feel even more depressed was that the distance between the two sides was shortened at this moment, making the extension lines of their routes extremely clear: if the routes of both sides remained unchanged at this time, the Spaniards would be the first to reach the intersection of the two routes - the horizontal position of the T!
"Order, all ships follow the flagship and continue to advance due north! We can't seize the horizontal position, but we can rush into the Spanish formation. At that time, the artillery on both sides of ours can be used, and we can still have a chance to win!"
"Yes, sir!"
“Bang~!”
"Sir!"
"Humph! I am the Duke of Buckingham appointed by His Majesty the King himself. I am the supreme commander of this army. Who dares to imprison me? Adjutant Henry, Commander Johnson has been killed by me for disobeying my command. The entire fleet is under my command! Send an order, all ships follow the flagship and turn to the southeast!"
…
"Sir, the British are turning?"
"Huh? How is this possible?" After hearing the lookout's report, Barudis raised his telescope with a look of shock and observed carefully for a while. Then he put the telescope down easily, his eyes revealing undisguised contempt: "Tsk! The British are such cowards. Even if they can't get the T-head, they won't be too far away when we reach the position. Can't we just be a little ruthless and bump into them directly? These guys are really useless."
After expressing his feelings, Barudis quickly gave the order: "Send a signal to all ships, do not attack the British lead ship, let it pass, all our warships, concentrate fire on the British follow-up warships that follow the opponent's lead ship!"
"Sí, Senor!"
After faithfully issuing the order, the adjutant walked back with a confused look on his face: "Sir, why did you let the enemy's flagship go? I saw it clearly just now. There is the flag of the Duke of Buckingham on it. There is no doubt that it is the enemy's flagship."
"Haha, my dear Fernando, precisely because they are flagships, we won't attack them for the time being. If we shoot down the opponent's flagship, what if the person who takes over the command is a fool and dares to rush over directly with the remaining British ships? We keep the opponent's flagship and let it turn at such a close distance from us. Then the remaining British ships will be forced to follow suit, which means they will line up one by one for us to attack!"
"I see. Your Excellency is truly wise."
"Hahaha, it's not me who is wise, it's your Majesty. Well, when your Majesty was teaching us navy classes, he talked about a lot of so-called battle examples. It's strange to say, I have fought in many naval battles, but I have never heard of any of these battle examples. But now when I use them, it really seems like your Majesty has seen them with his own eyes."
As the two talked, the situation turned out to be just as Barudis had expected. As the Elizabeth turned, the following British ships had no choice but to follow suit. Thus, Spain completely got the T-shaped horizontal position!
"Concentrate your firepower and attack the turning British ships one by one!"
"Viva~! Victoria~! Fuego!"
Each British ship had to withstand the concentrated fire of 45 enemy warships when turning at a distance of 500 to 600 meters. As the Spanish artillery fire became more and more accurate, the British losses increased rapidly.
The first flagship to turn around, the Elizabeth, was only slightly damaged by a few shells, while the Courageous, which followed, was severely damaged by more than 30 shells. The third-placed Resolution had its mast directly smashed by the enemy's chain shells, and the speed of the entire ship dropped suddenly. The British ships behind were in chaos for a while!
Gradually, the British ships began to be sunk or slowed down one after another. The sixty British ships that were originally arranged in a neat line had completely lost all their formation by four o'clock in the afternoon and were fighting on their own.
At five o'clock in the afternoon, a British ship raised a white flag, and then more than 20 British ships that were still alive on the sea followed suit.
…
"Your Majesty, congratulations! Under your command, we have completely annihilated the British navy and completely wiped out 20,000 British land forces. In two or three years, the British will no longer be able to interfere with our conquest of France."
"My Prime Minister, we still haven't been able to wipe out the enemy completely. I heard that the Duke of Buckingham escaped?"
"Yes, Your Majesty. But isn't it a good thing for us to have this kind of rubbish escape back to England?"
"Hahaha, you're right. Then what's next... Eh? Morales , what happened? Aren't you in Madrid?"
"Your Majesty, your captain of the guards brings you very bad news. The Ottoman navy and Hayreddin's pirates raided Barcelona..."
