Xinshun 1730

Chapter 1292 Death and Revenge ([-])
Although this is only an ambiguous plan, Chen Qinghai can also feel Hawke's attitude. At least Hawke doesn't want this battle to continue.At least in terms of strategy, he thinks it's just a matter of a small loss or a big loss.

This ambiguous plan itself represents the political attitude of the main officers of the Navy, or the Channel Fleet.

Otherwise, with the strength of the Channel Fleet at this time and the arrogance it has always had, it is impossible to allow the Sino-French fleet to go to Dunkirk.

Agreeing to go is an attitude.

It is the rule to disagree to go directly to London.

The reason why Edward Hawke has such a political inclination is mainly due to the strength of Dashun's naval fleet, which he has recognized.

Otherwise, the British Navy has never lacked the courage to win more with less.

However, in the naval battle where Boskorn was killed before, from the descriptions of some withdrawn British officers, Edward Hawke carefully analyzed Dashun's naval tactics and came up with the professionalism that a professional naval officer should have. Conclusion: The strategic thinking of the Dashun Navy is completely different from that of France; its tactical system is also completely different from that of France;

Strategic thinking and tactical system are actually the same thing.

Tactics come from existing strategies.

The strategy of the French Navy is a "mission-oriented navy". Its existence and ability to threaten the British Navy is the greatest value; being able to transport the army to the island is the greatest significance.

The reality that military spending is tilted towards the army makes the French navy always cautious and cunning in naval battles, and refuses to gamble.

The tactics derived from this strategy tend to look for the leeward direction, hit the opponent's rigging sail, run if you hit it, or run if you can't hit it, anyway, stand in the leeward direction and hit your sail again, and just slip away when you see something bad .

But in the previous sea battle that killed Boskorn, Dashun showed a completely different tactical style.

Analyzing the relatively brief battle reports from the navy, Edward Hawke saw many problems.

At eight o'clock in the morning, the fleets on both sides had already deployed, and the ships in front began to exchange fire.

At around 45:[-], the fleets on both sides met end to end, arrayed against each other.

At [-]:[-], part of the fleet in front of the Dashun fleet suddenly turned around with the help of the change in wind direction, and inserted horizontally into the tail of the British fleet, followed by six warships, which inserted in from the dividing line.

From the point of view of line array tactics, this approach is quite dangerous, because when piercing, it means that you have to face the side string shooting from the upper and lower sides of the piercing position.

But Dashun seized the opportunity very well. When the wind direction suddenly changed, the captain of the squadron led the team as a gamble and intervened.

Then, in the hindsight of Edward Hawke, Boskorn made the very wrong decision to turn the main force around to rescue.

The situation at that time was that the squadron near the head of the Dashun Fleet inserted into the tail of the British fleet, dividing several ships at the rear of the British fleet.

This obviously shouldn't be rescued.

Because the tail is inserted, the wind direction, ship speed, steering mechanism, and sail characteristics are all there. It will take at least 45 minutes for the fleet at the head to turn to rescue the tail.

In 45 minutes, the ships at the tail that were divided must have been beaten and destroyed... Because during the battle, Dashun's fleet was still moving forward, which meant that the middle and tail of Dashun's fleet Ships also continued to join the siege of the divided British aft battleships.

By the time Boskorn turned to the rescue, the boats at the rear were basically finished, and as a result, there was another one-to-one situation again.

In Edward Hawke's hindsight, even if Boskorn was not killed by Dashun's mast shooter, he would have been shot afterwards. Obviously, the order was wrong.

Of course, Edward Hawke did not fail to consider the reality: in this year, communications rely on flags, gunpowder is full of smoke, flagship command, each ship depends on formation, the "Permanent Combat Regulations" is there, and the wisdom of each ship is different. Impossible to control in real time through efficient communication...

These objective factors made Boskorn really have no better way to face this unexpected situation.

This does not mean that the line decisive battle tactics are outdated. It must be accidental to review the situation at that time afterwards.

Such as wind direction.

Such as smoke cover.

For example, there is no bad luck when interspersed, so you can penetrate it alive, etc., etc.

This made it difficult to make many choices at that time, either you choose to hit yours and I will hit mine, and if you stick your tail, I will stick your tail; or you can choose not to rescue and chase your tail around the wind.

But in short, it is definitely not right to turn back to rescue. It is tantamount to letting the Dashun Navy play a time lag, taking advantage of the shortcomings of the decisive battle of the battle line to fight more and less.

However, judging from the replay of that battle, Edward Hawke can also see some of the tactical style of the Dashun Navy.

Bold, dare to gamble, choose to fight the waterline at close range instead of mast rigging, the squadron has a certain command authority instead of all being at the flagship, young, energetic, dare to fight for fate and bet for the future... and It is estimated that their "combat regulations" also encourage this kind of local superiority tactics.

Of course, Edward Hawke had never read the combat regulations of the Dashun Navy.

But through this battle, he had a certain guess about the combat regulations of the Dashun Navy: Encourage the navy to seize the opportunity when the columns shoot at each other, intersperse and split the opponent's tail, force the enemy's center and forward main forces to return to aid, and use sails The turning time of the times is poor, and local advantages are achieved.

Of course, this requires conditions to allow, and requires the captain of the squadron to have a strong subjective initiative.

Moreover, it may be because the navy has not been established for a long time, so it is more vigorous and does not have so many rules and regulations.

This thing cannot be an accident. For example, the captain of the squadron at the time was dizzy and stuck into the tail of the fleet.

Obviously, during the training, they must have trained similar tactics, so that the captain of the squadron could seize the opportunity immediately after the wind direction changed.

And, judging from the follow-up, the rest of the warships of the Dashun Fleet also clearly knew what to do in this situation.This is not to say that the fleet commander can do it with decisive command in front of the battle-if there is no targeted tactical system, then even if the fleet commander is a genius, with the means of communication at this time and the reality of the battlefield filled with gunpowder, it is impossible for the fleet to Such a perfectly executed tactic.

Of course, after the war, the Dashun fleet also exposed some problems, such as incomplete pursuit, not very familiar with the terrain, and being too energetic that some ships were too reckless and were intercepted, etc.

There was another episode in that battle.

The sailors on both sides who experienced the naval battle were all impressed by the huge shark group at the most intense part of the battlefield around 11:30.

In the harsh training and painful life at sea, the sailors on both sides are basically lunatics, mentally ill, and "human scum" lacking in humanity.

The combat regulations also force that in combat, unless there are officers, the seriously wounded cannot be treated.

The space in the gun bay is inherently small, and once someone is seriously injured and occupies the space, it will seriously affect the loading speed.

So... Both sides, including of course the mainstream naval powers such as France at this time, have such a naval combat regulation: throw useless sailors into the sea, don't take up space.

The dead, seriously injured, and those who survived were thrown directly into the sea.Except for the officers on the ship--the trainee officers are officers; gunners, gunners, etc. are not officers.

Therefore, at the height of the battle, the sharks attracted by the sound of gunfire and the smell of blood became an indelible memory for the sailors on both sides.

A large number of wounded were thrown directly into the sea, where they were eaten by sharks.

The sea battle at this time is like this, and I usually throw it, but it just so happened that there were a lot of sharks that day, so I was unavoidably impressed.

After all, in the naval battle at this time, there are only two situations of "death and immortality".

The eyes were smashed by the sawdust smashed by the shells. This is not dead, because the eyes can still move after they are pulled out. Whether they will be infected in the future is up to fate, but it belongs to the part of "you can not be thrown into the sea".That is, "the undead".

With a broken arm, he can be considered an "immortal".

With the eyes and wrists as the limit, those below this level are considered minor injuries, and are considered "immortals".

And the rest, even if they are still screaming for pain, or looking for their own legs, are considered dead and thrown directly into the sea.

Don't affect the loading, don't affect the gunpowder monkeys behind to deliver the gunpowder, don't even affect the speed of firing.

After all, even if you don't throw it into the sea, you won't survive.

At this time, naval battles are all solid bullets.

A 24-pound iron ball flew over at a speed of several hundred meters and hit him. There was no possibility of "serious injury".

Even if Dashun uses oak and cypress; Spain uses Cuban cedar; England uses century-old oak...they are useless. With a piece of wood stuck to his body, he would basically be unable to survive.

Only when it comes to mutual hooking boats and deck jumping gang battles, there is a difference between minor injuries and serious injuries.

In the artillery battle stage, there are only two kinds of people: "dead" and "undead".If the eyeball is blown out, he is alive, and if he is hit hard, he is still screaming for a while, but he is also dead.

The feast of sharks that started at 11:30 was only a small episode of the battle.

For high-ranking officers, they remembered that it was still Dashun Naval Squadron's interspersed, encircled, more and less, and time difference.

However, for the sailors, including the sailors of both sides, it will be the most memorable scene in this battle. A large number of sharks bit the body of the comrades who were thrown into the sea, and the blood stained the sea surface...

Edward Hawke, like the officers on Dashun's side, only regarded the shark episode as a short episode in the battle.

But afterwards, the defeated British navy sailors continued to serve and were able to continue fighting; and Dashun immediately put in a blockade of the Mediterranean Sea and Gibraltar.

This made Edward Hawke understand that Dashun, a navy with a short history, also has a group of perverted and mentally ill sailors.

Perverted, mentally ill, and "scumbag" sailors can be regarded as a symbol of a maritime power at this time.

Because of the strict discipline, the desperate sea, the small cabin, the high death rate, as well as the strict training and cruising on weekdays, this kind of crazy despair can be maintained to produce this perverted mentally ill sailor .

And this kind of psychopath-like perverted sailor who didn't have a nervous breakdown to his shark-eating companions and was able to continue to perform tasks, in turn, can prove that a long stay at sea on weekdays means some kind of...Navy Tradition.

In fact, Dashun's naval tactics are similar to those of the army.

If Edward Hawke knew the column breakthrough tactics favored by the Dashun Army, he would understand that the Dashun Navy’s tail-biting, division, and partial concentration of superior forces are in line with the Army’s tactics.

It is nothing more than the risk of naval battles, and because the army has observation hot air balloons and does not need to look at the direction of the wind, it can avoid the direction where the artillery clusters are concentrated and conduct column assaults, and use superior forces to tear apart the weak points of the enemy's firepower. line array.

Naval battles depend on the direction of the wind and the face of God, and you must consider the basic skills of "fleet formation is to divide the tail, and the head is to have a hole in the head", because if you don't understand this principle and start the head foolishly, you will be defeated by the main force behind the fleet. The fat meat that was beaten up and sent to your mouth for free.

Of course, Edward Hawke didn't know that there was another important reason why the Dashun Navy encouraged this tactic besides the strategic positioning of the Dashun Navy.

Steam engines are used on ships, and there is a joke about Fulton and Napoleon.

Regardless of whether this joke is true or not, Dashun is facing a very real situation, that is, once the First World War is over, Dashun will gain commercial hegemony from the Cape of Good Hope to Persia, and then to India and Southeast Asia.

Then, Dashun's naval construction will definitely turn to conservative in an all-round way.

How to pave the way for the use of steam engines before this inevitable conservative turn requires a very clever layout.

The navy's "column division tactics" need to look at the face of God, such as the direction of the wind.

Then, if the "column division tactics", the "conservatives" who will be in charge of the Dashun Navy in the future - the tactical conservatives refer to the old men in the war department in the future, who are only used to the tactics they were familiar with when they were young - tactically Conservatives in Dashun are not necessarily technical conservatives; similarly, political conservatives in Dashun are not necessarily technical conservatives.

How do these conservatives, the current prime of life and the future old men, use conservative tactical thinking to promote technological innovation?

It is only necessary to let the "column division tactics" become the conservative thinking of Dashun's future navy construction thinking.

Under this kind of tactical conservative thinking, technology cannot be conservative, because steam engines can make ships no longer look at God's face.

It is very likely that the conservatives in Dashun will choose this tactic: the main battleship will be equipped with a squadron equipped with a steam engine. , break into the enemy's battle line, cut and outflank the enemy's navy.

In other words, in the future, the most supportive of the steam engine boarding will be the conservative old man in the Dashun army.Because they are tactically "conservative" in column assault tactics, but they have to innovate technically to ensure that the tactics can be implemented.

In other words, this will ensure the transformation of the "transitional period" when Dashun's steam engine boards the ship.

Because, as we all know, transition periods are weird.

For example, during the transition period:
Matchlock guns may not be as good as bows and arrows.

A steam train cannot outrun a horse-drawn carriage.

Machine-woven cloth can be beaten by hand-made cloth even if it is beaten by hand.

The rate of fire of the flintlock gun is far inferior to that of the matchlock gun.

This is all a matter of the transitional period, and the same is true for steam engines on board. In Dashun, there must be a powerful department that has a huge demand for steam engines, so as to promote the popularization of steam engines. Trains are the power of the emperor and do not need water. Canals and steamships are conservative techniques and options for fleet tactics.

Therefore, for the Dashun Navy, the tonnage loss in the naval battle that killed Boskorn was not large, and the enemy did not lose the sea dominance of the strait, but its strategic significance was limitless.

Excluding the many influences of the First World War, in terms of tactics, it is also easy for Dashun's current "radicals" and future "conservative" old men to form a path-dependent tactical tendency.

This tactical tendency and conservative path dependence may make Dashun go the wrong way in the future. For example, in the battle between the heavily equipped multi-turret dreadnought battleship and the fast ironclad cruiser, if you choose the wrong direction, you may choose the idea of ​​​​a fast ironclad ship.But if it has reached that point, it is the industrial age, the era of fighting population and steel production, then it doesn't matter.

This kind of strategy and multiple considerations for the future, based on Edward Hawke's knowledge at this time, it can be seen that the strategic positioning of the Dashun Navy is different from that of the French Navy, which shows that Hawke's ability is not low.

Even though he didn't know the many games behind it, Hawke knew that it was best not to gamble with Dashun Navy.

Because Dashun lost the bet, at worst, he returned to the Cape of Good Hope and closed the door to play by himself.And if he loses the bet, something big will happen to Britain. The Jacobites who are ready to move still exist. Although they slaughtered nearly [-]/[-] of the total population of Britain in Scotland and Ireland not long ago. But not extinct.

An army that can play column assault in land warfare must not be bad at playing line.But on the other hand, those who can play well in line or even line bevel tactics may not be able to play well in column assault tactics.

Similarly, a navy that can play interspersed and outflanked must be above the passing line when playing line-to-column confrontation.And a navy that can play line-to-line bombardment well may not be able to play the tactics of interspersed and tail-flanking.

In Hawke's view, a team of sailors is about the same quality as France, strategically positioned as a gambling decisive battle, tactical options can be interspersed with lines and columns, the firing rate of flintlocks is higher than that of the British Navy, and dozens of battleships can maneuver across oceans Navy, very strong.

The final fight is just to see the luck of both parties, God's weather favor, and who will make fewer mistakes.

Others are not much different, [-]-[-].

And at the moment when the cards were finally revealed, if Dashun lost, it would just withdraw from the Atlantic Ocean; if Britain lost, it would mean the explosion of the three islands, the landing of the French army, and the separation of Ireland and Scotland.

Only fools would take this kind of gamble.

This is the reason why he, a "very simple, pure soldier who was born to be loyal to the motherland", played a political fringe and allowed Dashun to escort the captive fleet to Dunkirk.

(End of this chapter)