Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 2491 Steel Black Shark ([-])

On the afternoon of October 1703, 10, Lieutenant Colonel Huang Jiandong finished his lunch in a leisurely manner.

As the head of the ship, his lunch is quite good, with meat, fish, eggs, and seafood cakes specially fried by the chef. Overall, it is very good.The only shortcoming is probably that the fish is marinated and not fresh.However, considering that before sailing, it was he himself who ordered the officers and soldiers on the ship to forbid fishing in their leisure time, and confiscated their fishing rods, so there is no way, let's just make do with salted fish.

Lieutenant Colonel Huang Jiandong is 47 years old this year. He is the golden age of a senior naval officer. He is full of physical strength, energy, and experience, and he has a strong desire to fight.When he served as the captain of the "Damyo" ironclad warship, he once served as the commander of the East-Portuguese joint fleet in Asia.However, when he learned that he had the opportunity to compete for the post of captain of the ironclad ship, he was immediately moved. He abandoned the post of commander of the United Fleet and did everything possible to get the captain of the "Damyo".

No way, the ironclad ship is too tempting for naval officers!No man with ambitions in the world can refuse the temptation of such a big toy, and Huang Jiandong is naturally not immune, so he gave up a no-name fleet commander and chose the romance of a man instead.

After discovering the Spanish fleet in the morning, as the interim commander of this task force—sorry, I really won’t be here if the Caribbean sub-fleet doesn’t give me this position, I’ll report directly to the Cape Verde Islands—he immediately ordered The escort gunship "Shuangjiang" raised the command flag to coordinate and command the overall situation, while his "Damyo" lowered the flag, like a hunting shark, chasing after the frightened and fleeing fish.

There is still a big difference between the pursuit of the sea and the land.It is not like on land that depends on the physical strength, will, terrain, environment, etc. of the chasing and fleeing parties. Chasing and fleeing at sea is very simple. It is to compete for speed and see who runs fast. There is almost no room for opportunism.For example, if the speed of the fleeing ship is 4 knots and the speed of the pursuing ship is 6 knots, and the distance between the two ships is [-] nautical miles, then theoretically it will take at least ten hours for the rear ship to catch up with the front ship.After such a long time, it is likely to fall into the night, which gives the pursued ship the possibility of escaping under the cover of night.After all, in this era, there is no radar, no searchlights, and no water reconnaissance aircraft. It is very difficult to chase a ship that has turned off the lights and is fleeing at night.

The "Daimyo" ironclad battleship was traveling very fast. During the chase in the morning, it had soared to a limit speed of 11.5 knots. The chief engineer was frightened for a while, fearing that the boiler would blow up.Fortunately, the speed was maintained at about 10 knots, which made him a little relieved, and he didn't have to worry about dying before he left.

It took almost three hours for the "Daimyo" to approach the escaped Spanish convoy.During these three hours, he seemed very relaxed, and he even had time to return to the cabin to write a routine work report.Afterwards, he went to the officers' mess for lunch and chatted with the soldiers in the military band who were playing music in the dining room, and finally returned to the bridge contentedly, watching his precious battleship try to shorten the final gap between it and the enemy. some distance.

"Send a signal to ask them to surrender!" Lieutenant Colonel Huang Jiandong ordered after watching for about 10 minutes.A young staff officer quickly walked out of the bridge and ordered to go.

"Captain, there is no response from the enemy." Ten minutes later, the "Daimyo" sailed to a position roughly parallel to the transport ship "San Sebastian", and its four side guns were fired. Once in range, the soldiers loaded their ammunition and waited for the order to fire.

"Then shoot." Huang Jiandong waved his hand, raised the binoculars on his chest, and began to look for the next target.

The first officer stood at attention a little excitedly and saluted, then trotted out of the bridge and passed the order to the gunner who was waiting on the deck.Soon, the four broadside guns fired one after another. They did not use special shells, but chose solid oval shells.After being fired from a rifled cannon, this kind of shell rotates and flies forward at high speed, with a sharp and piercing whistling sound.

Not all of the four artillery shells hit, two of them skimmed the deck and fell into the sea on the other side. One hit a gun carriage and destroyed the entire ship on the "San Sebastian". One of only six guns.Only one shell hit the side. Although there was no explosion (solid bullet), it still pierced a large hole in the side hull.The cannonball that drilled the big hole was still unabated. After scraping half of the body of an unlucky sailor, it finally plunged into the pile of sacks filled with corn, and then completely exhausted its kinetic energy and completely stopped moving.

The Spaniard stared blankly at all this, and couldn't believe that the side hull was pierced so easily.Yes, because of the need to consider cost and speed, the hull of a merchant ship is relatively thin, but it is not so easy to be penetrated, it is no different from paper.Is this still solid bullet?How can a solid bullet be so powerful?The Spaniard's heart was full of breakdowns.

The artillery baptism of the "Daimyo" is still going on.I saw four more shells coming in, this time only one shot was missed, and the other hit the superstructure at the stern of the ship. It still penetrated the wall neatly, and then destroyed several pieces of furniture in the room. It was only after running out of energy that it slammed into the wall on the other side.The other two shells hit the side hull, creating two terrifying holes.Unfortunately, one of the holes was located near the waterline.

The Spanish sailors rushed forward frantically, taking everything they could get their hands on to seal the breach.The salty sea water rushed in frantically, wet everything nearby, and a large amount of goods were soaked in the water, but no one felt sorry anymore. Everyone's attention was attracted by the crack in the waterline, and they tried their best to get it out. blocked.

Another sharp whistle came, and a 120mm oval shell tore through the hull and plunged into the bilge.The sea water poured in frantically, as if they wanted to embrace everything in the bilge with their enthusiasm, whether it was people or goods.Another team of Spanish sailors rushed over, and they took cotton, skins and even cloth to seal the huge hole.The human-powered water pump was also in operation, and the sailors tried their best to drain the seawater pouring into the bilge to the outside.Now no one cares about the cargo anymore, everyone thinks about how to keep the ship and how to survive.There are so many sharks in the Caribbean that no one wants to be their food. "

"It seems that against the wooden hull without armor protection, the power of the solid oval bullet is very good, and the effect is not inferior to that of the special bullet." Lieutenant Colonel Huang Jiandong said with emotion after seeing the results through the telescope.

Yes, when the high-speed rotating pointed bullet hits the wooden hull, it can almost easily break a gap, which is much more "skillful" and efficient than the spherical bullet that completely relies on kinetic energy to brute force the gap. too much.This is the power of the rifled gun. It completely crushes the dimensionality reduction blow of the smoothbore gun. The Spaniards are fortunate to have tasted all of this, and they should be smiling under Jiuquan.

Of course, if you use special bullets, the effect will be very good.The violent explosion would tear the ship's plank near the center of the blast, creating an irregular radial gap, perhaps larger than that caused by a solid point bullet.But you have to factor in the huge cost difference between the two, and you'll see who's cuter.

While Huang Jiandong was speaking, the "Daming" fired several more shells, all of which were hit this time. One hit the bridge. I don't know if there were any casualties. The other three hit the side hull, creating a In the opening above the waterline and the two openings below, the influx of sea water is even more intense!

"Hurry up and dispatch this ship, let's move on to the next goal." Huang Jiandong ordered.

More shells began to fly towards the "San Sebastian", the side of the hull was densely packed with holes, and the water at the bottom of the cabin was up to the knees.The wine barrels destroyed by the shells on the east bank also fell to the ground, gurgling outwards, making the busy sailors worse.Finally, they realized that it was impossible for them to save the ship, so everyone rushed to the deck, hurriedly untied the lifeboat, put it into the sea, and jumped into it one by one.

The East Coasters watched these men coldly, and did not attack their last refuge.The East Coast Navy are all soldiers with a sense of honor, not inhuman killers.In fact, if these Spaniards did not have lifeboats, the people on the east coast would put one down for them, and then told them to surrender to the warships that came after them, and they should be able to save their lives.

The speed of the "San Sebastian" was already very slow at this time.Huang Jiandong didn't need to look to know that in just over ten minutes, the ship would completely sink to the bottom of the sea and become a paradise for fish and aquatic plants, and it would be difficult for gods to save it.Therefore, he decided not to care about it, and ordered the "Daimyo" to chase another Spanish transport ship, the "Red Mountain", and it must be resolved in the shortest possible time, even if it consumes some special ammunition.

The process of attacking the "Red Mountain" was similar to that of the "San Sebastian", but there were some differences.The East Coasters plowed the superstructure with special ammunition in the first round of shelling, destroying it to a mess and even causing a fire.Eight or nine holes were also punched in the left side of the ship, and sea water poured in frantically, submerging all the gunpowder, rifles and cannons in the bilge.After working hard for a while and finding it was ineffective, the Spaniards finally gave up and continued to break up, abandoned the ship and fled. I hope they are lucky enough, and the food and fresh water they carry will allow them to finally persist to Cuba.

"It's no challenge for an adult to bully a child." Huang Jiandong shook his head and said to himself.

(End of this chapter)