At the beginning, Proudmoore was still feeling the majestic appearance of the battleship Iron Torrent of the Principality of Florence, but after a while, he realized that the situation of the battle seemed to have changed dramatically.
He saw a few black dots in the sky.
The Ocean Fleet will definitely bring a part of the air cavalry. It's not that they care so much about the combat capabilities of the air cavalry. After all, the confrontation between super warships, with the combat ability of the air cavalry, is simply impossible to intervene.
Even in the air over land, the very powerful Griffin Cavalry could not overturn the smallest frigate in a team.
Of course, the air cavalry can fight a dozen sailors on the deck. But the benefits are very low. Sailors usually have protective facilities on board, which are usually used to defend against the artillery fire of enemy ships during shelling. And if it is used for anti-aircraft cavalry, it is even more overkill.
Maybe it's easy for the navy soldiers to shoot them down with bows and arrows or muskets when they dive to attack. Therefore, direct attack by the air cavalry has become a matter of inefficiency and loss outweighing the gain.
It is useless in combat, but it does not mean that the air force is useless.
No matter how fast a warship runs, it is still a ship, and it must follow the water and the wind. In any case, it is impossible to be as fast as the flying cavalry.
Of course, the flying speed of the air cavalry is fast, and the range is not so far. However, this problem is actually not too big. With a large battleship or battlecruiser as the base, the air knights usually stay on the ship and release it when needed. The same is true.
Usually, in the oceans of the Orodic world, warships of more than 6,000 to 7,000 tons will have a part of the function of an 'aircraft carrier'.
Therefore, Proudmoore was not surprised that his opponent had an air force—it was surprising that he didn't.
However, the Air Force should not be that big.
You must know that because of the combat effectiveness and combat methods of the Air Force, they are not powerful enough to destroy ships. The method of carrying explosives and projecting is almost the only method that can be used, but due to the weight of the air cavalry, they cannot carry too much explosives, and the explosive power is not enough to penetrate the ship.
Moreover, the air cavalry is not flying high enough, and it is easy to be shot down at a height of tens of meters. No matter how high it is, there is no way to guarantee a hit by manual throwing.
The best reconnaissance air cavalry in the known world is the sea eagle. This kind of seabird is relatively light, can fly fast enough, and has a relatively long flight range. Although its combat effectiveness is relatively poor, it is an excellent flying reconnaissance unit.
However, there is a problem here. As far as Proudmoore looked, even a dreadnought-class battleship like the Iron Torrent, which could be called a behemoth, was only a shadow in the distance, not as big as a thumb. It stands to reason that the flying cavalry, whose size is not known how many times smaller, should not be able to see clearly. How could it be as big as a black spot
This size, if calculated in proportion, is estimated to be as big as a small warship, right
Something the size of a warship flying in the sky
What a joke! Could it be a giant dragon? !
Such an extremely absurd thought rose in the admiral's mind.
He quickly shook the thought out of his mind. Looking at it from a distance, there must be six or seven of those huge flying monsters. The Schindlers tamed six or seven dragons to help them fight? No matter how you look at it, it is all nonsense.
It is only a matter of legend that magical, powerful, and wise creatures like giant dragons help the human kingdom fight. Proudmoore couldn't believe that such a thing would happen in front of him.
But then, the news from the ships in front and the information brought back by the Seahawk cavalrymen all shattered Admiral Proudmoore's luck.
His first reaction was true, those are dragons!
A total of seven green dragons with their heads stretched out and over thirty meters long danced in mid-air. They fly higher than any flying cavalry, carrying a dragon knight at a height of three or four hundred meters, and can still fly up and down with ease;
This is a height that neither bows nor arrows can reach.
At the same time, they don't need to project any alchemy shells. The emerald green raging flames that spewed from their mouths were fiercer than any alchemy shells.
The dragon's breath fell, and a moment later, a warship would be on fire!
In just a short while, news came from the front that four warships had lost their combat effectiveness. At the same time, the wild goose formation of the United Fleet was completely broken up by the dragons.
The warships of the Schindlers did not engage the ships of the United Fleet at all, and hung far away. Schindler's naval soldiers didn't take part in the battle at all. In this war, they were more like spectators than soldiers.
After learning all this, Proudmoore turned pale. He stared into the distance in a daze, but he failed to issue an order immediately.
Several naval generals from the Principality of Florence hurried over.
"Your Excellency, Commander, why didn't you give an order? We must go up to support immediately, otherwise the Iron Torrent and our forward formation will all be finished!"
The admirals of the Principality of Florence all looked anxious.
Proudmoore recovered himself, but he hesitated.
Think about it in an absolutely calm way, is it useful to support it? The strength of the striker formation is no worse than the backup formation he is leading at the moment, right? But look what the result is? The seven-headed giant dragons ravaged earth-shakingly, but the warship formations at sea had nothing to do with each other.
The backup formation went up, so what
It is true that the current naval ships have certain air defense capabilities, but such air defense capabilities are simply too weak for the giant dragon flying in the sky, so weak that it is equivalent to nothing.
The navy has never encountered an enemy like a dragon in a battle on the ocean. Although there are legends of giant dragons on some isolated islands deep in the deep sea, they are just legends after all. On the one hand, it’s hard to tell whether it’s true or not. On the other hand, even if it’s true, is there any other country’s fleet that would go crazy and provoke a giant dragon
The only ones who dare to mess with this legendary creature are some brave sea adventurers. Generally speaking, for those who dare to do this, the grass on the grave is three feet high—or it has already become the excrement of a certain fish on the bottom of the sea.
This has also led to the fact that modern warships are not at all sound in their defense against enemies in the sky.
They can't deal with the giant dragon, and they have nothing to do with this magical and extraordinary creature.
Then what are you going to do? Do you feel that the vanguard fleet composed of twenty warships is not enough, and even the backup fleet has to be filled in this big hole to die
Proudmoore thought about it rationally, and felt that such a thing could not be done.
The Florentine admirals got no answer from Proudmoore, and became more anxious. They kept urging, but in the end, they only got a word from the admiral:
"The whole fleet should turn around immediately. We need to leave this sea area as soon as possible, head west, and return to the west of the Southern Cross Sea. Order the forward formation and ask them to disperse and break through on their own, and try to disperse as much as possible to avoid the dragon's pursuit."
A Florentine general almost jumped up when he heard this order!
"General?! Our main battleship is still ahead, we can't leave them alone!"
Proudmoore said with a cold face: "The battle plan for this route blockade has failed, and we have no way to recover from this defeat! We must preserve the battleships for the coalition forces, the principality and the kingdom to the greatest extent! Only the battleships are preserved , Returning to the port city, we can find a way to complete the modification of the battleship, find a way to strengthen the air defense capability, and then we will have the ability to fight this war one step further!"
"If we lose all our ships to the east in this battle, then everything will be over!"
The people of Florence were silent, including the admirals of the Pudry Kingdom, who were also silent.
After recovering from their panic, they had to admit that after thinking about it calmly, General Proudmoore's words were all reasonable.
However, who would have the heart to watch half of the main force of the glorious and huge United Fleet being sent into a sea of flames right in front of their eyes, and all of them were buried
Proudmoore didn't care what these people thought. Now that a decision had been made, there was no room for procrastination.
After a while, the order was conveyed, and the twelve warships lined up in a slash in the support formation drew twelve arc-shaped white lines on the sea surface, circled around, completed a U-turn, and headed west .
And when they left, the battlefield in the east was at its peak!
…
Fire, fire is everywhere, even on the blue sea, there is fire everywhere.
The vice admiral of the Principality of Florence, the captain of the Iron Torrent, General Paparos, stood outside his captain's room. With such a large size, the Iron Torrent is a very obvious target on the ocean. In fact, his battleship was often taken care of by those flying dragons in the sky.
Almost every green dragon once sprayed its dragon breath on this battleship.
Thanks to the steel torrent being strong enough, it was not directly destroyed.
Thick smoke billowed everywhere on the huge Dreadnought-class battleship. The soldiers were terrified. The elite Florentine navy had fought against the navy of the Holy Empire, the mysterious deep-sea behemoth, and the cruel and cunning pirates, but they had never fought against creatures like dragons. Over the road.
In people's impression, this kind of extraordinary creature that only exists in mythology and in the bedside stories of mothers when they were young, brings great fear to people.
Lieutenant General Paparos saw it with his own eyes. Just ten minutes ago, after a dragon flew out of the enemy's 10,000-ton battleship, when a certain dragon dived down for the first time, at least a dozen soldiers, Frightened to death by Longwei.
I was really scared to death, and my liver and gallbladder were broken on the spot. The person with pale, bloodless face and dark purple lips, with a look of fear, fell to the ground and couldn't get up.
The few soldiers who reacted tremblingly launched a counterattack against the swooping dragon under the orders of the officers, but with little success. Few muskets and arrows could hit, and the three upward-firing cannons that were turned in an emergency were also placed in the empty space.
Then, the green dragon that swooped down took a breath and washed the front deck of the Iron Torrent. At least sixty or seventy soldiers gathered on the front deck were directly buried in the sea of flames. At the same time, the three cannons that were angled to attack the giant dragon above their heads were all destroyed by the dragon's breath.
The artillery emplacement defense facilities that can defend against the impact of artillery are indistinguishable from paper under the breath of the dragon.
"Maneuver! Mobilize! Don't stay still in one place! All warships move for me! Find those Schindlers' ships, chase them, and tear them apart with artillery! Be careful to avoid the dragon in the sky!"
Paparos' reaction was actually fast enough. Not long after the dragon attacked the forward formation, he issued such an order to other warships in the formation.
But what is the use
The formation of the wild goose formation has been completely dispersed, and the warships are fighting on their own. Some want to continue to rush forward to catch the Schindlers' warships who seem to be watching a show by the side; There are signs of breaking away from the formation and running away by themselves; what's more, they are in a panic, running around on the sea like a blind man, and have fallen into chaos.
Paparos struggled to turn the tide of the battle at first. In addition to sending orders to other captains as the formation commander, he also issued an order requiring all the open-air artillery positions on the upper deck of the Iron Torrent to find ways to increase the elevation angle as much as possible. Flying dragons pose a threat.
At the same time, the power system of the ship must also be strengthened. The power cabin of the lower part of the Iron Torrent is already operating at full capacity. This steel monster on the sea has already increased its horsepower. rushed up.
There were some results. At least two alchemy cannons shot directly at two different dragons.
However, this kind of artillery, which is enough to directly blast a giant elephant to death, exploded on the giant dragon, and of course it caused a certain amount of damage. The broken dragon scales flew all over the sky with dragon blood, and the giant dragon that was bombarded also emitted A scream of pain.
But after all, it cannot be fatal in one blow.
After being injured, the giant dragons who fell into a rage turned their target on the Iron Torrent instead.
The dragon's breath fell one after another, landing on the deck, armor, and even the surrounding sea of this super battleship, so that the Iron Torrent turned into a huge fireship in a short period of time. Paparos stood on the boat, all vision was blocked by flames and thick smoke, and he couldn't see anything.
It was as strong as the Iron Torrent, and it was impossible for it to last too long under such bombardment.