The so-called "February 18 Naval Battle" was the second sea confrontation between the Armada of the Business Alliance and the North Sea Fleet of the Norton family. After the battle the Armada claimed an unquestionable victory, which the North Sea Fleet did not refute.
Judging from the results announced by the Armada Fleet, the victory in this naval battle should indeed belong to them. Only the Fourth Squadron of the Armada Fleet fought. Escorted them back to Tibetan Gold Bay, and at the same time destroyed two Thunderbolt warships and four large armed warships of the North Sea Fleet in a sea battle.
It's just that the Armada did not announce their losses. In fact, if calculated from the destroyed warships on both sides, the Fourth Squadron can be said to have been crippled. Of the more than 100 large and medium-sized armed warships that participated in the battle, less than 50 of them returned to Zangjin Bay, and most of them still need to go to the shipyard for repairs. This is also the real reason why the 4th Squadron has been huddled in the Golden Bay before the rainy season and no longer goes out to patrol and guard. It suffered 7,000 casualties and lost a great swordsman. It can be said that the 4th Squadron has no courage and capital. Go to sea to fight again.
No one could have expected the North Sea Fleet to be so cruel and cunning. When two Thunderbolt warships and a large armed warship fell into the control of the Fourth Squadron, the senior management of the fleet breathed a sigh of relief. I was able to capture three of the enemy's warships and save my own 30 or so merchant ships. Even if the fleet's loss is a bit large, I can go back to do business. I also captured the two main battleships of the North Sea Fleet and brought them back to study. Maybe I will be invincible in the future. The fleet can also be equipped with that kind of bronze artillery, and it will not be helpless to fight back when it encounters the Beihai Fleet in the future.
It's just that the commanders of the Fourth Squadron were too happy. No one thought that the North Sea Fleet, which had already broken through the encirclement, would not take the opportunity to escape, but returned to the horse, and even concentrated on shooting into the Fourth Squadron. The two Thunderbolt warships and the large armed merchant ship. Not only did it sink and destroy three warships, but it also concentrated artillery fire and fired cannonballs to kill the great swordsman who had captured a Thunderbolt battleship by himself and fell into the sea with no bones left...
This was a heavy blow to the Fourth Squadron. Seeing that a victory was imminent, they did not expect that the enemy would still have the strength to slap themselves. At this time, the third and fourth waves of outflanking warships rushed over to join them. There were nearly a hundred warships in the fourth squadron together. fighting power.
It's just that the North Sea Fleet has escaped from the encirclement, and fourteen Thunderbolt battleships are cruising a thousand yards away. The commander of the Fourth Squadron decided to end the battle, and ordered the fleet to deploy a defensive array to collect those merchant ships that were running around, abandoning the severely damaged warships and preparing to return to Zangjin Bay. And the North Sea Fleet in the distance didn't seem interested in fighting anymore, turned around and quickly disappeared into the dark sky and sea.
According to the past naval battle experience of the Armada, this naval battle is over, but what they didn't expect was that Sambawood, who had suffered a big loss, was not ready to give up just like that. For the North Sea Fleet, today's encounter was a great shame. Not only were four large armed warships destroyed, but even two lightning strike warships fell into the enemy's hands. The loss is proof of a big defeat.
The final U-turn made Semba Wood find a chance to defeat the enemy. Judging from the number of battleships, the North Sea Fleet is not comparable to the Fourth Squadron, but the speed and flexibility of the battleships, coupled with the long-range attack power surpassing the enemy Enough to surpass any warship of the enemy. Thus, the Norton family's sea wolf tactic of making the enemy fleet fearful was born. Just like the wolves on the prairie hunting the buffalo, the battleships of the Fourth Squadron in front of them became the buffalo in the eyes of Sembawood and the North Sea Fleet.
Sambawood led the remaining 14 Thunderbolt battleships in a large circle, and suddenly appeared behind the Fourth Squadron at around 3:00 pm, and launched an attack suddenly while the enemy was in a panic. All Thunderbolt battleships are one-hit and go away, and they will never fight with the enemy. The first attack disrupted the defensive array of the Fourth Squadron. The last five medium-sized fast armed warships were sunk directly, and at the same time, a dozen warships and merchant ships were damaged by artillery fire.
The commanders of the Fourth Squadron are in great pain. If the situation continues, the entire fleet will be beaten and unable to fight back, and sooner or later it will collapse, but even if they want to fight back, they will have enough to hit the enemy. Now any Thunderbolt battleship in the North Sea Fleet is as slippery as a loach, and it is impossible to catch it. Send a warship to chase it and turn around and run away. If you chase it farther away, you may not be able to come back. Several Thunderbolt warships cooperate with each other to specialize. Deal with those warships that are lured out. If you don't care about it, those lightning strike warships will bombard the fourth squadron as long as they reach the range. Now the morale of the entire fleet is getting lower and lower.
It is not that the Fourth Squadron has not launched a counterattack, so Ji Zhongshi wants to rely on the advantage of numbers again to encircle the North Sea Fleet again. But the North Sea Fleet was not fooled this time. It took a long time to realize that the Fourth Squadron was outflanking in three directions and immediately turned around and ran away. After the battleships withdrew, the commanders of the four squadrons discovered that a dozen battleships would never come back again...
Next is the performance time of the North Sea Fleet. Sambawood divided the fourteen Thunderbolt warships into groups of three or four, and carried out surprise attacks on the Fourth Squadron from all directions. As long as they entered the range, a round of artillery would be fired, and the pursuit continued. Launch, run if there is any pursuit, lure the pursuing warship to the periphery and then launch a joint attack...
At that time, the commanders of the Fourth Squadron thought that the fleet would soon collapse and the entire army would be wiped out if this continued. They began to consider in their hearts whether they should raise the white flag to surrender. But the sky that soon darkened and the North Sea Fleet finally ran out of ammunition gave the Fourth Squadron unexpected vitality. After the night passed, the remnants of the Fourth Squadron that returned to Zangjin Bay the next day were unbearable to see. The more than 120 warships that attacked aggressively three days ago only returned more than 50 ships, and most of the warships The shell still shows signs of damage from artillery bombardment and temporary repairs.
The only thing worthy of praise is that the Fourth Squadron rescued more than 30 merchant ships held hostage by the North Sea Fleet in this attack, and escorted them back to Zangjin Bay. These more than 30 merchant ships full of military supplies finally solved the problem of insufficient supply of military supplies for the battered executives of the chamber of commerce. Now that the sea channel has been cut off by the North Sea Fleet of the Norton family, the news that nearly 50 merchant ships and cargo ships loaded with military supplies and food were hijacked and bound for Hilovas Island has been sent to the Chicod Chamber of Commerce by land. It will no longer be foolish to send merchant ships and cargo ships to deliver supplies to the wolf's mouth.
The top management of the business alliance found helplessly that if they wanted to rely on sea transportation to obtain supplies and reinforcements, they had to defeat the North Sea Fleet of the Norton family first. They are going to wait until the rainy season is over to order the Second Squadron and the armed fleet of the Chicod Chamber of Commerce to march northward. On the one hand, they will escort supplies and reinforcements to Morente City, and on the other hand, they will look for the North Sea Fleet of the Norton family for a decisive battle at sea. If so, he also hopes to occupy Shilovas Island and completely eliminate the threat of the Norton family's North Sea Fleet to maritime traffic.
But soon the Fourth Squadron's summary report on the naval battle was presented to the top executives of the chamber of commerce. In this report, all the commanders of the Fourth Squadron who experienced this naval battle signed their names to ensure that this report is correct. The battle process they mentioned in the report shocked the top management of the chamber of commerce, and they could hardly believe that the Armada had no power to fight back against the North Sea Fleet of the Norton family.
A senior captain stated the fact in the report that most of the warships of the Armada were far behind the North Sea Fleet of the Norton family in terms of long-range attack power. At a distance of more than 300 meters, the iron bullets fired by the Beihai Fleet's artillery can easily smash or break through the thick wooden hull of a ten-centimeter-thick warship, and at a distance of more than 100 meters, it can break a thick mast. And no matter whether it is the twisting stone cannon or the latest trebuchet fired by their warships, even if they hit the opponent's warship within a range of 100 meters, they will only leave a little mark on the hull, and they will not pose any threat at all. s damage.
Not only that, even in terms of the design and protection of the battleship, the large and medium-sized armed warships of the Armada can't match any of the main battleships of the Norton family fleet. Those warships that can fire artillery are extremely flexible in maneuvering, turn quickly, and surpass the battleships of the Armada by a large margin, and are even better than the battleships of the Armada in terms of seaworthiness.
Perhaps in addition to having an advantage over the North Sea Fleet of the Norton family in terms of numbers, the Armada also competes with the Norton family's fleet in the southern waters with those small fast-ramping warships, but once encountering strong winds and waves, these small fast-ramming warships will also It's useless. Therefore, the commanders of the Fourth Squadron hoped that the top management of the business alliance would allocate a large amount of money, one to research artillery, and the other to rebuild new warships that could compete with the Norton family fleet.
The senior executives of the business alliance looked at the report and smiled wryly. The Norton family invented a very powerful cannon, which is not even inferior to the dwarf cannon, the legendary weapon of the Dwarf Kingdom. They sneaked into the Northland to assassinate Lorist, who was still seriously injured. When he searched for the artillery training base, he was attacked by artillery, resulting in four deaths and three injuries. Although the remaining great sword masters massacred the soldiers at that base, after all, the power of the artillery had reached the ears of the business alliance executives.
It's a pity that the great sword masters have obtained many design drawings of new and powerful weapons from the Norton family, but there is no relevant information about artillery. It's also not clear where the Nortons got the propellant from. Just looking at the many hills and mountains on the map of the Northland, the top executives of the business alliance believed that the Norton family was likely to unearth a nitrate mine in order to configure the gunpowder needed for the artillery.
In terms of artillery research, the business alliance pinned its hopes on the dwarf kingdom in the Titanini Mountains, but the communication and negotiations with the dwarves were not very smooth, and it took some means and a period of time. However, the large amount of research funds required for the construction of new warships proposed in the report made the top leaders of the business alliance helpless.
Although the business alliance is famous for its wealth and power, it does not mean that the business alliance has endless wealth. Since the Glass War, the business alliance has suffered hostility from all over the world, and its business activities have been suppressed. In the end, the business alliance has to adopt a policy of external expansion to ensure its own commercial interests and sphere of influence. It took so much time and thought to finally defeat and disintegrate the hostile Central South Kingdom Alliance, making the Commercial Alliance the largest country in the Gelinthian continent in one fell swoop. But when they turned around, they faced the Antinac Kingdom again, and the intensity of this war surpassed those wars that the business alliance participated in in the past.
The business alliance can't take it anymore, and now it's time to fight to the death with the Antinac Kingdom to see who will collapse first. The new territory acquired by expansion has not been properly sorted out for effective management, and here it has fought with the Antinak Kingdom. To put it bluntly, the Business Alliance has devoted all its resources to this war. At such a critical juncture, where can we allocate a large amount of funds to conduct research on new types of warships...
The post-war summary report submitted by the Fourth Squadron made the high-level business alliance reach a consensus, that is, to destroy the North Sea Fleet of the Norton family at all costs and capture Hilovas Island. Since the development of the Norton family fleet has left the Armada far behind, making it impossible for the Armada to catch up and surpass it in a short period of time, then take advantage of the small size of the North Sea Fleet to take advantage of the Armada's numerical advantage to defeat the enemy. If it is eliminated, no matter how much sacrifice is made, the Norton family's sea power must be brought to the same level as the Armada, and everyone will compete and develop together.
As long as Hilovas Island is captured, there is no need to worry even if the Norton family vigorously develops their sea power. The loss of Hilovas Island by the Norton family means that they will lose the initiative and berthing base on the sea battlefield, and they will no longer be able to pose a threat to the sea trade route south of the Golden Bay. The top management of the business alliance is very confident. With the golden coastline of the sunny sea area in the central and southern part of the mainland, the Armada will only develop faster and faster. However, relying on a remote and desolate northern land, how can the Norton family compete with the armada of the business alliance again? Fighting for supremacy at sea
The high-level executives of the business alliance made up their minds to expand the scale of the northward fleet again. This time they planned to let the first squadron of the Armada stationed in the Kingdom of Chigda also go northward together, first to meet with the second squadron, and then to unite with Chikod The Chamber of Commerce's armed fleet escorted food, military supplies, and reinforcements to Zangjin Bay. Then gather all the fleets and go straight to Hilovas Island. Even if the North Sea Fleet of the Norton family is very powerful, how can a dozen warships equipped with artillery outnumber seven or eight hundred warships? Even if they are targets, it is impossible to hit so many...
Just when the top management of the business alliance was thinking about how to attack Hirovas Island and remove the threat of the Norton family fleet to the sea. Sambawood also led the fourteen Thunderbolt warships back to Shirowas Island. In the eyes of Samba Wude, this attack was a failure. Not only were four large armed warships destroyed, but even two lightning strike warships were sunk by his own order. This is an intolerable shame for Sembawood and the members of the North Sea Fleet!
It was only later that the North Sea Fleet adopted the correct sea wolf tactics to besiege the enemy. Seeing that the number of battleships in the Fourth Squadron was decreasing and they could be wiped out with more effort, the North Sea Fleet ran out of ammunition. Sambawood had no choice but to return to Shirowas Island with fourteen lightning strike warships. The lack of success made Semba Wood very unhappy, and now he only hopes that the warships that went to Niujiao Bay in the Northland for transformation and equipped with artillery can return as soon as possible.
However, the rainy season is coming soon, and Sambawood has no time to sail again to find the trouble of the Armada on the sea route south of Zangjin Bay. The Thunderbolt warships that came back from this battle will more or less have to go to the shipyard for some renovations. Sembawood could only keep the idea of revenge in his heart, looking forward to going to the Armada to settle accounts after the rainy season.
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