The Rise of Ming Dynasty 1646

Chapter 720 Nelson's Tactics

Sailor Helan knew that a decisive battle was about to start from the moment he received the order, so he moved extremely quickly.In less than half an hour, the fleet had already completed its turn, drew an arc on the sea surface, and pressed towards the left front of the Daming Navy.

Bess is obviously very satisfied with the efficiency of his subordinates. Except for the British, there is probably no one on this earth who is better at manipulating warships than the Helan people.

He held up the binoculars and kept observing the sea on the east side, but the lookout was the first to discover the traces of the Ming army, and shouted loudly: "The enemy ship is found five nautical miles due east! They are turning north by northwest."

Bess soon saw the figure of the enemy ship, and sure enough, they were turning sharply to the northwest, leaving a huge arc-shaped trace on the sea.

"Cowardly Orientals." Brahm snorted coldly.

Bess nodded involuntarily. It seemed that the people of the Ming Dynasty were not sure of the decisive victory against him—the Helan fleet was now turning east by south.

If the Ming fleet wants to seek a decisive battle, then they should turn to the northeast and press on the north side of the Helan fleet, and the bows of the ships should also point east-south to form a battle line.In this case, the two fleets will maintain the same course and speed, and use side cannons to shoot at each other until all the warships on one side are sunk.

But the Ming fleet now wants to point its bow to the west and north, and will keep level with the Dutch fleet and move towards each other.Although the two sides will shoot at each other for a while when they are connected to the board, they will pass by each other soon, and it is difficult to completely destroy the combat effectiveness of one side.

Generally speaking, this is only done when you are not absolutely sure of the strength of the two sides and want to conduct a probing confrontation.

"That's not bad." Beth smiled. "When the two sides turn around, we can rely on skilled sailors to gain a certain positional advantage."

"Perhaps there is no need to turn around and fight again," Brahm continued: "One chance to pass by, the warships of the Easterners may be severely damaged and withdraw from the battle. The important thing is to solve the enemy's fleet. The point where they landed The people will run out of supplies and will have to surrender before long."

The huge fleet moves and turns very slowly. In fact, this is the fastest speed that can be achieved in the seventeenth century.

Nearly an hour later, the Dodrechet suddenly received a warning from the Hector, and the herald came to the forecastle to report to Bess: "General, Captain Cesareo said that the enemy began to disperse in two directions. .”

Bess quickly looked through the binoculars, and saw that the Ming fleet had sailed to the northeast of him, but instead of turning his head west and north as he expected, he slowed down the speed and split from the center and front.

On Ming's battle line, which was already very messy—he wasn't even sure it could be called a battle line—a part of the warships turned awkwardly to the south by west, while the other part sailed straight west.

After receiving Cesareo's warning, almost all the captains of the Helan warships were full of doubts. What are these Easterners trying to do?
Brahm laughed suddenly, "General, it's impossible for them to line up before the battle!"

That's right.Bess nodded inwardly. The formation of the Ming fleet was completely chaotic. Even the British sailors could not reorganize the battle line before their own fleet approached.

"But why did they do this?" He was puzzled, did the Ming Dynasty not master the battle line tactics?

If this is the case, today's naval battle and the Lane won the whole province after all, and it is even possible that a ship will not sink-the Europeans have repeatedly proved it with blood in the Atlantic Ocean, and scattered formations or group attacks are far from battle lines opponent!
Brahm obviously thought the same thing, "It seems that we are worrying too much, they don't even know battle line tactics!"

The first mate of the Dodrecht said: "Perhaps there is a problem with their command, which caused the battle line to be scattered."

This is also a very common situation in naval battles in the seventeenth century. In this era without radio, this situation may occur if the herald misreads a semaphore.

Brahm whistled excitedly, "No matter what, it's impossible for them to fight in line, we're sure to win!"

Even Bess finally nodded, "Although we must maintain absolute caution, judging from the enemy's situation, even if they can complete the entire team, they will definitely not have time to turn to the direction parallel to us."

There was a smile in his eyes, "We have a chance to hit the T-head once."

The so-called T-shaped horizontal head refers to using one's own side to be perpendicular to the bow of the enemy ship, and the two sides form a T-shaped.Since the cannons of the sailing warship are placed on both sides of the ship, once this situation is formed, you can use your most powerful firepower to hit the enemy's bow without cannons, and it will definitely kill you.

Many Captain Helan and lookouts also saw this trend, and there were even cheers from the sailors on some ships.

However, none of them noticed that the scattered Ming warships gradually divided into two clear teams.The battleships in the two parts were connected end to end, forming two neat battle lines, but they did not keep parallel with the Helan fleet, but rushed up perpendicular to the enemy's battle line.

If a naval general in the nineteenth century saw this scene, he would immediately shout five words, "Nelson's tactics!"

Yes, this is the tactic that the British genius Vice Admiral Horatio Nelson used for the first time in the Trafalgar naval battle in 1805, and was specially used to deal with the battle line-Nelson's tactics.

The naval battle situation at that time was: 33 warships of the Franco-Spanish Combined Fleet and 27 warships of the British Fleet confronted each other.Nelson used his famous tactics to severely damage the combined fleet, causing it to lose 20 warships on the spot, and encountered a storm during the retreat, almost annihilating the entire army.

And the loss of the British fleet was - zero.

It's just that this kind of naval warfare tactics brought by Zhu Linming from later generations will not be born until 150 years at the earliest. Right now, no one has ever seen the Helan people from the bass to the deck-cleaning sailors.

More than half an hour later, the Daming navy divided into two arrows, which went straight to the left third and two thirds of the Helan battle line.

The team on the west side is headed by the [-]-ton cruiser Guangzhou, followed by the cruisers Shaowu and Zhangzhou, and the three frigates Fuzhou, Jianchang and Guangsignal.

The team on the east side is headed by the newly built [-]-ton Tier [-] battleship Shaoxing, followed by the cruiser Raozhou and three frigates including Guangsignal.

The battleships of the two teams were in the battle line formation, and quickly attacked the two relatively loosely arranged positions on the Helan battle line along the vertical direction.

The distance between the battleships on the battle line is usually about [-] yards, but the distance between the battleships at these two openings is [-] to [-] yards more. After repeated observations, Zheng Chenggong finally finalized these two entry points.

At this time, Helan's flagship, Dodratchet, was still at the front of the battle line, unable to shoot at the rushing Daming Navy.

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(End of this chapter)