Daming Military Empire

Chapter 190 The first confrontation
Although Fan Dimen was furious, he was not dizzy with anger. He had already analyzed the defense of Manila City. Don’t think about it in the north. Under the double protection of the Spanish fleet and the artillery of the city wall, even though he had the superior firepower, he didn't want to test whether the stones on the walls and forts were hard or the deck of his ship was hard.

The fort in the south is different. The south of Wangcheng is a low civilian area, which means that only the north side of the south fort is protected by the artillery of the city wall, and the south side has no defensive measures at all. Therefore, Fan Dimen is going to attack from the south. Knock down the south fort, and then attack from the southeast corner of the royal city.

Dutch naval guns are basically cannons, which are characterized by long range and strong shell impact, but they also have disadvantages, that is, the launch angle is small and the trajectory is low. To increase the elevation angle, the hit rate will be greatly reduced.

The Spanish turrets were about 30 meters high and 400 meters long, but the Dutch warships were less than 20 meters above the water, so if the naval guns were to hit the turrets, they had to increase the elevation angle. Adjust the elevation angle of the gun to [-] degrees, and test the accuracy.

The plan was confirmed, and he immediately ordered: "Order, the red team loads solid ammunition on the right side, at an elevation angle of [-] degrees, line up five nautical miles south of the enemy's south fort, and three nautical miles from the coast, go straight forward and bombard the fort, leave the coast and return immediately .”

A messenger holding a red flag immediately ran to the middle of the deck and climbed onto the mast in the middle, and issued a series of semaphores. Soon, fifteen battleships left the main fleet and moved to the south.

Not long after the red team arrived there about five nautical miles away, one by one warships began to move out slowly from the fleet. Fifteen warships quickly lined up in a column and slowly sailed towards the Spanish fort in the south.As soon as the first battleship entered the range of the fort, the right side of the battleship heard the roar of the artillery "boom boom boom" and more than 50 shells flew towards the fort, and the Spanish artillery on the fort also remembered the roar "boom boom boom, about 200 Multiple shells hit the Dutch fleet.

At that time, the artillery had no accuracy at all. If it was fired at a fixed point, it could be accurate to within ten meters. It would be very good if the artillery on this kind of battleship could reach within 50 meters. That’s why the Dutch’s shells were everywhere. Flying, some fell directly into the sea, some landed on the beach in front of the fort, some hit the stone wall of the fort, and some flew directly over the fort. A bomb hit the turret, maybe killing a few people, because the turret is so high, they can't see it.

The Spaniards’ cannons are mainly sub-mother howitzers, which are characterized by fast loading speed, but short range and low impact. Although their cannons are fired fixedly, the opposite battleship is moving, so the hit rate is not high. , Only more than 20 shells fell on the first battleship, more than ten shells fell on the second battleship, and the rest basically fell through.

The Dutch did not stop advancing, they still lined up neatly and headed north. More and more warships entered the range of the fort, and the Dutch warships kept roaring. The Spaniards were not to be outdone, their submunitions were reloaded fast, and they could fire a round in less than 1 minute. In less than 10 minutes, the two sides fired four to five thousand shells each. As for this effect, there is no problem with the deck of the Dutch battleship, but there are some holes in the ship's side and sails. As for the Spanish fort, there are only some bricks and stones on the arrow stack, and there is almost no damage.

This is the tragedy of artillery in the black powder era. The lethality basically depends on smashing. As long as the defense measures are better, it is basically difficult to cause casualties unless they are piled up in numbers. Therefore, the warships at that time were desperately increasing the number of naval guns. The first one developed to more than ten guns, then dozens of guns, and finally more than 100 guns. If it weren't for the limitation of the hull size, it is estimated that there would be a super battleship with thousands of cannons at that time.

The battle between the fleets has also become a contest of the number of artillery pieces. If dozens of guns are not good enough, there are hundreds of them, and if hundreds of guns are not enough, there are thousands of them. Thousands of shells can smash the side of your ship!

After a round of probing, Van Diemen had a rough grasp of the accuracy of the naval guns, and he directly ordered: "All warships move south five miles, adjust the elevation angle of the artillery to 32 degrees, and load shotguns on the right side to prepare." Open fire, and the blue team immediately sent all the musketeers to the south of the place and landed six nautical miles south of the fort, led by the deputy leader of the blue team, Audron, ready to attack the fort.

Three messengers with red, white and blue flags climbed up the mast at the same time and began to deliver orders. The fleet began to move south. After reaching five miles to the south, more than 30 warships stopped, and another [-] warships moved south again. After one nautical mile, they began to approach the coast, put down a bunch of small landing ships, and groups of musketeers began to land in batches. About half an hour later, more than [-] musketeers boarded the beach in the south and began to land on the coast of Audron. Arranging a phalanx under the command, the fifteen warships of the blue team also began to leave the coast and sail towards the main fleet.

Seeing the return of the blue team, Fan Dimen immediately ordered: "Command, the red, white and blue teams start to line up and take turns to attack the enemy's south fort at [-] miles along the coastline. The white team goes up first, the blue team follows, and the red team comes last. , five rounds of shotgun attack."

The messenger with the red, white and blue tricolor flag climbed up the mast again and began to send orders. Except for Van Diemen's flagship and the four warships next to it, the other 45 warships in the entire fleet lined up in three columns, and one of them began to slow down. Moving slowly north, we approached the Spanish fort.

In other words, the artillery of this fort should all face the sea, and the coastal defense artillery is generally fixed on the base. Even the barrel and the base weigh several thousand kilograms. It takes a long time to adjust the elevation angle. In terms of shooting direction, it is impossible without a day or two. How can the Spaniards defend?
Naturally, Coquian had already considered this point. He had arranged 3000 men on both the north and south sides of the fort, of which 1000 were in charge of firing and the other 2000 were in charge of defense.

As soon as the Dutch began to land here, the Spanish commander on the fort over there called out all two thousand musketeers from the defensive fortifications, and all lined up behind the parapet to the south, preparing to deal with the Dutch attack.

A big battle was officially kicked off at this moment, and the Dutch warships began to line up to pour shotguns at the Spaniard's fort in turn, and the Spaniard's fort kept firing back with live ammunition, causing mutual damage. Generally speaking, the Spaniards suffered more damage, because their musketeers had all boarded the fort, and they had to pay attention to the enemy's musketeers in the south who had to avoid the shells at sea. If they were not careful, they might be shot. That Although the shells of the period had no explosive power, if an ordinary person was hit, he would either die or be injured.

After the three squadrons of white, blue and red took turns to attack for about one round, Van Diemen gave an order, and the messenger waved the flag, and the Dutch musketeers on the coast began to disperse and approach the fort.The gun battle at this time had a very interesting name called 'queuing to shoot'. Because the matchlock guns had a delay, they had to stand there to aim and wait for the bullets to fly out, so this strange fighting method was formed, basically The above is that both sides stand in a horizontal formation at the same time, and then stand there and shoot at each other. Whoever gets hit will be unlucky.

Of course, the bullets at this time are not as powerful as the bullets of later generations. Generally, as long as they don't just hit the vital parts, a few bullets can't kill people.

This method of "queuing up and shooting" is naturally the defensive side's advantage, because they can hide behind the parapet or arrow stacks and shoot, as long as they show their heads, and the attacking side basically has no cover, just standing there as a target .

In this way, the Spaniards should have taken advantage of it, but it is not easy for them to take advantage of it. You must know that there are shells flying above their heads all the time, and being hit by a shell is much more serious than being hit by a bullet.

The Dutch have an absolute advantage in the number of artillery, because they have 45 super battleships participating in the battle, even if they only fire on one side, that is more than 2000 cannons, while the Spaniards have only more than 300 cannons on their turrets. The speed of the shells was more than twice as fast as that of the Dutch, but they could not withstand the repeated bombardment of more than 2000 cannons, so the casualties of the Spaniards on the fort were increasing.

The casualties of the Dutch musketeers under the fort were also not small. They also adopted a wave-like formation, divided into four rows of 1000 people in each row. , and then reload on the spot, then the third row, the fourth row in the first row, and the second row. Naturally, they can’t speed up their advance step by step, and the closer they are to the fort, the greater the casualties. When they are about 500 meters away Only dozens of people were injured when firing a round of guns, and hundreds of people were injured when firing a round of guns at 400 meters. When it reached 300 meters, people were injured all the time. up.

After all, people are fleshy. Although they have armor protection on key parts, no matter where they are on the body, it is not so comfortable to insert a hard iron ball into it. One or two may be able to bear it for a while , Ten or eight of them got into the meat, which is unbearable for anyone.

Audron saw more and more people lying on the ground swinging, and had to order the entire army to retreat. He had to tell Van Diemen that such a hard work was not acceptable. He would eat bullets with meat, why didn't he eat it himself? Try a few!

Not long after the Dutch musketeers retreated, the warships on the sea stopped roaring. The battle had been going on for almost an hour at this time. The red, white and blue teams all fired five rounds of shotgun. Van Dimen saw that the soldiers on the shore were really shocked. Unable to rush up, he had to stop thinking about continuing to attack and let the battleship of the blue team go to fetch all the musketeers back.

The first wave of confrontation between the Netherlands and Spain in Manila is over here. No one can get a bargain in this battle. The Netherlands has lost dozens of musketeers, and more than a thousand people have been injured. The battleship has also suffered a lot. The Spaniards lost more personnel, including musketeers and artillery. You must know that the Dutch's shotguns are like rain, and they can't hide under the parapet without returning fire, so they lost this battle. More than 100 people.

After fighting for an hour, the soldiers were already exhausted, and Van Diemen also lost the desire to attack. He simply ordered the entire fleet to move to the south bank of Manila Bay to anchor and rest, preparing to fight another day.

As the defensive side, the Spaniard will naturally not take the risk of sending people to pursue them. The two sides have entered a short truce period. As for how long this truce period will last, it depends on Van Diemen's patience, but his patience may not last long. Because Shi Daxuan and the others still have a bunch of merchant ship captains in their hands, if one fails, two will come, if two fail, three will come, as long as they are constantly stimulated, there will always be one who can make Fan Diemen go crazy!

(End of this chapter)