Alien Arms Empire

 Chapter 265 265 A Cannonball

Datang Group's artillery fuze is much more powerful than other explosive fuzes of this era. Its precision has made it completely unlike a product of this era.

Although the yield rate of artillery shells is not particularly high due to precision machining, it is still several levels higher than the blooming shells that Cyric has just begun to mass-produce.

Even, this kind of fuze has a safety device that is completely separated from the cannonball and is only installed on the cannonball when it is fired.

 When soldiers use special tools to twist the safety safety on the artillery shell, and then make the artillery shell fully activated, the enemy's nightmare seems to begin.

The cannonball was pushed into the breech, followed by the propellant, and then the breech block was tightly closed.

  The new breech block is an improvement over the wedge-shaped breech block of the C64, and a threaded breech block is chosen that is more suitable for large-caliber artillery. This is more suitable for ship artillery and also increases the rate of fire somewhat.

After the breech block rotated half a circle and was completely closed, the gunner couldn't wait to pull down the firing device of the artillery. The tail of the cannon suddenly sat back, and the huge sound of the gun was transmitted to everyone's ears through the steel plate. .

Even with the special earplugs, the muffled sound was still shocking. Some people covered their ears, some turned their backs to the artillery, and everyone tried their best to relieve the pressure on their ears.

The propellant of the cannonball is ignited by the cannon's fuse. The gunpowder violently turns into flames in the combustion chamber. The gas expands instantly, embedding the cannonball, which is slightly larger than the rifling of the cannon body, into the rotating threads, and spins forward rapidly.

This cannonball rotated along the rifling, and the huge force caused the metal around it to be squeezed and deformed by the rifling. It accelerated violently in the gun body, and then suddenly broke free at the muzzle.

At this moment, there were no more riflings around the cannonball forcing it to rotate continuously. The air suddenly reduced the friction, and its speed suddenly jumped to a height of several hundred meters per second.

 The surrounding air was suddenly pushed away by the air waves, and the flames in the barrel rushed out of the muzzle and raged around the muzzle of the artillery.

The next second, the shell that had broken through the sound barrier quickly passed over a distance of more than 700 meters. In just over a second, it accurately hit a sailing warship that was firing.

 The shell of the cannonball has become red hot due to the friction with the air. It also rotates slowly to maintain a very stable trajectory.

When the shell hit the not-so-hard wooden hull, its fuse was activated by the collision, and the device inside ignited the detonator.

The detonator exploded immediately, igniting the charge inside the cannonball. Fire suddenly filled the inside of the cannonball, causing the air inside to expand dozens of times in an instant.

The red cannon shell, which had been burned by the heat of friction, was instantly overwhelmed and shattered, releasing its own impact and cutting everything around it.

 Shrapnel shattered the surrounding wooden cabins, cut off the hammock ropes, penetrated the human body as soft as tofu, and broke bones that were more fragile than bamboo.

The shock wave spread, crushing and tearing everything around it. The strong wind easily decomposed the corpses and the thick hull structure like a knife.

The improved fuze delay has been slightly increased, which greatly increases the destructive power of the cannonball after hitting the wooden sailing ship.

 When the explosion spread and spread to farther places, the area hit by the shell was already in a mess.

 When the sailor who was lifted into the air by the shock wave and whose lower body was twisted and deformed began to fall downward, the internal organs of the sailor further away had been shattered and bleeding.

 The next second, the deck of this wooden battleship was lifted up by the airflow below, and it quickly inflated like a balloon being blown up.

The soldiers standing on the deck flew up into the sky along with the wood under their feet, and then crashed down again.

Due to the violent explosion, the originally seemingly solid hull was chopped into more sharp fragments, filled with flying steel shrapnel, filling almost all the empty spaces like a goddess scattering flowers.

And all this happened in about a second, and when it was over, people who were still thinking didn't even have time to react.

 When countless debris fell to the ground, the lives around the explosion were completely silent and made no sound anymore.

Then, the keel structure has been destroyed, the deck supports have been damaged, and the wooden sail warship has completely lost a large piece of its hull. The main mast collapsed due to the tearing of the wind and the confinement of the structure that supported it, and it instantly began to fall.

It suddenly broke the crossmast on the front mast, and brought a large pile of canvas and ropes with it and smashed it heavily on the bow deck.

The adjutant next to the steering wheel at the stern of the ship reluctantly climbed up from the deck. He felt that he was dizzy, and only then could he distinguish the captain beside him, and felt the battleship tremble under his feet.

Then, a bigger explosion suddenly blew him away - the gunpowder stored inside the battleship, that is, the propellant of the front-loading gun, exploded. The second explosion instantly disintegrated the entire battleship and turned it into a pile of broken pieces. Wood.

 Luckily, another battleship following this sailing battleship was hit by a cannonball, but it did not explode. At this time, the sailors on the battleship, whose hull had begun to tilt, were attracted by the explosion that came not far away.

 They were surprised to see their comrades being lifted into the air by the air current, and broke into two pieces during the ascent.

 When they turned their attention back to their feet again, their battleship had tilted at least 15 degrees.

The water ingress overwhelmed the masts of this huge warship. They broke their ropes and fell to one side.

 The screams were endless, and the wails of the injured made the people around them shudder. Some people have jumped into the water to escape, and some are trying to save their warships.

Finally, the muzzle-loading guns fixed to the emplacement broke free from the ropes because of the tilt, and the wooden wheels beneath them crushed the toes of the gunners who tried to prevent them from sliding to the other side, and rushed to the lower side.

 Then, these heavy cannons hit the cannons on the other side, making the entire battleship roll even more seriously.

 Then, the battleship capsized and sank in the sea. Its hull fell directly, and everyone on it fell into the sea.

 Some people climbed onto the mast, some grabbed the sail, some stood on the side of the hull, and some just poked their heads out of the transverse gun window.

They saw a smoke-belching battleship cutting through the waves a few hundred meters away. Without even looking at them, they followed another identical battleship in front of them and continued forward.

 From beginning to end, this capsized sail battleship only received two shots, one of which was a poor 75 mm caliber C64 old naval gun...

 But it has now completely capsized and will soon be submerged under the sea. It didn't even fire a shot, because when it was hit, the enemy ship was still 800 meters away.

Bernard had no intention of letting go of any of the Taron Kingdom's warships, so after defeating 21 warships on one side of the figure-eight shape, he ordered the warships to continue to accelerate and make a large circle along the route.

The fully heated boiler can obviously work at full speed, which allows the entire Datang Group's fleet to reach a speed of 30 kilometers per hour.

This speed has crushed all fleets of this era, so after the Datang Group's fleet made a large circle, it caught up with the enemy fleet on the other side from the outside, which was slowly turning around.

That is to say, when Warren's fleet was arranged by him into a complex "vertical hook" shape. The Tang Group's fleet caught up with them from their outer circle.

 The positions of the fleets on both sides have become an interesting shape of the character "er", except that one stroke of the character "er" is a bit short.

During the cut-in process, the Datang Group's fleet turned its guns and aimed all the turrets at the other side.

 After all, they were engaging the enemy on the starboard side just now, but now they are engaging on the port side. This change also happened to allow all the gun emplacements on the other side of the battleship to join the battle.

Because Bernard's fleet was traveling too fast and his angle of entry was from the outside, Warren, who was turning the fleet, still could not fully see the Datang Group's fleet.

He could only see the black smoke remaining on the sea and drifting away, and the wreckage of his squadron scattered on the battlefield.

Wallen simply couldn’t figure out why he fell into such passivity. He clearly had an absolute advantage in terms of military strength.

  He brought 70 level 1 sailing battleships, which were absolute maritime supremacy a year ago.

Each battleship has dozens of expensive muzzle-loading guns, and each battleship can accommodate hundreds of brave and capable soldiers.

Now, standing on his flagship, he couldn't even see what his enemy looked like.

  Fifty warships were lying across the sea, and his warship was probably at the front of the fleet. From this position, he could not see the end of his battle line at all. He could only watch the chaos spreading in his fleet.

 As a maritime general, he considered himself not a fool. He had led troops for so many years and achieved many victories in naval battles.

 Before today, he was an extremely confident, even somewhat arrogant general. He even once thought that he was the best naval commander - no one!

 He knew that he could not frequently issue complex orders in battle, because due to the limitations of communication methods, he simply could not mobilize the entire fleet in time.

 However, the opponent's strength beyond his knowledge forced him to be unable to act according to the prearranged plan and could only temporarily change his deployment during the battle.

 (End of this chapter)