Wind, Waves, and Crossing the T

The Britain deduced that the "Orca" had been chasing a clipper ship at full speed for most of the day. During this time, the "Orca's" steam engine must have been operating at high load. The Britain didn't know the level of France steam engines, but they assumed they wouldn't be better than Britain. After all, Britain was the birthplace of the steam engine.

If a Britain ship's steam engine were to operate at such a high load for an extended period, there would likely be a chance it would malfunction. Therefore, they were convinced that if they accelerated their pursuit, they would be able to catch up with and destroy the France steam frigate.

"If only we could capture this warship, after all, it has things that are better than ours, things we can learn from it. For example, it doesn't have a paddle wheel. That's one less major weakness." Commander Lieutenant Colonel Neville thought to himself aboard the steam frigate "Dread" at the forefront of the pursuit fleet.

After completing its turn, the Orca began to accelerate, but its acceleration was not rapid. The distance between the two whales continued to close.

Indeed, in terms of steam engine technology alone, the steam engines on the Equality were no more advanced or powerful than those on Britain ships. However, in terms of propulsion, propellers were far more efficient than paddle wheels. Furthermore, the bulbous bow, hidden underwater and normally invisible, meant that the Equality faced significantly less resistance than Britain steamships when reaching considerable speeds. These two factors combined meant that the Equality did not need to run its steam engines at full capacity to reach speeds of around eleven knots.

Therefore, whether in a sprint or a long-distance race, the Equality was far superior to the Britain steamships it faced. In fact, if Major Malteng only wanted to shake off the Britain pursuit, he only needed to keep the Equality accelerating. Before long, he would have left the Britain far behind.

However, Major Malteng did not want to do so. He knew that after his first sortie achieved good results, several shipyards under the Military-Industrial Consortium were preparing to switch to producing this type of warship. Perhaps before long, a second or third such warship would be launched.

Malteng knew that by then, it would be much harder to rack up more achievements. There would be too many wolves and too little meat—when would he ever become a general? After all, General Napoleon Bonaparte was a year younger than him, and he had already become First Consul!

So Malteng secretly made up his mind to go big and make sure the Britain would never forget him and his ship.

However, Malteng dared not directly charge into battle against the Britain. The Britain had more ships and more cannons. But the Britain ships had obvious weaknesses; their paddlewheels were so large, so important, and so vulnerable. A few cannonballs hitting the paddlewheels in battle would render them unable to sail. If Malteng had been Britain, he probably would have charged straight in, howling with rage. But what could he do? He was France.

Over the years, apart from the battle in North America where the British Navy won due to Britain own command errors, the French Navy has consistently suffered crushing defeats against the Britain. Therefore, the French Navy has always been extremely apprehensive when facing the British Navy, and generally wouldn't dare to launch an attack without overwhelming numerical superiority.

For example, in the original history, the Combined Fleet France and Spain fleets were even slightly superior in terms of manpower to Nelson's fleet. The reason they were so thoroughly defeated by Nelson at Trafalgar, with a completely disproportionate exchange ratio, was largely because the first thought of the France and Spain navies upon seeing the Britain fleet was, "Run!" and the second thought was, "We must get out of the way of the Spain (France)!"

Wanting to destroy these Britain warships to become a general, yet also quite wary of the Royal Navy, Malteng chose a cowardly tactic: stalling the Britain.

Malteng been on Britain steamships before and knew that around eleven knots was their limit. At that speed, they could only sail until nightfall at most, after which they would either have to reduce the pressure of the steam engines to avoid malfunctions, or they might simply stop moving altogether. At that point, he could take advantage of the situation and rob the ship.

But Malteng soon discovered that he didn't need to wait until evening. Around four o'clock in the afternoon, a dark cloud drifted in from the west, the wind at sea began to pick up, and the waves grew larger, making it impossible for the paddle steamers to keep up with him.

On the swaying sea, the paddle wheels of the Britain steam frigates sometimes completely submerged and sometimes fully above water, greatly reducing their propulsion efficiency. Their speed also dropped rapidly, even to the point where they were slower than ordinary sailing ships.

"Damn it! The France got away again! This damn wind!" Lieutenant Colonel Neville slammed his fist on the gunwale. Before this, they had chased the enemy ship to a point not far away; a little closer and they could have fired the 24-pounder cannons from the bow at their target. But now, it was clear they could no longer catch up with the "Orca."

"Lieutenant Colonel, enemy ship! Enemy ship is turning!" At that moment, he suddenly heard the lookout's shout.

Lieutenant Colonel Neville quickly looked ahead and saw the France steamship rapidly turning in the waves. The ship's movements were so swift that its propulsion seemed largely unaffected by the wind and waves.

"What are they trying to do?" Lieutenant Colonel Neville asked, startled. Logically, shouldn't the France take this opportunity to escape? Why are they turning around?

But Neville quickly figured out the Orca's intentions.

"The one commanding the 'Orca' is a very brave and cunning opponent. He has noticed our current predicament in the storm and wants to take advantage of this opportunity to defeat us one by one."

"The wind and waves have made our paddlewheels difficult to use, greatly reducing our maneuverability. He must be hoping to take advantage of this, using his speed to get behind us, pass by our stern, and attack us from the stern with his broadside guns!"

Having grasped this point, Lieutenant Colonel Neville immediately ordered, "All ships, raise your sails and prepare for battle!"

With paddle steamers no longer effective, they might as well unfurl the sails and use the more reliable sails to maneuver the ships and compete with the France.

All six of the Britain steam frigates unfurled their sails and transformed back into sailing ships.

However, because the smokestacks took up space, these steam-powered frigates had far fewer sails than normal frigates. And if the two paddle wheels on either side of the ship continued to provide power, the power would sometimes be on the port side, sometimes on the starboard side, sometimes there, and sometimes not, which would seriously affect maneuvering such as turning.

But if the paddlewheel is simply stopped, it only increases drag. Steam-powered frigates are already slow and clumsy when using only sails due to their incomplete sails; adding this drag would only make things worse.

Meanwhile, the "Equality" began to increase boiler pressure, and despite the wind and waves, its speed not only did not decrease, but actually increased further.

The Equality, at full power, swept past the Britain from their starboard side, out of cannon range, and then began to turn, preparing to cut in front of the Britain stern. The Britain fleet, in turn, began to turn, trying to keep their sides aligned with the Equality, and the two sides circled in the wind and waves.

This maneuver is known as "T-grabbing" in naval warfare. Generally speaking, warships of this era had their cannons mounted on the sides, so the maximum number of cannons could fire simultaneously only when the ship's side was facing the enemy. If the bow or stern was facing the enemy, very few cannons could fire.

Therefore, in naval battles, once one side gains a position to fire from the side or stern of the enemy ship, its firepower advantage is almost overwhelming. As a result, warships in combat will always try to maneuver to gain such an advantageous position. Even many years later, gaining the advantage of the bow (T-shaped) remained one of the important principles of naval gun warfare.

For example, in another timeline, the Combined Fleet led by Togo Heihachiro risked a "turnaround maneuver in front of the enemy" during the Battle of Tsushima in order to gain such a positional advantage; and in the final battleship gun battle— the Battle of Surigao Strait — the United States Navy, which held the T-shaped advantage, easily defeated the Japan fleet at a negligible cost.

The turning and sailing of a sailing ship are greatly affected by the wind. However, the Equality was not affected by these factors. Its faster speed and more agile turning made the Equality easily gain the upper hand in the race against the clumsy British Army steam frigates.

The Equality first approached the British Army from the side and rear of the rearmost ship, the Steadfast, then quickly turned and swept past the stern of the Steadfast, while simultaneously firing a salvo from its eight starboard cannons at the Equality.

In this salvo, the Equality used chain shot, naturally intended to damage the Steadfast's sails and further reduce its sailing ability.

Because of the relatively high speed, the violent rocking of the sea, and the fact that Major Malteng was attempting this maneuver for the first time, he acted conservatively. When his ship's gunwale was aimed at the stern of the enemy ship, the distance was also slightly too far. The accuracy of this round of shelling was a complete mess—none of the eight shells hit their mark.

But Malteng was not discouraged. He now held the initiative, and the enemy ships had no effective means of retaliation. If one salvo missed, he could simply launch another. As long as the wind and waves continued, he was confident that he could slowly, one by one, send these Britain ships to the bottom of the sea. Now, those Britain ships had become the prey, and he was the real hunter.