Prison Break Operation (6)

It is said that some bored individuals in later generations once made the following comments online about the generals of the once mighty France - Roman Empire. It is generally believed that both Napoleon and his deputy Joseph were unparalleled military geniuses. Although there is still debate about whether Napoleon could have breached Joseph's defenses, everyone unanimously acknowledges their exceptional military prowess. Their only regret is that these two pillars of the empire never engaged in a love-hate relationship, never faced off in a decisive battle on the battlefield.

As for the other army generals, their abilities were generally acknowledged, although occasionally someone would say something like, "I could fight the same battle as Murat. I'd just wave the royal flag, lower my head, close my eyes, and charge straight in. What's so difficult about that?" But those who said that would usually be directly retorted, "Marshal Murat charged in, one sword at a time, he could cut down at least a platoon; if you charged in, it would be a matter of him wielding his sword and taking you down."

But the navy is a completely different story. When someone criticizes some army officers for their reckless and thoughtless command, at least someone will say, "If you think he's incompetent, why don't you try it yourself?" But when people talk about the France - Rome naval commanders, if someone says that a naval admiral isn't competent, nobody brings that up. Because if someone does say that, there will definitely be a string of comments, and these comments are basically all like this. "So what if he beat up a kid? Help me up, I think I could really take on ten more."

The France - Rome navy was unprecedentedly powerful, yet it was an army without any famous generals or legendary figures. It boasted numerous victories, but its success was entirely due to France - Rome possessing the world's largest number of steel mills and shipyards. It is said that after the Britain defeat, Lord George Kirkburn, a former British Navy commander, came to the French Navy Academy as a tactics instructor. During his free time, he visited the Lorraine Steel and exclaimed, "I've come to Lorraine, and the steel plant is truly magnificent!"

In his memoirs, he wrote, "When I saw with my own eyes the enormous blast furnaces of the Lorraine Steel Company, the towering chimneys, and the molten steel gushing forth like rivers from the open-hearth furnaces, I understood that our defeat was inevitable. Later, after visiting the France shipyards and learning about France production capacity, I was even more convinced of this view. Today's war, in the final analysis, is a war of industrial capacity, a war of engineers and industrial workers, no longer a war of knights and generals... In the war, we have actually done enough, and even our luck has been good enough. But all of this is not enough for an infant to defeat a fully armed adult man."

Indeed, the British Navy was incredibly lucky in the Battle of the North Sea Strait. If the France had been more cautious, if they had simply employed the most basic tactic of forming battle lines and bombarding each other, the Britain France have had absolutely no chance.

"Our warships, both in design philosophy and specific technology, are completely outdated. If the two sides were to engage in combat at a normal distance in the most conventional manner, and if we did not prioritize targeting enemy supercruisers and cruisers, then this battle, which could be considered evenly matched in tonnage, would likely end with the destruction of all our warships, while the France battleships would at most suffer minor damage." (Memoirs of Lord George Kirkburn)

Indeed, the British Navy performed brilliantly in the Battle of the North Sea Strait, their torpedo boats taking advantage of the France negligence to strike the battleship Trajan in one fell swoop.

With the massive explosion, a gaping hole more than five meters wide was blasted open on one side of the battleship Trajan, and seawater rushed in immediately.

On the battlefield, plugging such a large breach would be virtually impossible. Fortunately, the design of the battleship Trajan was exceptionally good. The ship employed a multi-watertight compartment design. This breach spanned two watertight compartments, but the entire ship was divided into fourteen watertight compartments. As long as no more than six compartments were flooded, the ship would not sink.

"The second and third compartments on the right side are flooded! They cannot be sealed off!" When the news of the damage reached the command tower, Brueys felt as if his heart had been shattered.

"Immediately order the personnel in the relevant compartments to evacuate and prepare to seal the compartments." Although his heart was breaking, Admiral Brueys made the decision quickly.

The seawater came in very quickly, and the sailors couldn't outrun it. Only the sailors closest to the watertight door managed to escape, and even after just a dozen or so men had run out, the sound of the seawater surging in could be clearly heard.

"Close the watertight door!"

"Wait, there's more below..."

"Close the watertight door!"

The watertight door was then closed, trapping 128 sailors in the constantly filling, sealed space. It is said that after the watertight door was closed, some people heard knocking sounds coming through the thick door.

Later, the question of whether the Trajan closed its watertight doors too quickly remained a sore spot for the French Navy. Almost every discussion about this incident sparked heated debate. Many believed that if the watertight doors had been closed more slowly, more sailors could have been saved; of course, others argued that if the action had been slower, the entire warship would have been lost.

This matter even escalated to the point of reaching the French Academy of Sciences. Finally, Academician Gauss, through model reconstruction and rigorous calculations, concluded that the watertight door could close with a further 45-second delay. However, this conclusion did not quell the debate. Some argued that with those 45 seconds, many more people could escape, while others maintained that even with that extra time, only a few people could escape. Moreover, on-site commanders could not perform model reconstruction and rigorous calculations; they could only rely on experience. Therefore, their decision could not be considered wrong.

In addition to the loss of personnel, Trajan lost half of its power due to being flooded by seawater. Furthermore, as two watertight compartments flooded, the warship began to list to starboard, and the list quickly reached fifteen degrees. Combined with the ship's own rolling motion, this created a huge obstacle to the rotation of the main guns, rendering all three of Trajan's main guns temporarily unusable.

"Evacuate personnel from the left-side third and fourth compartments and prepare to flood the third and fourth compartments." After a brief moment of thought, Admiral Brueys made this decision.

Injecting water into the corresponding watertight compartment on the left can restore the warship's balance, thus restoring its combat capability. Of course, doing so will cause the warship to take on more water and reduce its reserve buoyancy. If water then enters any other part of the ship, the entire warship will be in danger.

From the evacuation of personnel to the replenishment of water to restore balance and operational capability of the main guns, it took about half an hour. During this half hour, the situation did not change much; the Cressy remained largely ineffective. The Britain attempted to ram the Trajan with it, but while the Trajan's engines were damaged, the Cressy's were also damaged. Neither could move quickly. It's not easy for one tortoise to collide with another.

Meanwhile, the France fleet continued its efforts to clean the decks of the battleship Poitiers. The Caesar had lost half its firepower, but the remaining firepower of the other ships remained very concentrated. Simultaneously, the French Army armored cruisers gained a clear advantage in their confrontation with the British Army armored cruisers. The heavily armored France cruisers, with their focused defenses, had enough armor to withstand British Army gunfire at normal ranges, while their guns could easily penetrate the British Army armored cruisers. Combined with the high rate of fire of their recoil-operated guns, the France armored cruisers quickly gained the upper hand in their duel with the Britain.

Because cruisers had a higher rate of fire but were less resistant to damage, battles between armored cruisers were more intense and decided much earlier than those between battleships. The France had a total of six armored cruisers, while the Britain had a slightly larger number, ten.

However, all six French Army cruisers were armored cruisers, while five of the ten British Army cruisers were so-called unprotected cruisers. Moreover, although the Britain had more cruisers and more guns, the France six armored cruisers could fire almost twice the Britain of the shells per unit time.

Furthermore, the Britain deceived the France by posing as battleships with two armored cruisers. While this successfully fooled the France, it also forced these two armored cruisers to face the formidable firepower of the battleships for a period of time. The Resolution was the first to sink at the start of the battle. Although the Hope remained unscathed, it was separated from the battleships by both sides and was unable to effectively support the cruisers behind it in their battle.

Therefore, the battle between the two sides' cruisers was not a fight between five Britain armored cruisers and five unprotected cruisers against six France armored cruisers, but rather a fight between three Britain armored cruisers and five unprotected cruisers against six France armored cruisers. The Britain had a limited numerical advantage and were even at a disadvantage in terms of displacement.

Furthermore, with the France blocking the passageway, although the Britain battleships did not suffer significant damage before completing their turn due to the fog, the cruisers were caught off guard when the fog cleared, and the unarmed cruisers behind them were the first to be targeted by concentrated fire from the France cruisers.

The unprotected cruiser HMS Longbow was first hit by four 100mm shells, one of which struck the boiler of the steam engine, causing the Longbow to lose all power and become a sitting duck. Five minutes later, another shell hit the Longbow's ammunition magazine, and the unprotected cruiser exploded and sank.

After HMS Longbow was crippled, it blocked the path of three cruisers behind it, forcing them to go around it. As a result, the unprotected cruiser HMS Merlin unfortunately struck a mine and sank, even faster than HMS Longbow. Moreover, she was unable to fire a single shot at the France until she sank.

The other two unprotected cruisers fared no better. Although they weren't sunk on the spot like the Longbow, they were hit more than once during their turn. By the time they completed their turn, they were no longer fully combat-ready to engage the France.

After engaging in battle along the battle line, the distance between the two sides continued to close, and both sides were constantly hitting each other with shells. At this point, the superior defense of the France armored cruisers became apparent. The Britain managed to hit the France warships with one or two shots, but either they failed to penetrate or they over-penetrated.

Conversely, France shells always managed to inflict effective damage on Britain cruisers. After about half an hour of exchange of fire, the Britain cruisers were completely crushed.

The armored cruiser "Revenge" was hit by a 100mm gun in its magazine and then exploded and sank; the armored cruiser "Sharp" was hit by more than ten shells, and the whole ship was engulfed in flames. The fire was out of control, so the captain was forced to order the ship abandoned; the armored cruiser "Fierce" was in the best condition. Its superstructure and turrets were damaged and it lost its combat capability. However, precisely because of this, the France ignored it and directly transferred their firepower to attack other warships.

As for the remaining three unprotected cruisers, their situation is naturally not much better. One of these ships has already sunk, and the other two are burning fiercely.

On the France side, although all six armored cruisers had taken one or two hits, their combat capabilities remained intact. Thus, after the Britain cruisers were completely rendered ineffective, these six cruisers joined the siege of the battleship Poitiers.

Even at point-blank range, the 100mm guns had no chance of penetrating the armor of the Poitiers, so the France simply used high-explosive or incendiary shells to attack the Poitiers.

Six armored cruisers, plus two super cruisers, and the Caesar, which had lost half its firepower, began to gang up on the Poitiers. Or, to put it another way, the Poitiers was now taking on the entire France fleet single-handedly.

Shells rained down on the Poitiers, turning the sea around them into a boiling mess, with water columns from the falling shells everywhere. The Poitiers' superstructure was riddled with holes, so much so that when Poitiers France looked closely through their binoculars, they nearly suffered from trypophobia.

Although the Poitiers were still putting up a fight, almost all of the warship's sights and observation points were destroyed, so their firing was almost entirely based on luck, with a hit rate comparable to that of an AK-47 in the hands of a Black man in later generations—in short, their accuracy was basically just a matter of faith. However, the Black man's AK-47 was fully automatic with a high rate of fire, so even if they were just guessing, it was easy to hit one or two shots; but the Britain 305mm gun had a rather low rate of fire, so hitting one or two shots was really not easy.