Seven Seas Beacon Fire

Fortunately, the United States was firing heavily on the other side of Yuanshan. They didn't even need the guidance of the shore radio. Just by listening to the faint sound of the cannons, they could roughly determine where the United States warships were shelling. From this, they could naturally deduce the extent of the army's encirclement and the corresponding location of the United States transport fleet.

Li Tian believed that as long as they continued in the current direction, it wouldn't be long before they could see the firelight on the distant horizon, and then they could determine the target's location based on the visible light.

However, Li Tiansuo and the entire P1 formation were already imagining how to quickly storm into the United States' landing zone, find a United States Navy destroyer, use all the firepower on their ships to give the enemy a good "bath," and finally send the enemy away with 450mm torpedoes.

But suddenly, a beam of searchlight pierced the black night like a gleaming military knife. For warships, the worst thing in night battles is to be discovered by the enemy first.

After all, in night battles, the detection range between the two sides is very short. If they are spotted by the enemy first, the enemy's guns will likely already be ready. Their few old destroyers, with their limited tonnage and firepower, might be fine if they can gain the upper hand, but if the enemy does...

The moment the searchlight came on, Li Tian felt all the hairs on his body stand on end, but the next moment he realized that his warship and the entire fleet were not covered by the searchlight—the sudden searchlight covered the L1 fleet, which consisted of torpedo boats following behind him.

what's the situation?

In fact, it was simply that the three destroyers of the P1 formation and the two Clemson-class destroyers of the Federal Navy had just passed each other. Although the distance between them was less than 5000 meters, neither side noticed the other.

Not long after both sides assumed there was nothing unusual and they had just missed each other, a patrol fleet consisting of two Federation destroyers collided head-on with the L1 formation.

The lookout on the destroyer USS William Jones vaguely spotted something in the darkness. After the lookout relayed this information to the captain, the captain did not regard the shadows as torpedo boats. In his mind, these shadows were submarines that surfaced at night.

The reason for this thinking is naturally due to the fact that the Ming Dynasty Royal Navy's submarines have been making their presence felt on the high seas for more than a month. The Colombians had also experienced the Atlantic convoy escort battle and had dealt with the Leitanian Navy's U-boats before.

When other submarines launch attacks, they aim to "enter the village quietly and fire without firing a shot." When encountering enemy ships, they will stay underwater and never surface if possible.

Only the Ming Dynasty Royal Navy's submarine force has recently adopted a new tactic of surfacing to launch attacks—under the cover of night, these submarines communicate and coordinate with each other via radio. They communicate entirely in plain text on radio channels and are not afraid of being eavesdropped on by United States warships. Like a pack of hungry wolves, they rush forward to carve up the United States' transport fleet.

Then, as the USS William Jones turned on its searchlights, both sides were stunned.

For the United States, this is akin to waking up in Minecraft to find the outside world overrun with Creepers.

The first to react was the destroyer following the USS William Jones, also a Clemson-class destroyer. This destroyer was also equipped with four-inch main guns and 21-inch torpedoes. After discovering that something was wrong and that there were dangerous assassins carrying torpedoes at sea, these destroyers, which were originally responsible for escorting large surface ships in the navy, immediately opened fire on the torpedo boats that were like ghosts in the night.

The Clemson-class destroyer was definitely one of the better destroyers of its time, with a displacement of over 1000 tons and equipped with four four-inch main guns, as well as two 21-inch torpedo tubes.

The shells from the 102mm naval guns roared out, but it was clear that at this distance, when suddenly encountering these "most agile dogs at sea," the 102mm naval guns did not perform very well. Although the Clemson-class destroyer had quite good main guns and torpedoes, the designers of the United States Navy probably never imagined that this destroyer would be able to intercept a large group of torpedo boats at such close range.

Apart from the 102mm main gun, the Clemencen-class destroyer only had a 76mm anti-aircraft gun and a few 47mm guns.

The torpedo boats, suddenly locked onto by searchlights, were certainly caught off guard. With friendly forces ahead of them, how could enemy warships have managed to intrude upon their position first? Were those destroyers blind?

However, now is not the time to complain. All the torpedo boats immediately increased their power to the maximum. After realizing that they had been exposed, the captains of several torpedo boats immediately took control of the boats themselves, either accelerating rapidly at sea or simply performing water drifting. All of this was naturally to evade the enemy's 102mm guns.

However, the two sides encountered each other at extremely close range today. Even though these torpedoes had used all their might, the first victim appeared soon after the captains of the two US Navy destroyers realized that they should use shrapnel shells instead of conventional shells.

A 50-ton torpedo boat was hit by a 102mm shrapnel shell, and its wooden bow was completely destroyed. After suffering such damage, the torpedo boat's speed was naturally slowed down significantly. In the following short period of time, it was hit by several more shells.

Although a 50-ton torpedo boat weighs about the same as a 50-ton tank, just as 50 pounds of cotton cannot provide the same level of protection as 50 pounds of steel, the crew of this torpedo boat were almost completely unprotected when faced with shrapnel shells fired by the United States Army.

The steel balls ejected from the shells by the force of the explosion mercilessly took the lives of most of the people on the torpedo boat. Only the chief engineer, who was hiding in the engine room, escaped. The torpedo boat's engine was one of the few steel components on the ship.

Even so, the remaining torpedo boats did not flee at this time. In the process of instinctively keeping their distance and dodging shells at the beginning, these torpedo boats gradually realized that they were the "regular army" of the Tang Dynasty.

So these torpedo boats immediately rallied and circled the sea before preparing to launch a torpedo attack on the target. Since there were no large torpedo boats in the entire formation, the firepower of these small torpedo boats was generally limited to 13.2 mm heavy machine guns.

Using such equipment to attack enemy destroyers, the officers and men on these torpedo boats proved with their actions that this was indeed a game for the brave and true men. However, the United States officers and men on the two Federation destroyers were also caught in a dilemma; a single torpedo hit a thousand-ton destroyer would essentially be game over. Therefore, all the unemployed personnel on both warships came to the deck, their eyes wide open, searching for targets at sea, while also remaining vigilant for any torpedoes launched by the enemy.

But just as the order was given, the USS William Jones suddenly felt that it was raining.

With three destroyers together, twelve 40mm cannons simultaneously opened fire on the same ship. The dense barrage of shells was like a downpour from heaven. As mentioned earlier, the cannons used during the refit were whatever was available, so some of these 40mm cannons were short-barreled models. Now, these short 40mm cannons, like the MK19, quickly overwhelmed and blew the minds of a large number of United States Navy sailors on deck.

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Minna has drawn the side view; she's posting it here for everyone to see first. She'll release a separate chapter later when all the drawings are complete.

Dingyuan-class battleships of the Ming/Tang (Eastern Tang) Royal Navy

Standard displacement: 31500 tons

Power: 65000 horsepower

Maximum speed: 23.5 knots

Main guns: Triple Type 10 330mm/50L naval guns *3

Secondary armament: 16 single-mounted Type 08 150mm/45L naval guns

Eight single-mounted Type 8 88mm/50L naval guns

Armor: 320mm on the sides

360mm turret

Gun mount 340mm

Commander tower 350mm

Top 145mm

This armor data is very classic (I'm sure of it).

It might not seem obvious when viewed alone, but compared to "Longyuan" in "The Great Ming Maritime Power," which also started construction in 1912, it's clear that the "Great Ming" in the previous book should actually be called "Giant Ming."

(Refresh if you can't see the image)

Although the "Dingyuan" was actually a Tier 1 ship in the same class as the Queen Elizabeth, the Revenge, the Bavarian, and the standard American battleships in the historical battle, the Longyuan in the previous book was too exaggerated.

In hindsight, no RN 3-system strategy can beat "Dragon Abyss". Of course, everyone can also look forward to "Dragon Abyss" appearing in the future.

Chapter Seventy: Naval Showdown (3)

When the two Federation destroyers were suddenly bombarded by a barrage of fire from another direction, more than half of their firepower was destroyed in almost half a minute.

Just like Li Che's conjecture based on combat experience from another timeline when he decided to install 40mm cannons on these ships, the destroyers with severely unprotected gun positions in this era had no way to provide the most basic protection for the personnel on board the warships when faced with such a barrage of firepower—not even protection against shrapnel.

The rapid-fire weapons mounted on these Hussars consist of two types of 40mm autocannons with different barrel lengths and a 13mm heavy machine gun. The longer of the two 40mm autocannons has a muzzle velocity of 732 mps, which, at the current engagement distance of no more than 2 kilometers, can easily penetrate one inch of the structural steel hull of a United States destroyer.

The other type of short 40mm autocannon, due to its shorter barrel and cartridge case size, has a muzzle velocity of only over 500. At a distance of 2 kilometers, even against a ship's steel hull, this level of ammunition would not be easy to penetrate.

However, almost none of the guns on the destroyers of the Colombian era had gun shields, not even shields to protect against shrapnel. After all, the number of machine guns equipped on warships of various countries at that time was very small. If we compare the number of machine guns of the present era with those of similar guns from the late 9th century, such as the Nordenfeldt and Hotchkiss rotary guns, the number of "repeating guns" equipped on the old Nordenfeldts at the end of the 9th century was much greater than the number of machine guns equipped on most warships of this era.

The reason for this is that in naval battles at the end of the 9th century, it was difficult to be accurate beyond 3 kilometers. Meat grinds at a distance of one or two kilometers were commonplace for warships of that era. Navies of various countries liked to equip themselves with some repeating guns mounted on relatively high positions, so as to sweep the decks of other warships from above, or to attack torpedo boats and torpedo boats of that era.

However, with the advancement of technology, the engagement distance is getting farther and farther. Nowadays, even the shells between destroyers are no closer in conventional engagement than the engagement distance between capital ships a dozen years ago.

Under such circumstances, most countries' navies will not bother to add armor protection to the gun emplacements of their destroyers, and they are too lazy to even add gun shields to protect against shrapnel.

After all, these days destroyers don't use armor-piercing shells; they mostly use conventional or high-explosive shells. High-explosive shells are especially sensitive; even thin steel plates that protect against shrapnel can detonate them. Therefore, the United States Navy tends to believe that "no armor is the best armor" when it comes to destroyer gun emplacements, minimizing anything that could trigger the fuse.

However, all the reasonable grounds that existed in the past have led to the officers and men on board the United States Navy destroyer paying a heavy price tonight.

Since the long-barreled 40mm autocannon is the newer model among the two types of 40mm autocannons, the number in stock is relatively small. After being equipped on the main cruisers and thousand-ton-class destroyers, the remaining number is basically very small.

Therefore, most destroyers under 1,000 tons are equipped with a mix of these two types of guns, and the shorter versions are generally more common.

Although the main machine guns of the Ming army had relatively low muzzle velocities, the exposed gun emplacements of the United States destroyers effectively compensated for this.

From the moment they were suddenly attacked from behind until a full five minutes later, the two Federation destroyers not only failed to successfully turn their four-inch guns, which were turned to starboard to attack the torpedo boats, back to port to face the enemy, but even the four-inch gun that was originally positioned on starboard and could not fire to the other side failed to fire a single shot during those five minutes.

Besides the four-inch gun emplacements, what naturally attracts more attention are the two torpedo tubes on the destroyer, which are actually the most powerful weapons on the destroyer.

The Columbian destroyer's triple torpedo launchers are located on both sides of the ship, theoretically allowing it to fire from both sides. However, in reality, due to the presence of only one torpedo firing director, the Columbian destroyer cannot perform the routine operations that most Warcraft players encounter in the game unless the torpedo operator aims visually.

Even so, disarming these powerful weapons remains the top priority; if the torpedoes are destroyed, there might be some unexpected good news.

Although the strafing by the Ming destroyers' machine guns did not result in a "critical hit," it successfully disabled the gyroscopic devices of the triple torpedo tubes on the port side of the two United States destroyers. Without any further concerns, the three Ming destroyers quickly closed in to within 6 or 7 chains. Two sailors at the 88mm main gun positions took turns loading, unleashing a barrage of fire at a rate exceeding 20 rounds per minute, pounding the waterline of the United States destroyers like a thunderous downpour.

Big hammer 80, small hammer 40, war hammer 88.

Two United States Navy destroyers were rendered combat in a short time, despite the great bravery of the United States Navy officers and men on board. A considerable number of brave sailors fought back desperately under heavy fire, operating 37mm cannons, 47mm rapid-fire cannons, and 76mm anti-aircraft guns.

但可惜的是，在合众国军的每条驱逐舰上只有一门37毫米呯呯炮和一门76毫米高射炮，火力密度显然就没办法和对面单舰至少4门40毫米机关炮和两门88毫米速射炮相提并论。

There were quite a few 47mm rapid-fire guns, but under intense fire, not to mention how long the brave gunners on the two destroyers could survive, the heavy casualties made it difficult to assemble a complete gun crew for the 47mm rapid-fire guns. Some sailors even had to load, aim, and fire by themselves. With only one person operating each 47mm gun, it is easy to imagine what kind of results such small guns could achieve.

Ten minutes later, the two United States destroyers were essentially reduced to floating rods on the sea. Although it was still too early for the two destroyers to be sunk, more than half of the crew on board had been lost, and various weapons, equipment and engines had also been damaged to varying degrees. Faced with two destroyers that had lost their combat capability, the Ming army didn't even bother to go up and fire two more torpedoes.

Whether they were officers and men on the destroyer or the torpedo boat, they all believed that the torpedoes they carried should be reserved for more important "distinguished guests" tonight.

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After a while, Admiral Benson belatedly received a message from his other warships that the two-ship formation, including the USS William Jones, appeared to be engaged in a fierce firefight with an unknown enemy.

The reason why such important news was still delayed in reaching him under these circumstances was not because the officers and soldiers on the United States Navy warships performing the outer patrol mission were slacking off, but simply because the shelling carried out by the 7th Fleet on the shore was too intense, and many officers and soldiers on the United States warships not only focused their main attention on these "beach fireworks displays".

The main reason was that a significant portion of them only realized after listening for a while that the newly heard cannon fire was not fire support from the United States Navy to their army brethren.

Sensing something amiss and realizing the enemy might have deployed a "small" force of warships to attack the landing zone, the United States Navy ships on perimeter alert quickly sent warnings to the flagship. However, by the time Admiral Benson received the information and attempted to contact the USS William Jones via radio to obtain firsthand information, neither of the two Federation destroyers had a surviving radio operator to return the call, and even if they combined their resources, they couldn't find a single working radio.

For a warship like a destroyer, which is fragile and unarmored, if it is caught off guard and caught at close range by the enemy, its remaining lifespan can basically be measured in minutes.

Admiral Benson initially did not think he was about to face great trouble. In his view, it was perfectly normal for the Ming army to launch a night attack, as this was almost the only thing the First Fleet in Vladivostok could do. Rather, it was rather unusual that the enemy had not launched a single night attack in the past month, only conducting a few reconnaissance missions.

In this situation, all that was needed was to handle it carefully and properly. In Admiral Benson’s view, he had an absolute advantage in both total tonnage and number. According to the intelligence they had obtained in advance about the Ming First Fleet, the 7th Fleet now had more cruisers than the opposing destroyers. Under these circumstances, Admiral Benson did not think that the First Fleet from Vladivostok could do anything.

These fleets, which the United States Navy generally regards as rats in the gutter, might be able to achieve one or two victories in a raid or two, but Admiral Benson has full confidence in his fleet. If they continue to fight at a loss like this, Admiral Benson believes that the Seventh Fleet will not be the first to give out.

During this period, the officers and men of the Seventh Fleet have demonstrated excellent qualities, and all operations have been completed satisfactorily. The young men have a strong fighting spirit, and the staff has formulated patrol routes as detailed as possible. Moreover, judging from tonight's situation, although the enemy has gotten closer than expected, the vigilance patrols have still been effective.

Now, in this vast ocean, the advantage is in my hands!

When Admiral Benson found himself unable to summon the destroyer USS William Jones, he remained calm. No one knew how many troops the Ming army had committed; perhaps they had deployed all their warships from Vladivostok, including several cruisers at once?

That would indeed make it very possible to take out two destroyers in a single encounter during a night battle.

But that doesn't matter. The Federal Navy has plenty of destroyers. Losing two destroyers wouldn't even make General Benson frown.

However, General Benson soon discovered that the situation was not as simple as he had imagined. When he tried to call back the squadron that had first discovered the situation and have them approach to see what was going on and conduct a preliminary reconnaissance, he found that he could not reach that squadron on the radio either.

?

General Benson turned his gaze to the locations of the two missing squadrons marked on the flagship's chart table. The disappearance of two consecutive formations of four destroyers was as if they had been swallowed up from the sea by something indescribable. This made General Benson withdraw his attention from the main focus on the shore bombardment.

Hmph! You've successfully caught my attention!

Even at this moment, General Benson still wore a confident smile, which was part of his command style. When the other officers and soldiers saw that their commander always had such a confident and calm smile, they would naturally be full of confidence for the upcoming battle.

After circling the chart table twice, General Benson turned his attention to another squadron marking. The squadron symbol marked on the chart was significantly different from the symbols of the first two destroyer squadrons.

Because this fleet consists of two other St. Louis-class first-class cruisers. I won't go into the details of the performance of these cruisers here. In general, if they were to compete with opponents of the same class, they would definitely be beaten badly. However, these two warships, which are covered with cannons all over their bodies and look like hedgehogs, still have a strong ability to crush their opponents.

"Send a telegram to Ryder, telling him to take his ships and go see what's going on," Admiral Benson said confidently. "If they find any trace of the Ming army, they don't need to report to us; they can open fire at will."

The telegram was sent quickly, but it disappeared without a trace, not even a simple "received".

By this point, even a fool could see that something was wrong. If one squadron couldn't make contact because of an enemy attack, and two squadrons couldn't make contact because of a coincidence, then the fact that another squadron couldn't make contact meant something fishy was definitely going on!

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My goodness, I'm seriously considering joining the Wind Spirit Moon Shadow Sect today.

Chapter 71 We've fallen into their trap! (1)

For any commander of sound mind, the mysterious disappearances of troops he dispatched for reconnaissance and surveillance missions are so inexplicable that even a fool could understand that something is amiss.

If Benson had previously held a dismissive attitude towards the Ming First Fleet in the Yingzhou Sea, he has now begun to wonder if the Ming army has strengthened the First Fleet through other means, and perhaps the First Fleet is now comparable in size to the Seventh Fleet?

It's no wonder that Admiral Benson had such thoughts, because he simply put himself in the other person's shoes—if I were leading the 7th Fleet to attack the regional fleet, could I so easily, like a ghost in the night, devour three small two-ship squadrons?

Although the ships that were swallowed up were not very important, consisting of destroyers of a thousand tons and outdated cruisers, it was far from something that the Ming First Fleet in Vladivostok Port could easily accomplish by silently annihilating such a fleet, as originally reported in intelligence.

That's how people are sometimes. The shift between those who believe in quick victory and those who believe in quick defeat can happen very, very quickly. While Admiral Benson didn't exactly turn to defeatism immediately, that didn't prevent him from rapidly misjudging the strength of the First Fleet in a short period of time.

Many years later, when United States naval historians discussed the Battle of Wonsan, they did not criticize Admiral Benson too harshly, because his logic was sound—given the information he had at the time.

What was the situation from Admiral Benson's perspective?

Our outer perimeter guard fleet vanished like bubbles. This must be because our enemy deployed an overwhelming force to eliminate the outer perimeter guard fleet so quickly. It is indeed true that the enemy deployed more forces than we originally expected.

Based on the size of the First Fleet obtained from previous intelligence, this must have been support from the enemy, because Vladivostok does not have a shipyard, and warships would not be salvaged from the Sea of ​​Japan by themselves—you are not playing a fleet collection game or a warship girl R game.

So how exactly did the enemy support the First Fleet, which was located in the relatively enclosed Yingzhou Sea?

Admiral Benson's first thought was of the commerce raiding fleets that had caused the United States Navy a lot of trouble at sea recently. To this day, the United States Navy still doesn't know exactly how many warships the Ming army deployed at sea to carry out commerce raiding operations.

After all, the ships that the Ming army deployed for commerce raiding operations were carefully selected. This careful selection was not only limited to the speed and firepower of the warships, but more importantly, it was reflected in the appearance of the warships deployed. According to reports, the Ming army preferred to deploy warships of the same class and model, and often removed the hull numbers of these warships to keep them as similar as possible in appearance.

Can you guess which ship you encountered at sea this time? .png

The United States originally judged that the enemy was using this tactic to make fewer ships appear to have more of the same type of warships active at sea, in order to tie down more of the United States' warships on the ocean.

However, it now seems possible that the enemy used this tactic to conceal their forces. They were initially active to make the United States believe that they had deployed so many ships on the ocean, but in fact, it is very likely that the enemy withdrew some of their forces and secretly passed through the Miyako Strait at night into the Sea of ​​Japan, and lay in wait in the Vladivostok naval port until today when they suddenly appeared and caught the United States off guard.