Seven Seas Beacon Fire

From any perspective, Benson's deduction was quite reasonable, but unfortunately he encountered an opponent who was unreasonable in his fighting, transporting so many torpedo boats by rail in a rather illogical way.

They did indeed reinforce their troops, but Admiral Benson misjudged his opponent and made the wrong equipment choices in the following rounds.

In short, Admiral Benson realized that he had to do something. Under normal circumstances, he should have quickly gathered his fleet and actively searched for and engaged the Ming fleet that was launching a night attack. Otherwise, if the enemy were to penetrate into the waters near the landing zone, these fragile civilian transport ships might be used as props by the enemy fleet to perform a "one shot, one kill" show.

In fact, because Admiral Benson had previously withdrawn a considerable number of destroyers to cooperate with his cruisers in searching for Ming commerce raiding fleets on the high seas, and the Third Fleet in the south also needed many destroyers, the 7th Fleet under his command was already short of destroyers. It could be said that he had almost no reserves in terms of destroyers.

What he should do now seems to be to immediately bring over the destroyers that are providing close support to the army, and then take these destroyers to search for any fleet that the Ming army might send.

But just as he was about to give the order, the army liaison officer on his flagship immediately stood up and said, somewhat excitedly, that the destroyers absolutely could not be easily withdrawn at this moment.

General Benson explained to him that the shallow-water gunboats would continue to provide artillery support to the army, so that the army brothers wouldn't be so excited, but the army liaison officer still shook his head like a rattle drum.

"General, what we need now is not large-caliber heavy artillery. The enemy's assault teams have already opened breaches in our defenses, and large numbers of enemy troops are engaging us through these breaches. What our frontline troops need now is to effectively suppress clusters of soft targets that lack rock protection. Although we all acknowledge that the 9.7-inch and 14-inch guns have provided a great deal of assistance to our offensive in the past period, what we need now is the 4-inch guns on the destroyers."

Contrary to popular belief, at least against enemy soft target groups without cover or fortifications, three-inch artillery performs better than four-inch artillery, and four-inch artillery performs better than six-inch artillery.

Large-caliber heavy artillery does perform well in attacking fortified positions, but when both sides are engaged in open-field combat, as long as the caliber of the artillery is not below a certain threshold, the faster the rate of fire of the artillery will generally be, the better the suppression effect will be against soft targets.

Faced with the statement from the Army liaison officer, although General Benson was well aware that most of the people on this warship were not really concerned about how many Army troops could be evacuated from the encirclement, compared to whether the Navy could defeat the enemy on the high seas, he could not show that he was completely indifferent to the lives of the Army officers and soldiers.

So, is there a way to have the best of both worlds?

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Li Renxu looked at the First Fleet Chief of Staff, who was busy like a spinning top in front of him. This was one of several shore command posts set up on the shore. The task of these command posts was to coordinate the torpedo boats that entered the waters near Yuanshan.

Of course, it was impossible to deploy as many as 300 torpedo boats all at once. Although the destroyers and cruisers participating in this operation themselves assumed some command functions, Cheng Hengqi, who was at sea, was in charge of directing and arranging the order and scale of the attack.

Or to use an analogy, if we consider the entire fleet as a fighter jet or interceptor, Cheng Hengqi is the pilot inside the aircraft, and he has two different types of "ammunition." One of them, like the R-27 and Sparrow, is semi-active radar-guided. Without guidance, such semi-active radar-guided missiles can easily become useless stray bullets in the air.

These command posts set up on shore served to guide the torpedo boat formations after they entered the combat zone. In particular, these command posts, which were set up at relatively high places, could see the movements of the United States Navy ships operating at sea more clearly through telescopes. This allowed the Ming army to achieve some one-way information transparency at sea under the cover of darkness.

Just then, the naval officer who had been operating the binoculars and observing the movements of the United States Navy in the distance suddenly shouted, "Something's wrong! That old guy has probably discovered something's wrong. It seems they're preparing to move those destroyers that are firing at close range from the shore!"

Li Renzhi's expression softened considerably upon hearing this. Although the troops he deployed after opening the breach were mostly "blue-gray cattle," and he displayed an attitude of "a general who is kind cannot command troops," on the battlefield, who would want to see their soldiers suffer heavy casualties?

The close-range firing exercises conducted by the United States Navy have given the Army's peasant soldiers a real lesson. Now that these annoying destroyers are finally leaving, there is indeed no better news for the Army.

However, the situation is different for the navy. After these destroyers are redeployed, they will definitely be deployed to protect the landing zone, which means that these destroyers will be directly engaged in dialogue with the Ming Dynasty Royal Navy.

It can be said that the key to the success of tonight's operation lies in whether or not the United States Navy's destroyers can be effectively dealt with or contained.

"Should I send in some more troops for another push?" Li Renxu asked tentatively as he approached the chief of staff of the First Fleet.

This question also startled the somewhat overwhelmed chief of staff, who then slapped his forehead as if waking from a dream: "I understand what you mean. You mean to put more pressure on the United States forces inside the encirclement from the ground, then the United States forces inside the encirclement, lacking artillery, will definitely request naval support..."

At this point, the chief of staff slowly shook his head: "The Navy formulated this operational plan precisely to minimize casualties among friendly forces. If friendly forces are required to use such ruthless tactics to buy us an opportunity..."

“Don’t worry about these details,” Li Renxu said. “I think the real core objective of the battle plan is not to reduce the casualties of the army, but to take down the federal forces in these encirclements. In this way, we can gain better leverage. If we can end the war under more ideal conditions, then the sacrifices we are making now are all worthwhile compared to ending the war sooner.”

The chief of staff was speechless upon hearing this. What Li Renxu said was indeed reasonable. Whether the other party was sincere or just putting on airs, the reasoning was indeed correct.

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Admiral Benson ultimately did not transfer all the destroyers on fire support missions. He left a few destroyers and shallow-draft gunboats to carry out the support missions, while he himself led the remaining fleet toward a direction away from the continental shelf.

Yes, Admiral Benson decided to commit his capital ships to the night battle.

In most cases, both sides in a conflict will avoid using large capital ships in night battles, because generally no one wants their precious capital ships to sink in a night battle because of a torpedo that comes from nowhere.

However, from another perspective, battleships, being such behemoths, also present high risks and high rewards in night battles. This can be seen in the two battleships deployed by the Federal Navy in the night battle of Guadalcanal in another timeline. Of the two battleships deployed by the Federal Navy, the USS South Dakota can be considered as having been acquired before being sold, while the USS Washington is the positive example—the powerful firepower of battleships can play a decisive role in close-range engagements during night battles.

From Admiral Benson's perspective, facing a large number of enemy cruisers, decisively pushing forward with battleships would definitely catch the enemy off guard. Heavily armored battleships were not afraid of the main guns of enemy cruisers and destroyers.

Meanwhile, Admiral Benson was on the bridge of his flagship, his eyes following the searchlight beams as he searched for targets at sea. Although he admitted that he had been led by the nose by the Ming army at sea until now, he believed that he could definitely surprise them in the darkness of night.

He was already looking forward to seeing how the enemy cruiser would feel when it crashed through the night and found itself facing a battleship.

I imagine the expressions on the faces of the enemy warship captains will be quite something then.

Holy crap! The boss picked me!

At first, in the morning, I just thought the boss had left a comment in my comment section.

The boss rewarded me with a golden treasure chest! Oh my god!

Just two days ago, one of my dear readers gifted me a silver treasure chest. I didn't expect the BOSS to show me such favor too. I'm so touched.

I'm really feeling a bit apprehensive right now!

That's all for now. I'll finish the accounting in the last few days of the month and update twice! I'll add another 10 updates after I pay back the thousand! I have to live up to the boss's reward!

Chapter 72 We've fallen into their trap! (2)

After Admiral Benson decided to take the initiative to engage, the entire Seventh Fleet formed two circular formations, which, from a bird's-eye view, looked just like the wheel-shaped anti-aircraft formations of World War II.

However, unlike the wheel-shaped air defense arrays, these two wheel-shaped arrays are arranged more closely, unlike the wheel-shaped arrays that protected aircraft carriers during World War II, which were spread out over a very large area.

Admiral Benson was well aware of the risks involved in deploying battleships for night battles, and one of the most important reasons he was willing to take such risks was the presence of another group of veterans under his command—three Connecticut-class and three Virginia-class battleships.

This Virginia is a pre-dreadnought, or rather a quasi-dreadnought, not the big black fish Virginia from the late 20th century. Connecticut is also a quasi-dreadnought battleship, not the Seawolf-class Connecticut. If the big black fish Virginia and Connecticut appeared at this time, then someone from the Time and Space Administration must have been slacking off.

These outdated old ships were once the mainstay of the United States Navy. Back in the Battle of St. Lucia, the Connecticut-class battleships faced... Sorry, wrong channel, this is history from the Ming Dynasty next door.

These two early, late-generation pre-dreadnoughts from the United States were products of the typical "I think" design philosophy of the US Navy. Towards the end of the pre-dreadnought era, navies around the world explored various methods to further enhance the firepower of their first-class battleships. Besides the eventual development of the unified, all-heavy-gun dreadnought, there were also ideas of equipping them with a large number of second-tier main guns, or even an all-second-tier main gun design. (Back then, 10-inch guns fired much faster than 12-inch guns.)

The United States was different. Its strong industrial strength, coupled with its unconventional design ideas and relatively limited shipbuilding experience, led to the creation of a number of oddities. For example, the Virginia-class battleships mounted 8-inch secondary main guns on 12-inch turrets. Including the 8-inch guns on the sides, other countries could only deploy a maximum of two turrets per side for the four 8-inch secondary main guns. The United States claimed it could deploy three, but it completely disregarded the interference problem between the upper and lower guns.

The Connecticut's appearance was much more normal, but the United States pioneered "three-tier firepower," which meant replacing the 6-inch cannon with a 7-inch cannon in addition to the 12-inch main gun and the 8-inch secondary main gun—because 7 inches was the limit of manual loading, thus maximizing the amount of projectiles.

Of course, now it seems that these are all crooked methods. Dozens of shells that cannot penetrate are not as good as one shell that can penetrate. Therefore, after the Dreadnoughts appeared, these ships were quickly swept into the dustbin.

However, it seems to Admiral Benson today that it's time to bring these ships out of the junkyard back to life.

These ships, originally designed to compete in terms of projectile power, wouldn't be most suitable for dealing with enemy cruisers?

And most importantly—although these ships are called battleships, they don't feel bad about losing them.

Although these are nominally battleships, there are differences between them. In this era, when considering the combat power of a nation's navy, pre-dreadnoughts are generally not taken into account. The Ursus tried to use several pre-dreadnought formations to counter Goben in the Black Sea, but the final result proved that even under the most ideal conditions, it was very difficult. Therefore, if these six battleships were lost, it would have almost no substantial impact on the strength of the United States Navy, and it would not even affect the face of the Federation Navy.

It's like if an SU-25 from either Russia or Ukraine were shot down by an anti-aircraft missile, it wouldn't affect the image of either side at all, because such losses are normal. But if an SU-35 were shot down by an anti-aircraft missile, well, let's just say one word! Everyone would be leaving comments like "stewed goose in an iron pot" (a Chinese internet slang term for something ridiculous or sarcastic).

As for the loss of these warships in battle, it would inevitably be accompanied by casualties... Although the sailors operating these battleships were all officers and soldiers of the United States Navy, the United States has always been a country with a remarkably high tolerance for casualties, a trait almost identical to that of the beacon of light in another world. Because whether on the Korean Peninsula or in the Vietnamese rainforest, the fundamental reason the beacon of light in these places chose to end the war was never due to an inability to tolerate casualties.

Just kidding! The United States is one of the world's leading countries with low human rights standards. Unless politicians need to use this to their advantage, when has the United States ever cared about casualties in war? When we go all out and conduct biological and chemical weapons experiments, we use our own citizens. Even the Japanese would be amazed and say, "Stanford is number one."

Even if one or two of the dreadnoughts following behind were lost, the impact on the United States Navy would be minimal. After all, warships still using 12-inch guns were nothing special these days.

Both the Battle of Skadrak and the Battle of the Java Sea proved one thing: 280mm or 305mm naval guns were only useful against early battlecruisers with only six inches of armor. Any capital ship with nine inches of armor could not be easily penetrated by these two types of guns.

To put it bluntly, the 7th Fleet has never been the core of the Union Navy. Even if the 7th Fleet loses some capital ships, it will not shake the foundation of the United States Navy. The United States Navy has plenty of trump cards, and only with enough trump cards can Admiral Benson have enough confidence to take risks. His current confidence is much greater than that of Nimitz in another world who threw his two fast battleships into the night battle of Guadalcanal during World War II. At that time, if South Dakota and Washington had been lost, the USN would have had no new fast battleships available unless they were transferred from the Atlantic Fleet.

Of course, Benson's ability to withstand losses did not mean he was willing to suffer them. This wheel-shaped formation, which looks like a variant of the anti-aircraft array used in World War II, was actually another layer of insurance for Admiral Benson—destroyers and cruisers formed a barrier around the battleships that were moving in column formation.

Benson wouldn't forget that enemy cruisers and destroyers also had torpedoes. While naval guns were almost impossible to threaten his capital ships, torpedoes could.

These escort ships surrounding the capital ships had the task of separating the enemy's capital ships from their cruisers and destroyers. At that time, the effective range of heavy torpedoes was only about 6-8 kilometers. If they were to be replaced by earlier 18-inch torpedoes, the effective range would likely be reduced to three or four kilometers. Therefore, these escort ships only needed to maintain a certain distance from the capital ships, and with their own firepower, they could keep the enemy's destroyers and cruisers out of the effective range of the torpedoes.

Even if we take a step back and assume that the enemy's torpedoes must pass through these escort ships before they can attack the main ship, in the most critical situation, these escort ships can also sacrifice themselves to shield the main ship behind them from torpedoes.

Benson felt he had considered all possibilities—he even calculated how many torpedoes the Ming fleet hidden in the night still had. Of the several squadrons that had lost contact earlier, if the destroyer squadron might have suddenly encountered the enemy cruisers at close range at night and been destroyed by heavy fire in a short time, then the two old first-class cruisers must have been killed by torpedoes.

After all, it's a ship of over 9000 tons. If it weren't for torpedoes, simply leaving it there and letting your cruiser bombard it for half an hour wouldn't necessarily sink it.

Therefore, it can be inferred that these two ships were capsized by torpedoes.

This result is also in line with Admiral Benson's prediction of the opponent he was about to face - besides guns, what destroyers and cruisers rely on most are torpedoes, right?

After the fleet was formed, it advanced in a large Z-shape. This was to expand the search area and to avoid attacks from any potential submarines. The destroyers and cruisers on the outer perimeter of the fleet brazenly turned on their searchlights to search the dark sea, while the battleships in the center of the formation maintained light control.

But as the fleet continued to advance, Admiral Benson grew increasingly suspicious—they had not found any trace of the enemy.

According to reports from the officers and soldiers on the ships that were relatively close to the guard formation, they heard the sound of cannons, which was different from the cannons that were carrying out fire support missions. Although the sound was not very clear, they were sure that the sound came from the southwest.

This direction is also consistent with the direction of the missing guard formation. Admiral Benson also launched the search along this direction. Considering the approximate location of the enemy fleet that was judged at the time, if the enemy wanted to continue to penetrate deeper after dealing with the guard formation, then he should be able to block them now.

What about people?

As Admiral Benson was pondering this, a cruiser on the outer ring of the Alpha formation, which was leading the way, suddenly opened fire. The cruiser's fire immediately drew support from two other cruisers positioned adjacent to it.

These cruisers were not new models—the Chester-class scout cruisers were once speedboats that could reach 26 knots in the pre-dreadnought era, but now, even after maintenance, they can only reach a maximum speed of 23 or 24 knots, so they have naturally been downgraded to second-line ordinary light cruisers.

The current Chester-class cruisers are typical examples of a three-nothing: no speed, no protection, and no firepower.

With the three Chesters combined, there are only six single-mounted 127mm guns. Expecting such firepower density, especially when it is being fired from three unstable gun decks, to hit anything is really wishful thinking.

Although it missed, the Chester guided the entire formation to its target—even though it was just an ordinary-looking large torpedo boat. After being hit by the searchlight, it quickly turned around, and the quick-fingered United States warships began firing. Even more surprisingly, a Colombian destroyer chased after it, seemingly forgetting that it was on an escort mission.

Admiral Benson also witnessed this scene from the bridge, and any commander who saw it would probably feel a sense of cardiac arrest.

There's no way around it; as the saying goes, you reap what you sow. The Federation's cultural atmosphere dictates that adventure and individual heroism will always be more popular. If Li Che were present at this moment, he would definitely think of a war film that the United States once made called "Red Tail".

The movie depicts the early days of the Federation's strategic bombing campaign, where veteran air combatants sent to engage the escort fighters and protect their bombers went off to dogfight the 109 and 190, leaving their bombers behind to be swarmed and destroyed by the other 190 and 109 fighters.

And now, a similar scene is unfolding right under General Benson's nose.

Therefore, the admiral could only order the radio department to quickly notify the destroyer to return and maintain formation.

According to Admiral Benson, the most crucial element of tonight's night battle was the formation he had devised. He believed that enemy destroyers and cruisers would not be able to easily penetrate the wheel-shaped formation to attack the capital ships inside.

However, soon, artillery fire also rang out from another direction. But this time, before General Benson could send a telegram to inquire what was happening, artillery fire also came from the very back of their formation.

Soon after the warships opened fire, they quickly sent messages—they had all spotted torpedo boats at sea. The message from the cruiser at the end of the formation was particularly confident, stating that they had spotted at least two or three torpedo boats, and possibly more.

Admiral Benson compared the reports he received from the various ships, and a disturbing result soon emerged: the number of torpedo boats he could visually observe was already 10.

Ten torpedo boats may not seem like a lot, but it's already quite illogical for them to be here. If the first torpedo boat that was discovered was a large ocean-going torpedo boat and its presence here was somewhat normal, then the torpedo boats that appeared later didn't seem capable of sailing all the way from Vladivostok to here on their own.

Especially the torpedo boats spotted at the rear of the formation, their hulls were so small that the observer could only clearly see one torpedo boat nearby, and it was even impossible to tell how many speedboats had left their tracks in the distance. These small boats were probably less than 50 tons each.

Wait a moment...........

General Benson suddenly realized a serious problem.

Was the enemy's reinforcement force really, as I had previously speculated, from a commerce raiding fleet on the high seas?

“Steve!” Benson asked an intelligence officer beside him, “How many torpedo boats does our enemy have in Vladivostok?”

Chapter 73 A Small Horse Pulling a Big Cart (1)

Intelligence officer Steve was dumbfounded when he heard the commander's question: How many torpedo boats?

While figuring out the enemy's strength and size is one of the most basic tasks of an intelligence agency, the most basic task is not easy. Shoigu's most basic task also included "building a strong Russian army." Although everyone now says that Shoigu is not good at fighting but good at making a mess of things, he managed to maintain the image of the Russians 22 years ago with such a small amount of money, making many military commentators and even the Federation believe that it was already difficult for the Russians to have a strong and modern army. While these are objective facts, war is about results.

Just like Steve now, the Federation's intelligence agencies have also worked very hard. If the commander wanted to ask how many pre-dreadnoughts, armored cruisers, light cruisers, and destroyers the Ming forces in Vladivostok had, Steve could answer fluently. Although it is difficult for intelligence networks to infiltrate a remote and geographically isolated place like Vladivostok, the intelligence agencies have existing information. With the existing information plus the new information in Vladivostok since the outbreak of the war, they can basically determine the size of the First Fleet in the port and even the names of the warships.

But torpedo boats are different. Intelligence is like using a sieve to sift things. You can sift out stones, but it's a bit difficult to sift out sand.

Moreover, for countries like the United States and the Ming Dynasty, this isn't sifting sand; it's like using a sieve to sift water!

"The enemy should have three speedboat squadrons in the port, but in the Ming army's organization, speedboat squadrons are not necessarily all torpedo boats..." Major Steve could only bite the bullet and recall the relevant intelligence. Although his commander's question was somewhat unconventional, serving his superior as a staff officer was like a service provider serving a client.

For these small things that don't even qualify as "ships," intelligence agencies usually only confirm their troop composition. In any case, if it's a fast boat formation of three squadrons, then even if we calculate based on the maximum full strength, there would be at most 30 boats. Considering that the fast boat squadrons of the Ming Army are usually not all torpedo boats, even if we are lenient with the enemy, the number of torpedo boats the enemy has will not exceed 30.

“Three squadrons… I remember our old adversaries usually like to equip the same model of torpedo boats in the same squadron?” Admiral Benson asked. “I learned this from the Ming army stationed in Japan when I visited Yokosuka before the war broke out. It’s a kind of experience they have in using equipment.”

"Yes, even now, the Ming army still tends to group warships of the same type together in the same organization. Even if the warships are of different types, they try to keep warships related to subsystems in the same organization. This is because it can minimize the trouble of logistics and maintenance and improve the completeness of equipment. In this regard, we have also absorbed their experience in our own organization to ensure the orderly and complete equipment of the entire fleet."

Major Steve's answer cast a shadow over Admiral Benson's heart. Although the specific types couldn't be identified in the darkness, judging from the reports of enemy speedboats encountered by the other warships, they had already encountered three different types of torpedo boats in three directions...

More importantly, there were even 50-ton small boats here. How did such things end up here? Did they keep stopping to refuel along the way? Although there were some ports to the north of East Sinra Bay, where they were now located on the east coast of Sinra, he had already razed them all with artillery as a precaution. Although docks are like part of the earth once they are built, and it is difficult to completely erase them with cannons, he was certain that most of the dock facilities in those small ports, which were generally civilian ports, had been destroyed by the shelling.

Even if their small boats dock at those ports along the way, there are no facilities to refuel them. They can't possibly use manpower to carry the oil up in oil drums, can they?

And with the enemy launching such a large-scale operation... what about the USS Charleston? Right! Why didn't the Charleston issue any warning? Wait a minute! When was our last communication with the Charleston?

Thinking of this, Benson didn't even bother to ask any questions. He went to the ship's logbook himself, opened it, and carefully checked it. He found that the last radio communication with the Charleston was two days ago. No wonder it hadn't alerted him before, because a stationary mission like the Charleston wouldn't send out radios every day unless there were special circumstances.

That means that until the last time the Charleston sent a telegram, the enemy forces in Vladivostok had not yet been mobilized. Even assuming that the Charleston was immediately attacked and sunk after the last telegram, the enemy would have had at most less than two days to send a fleet here. If they had to stop at the port to refuel en route, and there was no infrastructure and they relied solely on manpower, they would not have finished refueling yet!

How did those beach kids manage to get these speedboats here?

Are they loaded onto a large ship and transported directly here?

Benson recalls that during the era of ironclad warships, large ironclad warships from various countries liked to carry two torpedo boats. Could it be that the enemy has developed such an outdated tactic? But even if it's a 50-ton boat, how many can they carry on one ship?

General Benson is now overwhelmed with questions. He has realized that the enemy who appeared at East Xinluo Bay today likely has grand ambitions, and they have exploited a series of his habitual thought patterns... No, it's not a matter of my habitual thought patterns, but rather that the enemy's tactics have broken with convention.

The tactics prepared by his fleet now seem to be facing an opponent that is not what he expected, which has caused Admiral Benson great unease. This unease is also gradually deepening as more and more ships on the periphery observe enemy small boats.

Moreover, he could feel this unease spreading throughout the command tower, and the staff officers' expressions were becoming increasingly solemn, because the number of torpedo boats that had been observed to have surfaced had already exceeded 70, and even if the duplicate observations were removed, the number was definitely more than 30.