Munitions Empire

Chapter 686: Salvo of 645 missed

“Begin the attack!” When the two fleets drew within about 12 kilometers of each other, Bernard issued the firing command.

He didn’t raise his voice; he simply gave a very ordinary command in the way he usually spoke.

The aide-de-camp hesitated for a moment, then snapped to attention, saluting as he loudly repeated the commander’s order, “Fire!”

“Boom!” The battleship’s main cannons, long since ready, roared almost simultaneously, although only one gun from each turret belched flame.

Seconds later, another elevated gun barrel also ejected flames. The deafening and overwhelming roar rose again as the blast wave from the guns dispersed the waves beside the ship’s hull.

This sudden barrage took the Shen Hai Navy by surprise; they hadn’t expected the Tang Army’s cannons to start attacking from such a distance.

However, soon the shells began to fall, spouting water columns about two hundred meters from the Shen Hai Navy’s battle line, posing virtually no threat.

Though the projectiles from the 305-millimeter caliber heavy cannons were extremely powerful, they only produced astonishingly huge water columns and didn’t harm the Shen Hai warships in the least.

Yet, the terrifying power of the cannons still caused Goblin General Shen Hai to furrow his brow—his cannons were of a larger caliber, yet their power was not much greater than the enemy’s projectiles he witnessed.

So, was there really any use to the pitiful fifteen-millimeter increase in caliber that Shireck had racked his brains to achieve? In this moment, Goblin General Shen Hai couldn’t help but doubt.

While he was doubting, inside the Tang Army fleet’s dimly lit turrets, the ingeniously designed autoloaders were at work. Chains wound around bars, slowly pushing forward, and thus a new shell was loaded into the chamber.

Following the machinery’s movement, the bar retracted, a side hatch opened, and three cylindrical bags of propellant rolled into the groove. The bar pushed forward once more, shoving the propellant charge into the breech.

As the bar withdrew, the gunners expertly closed the breech, and then raised their arms to the gun captain. The gun captain was ready to fire, but stood still, waiting for the new firing command to arrive.

Almost simultaneously, behind the rangefinding equipment located below the warship’s conning tower, the spotter called out a series of data, “Missed! Off by a distance! About 100 meters! Send the data to the calculating center!”

The officer with the phone nodded slightly, then let go of the receiver he had been covering with his hand, and shouted loudly, “Miss missed, off by a distance! About 100 meters!”

Inside the warship, in the chamber responsible for ballistic calculations, officers turned the scale discs meticulously checking the firing parameters—they used mechanical computers, highly complex and relying entirely on the combination of mechanical gears for computing firing solutions.

“Lower the gun barrel, parameter 5!” After contrasting the calculated results, the officer behind the non-commissioned officer immediately grabbed another phone, “Lower the gun barrel! Parameter 5!”

In the four turrets aimed at the enemy’s battle line, all the fire control officers received the call at the same time and almost simultaneously issued commands to adjust the firing parameters.

This was the advantage of having uniform cannon calibers; with unified command and coordination, the fire density increased, shooting accuracy improved, and hit rates rose—this was the advancement of the dreadnought’s fire control system.

Amidst a series of commands, all the large guns’ barrels began to lower slightly, followed by a brief silence.

Within seconds, as the warship swayed left and right with the waves, it finally began to return to a state of equilibrium, with the onboard lateral rolling monitoring devices indicating the ship was about to stabilize port and starboard.

In the instant the warship stabilized, half of the guns were fired again, sending eight shells speeding toward their target. The next second, the remaining half of the guns fired as well.

Looking through his binoculars, Bernard was still watching the splashes from his own artillery, unable to clearly see if his shells had actually hit the enemy.

“Is that ballistic computer really any use?” Bernard wondered. He felt the mechanical devices installed on his warship were truly underperforming in actual combat.

In previous training, they seemed adequate, and it looked like they could significantly improve the hit rate of their guns, but now it didn’t seem as useful as he had imagined.

At least at a distance of over ten kilometers, after two full salvoes, they still hadn’t hit any enemy warships, which was quite frustrating.

“In theory, it’s very advanced, far superior to what’s used on cruisers.” The aide-de-camp was also uncertain because, after all, this was the first time battleships were being used in real combat in this world.

“…” Bernard didn’t speak. He knew he might be a bit impatient, but in a naval battle of this scale, victory or defeat could be decided in an instant, and his anxiety was natural.

If someone claimed to be able to face such a battlefield without concern, that would be utter nonsense—anyone would be nervous, especially at such life-or-death moments.

“Missed! Off by a distance! About 100 meters!” The spotting station repeated the previous report once again.

His words left the messenger officer speechless: “What the hell, it was just that the distance was off by 100 meters, and after lowering the gun muzzle, it’s still off by 100 meters. Are you asking for a beating?”

The observer also felt awkward, made an exasperated expression, and began to explain, “It’s indeed off by quite a bit, I can’t do anything about it.”

“Damn it! You’re going to get us killed sooner or later!” The officer cursed, and released his hand from the microphone, repeating the message he had just repeated, “Missed, the distance is too long! Approximately 100 meters!”

“Are you guys sick or something?” Sure enough, after hearing the exact same parameters, the officer from the calculations department started to get really agitated.

Still, he dutifully conveyed the parameters, of course this time the non-commissioned officers in front of the calculating device didn’t bother to calculate and just directly gave the corrected parameters.

Their commander was also happy for the break and simply transferred the same parameters to all the turrets: “Lower the gun muzzle! Parameter 5!”

Soon, all the turrets completed the adjustment, waited again for the ship to stop rolling, and then fired a salvo.

This time, they came very close to the enemy warship, the huge water columns even made the Goblin’s battleships look tiny in comparison, and the splashing water even fell on the upper structures of the Goblin battleships.

A man of Shen Hai had already started to feel scared, thinking that the enemy’s gunfire was putting too much pressure on him.

The firing rate of large-caliber guns on the enemy’s warships was incredibly fast, with two salvos fired continuously in just a few minutes’ time.

You have to know, even though the guns were larger in caliber, the firing rate of the battleships customized for the Goblins by Shireck was despairingly slow.

If they could fire a shell every fifteen minutes, the man of Shen Hai thought it would be an exceptional performance from his gunners.

What frightened him even more was that the enemy’s gunfire adjustments were also incredibly accurate. It might have been almost twenty minutes since the battle began and he had not been hit once, but Tang Army’s gunfire was clearly getting closer and closer to him.

“If you have a lock, take the shot when you have a chance!” The man of Shen Hai, unable to keep his patience, turned to his executive officer and ordered.

The subordinate felt a bit awkward and tentatively explained, “General, the enemy has not yet entered maximum range. Firing now might cause us to miss the opportunity for the first volley.”

“They’ve already fired two salvos! If we wait any longer, the next salvo might hit us!” The man of Shen Hai said with some frustration.

He also did not dare to easily change his own course to evade the enemy’s salvos, as it was entirely a matter of luck.

Sometimes you could travel in a straight line and the enemy might miss you with several salvos. But if you got scared and changed course, you might just run into the enemy’s corrected trial shots.

Not to mention, maintaining a steady course also made it easier for your own fire adjustments, which is why naval battles rarely saw orders to frequently change course.

Of course, there are no absolutes. Situations would arise for orders to turn when one side held a huge advantage, or one side wanted to make an escape, and so on.

“At a distance of 10 kilometers, perform calibration! We can’t just take hits passively!” After weighing his options, the man of Shen Hai decided to return fire at extreme range.

It was to both boost his own troops’ morale and because the man of Shen Hai realized they also needed trial shots for range finding, and his Navy from Shen Hai Country did not have the ability to hit the target with their first salvo.

So all he could do now was wait, wait for the distance between the two sides to get a bit closer, even closer.

And at this moment, the battleship of Great Tang Group that had once again completed loading fired another salvo.

This salvo once again flew over the naval battle line of Shen Hai Country’s Navy, but this time it was even closer to the ships of Shen Hai Country.

The distance between the two fleets was closing bit by bit, and soon the distance had reached about ten kilometers. A few minutes later, both sides almost simultaneously unleashed salvos.

The sudden barrage made Bernard jump, as he saw a series of flashes on the battle line of Shen Hai Country’s Navy, followed by a thick screen of white smoke.

He waited nervously, waiting for fate’s judgment. To his relief, it seemed that the gods in the heavens were fair, and they did not favor the Goblin Navy by bestowing miracles upon these Goblins.

The shells fired by the Goblin Navy fell about five hundred meters from the naval battle line of Tang Country’s Navy, raising towering columns of water. But no matter what, Bernard did not allow himself to get tense again.

And his fleet’s salvo brought some encouraging good news: although they still had not hit the enemy, the shells’ landing points were now between the two forces, and for once did not fly over the naval battle line of Shen Hai Country’s Navy!

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