Fox of France

Pressurized and strong ventilation is the way to extract the last trace of power from the steam engine. This method can easily cause the boiler to overheat and reduce the life of the boiler. In more serious cases, problems such as boiler explosion may occur. But today, the "Queen Elizabeth" does not need any boiler life. Even if all went well and it managed to sink the Imberado, she herself would surely be doomed. In this case, the life of the boiler is meaningless.

As for the explosion of the boiler, the distance between the two sides is only a little more than a thousand meters. With such a distance, the chance of such a thing happening is not high, at least, it is lower than the chance of just one shell hitting the ammunition depot.

But the speed of the warship is not like the acceleration of a liter motorcycle. With a twist of the accelerator and a blink of an eye, the speed exceeds 100. The acceleration of warships is quite slow, so slow that many times, if you don't pay attention, you won't even feel it at all.

But the French artillery reacted much faster. The 150 guns on the "Imberado", the 150 guns on the "Caesar", and the 100 guns on other cruisers all hit the "Queen Elizabeth". A 150 shell hit the port side, pierced the armor and exploded in the internal freshwater tank-fortunately, no casualties were caused. Another 150 round hit and exploded on the port side near the waterline, tearing a hole there and allowing seawater to rush in. But the hole is not big, so no one is going to take care of it for the time being - two-thirds of the damage control personnel have been killed or injured, and this kind of small problem can't be dealt with at all.

But the distance is already very close, and this water entry is not too important - as long as the ship has not sunk when it hits it, it is enough.

As for the 100-gun shells, there were even more hits. These shells had no possibility of penetrating the armor of the "Queen Elizabeth", but they completely washed the entire superstructure of the "Queen Elizabeth". In fact, if the effect of the near-missed bullet is considered, in today's battle, at least so far, the 150mm gun on the French battleship did not cause the greatest damage to the "Queen Elizabeth" , but the 100mm guns of the French armored cruisers.

"Order, fill each ammunition compartment with water immediately. All soldiers, prepare to abandon the ship." Watching the enemy ship getting closer and more shells hitting the warship continuously, Nelson issued another order like this.

Filling the ammunition compartment with water means that after the large and small artillery of this warship has finished firing the ready-to-fire bombs that have been moved into the turret, there will be no more shells to fire. But this order also ensures that even if a French shell penetrates the ammunition compartment before the "Queen Elizabeth" hits the enemy ship, the entire ammunition compartment will not explode, and one guy will blow up the entire battleship. fly thing.

In fact, this order was very timely, because only two minutes after the order was issued, a shell fired from the "Imberado" penetrated the armor of the ammunition depot of the former main battery-now The distance between the two sides is already very close, which makes the armor that was impossible to penetrate before become easily penetrated. If the ammunition compartment hadn't been filled with water in advance, this shell might have directly killed the "Queen Elizabeth".

On the "Imberado", Admiral Treville had already seen what the British were thinking. He knew that the British were trying to attack themselves by ramming. At this time, he has two options. One is to keep the current course unchanged, which is most conducive to the artillery's attack on the enemy. Then take advantage of the firepower and destroy the enemy with artillery fire before they charge up. Or he can turn the warship to the same direction as the enemy ship. In this way, he can only use the tail cannon to attack the enemy, but this can increase the time for the enemy to catch up with him. Moreover, when the enemy catches up, he can only use the bow to hit the stern of the "Imberado" . Although it doesn't sound good to say that someone's chrysanthemum was exploded, but when it hits from that angle, the chance of being able to sink the warship is much smaller. Even basically became impossible.

If it was Napoleon who made the decision at this time, he would definitely choose option one without hesitation, don't be cowardly, just do it! Let's see if you hit me to death, or I will hammer you to death first, the west wind blows, the drums of war are beating, who is afraid of whom in this world?

If Joseph was the one who made the decision at this time, he would definitely choose option 2 without hesitation and turn around quickly. Saving life is the first priority. Anyway, even if someone pushes his butt, he can't die. Now it is a win-win situation, there is no need to take risks. In addition, if it was Joseph, he would definitely not allow himself to appear on the battlefield.

But Admiral Treville was neither Napoleon nor Joseph. So, um, at first he was determined to adopt the Napoleon plan. However, as more shells hit the enemy ship, but the enemy ship not only did not explode and sink, but the speed increased further, and the distance was getting closer, Treville The Admiral hesitated again. He felt within such a short distance. It was already difficult to prevent the enemy ship from colliding with artillery fire, so he ordered the battleship to turn around. In the summary after this battle, this order was considered to be an important reason that caused the "Imberado" to suffer heavy losses, and finally even had to abandon the ship.

Marshal Treville and Captain Moreau underestimated the loss of the warship's steering ability after losing the bow, so when the British "Queen Elizabeth" approached to a distance of less than 400 meters At that time, the "Imberado" began to turn and avoid awkwardly.

It's just that the slow speed of the "Imberado"'s turn is really beyond everyone's expectations. After turning for a long time, it turned forty-five degrees, and then the "Queen Elizabeth" bumped into it head-on with raging flames.

If the "Imberado" has completed its turn, at most the cabins at the back will be damaged, and it will not be too big except that the propeller is ruined and needs to be dragged away. something happened. Go back and overhaul it, maybe it will still work.

If it didn't turn around at all and was hit by the "Queen Elizabeth", the damage must be serious. A series of cabins in the center must be finished, but the only ones that were damaged were the cabins in the middle. Most of them will not sink, as long as there is no problem with the keel, drag it back to repair it. At least it can be sold backhand to the Turks.

However, being hit at such a forty-five-degree angle, the situation is completely different. The bow of the "Queen Elizabeth" rowed along the port side of the "Imberado", almost opening all the watertight compartments on the left side.

The turbulent sea water rushed into the cabin immediately. Even though the good damage control personnel of "Imberado" were relatively neat, there was still nothing to do in the face of such a situation. In order to avoid the sinking of the battleship. The French could only urgently lock all the doors of the watertight compartments on the port side. Just because of this action, as many as 110 naval soldiers were drowned.

Due to the rapid flooding on the port side, the "Imberado" began to quickly tilt to the left. In order to avoid the ship's reverse buckle, the rescuers had to fill some cabins on the starboard side with water to seek balance. However, there are too many damaged cabins on the port side. If the balance is really to be restored, the "Inberrado" will directly become a submarine.

Fortunately, when the navy was designing this warship, because of the insistence of Joseph, it adopted a relatively small compartment, and not only divided multiple compartments horizontally, but also divided multiple compartments vertically. This design provides "Imberado" with very good resistance to sinking. So after such actions, the "Imberado" was still barely floating on the water and did not sink. It's just that the ship's roll has reached almost thirty degrees, people can no longer stand on the deck, and naturally all the steam engines are shut down.

Of course, the "Queen Elizabeth" was not much better. She was already in a lot of water. The bow of her ship was also smashed during the impact, and seawater poured in from here quickly, and the "Queen Elizabeth" adopted a large compartment design, and the damage control personnel suffered heavy losses, and it was impossible to control the situation at all, so her bow It sank first, and the stern of the boat was raised high, revealing the copper propeller, the red-painted bottom, and the barnacles attached to the bottom. Some sailors jumped into the sea with all kinds of floating objects in their arms, and swam towards the distance with all their strength. They all knew that the ship was about to sink, and if they couldn't swim far before the ship sank, they would be pulled into the bottom of the sea by the vortex formed when the ship sank.

Because there is also a large amount of seawater in the cabin at the tail, the seawater is pressed down, making the keel of the "Queen Elizabeth" rattle. At the same time, the sea water poured into the cabin, and the compressed air gushed out from various gaps, making a whistling sound like a siren, which was soul-stirring. In the end, the keel of the "Queen Elizabeth" could no longer bear such pressure, and it broke into two pieces with a loud noise. The earth sank to the bottom of the sea, leaving only a big whirlpool on the sea surface. Many soldiers who jumped into the sea to escape had not had time to swim far, and they were also caught by the vortex when the ship sank, and sank to the bottom of the sea.

According to post-war statistics, of the more than 600 officers and soldiers on the "Queen Elizabeth", only six were rescued in the end. Others, including Admiral Nelson, the fleet commander, sank with the ship.

The battle that followed was completely one-sided. Although the French battleship "Imberado" has lost its combat effectiveness, the second detachment is already in place. Under the crossfire of the French fleet, any British warship that is still on the battlefield is seriously damaged. Just when the "Queen Elizabeth" launched an impact on the "Imberado", three British cruisers were slowly sinking.

And when the "Queen Elizabeth" sank, the French diverted the firepower that was originally on the "Queen Elizabeth", so the situation of these remaining British warships became even more difficult. Although the British Navy is indeed very worthy of the Z flag raised by General Nelson, and it is very worthy of the order "England requires everyone to do their duty". However, the situation of the war does not depend on people's persistence. Just over half an hour later, all the British warships had either sunk or were sinking. The French had stopped firing and sent out boats to recover the overboard British soldiers.

On the other side, Admiral Treville had already boarded a small boat and transferred to the battleship "Caesar". Most of the crew also left the "Imberado" battleship. Of course, except for those sailors who were sealed in watertight compartments and were still beating the deck with wrenches and the like.

The French cruiser "Lyon" approached the battleship "Imperator" and towed her with a cable in an attempt to tow her back to France. The keel of this boat was not broken, so it was towed back for repairs, and maybe it could be sold to the Turks for money.

However, in the evening, the wind started to pick up at sea, and the waves were getting higher and higher. The condition of the "Imberado" deteriorated rapidly, and the degree of roll soon increased to about 40 degrees, and continued to expand. At about eight o'clock in the evening, the whole ship buckled upside down at once, and then began to gradually sink.

Under the orders of Admiral Treville, the "Lyon" untied the cable that was dragging the "Inberado". At 9:15 that night, under the watchful eyes of the entire fleet, the "Imberado" sank into the icy North Atlantic.

By this time, the result of the entire battle has come out completely. The British lost the battleship "Queen Elizabeth", two supercruisers and six armored cruisers, and only the supercruiser "Yorkshire" successfully broke through. As a result, the British Navy has now lost all of her new battleships except for another warship of the same level as the "Queen Elizabeth" that was only half built on the berth. She now has only four super cruisers and ten armored cruisers left. Although this figure is still good compared to other countries, but relying on these forces alone, it is impossible for them to compete with the French for sea control. Today's British navy can only act as a coastal defense force under the cover of coastal artillery and mines to prevent possible landing battles launched by the French.

On the French side, they lost the battleship "Imberado", and other warships were also damaged to varying degrees. However, there are only two armored cruisers that need major repairs, and it is estimated that they will lose combat effectiveness within three months to half a year. It can be said that this French fleet still basically maintains its combat effectiveness. For the British, this is really a nightmare result.