Fox of France

The speed of the "Free Trade" was originally lower than that of the "Constitution". A turn was made actively, which further reduced the speed. The "Constitution" skillfully cut a radius, and smoothly cut into the six o'clock direction of the "Free Trade", and then directly chased after it.

Soon the distance between the two sides was shortened to within the range of the shells. The Americans first used the bow guns to use chain bombs to shoot at the "Free Trade" in an attempt to damage her sails.

Zola knew battle was inevitable when he saw the American warship cut into his six o'clock position. He was the first to order non-combatants to leave the deck immediately. Then a group of sailors dragged down Victor, who wanted to watch the excitement.

Then the "Free Trade" began to turn again. "Free Trade", like other warships of this era, has no artillery installed in the tail. Therefore, the "Free Trade" has to turn to interfere with the opponent's shooting, and let the opponent rush to the front, so as to form a situation of broadside bombardment.

Of course, the "Constitution" can also be kept in the six o'clock direction of the "Free Trade" by constantly turning. But this constant turning will also interfere with their own shooting, which will drastically reduce the efficiency of shooting. If this situation is maintained, the battle will not be over for a day.

The "Free Trade" is a steam ship, and his steam engine is firing and pressurizing. Although this process is very slow, it is not so slow. Once the steam engine of the "Free Trade" is started, the whole situation of the battle may be completely reversed.

The "Constitution" is now faster than the "Free Trade", so, for her, the best way is to catch up and grab the T position while she still has an advantage in speed. "Free Trade" will carry out several more rounds of strikes. Defeat the Freetrade before her steam engine advantage kicks in.

When the "Equality" was fighting the British steamship, it used the tactic of grabbing T, and it grabbed T from the tail of the enemy ship. Because the stern of the enemy ship does not have cannons. But the "Equality" can play like this in that battle, a prerequisite is that the speed gap between the two sides is very large.

Because if the speed gap between the two sides is not very large, if you grab this position, you will easily give up the T-head position to others. The speed gap between the USS Constitution and the USS Free Trade was not that great, so the USS Constitution could only try to cross its course in front of the USS Free Trade to form a T-head.

As a "super cruiser", the "Constitution" has twenty-three cannons on one side, including ten 12-pounder guns on the upper gun deck and thirteen 24-pounder guns on the lower gun deck. With such fierce firepower, if a salvo is fired from the T head position, Captain Hull feels that it will definitely deal a heavy blow to the opponent.

The "Constitution" chased from the starboard side of the "Free Trade", trying to surpass the distance of about 100 meters on the starboard side of the "Free Trade", and then turned sharply to the left, cutting into the course of the "Free Trade", Give the French a hard blow with a salvo from the port side.

Of course, passing a distance of 100 meters from the starboard side of the "Free Trade" is a bit risky. At a distance of 100 meters, the enemy ship may shoot at the "Constitution" with broadside guns. However, this is also one of the purposes of Captain Hull. There are winds and waves on the sea, and the ships are shaking, so the cannons are also shaking. During naval battles, the random flying of shells is basically a feature of this era. If the distance exceeds seventy or eighty meters, the hit rate of the shells will be impressively low, so many times, the artillery battle between two warships will knock down twenty or thirty meters from a distance of two to three hundred meters. After the face-to-face shelling, boarding battles happen from time to time.

If the French fired a salvo at a distance of 100 meters, some shells might hit the "Constitution", but Captain Hull felt that his warship should be able to withstand the enemy's fire at this distance.

Although the "Constitution" is more "frigate", its defense level is completely at the battleship level. In the original history, in the second US-British War, in a one-on-two battle with the British frigate, the "Constitution" was shot more than a hundred times, but none of the shells penetrated the "Constitution". The deck of the USS Constitution.

Coupled with the fact that steamships have fewer gun positions, their salvos pose less of a threat. If the French fired at a distance of 100 meters, Hull felt that the damage they could cause to the "Constitution" should be very limited. The reloading of the artillery is very slow. If the Frenchman's salvo fails to achieve much effect, it means that he has been unarmed for a long time. At this time, the "Constitution" can turn the rudder directly, forcefully stick up, and shoot a salvo at the French at a very close distance, making them cry.

The "Constitution" appeared on the starboard side at a distance of more than 100 meters. All the gun doors on the starboard side of the "Free Trade" have been opened, and the nine cannons are ready to fire.

The muzzle velocity of the shells fired by the steel rifled guns of the "Free Trade" is much higher than that of ordinary cannons, its effective range is longer, and it is less affected by sway. In addition, the "Free Trade" itself is large enough, and in order to maximize the range and reduce the swing, the "Free Trade" is equipped with a pair of larger stabilizer fins. This allows the Freetrade to sway less and for longer periods than comparable ships. These measures have made the long-range shooting accuracy of the "Free Trade" significantly better than other warships of this era.

Of course, no measure has advantages without side effects. The larger pendulum fins make the steering ability of the "Free Trade" relatively poor. In the state of relying on steam power to sail, because of the power advantages brought by the steam engine and propeller, this weakness in steering is not obvious, (the ability to sail independently of the wind direction gives her a natural flexibility that is incomparable to sailboats) but When turning off the steam engine and relying only on sails to sail, the steering of the "Free Trade" was indeed a little sluggish. This is a big reason why the "Constitution" was able to occupy what it thought was the dominant position so quickly.

The order to fire had been given, and the nine cannons on the starboard side fired successively.

Although the gunners on the "Free Trade" have not yet fully familiarized themselves with this brand new cannon in their hands. But these gunners are actually experienced old gunners. The so-called not yet fully familiar with the cannon in their hands means that they have not been able to fully utilize the performance of this new cannon. For example, according to the original setting, the cannon in their hands should have a fairly high hit rate at a distance of 400 meters under normal sea conditions. But the gunners can't do that just yet.

However, at a distance of 100 meters, they can still guarantee a fairly high hit rate.

In the first salvo, seven of the nine shells hit.

Captain Hull actually felt relieved when he saw the "Free Trade" open the gun door. He knew that the number of cannons that steam battleships could be equipped with would be quite a bit less due to various reasons, but such a large ship had only nine cannons on one side, which was far less than Hull had expected.

"If I knew it earlier, why don't I just grab a T and just paste it on it?" Captain Hull even had such an idea in his mind.

But there was a flash of fire over there, and then Hull felt a vibration under his feet.

"These guys are really accurate! It seems that I have underestimated them."

Following this shot, several other cannons on the "Free Trade" also fired one after another, and the deck under Hull's feet also kept shaking.

"They're pretty good hits!" thought Hale, shouting down, "Report the loss!"

Hull expected to hear such a reply: "It's okay! No penetration!"

But there was no immediate response from below. After a while, there was a voice: "The plank of the ship was penetrated, and the casualties were heavy..."

The armor-piercing projectile fired from the 110mm rifled gun on the "Free Trade" easily penetrated the 70-centimeter-thick oak plank of the "Constitution", and in the process, huge energy was transferred to the Oak planks. After the shells passed through the oak planks, the oak planks exploded inside the gun bay, and wooden slivers and debris flew everywhere, piercing into the body of the gunner next to him like a knife...

Some shells that penetrated the thick ship plank hit the other side of the ship plank almost without slowing down, and then flew out with a hole in the ship plank there.

There was also a cannonball, which lost its stability after passing through the ship's plank and turned sideways, hit the opposite ship's plank, then broke into several pieces and bounced back, knocking down several people.

But the most deadly thing was such a shell. After it penetrated the ship's plank, it directly hit a 24-pound copper cannon placed on the other side of the ship's plank.

The shell smashed into pieces on the copper cannon, and the scattered fragments killed many gunners around. The copper cannon itself was jumped up by this cannonball, and the iron chain that fixed it was torn off. The broken iron chain swept across like a whip, and split a gunner who couldn't dodge it in half. .

The jumping copper cannon collided with another copper cannon, knocked it to the ground, and crushed two more gunners.

After a round of shelling, the lower gun bay of the "Constitution" was in a mess, as if a tornado had just ravaged here.

After a general understanding of the losses, Captain Hull realized that he still underestimated the French. Their shooting accuracy and the power of their cannons far exceeded his expectations. But he still issued the order very decisively:

"Left rudder man! Stick it up, stick it in their faces and blast them flat!"