Fox of France

The brave "Old Iron Armor" turned the rudder abruptly, almost colliding with the "Free Trade", and the distance between the two sides was rapidly approaching.

"Let's go. Hit them in the face!" Captain Hull yelled loudly, encouraging the morale of his soldiers.

Americans in this era are definitely a fighting nation. Basically, the whole people have red necks, and they generally believe in the creed that not to be cowardly is reckless. Although the first round of shelling by the French caused them heavy losses, it did not knock down their morale. Instead, it seemed to stimulate their anger.

The distance between the two battleships quickly approached, from about 100 meters to 80 meters... 60 meters... 40 meters...

Captain Hull calculated the distance and was about to issue a salvo order, but the French on the opposite side fired another round of salvo first.

The advantage of the speed of fire of the breech-loading guns is obvious. In fact, if the gunners were not skilled enough, they should have been able to fire this round of salvo faster.

Now the distance between the two sides is less than 40 meters, even if you use old-fashioned artillery, you won't miss it. So in this round of salvo, all nine cannons of the "Free Trade" hit the target.

Different from the last round of shelling, the French were not sure how high the defense of the American "super frigate" was during the last round of shelling, so they used special armor-piercing shells. As a result, some armor-piercing projectiles obviously had the problem of excess power, and as a result, they failed to achieve the maximum lethal effect.

So during this round of shooting, Captain Zola ordered the shells to be replaced with armor-piercing anti-personnel shells.

This kind of shell is still a solid shell, because a reliable high-explosive shell fuze for artillery has never been produced. Until today, the reliability of this thing has never been reliable, and even more than once in the experiment, when the fuze was fired It was fired, and then the shell exploded the barrel of the accident.

The armor-piercing anti-personnel bomb is actually a long cast iron cylinder, but there are several deep grooves in the front of the cylinder, and the entire body of the bomb is also full of deep grooves. In the process of penetrating the ship plate, such shells will generate a large number of stress concentration points due to the existence of these grooves, and thus fracture and fragmentation will occur. Although it is still not comparable to high-explosive bombs in terms of power, compared with armor-piercing shells that are prone to one shot and two holes, once this thing penetrates the opponent's ship plank, it will cause much greater damage.

Therefore, this round of salvo caused even greater losses to the Americans. This round of shelling almost reduced the number of gunners on the lower gun deck of the "Constitution" by one-third.

But the morale of the Americans was not hit by this round of shelling, and the "Constitution" continued to approach, until it approached about 30 meters.

"Fire!" cried Captain Hull.

Many of the cannons on the two-story gun deck on the "Constitution" were damaged in the first two rounds of shelling. More importantly, the artillery crew suffered heavy losses, which made many cannons no longer under control. Of the twenty-three cannons, only eighteen were fired.

But Captain Hull believed that even with only eighteen guns, this round of shelling could deal a heavy blow to the French. Because at such a distance, it is almost impossible for them to miss.

But the reality gave them a heavy blow. Although no American was killed by this stick, it immediately knocked down the morale of the Americans—the shells fired by the Americans were all on the "Free Trade" It bounced back from the external hanging steel plate. He fell into the sea with a plop.

At such a short distance, it is impossible to penetrate the hull of the French warship. This is basically an announcement of shelling or something. It is useless. Their cannons cannot penetrate the hull of the French warship anyway.

"Lean in! Lean in! Prepare to jump ship!" Captain Hull roared. Since the artillery battle can't gain the upper hand, then the shipboarding battle is the only hope for a comeback-now the smoke from the chimneys of the French warships is getting thicker and thicker, and their steam engines will soon be available, escape It must be impossible to jump. Now, rush forward, let the fore-mast tangle with the hawsers on the other's fore-mast, and fight to the death in close hand-to-hand combat. This is indeed the only chance for the "Constitution" to win at this time.

In the ideal combat mode envisioned by the "Free Trade", it is necessary to avoid hand-to-hand combat as much as possible. This is also very normal, you can win by walking your dog and flying a kite, why do you have to fight on board?

But this does not mean that the "Free Trade" cannot fight boarding. Even for the boarding battle, the "Free Trade" has made some special preparations.

At the very beginning, someone suggested that it should be equipped with "Greek fire" at the bow and stern like the clipper ship. But everyone soon discovered that Greek fire equipped on battleships would be very dangerous in many cases. For example, when they were shot by grape bullets from opposing warships, those "Greek fires" might ignite their own ships.

So the proposal to equip the battleship with "Greek Fire" was rejected. But another proposal has been applied, that is, to equip warships with "broad swords" to deal with enemies who jump over.

So in many places of the Free Trade, such as the mast, small squares that "face the enemy" are hung, and the entire deck is covered by these "broad swords".

The "Constitution" went up, and the American troops on the "Constitution" rushed onto the deck of the "Free Trade" under the leadership of Captain Hull, who was waving a sharp sword.

Not a single Frenchman could be seen on deck. This made Captain Hull instinctively feel bad. But the current situation is already ready to ride a tiger - can it be possible to retreat like Sima Yi? Now I can only go one way to the dark, all the way to the end.

"Follow me!" Captain Hull shouted while waving his sharp sword, and led the soldiers to rush towards the poop, some of them even shot randomly towards the poop.

Just when Captain Hull and his men almost rushed to the poop, an explosion sounded on the deck of the "Free Trade". Countless iron beads swept across the entire deck like a storm. All the American soldiers who rushed onto the deck of the "Free Trade" were knocked to the ground.

The "Constitution" has a total of 400 crew members. In the previous artillery battle, they had already paid hundreds of casualties, and at this time, nearly a hundred people fell down on the deck of the Free Trade.

What's more terrible is that these nearly 100 people are almost the most combative personnel on the entire "Constitution". And the captain and first officer are among these people. Today's "Constitution" has nearly half of its casualties, and has lost its command. It can be said that it has become a complete mess.

At this time, the soldiers of the brigade rushed out from the various hatches on the deck. Armed with the latest revolvers or double-barreled shotguns, they killed the USS Constitution.

Now the remaining strength on the "Constitution" is no longer enough to resist the French attack, and soon, several of the most critical positions on the "Constitution" were controlled,

The Americans all retreated below the deck, while the French threw small melons directly from the hatch.

After a while of small melons, Americans shouted from below: "Don't lose it, we surrender!"

After the combatants took control of all the key positions on the entire ship, the battle damage figures of both sides were also counted. In this battle, the French army killed eleven people, all of whom died in the battle after boarding the "Constitution". Twenty-six people were injured, and most of them were injured in the battle after boarding the "Constitution". There was only one guy who fell on the deck on his side, and then his palm was thrown on the ground American bayonet cut.

The U.S. military killed 222 people, and most of the remaining 100 people were injured to varying degrees. Only two people were truly intact.

"Hey, Captain, it's a good win." After seeing the number, Victor congratulated Captain Zola.

"The main reason is that they misjudged our strength. Once this misjudgment occurs, they will have no way to turn back. In fact, I am thinking that the command of the American captain just now is actually not a big problem. And his decisiveness is also very admirable. If he hadn't met us, even if he met a first-class battleship like the Victory, his performance would have been much better." At this time, Zola began to die for the battle. The American captain sang praises.

But this is also normal. Generally speaking, it is always good to praise the enemy. If I lose the battle, it's not because I'm incompetent, but because the enemy is too powerful; What is there to be proud of?

"Is this ship okay?" Victor asked after looking at the captured "Constitution".

"This boat is very good. Although it suffered some damage in the battle, it will be a good boat after repairing it. Well, we are not far from Santo Domingo, and we can definitely sail this boat to Santo Domingo. Go to Domingo." Captain Zola said, "But we encountered an attack by an American warship here, and I think the situation in Santo Domingo may have changed. Mr. Treville, I don't know. Will these changes cause any trouble to your mission?"

"Ah," Victor said, "thank you for your concern. You are right, Santo Domingo has probably had some unfavorable changes. However, the reason why I came here is not to deal with such The situation? Besides, your victory today is really helpful to my mission. I believe that with your victory today and the sincerity for peace and development from France, Toussaint-Louis Governor Tour should be able to make a rational choice."