Fox of France

The thick plume of smoke made the Americans and the British discover the "Free Trade" first. After all, as long as the steam engine is started, this feature is difficult to conceal. This was especially true when warships were still using coal as fuel for their boilers.

In later generations, when the steam engines on warships gradually switched to burning heavy oil, because when the heavy oil was completely burned, the smoke produced was much smaller, and it was easy to spread in the air. A little farther away, basically nothing can be seen. (Of course, when the steam turbine is just started, no matter which country's ship, there will be black smoke billowing for a while)

But burning coal is different, especially when it is bituminous coal. That is naturally thick smoke. As for why anthracite is not used, well, after all, the coal mines in Europe generally do not have a particularly high degree of coalification, and there is quite little anthracite. In addition, the design of the boilers of this era also has many unreasonable places, and in many cases the fuel cannot be fully burned. Some compare. Even with a telescope on the International Space Station, you might be able to see it.

The thick smoke allowed the Americans and the British to successfully discover the enemy first, but in this era, the discovery of the enemy first does not necessarily bring the advantage of attacking the enemy first, at most it allows the Americans and the British to launch the first attack. formation.

About half an hour later, the "Free Trade" really appeared in the sight of the US-British combined fleet. Of course, at this time, the "Free Trade" had also spotted the fleet holding the American flag in front of it.

Just as the Americans expected, the "Constitution" at this time, due to the shortage of sailors, is just an empty shell with sailing capabilities but no combat effectiveness at all. Although there are still dozens of cannons on it, because there is no gunner on board, at least for now, those cannons are basically decorations.

In addition to the lack of gunners, there is also a lack of soldiers on this ship. There are only barely enough sailors on the entire ship to operate the sails. Therefore, if the enemy really approached and jumped over a few soldiers, the only way for the ship to go was to surrender immediately.

Therefore, in this battle, the "Constitution" is not a help, but a burden.

So after discovering the intercepting fleet, the "Constitution" immediately began to turn, trying to withdraw from the battlefield, while the "Free Trade" began to accelerate and rushed towards the enemy fleet to cover the escape of the "Constitution".

In the authentic U.S. fleet, there are two "super frigates" like the "Constitution" and a brigantine gunboat.

These three ships are all ships with good speed. Although the speed of the small two-masted gunboat is slightly slower than the "Constitution" in theory, the Americans also took some measures when they came out to intercept the mission. , to increase the speed of the ship, for example, they removed most of the cannons from the ship to reduce the weight of the ship. Anyway, the combat effectiveness of this ship is not to be expected, and now they can only hope that the information they got from those black people that there is no gunner on the current "Constitution" is reliable.

According to the pre-war concept, the British were responsible for holding down the French fleet in the port of New Orleans. Then the two super cruisers of the U.S. Army dragged the French steamer, and the lightened version of the small gunboat had a chance to catch up with the "Constitution" and take it back.

But soon the Americans discovered that there seemed to be some problems with their assumptions. The first problem was that the steamboat was really fast.

The wind was not strong on this day, so even the two supercruisers "USA" and "Capitol" could only run at a speed of 8-9 knots. Although the nominal top speed of these two boats is as high as 13 knots, the top speed of the sailing boat depends on the right time, place and people. So just look at the number of the highest speed. Most of the time, she can't run at such a speed.

But the "Free Trade" is different. Her top speed can reach 14 knots, so in most cases, she can really run to 14 knots.

The "Free Trade" first rushed straight and straight towards the "USA" running in the forefront. If neither side changes course, the two sides may pass by each other.

The USS America first began to turn left to the USS Free Trade in an attempt to take position T. But when it was about to successfully occupy the T position, the "Free Trade" suddenly made a sharp turn to the right. The ship shape of the "Free Trade" and her large stabilizer fins should have made the ship's steering performance relatively poor. In fact, in the sail state, it is true. But at this time, she was in a state of complete steam power, and the abundant power made her less need to consider the speed loss caused by turning, so the agility of this turning far exceeded that of a sailing warship.

The result of these two turns is naturally that the two sides pass by each other in a parallel manner. When the two sides intersected, the distance was only about two hundred meters. In naval battles, generally speaking, with such a long distance and staggered passing, the shooting window time is also very limited. Shooting under such circumstances will probably not hit anything. But the "Free Trade" fired a round of salvos in this stagger.

Only one of the nine shells hit. But this shell easily penetrated the solid ship plank that the "USA" is proud of. This armor-piercing anti-personnel shell immediately set off a rain of blood in the gun bay of the "USA". Five or six gunners were hit by fragments scattered by the shell, and they immediately saw God.

And because it was not sure to hit the opponent under such conditions, the "USA" did not fire back.

The "Congress", which originally followed the "USA", naturally failed to get a chance to fire.

After the "Free Trade" crossed the "USA", it continued to turn at a large angle, and the track she pulled directly spread a big pie on the sea.

This kind of steering is almost unimaginable for a sailing boat with limited power and greatly restricted by the wind direction. So when Colonel Will, the captain of the "Congress" following the "USA", saw the big turn of the "Free Trade", he shouted in surprise: "God, she can turn like this!"

After completing the turn, the "Free Trade" occupied seven points of the tail of the two US warships, and then accelerated to catch up.

After seeing the big turnaround of the "Free Trade", whether it is Colonel Matthews or Colonel Will, they no longer have any hope of occupying the T position of the "Free Trade" by relying on speed and maneuvering . Instead, they had to work hard at this time to prevent the "Free Trade" from easily occupying their T position.

So the Americans began to adjust the formation, changing the formation of two warships one behind the other into two warships to keep the distance, a nearly parallel horizontal formation.

The horizontal team is actually very inconvenient, whether it is turning or observing, it will be interfered by its own friendly ships. But it also brings a benefit, that is, when the enemy ship tries to pass through the bow of the first our warship and occupy the T position, he will also send himself to the T position of the second our warship go up.

But today's "Free Trade" has no intention of competing with the Americans for T. Considering that American artillery fire cannot pose a real threat to the "Free Trade" at all, sailing in parallel with them for a long-term sustainable output of firepower is the most efficient way of combat.

So the "Free Trade" chased up straight from behind. She first approached the "Congress" from the starboard side, and fired a salvo at the "Congress" at a distance of 100 meters.

Because the two sides were heading in the same direction at this time, the effect of this round of salvo was quite good. Of the 9 shells fired, seven hit the target. And these seven shells all penetrated the side plate of the "Congress". In front of the brand-new rear-mounted rifled steel guns, the solid ship plate that the American super frigate was originally proud of was as fragile as an egg shell Same.

The "Capitol" also immediately fired back. Although the hit rate of its cannons is not as good as that of the "Free Trade", it is better because she has more cannons, so she even has more shells hitting the opponent.

But these shells, whether they were fired from a 24-pound gun or an 18-pound gun, were all bounced back by the "Free Trade" covered with steel plates without exception. None of the shells managed to penetrate the Free Trade's decking.

"Hurry up, load the shells! We are getting closer, this time we must give them a good look!" Colonel Will shouted. Since at a distance of about 100 meters, their cannons can't penetrate the opponent's ship plank, let's try to get closer.

"I don't believe it, their ship planks are still made of steel?"

However, it is not easy to get close to the past, because you can move, and others will also move. The "Congress" began to turn to the starboard direction, so the "Free Trade" also began to turn to the right, and continued to actively keep a distance from the "Congress". At the same time another round of salvo was fired.

Relying on the advantage of the breech-loading gun in the rate of fire, the "Free Trade" fired three more salvos, and the "Congress" barely made a counterattack that was also fruitless. Moreover, in this counterattack, their firepower density has dropped significantly—the several rounds of volleys fired by the "Free Trade" just now caused huge damage to the gunners of the "Congress", so that many cannons were fired because they did not The gunner was unable to continue firing.

At this time, it was found that the wrong "USS America" ​​began to approach the "USS Free Trade" from the left. If the "USS Free Trade" did not give up its attack on the "USS Congress", it would fall into the "USS" and "USS Congress". Number" in the pincer attack.

Farther away, the British commander Lieutenant Colonel Wayne watched the battle carefully with a telescope. After watching several rounds of shooting from both sides, he directed the binoculars in his hand and ordered: "Full sail, speed up, let's go back."