Fox of France

After receiving a sudden blow, the Turkish squadron immediately lost the courage to move on, turned around and began to move away from the Tripoli Fort. In the process, two more ships were hit by the battery, but the damage from the solid shells was not that great.

This tentative attack was over. After the Turks' offensive ended, the Barbary pirates became active again. They actually had two ships leave the port, and just outside the port, they began to throw things like large drums into the sea.

"The pirates are laying mines! Sir, should we stop them?" Major Kohler hurriedly said.

"What did we promise? Tomorrow is the agreed deadline?" asked Admiral Treville.

"Yes, Admiral, but they are actively threatening our freedom of navigation." Major Kohler replied.

"Ah, so we're fighting back in self-defense?"

"Yes, Your Excellency. I'm quite sure."

"That's good! Since they took the initiative to threaten us, then we should fight back without hesitation, and never give the enemy a second chance..."

So several warships in the French fleet equipped with new artillery, the battleship "Imberado", "Caesar", the armored cruiser "Free Trade", and the "Common Market" lined up. They all began to rotate, and the barrels were pointed at the target.

"The ships aim at the target and open fire freely." Admiral Treville issued an order, so the four latest warships opened fire one after another. At this time, the distance between the French warship and the mine-laying ships of the Barbary pirates was still quite far, about a full 1.5 kilometers.

In the past, even on land, shelling at such a distance would have been difficult to hit. Let alone at sea? But the effect of this round of shooting has greatly exceeded everyone's expectations. Although the first round of salvo failed to hit even a shell. But judging from the impact point of the shells, the nearest impact point and the pirates' ships are no more than tens of meters away.

According to the landing point observed by the observation post, the French fleet quickly adjusted and fired another round of salvo. This round of salvo still failed to achieve a hit, but the result of the shooting made Admiral Treville very happy. Because the observation post clearly saw that a straddle shot was formed in this round of salvo.

The so-called straddle fire refers to the fact that although the shells fired by a salvo of warships failed to directly hit the enemy ship, the range of their impact surrounded the enemy ship. To put it more vividly, there are shells falling from the front, back, left, and right sides of the enemy ship. This also means that the various data of the shelling side are all correct. hit.

This round of straddle shots also terrified those Barbary pirates. They never thought that at such a long distance, the French cannonballs could still hit so accurately, and the water column stirred up by the cannonball just now splashed on the deck.

"Quick, throw those mines down!" Captain Ali shouted.

A few blacks dragged a small cart of mines, and they went to the stern of the ship. There they pushed the cart up a chute at the stern. A black sailor took out a knife and was about to cut the rope on the mine—so that the car, the anchor chain, etc. could be separated from the body of the mine, and the mine could work normally and effectively. But at this moment, a shell fell on the shell of the ship, and the splashed sea water fell on the deck at once, and a black man who controlled the car slipped under his feet, so the mine that had not been cut off the rope carried it with it. The car slid down the slide.

"Damn it, you idiot! You wasted a precious sea mine, do you know how expensive it is!" Captain Ali rushed over with his whip, ready to teach these stupid blacks a lesson. But at this moment his ship shook violently, and at the same time a loud noise came to his ears-his ship was hit by a shell.

"Quick, retreat quickly!" Captain Ali didn't care about whipping those blacks anymore. There were still a few mines on his boat that he hadn't had time to drop. If these things were hit by shells, it would be really...

The brig made an awkward turn to return to port when French shells rained down.

"The true God is great, and Maimaiti is the messenger of the true God..." Ali quickly prayed to the true God while operating the steering wheel and making irregular turns to avoid the shelling.

It should be said that the true god seemed to have blessed him, so since then, the French's shelling has always been a little bit behind his ship. Several times the shells fell not far from the ship, and the splashed seawater even poured over his head, but it missed his ship.

"God, please land your thunder on those rebels!" Seeing that the French had already opened fire, but the pirate ship always avoided the shells like a miracle, Tayip Pasha couldn't help it. Pray so devoutly to the true God.

By this time Captain Ali's brig was approaching the port. And the French didn't seem to catch up anymore, and they must sink it. They fired a final salvo at a great distance, and then—then the brig boomed to pieces right in front of Tayyip Pasha—a shell apparently hit the ship and detonated a mine.

"The true God is great! The true God is great!" Tayyip Pasha cheered, and the Turkish soldiers around him also cheered. If Joseph sees this scene, he will definitely feel familiar. The only difference is that two things are missing. One is an AK-47, and the other is a Toyota pickup.

This day's battle came to an end, the French did not take any further actions, and the Turks, after losing a warship, did not intend to continue their offensive, and it was getting late , the sun gradually sank below the sea level. So that was the end of the day's combat operations, it seemed.

In fact, the military operations of this day did not end. That night, several small boats were drawn out from the Turkish fleet. These small boats contained the bravest warriors, and they were ordered to go ashore first, sneak into the port, and serve as internal responses when the army landed.

And on the same night, the Barbary pirates also organized a night raid team consisting of sloops loaded with explosives, intending to attack the Turkish fleet. As for why the French fleet was not attacked, the reason is very simple, because the French ships are moving too fast, and they have no chance to go up.

However, the situation that night was not suitable for launching such an attack, because the night was very dark and the visibility at sea was quite good, so the night attack fleet was discovered before it approached. Then the Turks drove the sloops back with a round of artillery fire.

Of course, neither the Turks nor the French attempted to pursue the pirates. Because everyone knows that these pirates are very bad. Their ships have a shallow draft and cannot hit the anchor mines hidden in the sea, but if you chase after them foolishly, there may be a bang...

Of course, that night, the Barbary pirates came out to mine again. The French didn't care too much, though, because as far as they knew, the British sold a limited number of mines to the Barbary pirates, definitely far fewer ships than the Turks - so, what's there to worry about? Besides, anchor mines, especially in this era, actually have many restrictions, and it's not really that there is no way to deal with them.

Early the next morning, when the sun once again dyed the sea red, the French ultimatum to the Barbary pirates expired. Now, the war can officially begin.

According to the plan reached by the two sides at the combat meeting last night, the French navy will first strike the forts in Tripoli today, while the Turkish fleet first needs to wait patiently until the tide rises at noon. According to the French, the British mines rely on a fixed-length anchor chain to control their depth in the water. The length of this anchor chain is fixed, so when the tide is high, the mines will appear a little too deep to touch the bottom of the ship. Therefore, it is relatively safe for the Turkish fleet to rush up at this time.

Of course, this is just the conjecture of the French. No one can say for sure what the actual situation is, isn't it? However, Tayip Pasha still believed in the French very much-he needed merit, as for how many people died, it was not a big problem.

At about eight o'clock in the morning, the visibility at sea was quite good. Four new French warships lined up in a column and launched shelling on the Tripoli Fort from a distance of about four kilometers from the Tripoli Fort.

In this age, no warship other than the French could bombard targets ashore at such a distance. Even in France, because the artillery stabilization system is not mature, this distance is almost the distance at which they can guarantee a little bit of shelling accuracy.

But this time, the French Navy still came up with something good, and that was high-explosive bombs. Although the effectiveness of the fuze of this kind of projectile is still a problem until now, it is even less than 60%, and it has not yet been mass-produced and can only be produced in the laboratory. There is a revolutionary progress in power. The entire French fleet carried more than eighty such shells, and the French used this new type of shell in this bombardment.

At the time, because there had never been a high-explosive bomb before. So most of the cannons on the fort at that time were placed in the open air, and at most a few pieces of cloth were propped on them as sunshades.

If you don't consider the threat of high-explosive bombs falling from the sky, in fact, there is nothing wrong with the design of adding a sunshade on top of the cannon. Especially in this day and age when it was nearly impossible for a naval cannon to accurately hit another cannon. Naturally, there is no need to add a thick concrete cover to the cannon like the forts of later generations, which can withstand direct hits from tall cabinets. In the era when there were no high-explosive bombs, it was a waste of money to add such a cover to the fort.

But in the era of high-explosive bombs, such an open-air fort that can be clearly seen by warships at sea is no longer safe. The French fired twenty rounds into the turrets in the first round. Except for those that were shot crookedly and those that were not bombed, there were still seven shells that exploded on the fort.

A 150mm cannon's high explosive shell is so powerful that when it explodes (if it can explode at all), it can produce thousands of shrapnel, which can still be easily torn apart after flying forty or fifty meters human body. So these shells wiped out all the soldiers on the fort, including Commander Barbary who was directing the battle, more than a hundred people, none of them survived the shelling.

On the other hand, the air waves from the high-explosive bombs even knocked the cannons on the fort to the ground. It can be said that after such a round of shelling, the Tripoli Fort has completely lost its threat in a short period of time.

After this round of bombardment, the French fleet stopped firing. After all, the cost of high-explosive bombs was too high, and the price was too expensive—at least much more expensive than Turkish soldiers—so save if you can.

After the French bombardment was completed, the tide gradually rose, and the Turks' warships began to ride the tide and approach the port. Sure enough, as the French expected, the British's anchor mines did not have the function of automatically adjusting the depth. When the tide was high, none of them sounded because the depth was too deep.

When the mines did not sound and the turret was suppressed, the Turk fleet quickly approached the port and lowered the sampan. Some Turkish soldiers boarded the boat with various weapons and paddled towards the port pier. cross out.

The Barbary pirates were not vegetarians either. Although the shelling by the French had caused them heavy losses, and the mines bought at a high price from the British were not as useful today as they were yesterday, their resistance was still very resolute.

In addition to buying some mines from the British, the Barbary pirates also bought a lot of cheap iron guns. The performance of these guns is not very good, so they are not eligible to be placed on the fort. (It can’t be put on the fort either) So the Barbary pirates put these things directly on the pier and hid them in those dilapidated houses. When the Turks approached with small boats, they used these old-fashioned cannons, Shotgun gave the Turk a dick hard.

The continuous firing of more than 30 old-fashioned iron cannons beat the Turkish soldiers who were still on the boat with nowhere to escape until blood flowed into rivers. Those Turkish warships came up to support their own soldiers with artillery. The Barbary pirates also replaced their iron cannons with solid shells to bombard the Turkish warships.

If the shells fired from such old-fashioned iron guns hit the new French warships, they would only hear a sound. But when it hit the Turks' warships full of history, the effect was very obvious. In less than an hour of fighting, two Turkish warships were sunk, and six or seven warships were damaged to varying degrees.

Some Turkish soldiers got ashore by chance, but they immediately fell into the shooting of pirates hiding in various houses and armed with various guns, causing heavy casualties.

Time passed and the tide began to fall, but the Turks made little progress. Once the tide level drops to a certain level, those mines will be useful again. In order to avoid the loss of warships due to mines, the Turks had to withdraw from the battle.