Chapter 350 – Lining up to be shot at sea 1

Chapter 350 – Lining Up to Shoot at Sea 1
The twelve battleships formed a long column, silently sailing towards the southern waters under the leadership of the flagship Unicorn.

The fleet wasn’t just sailing, one roar after another rang out one after another, this was the ship’s artillery conducting firing training.

In order to maximize the simulation of the battlefield environment, the firing training was conducted with live ammunition for the past two days, and the entire fleet was sailing in a shroud of smoke.

The fleet commander Tirpitz stood at the bow of the Unicorn, he leaned against the railing and held a pipe in his hand, gazing at the sea ahead without a word.

According to the interrogation of the pirate captives, the pirates entrenched in West Harbor had started out with more than 60 ships, though they would send at least 20 to carry the plundered supplies.

There were still nearly 40 warships left, could the fleet led by himself cope with it?
This was the first time Alda’s military power had been shown to the world outside the Northwest Gulf, and the partner was still the Royal Government’s army. If he messed up, wouldn’t he be degrading Lord Gleeman’s name?
Once it failed, it would lead to many serious consequences.

Externally, the rest of the kingdom had always treated the Northwest Gulf with disdain, and failure would exacerbate that disdain.

This was nothing, that stereotype wasn’t a day or two old anyway, but it was mainly the trouble within the Northwest Bay – failure would deal a major blow to Lord Gleeman’s prestige among the lords, and Alda’s hard-won position in the War of the Troglodytes might be lost.

Despite being a soldier, Tirbitz was not ignorant of the current political situation in the Northwest.

The lords are in the process of building an organization called the Customs Union, and since it’s an alliance, there has to be a boss, or de facto dominator. Though the alliance was proposed by Alda, the dominant seat is not necessarily Alda’s turn, and every powerful lord (or one who considers himself a powerful lord) is moving in.

Alda desperately needed to raise his political prestige again, and military victories were often the most direct.

He glanced at the sailors on deck, who were nervously drilling the loading steps, and remembered the words that Admiral Austin often used to encourage his men.

“We are the most powerful and efficient killing machines of our time!”

Equipped with epoch-making powerful weapons, the power of which was comparable to the legendary artifacts, the well-organized and well-defined officers and men trained day in and day out, mastering and becoming proficient in every step of operating the “artifacts”, so that once they encountered the enemy, they could pour out the fire of death to the opposite side in a step-by-step manner.

Good food to ensure their strong body, strict discipline gave them a tough soul, adequate pay to maintain their high morale, generous pensions to eliminate their worries.

What other army in the world can do better?

“We are the strongest!”

Tirpitz murmured these words again and again in his mind.

“Commander Tirbitz!”

A slightly childish shout interrupted his thoughts.

Tirbitz turned around, his eyes moving down to see the young officer candidate.

“Mr. Allen!”

Tirbits addressed the other man with a grin on his face in the manner of addressing an adult.

“Reporting to the Commander, today’s tactical firing training in the line has been completed!”

Officer Candidate Allen reported loudly to the fleet commander in a serious tone. Although the old ships such as the Southern had stayed in Fullan Harbor due to the need for repairs, the Officer Candidates on these ships had been arranged to accompany the training in the southbound fleet, the Navy would not let go of any opportunity for actual combat in order to train the next generation of qualified officers.

“Well, hard work. Let the artillery rest, we’re likely to encounter fierce battles today.”

“Yes, Commander!”

“Ah, yes, Mr. Allen …… “Is there anything else, Commander?”

Tirbitz called out to the young officer candidate.

“Once the battle begins, you will follow the gunnery officer on the lower deck of the Unicorn and be at his disposal.”

With a small child’s body, it was easy to maneuver through the low cabin, perfect for passing messages and orders.

“Aye, Commander!”

Alan saluted and left with an excited look on his face.

“This is still the first time the line column tactic is going to be utilized in actual combat, I wonder how effective it will be.”

The Navy’s line column tactics came from the Army’s line column infantry tactics.

The Army’s Line Infantry Tactics were invented by Lord Greiman, and combined with his invention of muskets and artillery, they played a huge role in a series of wars that Arda was involved in.

In every battle, Alda soldiers holding muskets and neatly lined up in row after row became a lingering nightmare for the enemy soldiers.

They marched to the beat of the drums, and at the command of the officer, they fired in unison, efficiently harvesting the lives of the enemy.

After the great success of the army, Lord Greiman ordered the naval officers to study the application of the line tactics to naval battles.

Due to the invention of epochal new weapons and tactics, Paul Gleiman was considered in the army as a born knower who was favored by the Lord of Light, otherwise how to explain that he led so many successes without a systematic military education?
The naval hierarchy, which had a mesmerizing trust in the Lord of Lords, immediately set to work on the application of the Line Tactics to the sea.

Thus, the navy changed the way warships fought individually in their daily training, and emphasized the “whole” instead.

Due to the narrowness of the bow and stern of the sailing ships at this time, only a few light guns could be mounted, and the main guns were mounted on both sides of the battleships, lined up perpendicular to the keel of the ship, so the specific tactics were as follows: each ship used its own guns to fight with its own guns.
Therefore, the specific tactics are: each ship with the side of the enemy, lined up in a long line with the head and tail, in order to facilitate the fleet to carry out the firepower, so that half of the guns of each battleship can shoot at the enemy.

Admiralty issued the “sea battle order” clearly the column as the standard naval combat formation: “all warships of each sub-fleet must endeavor to maintain a line of formation with their sub-lieutenants forward ……”.

According to this order of battle, if a captain left the line formation without authorization during combat, he could be court-martialed afterward – even if he achieved greater results.

The new tactics also made up for another shortcoming of the Arda Navy: regardless of any, they were a young, recently formed army, and the soldiers’ ability to fight at sea was indeed vastly inferior to those of the traditional maritime powers – such as the Horned Bay States, for example. Traditional naval battle tactics, such as gangway battles, could not be matched by the Alda Navy against an enemy in a situation of similar strength.

Therefore, how to utilize their range advantage and firepower advantage to the extreme, killing a large number of the other side’s vital forces before the enemy could close in to initiate a gang jump, and inflicting an indelible blow to their morale, became the navy’s top priority when researching new tactics.

(End of chapter)