Munitions Empire

Chapter 269: 265, a shell

The cannon fuses of the Great Tang Group were far superior to any other shrapnel fuses of the era, with precision that made them appear completely out of place in their time.

Although the yield rate of the shells wasn't particularly high due to the precision processing, it was leagues ahead of the shrapnel that Shireck had just begun to mass-produce.

Even more, these fuses had a safety mechanism that was completely separate from the shell, to be installed only at the time of firing.

When the soldiers used a special tool to twist the safety on the shell and put it in a fully activated state, the enemy's nightmare seemed to begin.

This shell was then loaded into the cannon, followed by the propellant, and then the breech was tightly sealed.

The brand new breech, an improvement over the C64's wedge breech by a generation, opted for a threaded style more appropriate for large-caliber artillery. This was better suited for naval guns and also increased the rate of fire.

After the breech was rotated and locked into place, the gun captain pulled the firing mechanism of the artillery eagerly, and the rear of the cannon jolted backward, the intense cannon sound reaching everyone's ears through the steel plates.

Despite wearing special earplugs, the sound was still earth-shattering. Some covered their ears, others turned their backs to the cannon, all trying desperately to relieve the pressure on their ears.

The shell's propellant was ignited by the cannon's fuse, and the powder aggressively became flame inside the chamber. The gas expanded instantly, embedding the slightly oversized shell into the rotating threads, as it spun rapidly forward.

As the shell spiraled down the barrel, the immense force deformed the surrounding metal by the rifling, accelerating violently inside the barrel, before suddenly breaking free at the muzzle.

In that instant, without the rifling forcing it to keep spinning, the air friction dropped and its speed suddenly leapt to hundreds of meters a second.

The surrounding air was blasted away by the shockwave, flames from within the barrel surged out the muzzle, wreaking havoc around the artillery.

The next second, the shell, having broken the sound barrier, sped over a distance of more than 700 meters in just over a second, precisely hitting a sail warship that was firing.

The shell's casing, glowing red-hot from friction with the air, kept rotating slowly, maintaining an extremely stable trajectory.

When the shell struck the relatively soft wooden hull, its fuse was activated upon impact, igniting the detonator inside.

The detonator exploded immediately, igniting the shell's internal charge. The fire instantly filled the shell, causing the air inside to expand dozens of times over.

The shell's casing, already red-hot from the heat of friction, shattered under the burden, releasing itself and cutting through everything it encountered.

The shrapnel destroyed the surrounding wooden compartments, severed hammock ropes, and penetrated bodies soft as tofu, snapping bones more fragile than bamboo.

The shockwave spread, mangling and tearing everything nearby, as if a gale were slicing through corpses and the ship's sturdy structure with ease.

The improvements to the fuse slightly delayed the detonation, greatly enhancing the destructive power upon hitting the wooden sail warship.

As the explosion spread, reaching further areas, the part hit by the shell was already a total mess.

They saw, a few hundred meters away, a warship billowing thick smoke cut through the waves without sparing them a glance, as it followed in the wake of another identical warship ahead.

From the beginning to the end, the capsized sail warship had only been hit by two shots, one of which was the pitiable 75mm caliber C64 antique ship cannon...

But now it had capsized entirely and would soon sink into the ocean depths. It hadn't even fired once, because the enemy ship was still 800 meters out when they were hit.

Bernard had no intention of sparing any of Taren Kingdom's warships, so after crushing twenty-one warships on one side of the "Ba" formation, he ordered the fleet to speed up and make a wide circle along their course.

The fully heated boilers could now operate at full capacity, pushing the entire Great Tang Group's fleet speed to 30 kilometers per hour.

This speed dwarfed that of all fleets of the era, so after the Great Tang Group's fleet made a wide circle, they overtook the enemy's other fleet side, which was slowly turning around.

In other words, when Valen's fleet was maneuvered into the complex "vertical hook" formation, the Great Tang Group's fleet caught up to them from the outside.

The positions of both fleets had turned into an interesting "子" shape, only the left stroke of the "子" was a bit short.

While cutting in, the Great Tang Group's fleet turned its guns, aiming all turrets toward the other side.

After all, they had initially faced the enemy with their starboard side and now had switched to engaging on their port side. This change allowed the other side's gun positions of all warships to join the battle.

Because Bernard's fleet was moving so quickly and from the outside, Valen, who was in the middle of turning his fleet, still was unable to get a full view of the Great Tang Group's fleet.

He could only see the black smoke lingering on the sea and the remnants of his sub-fleets scattered across the battlefield.

Valen couldn't understand why he had fallen into such a passive situation when he clearly had an absolute advantage in numbers.

He brought 70 first-rate sail warships, which were the absolute dominators of the seas just a year ago.

Each warship bore dozens of expensive muzzle-loading cannons, and each could accommodate hundreds of brave and skilled soldiers.

Yet now, he stood on his flagship unable to see what his enemy even looked like.

More than fifty warships lay across the sea's surface, his being in a position towards the front of the fleet's arrangement. This position now had no view of the tail end of his own battle line; he could only watch helplessly as chaos spread within his fleet.

As a naval general, he did not consider himself a fool. He had led troops for many years and achieved many sea battle victories.

Before today, he was extremely confident, even somewhat arrogant, and even believed himself to be the best naval commander—without peers!

He knew he couldn't issue complex commands frequently during battle, as the limitations on communications meant he couldn't coordinate the entire fleet in a timely manner.

However, the overwhelming strength beyond his comprehension forced him to abandon the pre-arranged plans and to change his deployment on the fly during the battle.

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