On the sea between the distant Beiyuan City and the Mirage Kingdom, there were also clouds of war.
Finally, with both sides willing to fight, and one not wanting to leave and the other wanting to come, the long-simmering Battle of the North Sea finally broke out.
The forces participating in the war were equally matched. The Mirage State used almost all of its wealth, and the Tang Navy also dispatched its main fleet.
Bernard has a total of three East Bay-class battleships, 45 cruisers and destroyers, with a total force of 48 battleships.
The Mirage fleet commanded by Kazuo Mirage has four battleships, 51 cruisers and destroyers, with a total strength of 55 ships.
Both of them know that what can really determine the outcome of a naval battle is the battleship in their hands! The remaining battleships were just used to add insult to injury after the battleships decided the winner, and could not influence the real battle situation.
Therefore, both sides unanimously set up a formation with the battleship leading the way, followed by the other battleships, at a distance of more than 30 kilometers.
Both sides are very cautious, because whether it is Bernard or Mirage, both of them clearly know that what they hold in their hands is the entire wealth of their respective country's navy.
Standing in his own bridge, Bernard nervously said nothing. He stared silently at the billowing black smoke on the horizon in the distance, without even blinking.
Mirage Kazuo on the other side was not much better either. He even subconsciously clenched both hands into fists in order to stop his hands from shaking.
"The enemy ship is 29 kilometers away! Go in the same direction as me!" An officer loudly reported the distance between the two sides.
The fleets of both sides were approaching, and the battle lines were roughly parallel. The Mirage Navy took the initiative to ask for a fight, so the Mirage Navy was getting closer to the Tang Navy fleet little by little.
"Keep the course!" Bernard didn't have any ideas. He decided to use his own advantages openly to win the naval battle.
He knew that his fleet had a higher speed, so he planned to concentrate his firepower on the battleship at the front of the enemy's fleet. After successfully inflicting heavy damage on his opponent, he seized the T-shaped advantageous position and used all his firepower to sink the enemy first. The ship gained the advantage.
At the same time, in the fleet of the Mirage Navy, Kazuo Mirage was sitting on the flagship, and he was also thinking about how to defeat the enemy.
As a naval veteran, Mirage Kazuo certainly already knew that the Tang Army's fleet was much faster than Mirage's fleet. If the other party hadn't asked for a fight, they could have distanced themselves and fled, without giving the Mirage Navy any chance.
However, the opponent did not retreat and escape, but instead formed a formation to prepare for a decisive battle. This shows that the opponent's commander has made up his mind and is ready to fight him here.
Mirage Kazuo knows that this is his only chance. If he wins here, the huge pressure on the route from Beiyuan City to Mirage Kingdom will be relieved. Their Mirage Kingdom may succeed Tang Kingdom and become the leader of the Endless Sea. The new overlord.
And he has at least several advantages: first, he has always been a naval admiral and has very rich experience in naval battles, which Bernard cannot match; second, he has a clear advantage in the number of battleships and the number of main guns. He also has more; thirdly, the destroyers purchased by the Mirage Navy from Cyric are slightly better than the reduced Fengshun-class destroyers. Overall, the Mirage Navy has certain advantages.
However, in the entire fleet, these advantages are not obvious, and it can even be said that they do not exist at all.
"The enemy ships have not changed their course! The distance between us and them is getting closer and closer." An officer of the Mirage Navy reported to the anxiously waiting Mirage Kazuo.
The warships of the Mirage Navy lack accurate ranging systems, so the naval officers of the Mirage Kingdom can only rely on imprecise estimates to speculate on the actual distance between the two sides.
Compared with the Mirage Navy, the commanders of the Tang Navy controlled distance more accurately. At almost the same time, an officer of the Tang Navy was also reporting the distance between the two sides: "The enemy ship is 27 kilometers away from our fleet!"
"It seems that they are thinking the same thing as us and are ready to solve the problem here." The adjutant said to Bernard, staring at the black smoke of the enemy fleet on the sea.
Bernard nodded, and then gave the order to turn the fleet: "Full left rudder! Correct the course to the west! Keep the distance!"
This sudden turn of command caused all the officers who were nervously preparing for a decisive battle to cast questioning glances.
After Bernard saw the enemy fleet, he had no intention of letting the opponent go. However, he has been hesitating about how to fight this naval battle.
Before that, he was preparing to have a head-on confrontation with the enemy ships. Battleships faced off against battleships in a fierce battle, relying on hard power to decide the outcome.
But just now, he seemed to have understood something: the side with the speed advantage in a naval battle obviously has the right to choose, the right to choose how to enter the battlefield!
His fleet has the advantage, so the opponent has no possibility of escaping. Therefore, after seeing the black smoke on the sea, he has been thinking about ways to achieve complete victory.
Just now, he thought of a good idea: since the other party is also here to fight, he will not run away easily.
He can completely rely on his advantageous speed to change the head-on approach of traveling in the same direction with the opponent, and adopt a more secure attitude of traveling in the same direction and biting each other's tails to start a decisive battle.
In this way, the destroyers and cruisers in the rear can use their speed advantage to get rid of the enemy's battleships. However, our own battleships can use their speed advantage to bite the enemy's small ships and hammer them hard.
After getting rid of those Mirage destroyers and cruisers, wouldn't it be safer to go back to the Mirage battleships?
Bernard understood that Tang Mo's decision to hand over all of the navy's assets to him was a sign of trust in him, and that war is not about fighting bravely. Only by adopting the most reasonable tactics to preserve oneself and at the same time causing the greatest damage to the enemy can one It is the most reasonable tactical choice for the commander.
"Left full rudder! Turn! Reform!" The adjutant immediately conveyed Bernard's order, and Datang's fleet began to turn specifically. The originally neat battle line suddenly became chaotic.
If the fleet turns collectively, the formation will become a state with destroyers in front and battleships behind. This is obviously not what Bernard wants, so after the turn, the entire fleet still needs to adjust, eventually forming an overall U-turn and the formation remains unchanged.
On the other side, Mirage Kazuo, who was getting closer to the Tang fleet, was slightly startled when he saw the chaos of the Tang fleet, and then a bad premonition came into his heart.
"Isn't the other party trying to escape?" This was the first thought in his mind, and this was what he was most worried about.
He almost never thought about the possibility that the other party could defeat him, so the worst-case scenario he imagined was that the Tang Army fleet would escape and then continue to use its speed advantage to attack the Mirage Kingdom's transportation lines.
That would bring endless trouble to Mirage's maritime transportation, which was the last thing Mirage's navy wanted to see.
However, he quickly ruled out this possibility in his mind. The opponent's navy had the speed advantage but stayed behind to deliberately contact the main fleet of the Mirage Navy. This was obviously a sign of the same intention to fight.
Mirage Kazuo did not think that the naval commander of the Tang Dynasty would suddenly back down from the battle, change his mind and run away. If the opponent was really as timid as a mouse, he would not have made the decision to engage the enemy in a decisive battle before.
Since the opponent is not trying to run away, the worst case scenario arises: the enemy fleet wants to use its speed advantage to bite the tail of the mirage fleet.
"Innocent!" Mirage Yinan snorted coldly, and also began to order a change of formation. The Mirage fleet began to sweep out a circle with the first four battleships as the center and the battle line of the entire fleet as the radius, sweeping out to the north.
To put it figuratively, the Mirage fleet is playing a game of eagle and chicken with the Tang Kingdom fleet: the four battleships are like old hens blocking the front, and the small battleships behind them are all protected behind the battleships.
Because the speed of these small boats was relatively high and they were traveling closer to the inner circle, it was almost impossible for Tang Jun to catch up with these boats.
When Bernard completed the turn of the fleet, prepared to organize the attack again, and moved closer to the Mirage Navy fleet, they found that the Mirage Fleet was drawing a giant Tai Chi diagram with them.
The two sides were originally in a parallel state, but now with their respective battleships as the center of the circle, they were mixed together to form a large circle that kept rotating toward the center.
It was obvious that such a formation was too chaotic and not suitable for both sides to use in a decisive battle, so the Tang fleet changed its course again, stretched out the formation, and prepared to go across and seize the "T" prefix of the Mirage fleet.
But then the Mirage fleet expanded its formation along the Tang battleships, continuing to maintain the parallel positions of both sides.
As a result, after an hour of commotion, the two sides returned to parallel formations traveling in the same direction, except that the original two parallel lines running east and west became two parallel lines running north and south.
Obviously, Bernard, who has average experience, cannot take advantage of the experienced Mirage Kazuo in naval battle tactics.
Even with his rich experience in naval battles, Kazuo Mirage relied on his understanding of naval battles to make up for the disadvantages in fleet equipment and technology, and maintained the evenly matched situation until the end.
After a battle, the actual distance between the two sides has been shortened to 17 kilometers, and until now, the two sides have not fired at each other.
The Tang Army was preparing to fire the first round of shooting at a more confident distance, and correct its trajectory based on this round of shelling.
The Mirage side is in embarrassment. They simply do not have the ability to fire at this distance. They have to continue to shorten the distance in order to improve the accuracy of their own artillery shells.
