Tangier, this place has a long history. It is said that the Phoenicians established a city here in the sixth century BC, and it was already an important trading city at that time.
Later, it was occupied by many countries in turn, including the ancient Romans, Byzantines, and Arabs. In the 15th century, the Portuguese took over the city from the Arabs and ran it until a few years ago.
A few years ago, the Spanish took this city again from the Portuguese!
For more than two thousand years, many rulers have successively controlled it, allowing the city to incorporate a variety of architectural styles and customs.
The reason why this city changes owners every once in a while and continues to be raging is because of its very critical geographical location, located on the Pacific coast at the southern end of the Strait of Gibraltar.
It is only about thirty kilometers away from Europe, that is, Spain in the north of the Strait of Gibraltar, and only more than ninety kilometers away from Cadiz, the important trading port city of the Spanish on the Atlantic coast.
Of course, more importantly, this place can easily control the Strait of Gibraltar. Controlling these and a powerful navy can basically control the Strait of Gibraltar.
Coupled with the local climate being pleasant and suitable for living, it will naturally attract the attention of many countries.
In the past, it was the locals in Europe and North Africa who snatched it away, but now, it is the turn of the Chu Empire.
The vanguard fleet of the Great Chu Empire's European expedition fleet, after traveling north to the Strait of Gibraltar and wandering around for a while, directly chose this place to stay.
Whether a large military base or trading port will be built here in the future is another matter, but it is very reliable to take it first and use it as a foothold.
Ever since, this Chu fleet, consisting of several warships and transport ships, decided to land here.
As for the Spanish in the city?
I'm sorry that I was directly ignored by the Chu people.
Even before landing, the Chu expedition fleet did not send anyone to inquire about the situation in the city. They had no idea that the city had been occupied by the Spanish for several years.
Several main officers in the expeditionary fleet thought this place belonged to Morocco.
Then the Spanish garrison in Tangier was dumbfounded.
What's going on?
Why did these Chu people land directly without making any noise?
It seems that they have not offended these Chu people recently, and there has been no conflict between the two families. Even when the Chu people swept across West Africa and occupied the port city of Tarfaya in southern Morocco, the Spaniards even sent envoys out Woolen cloth.
When the envoy passed by, he only cautiously asked them why the Chu people came to Europe. As for resisting the Chu people's invasion of West Africa and their invasion of Morocco?
They didn't dare mention a word.
Unlike some European countries that do not know the world situation, the Spaniards have traveled all over the world and have a clear understanding of the world situation. They are very aware of the power of the Chu people.
They will not offend the Chu people for nothing. Even if the Chu people bully their superiors, they will actually tolerate it most of the time. For example, in recent years, the Chu people have frequently invaded the Mexican areas controlled by the troupes in North America, and even brought down their subordinates. The entire California peninsula was occupied, and then they continued to march into Mexico, occupying large areas.
But although the Spaniards expressed a lot of protest, they occasionally organized local resistance.
However, the Spaniards never offended the Chu people over this, and they did not dare to send troops to fight back and attack the North American territory controlled by the Chu people. Even the trade between the two sides did not stop for this reason.
In this world, the three countries that have a clear understanding of the strength of the Chu people are Spain, Portugal and the Dutch.
And it is precisely because they understand clearly that they are even more afraid.
It will not be like the previous Kingdom of Morocco. When they saw the Chu people coming to attack, they didn't even understand the situation of the Chu people, so they hurriedly organized an army to fight back.
As a result, the five thousand troops dispatched collapsed immediately, losing more than half.
Moreover, the Moroccan counterattack army, which lost more than 2,000 people, did not even see clearly what the Chu people looked like, because they had never seen the Chu people from the beginning to the end. When they were far away from the city, they were hit by a burst of naval gunfire. The bombardment collapsed.
The Moroccans did not understand the Chu people, so they attacked recklessly. In the end, not only did they not recapture the city, but they also lost their troops. The most important thing is that they heard that the Chu people later sent warships and captured several other coastal cities of the Moroccans. It was bombarded again.
What's embarrassing is that the Chu people hit the wrong person on the way.
It seems that the people of Chu State don't know much about the situation in North Africa and Europe, or they don't care to understand it. They only know that there is a Kingdom of Morocco in northwest Africa.
Then I took it for granted that the Northwest Africa region belonged to the Kingdom of Morocco, including the coastal cities in Northwest Africa.
But I don’t know that the current Allawi dynasty in Morocco has not been established for a long time. Most of its controlled areas are in the inland areas, and many places along the coast are actually colonies controlled by Europeans.
Well, just like Tangier.
As a result, several warships sent out by the Chu State Expeditionary Fleet were indiscriminate and bombarded the coastal cities they saw along the way. As a result, many coastal colonial cities controlled by Europeans, mainly the Portuguese and Spanish, were bombarded!
This sounds very strange, and I feel that the Chu people are confused.
But if you understand the psychology of Chu people...then you won't find it strange.
Because in the eyes of the Chu people, the indigenous people in North Africa and Europe are actually just like that. They are a little better than the tribal indigenous people in Africa, but they are not that good.
Anyway, in front of rifled guns, they are all useless.
This condescending mentality also led to the fact that the Chu people did not care much about how many countries there were in Europe and what the relationship was between them.
No matter what country they are or how powerful they are, they will always be the leeks of Chu State.
The actions of the Chu people in Europe, namely the European Free Trade Plan, have never targeted a single European country, but the entire European region, well, and North Africa by the way.
Therefore, when conducting military strikes, there is no bother to distinguish who is who.
If you have time to figure out the local situation and find out whose city this is, it would be easier and less troublesome to just fire up artillery.
After all, to figure out the situation, you still need to send people to land to inquire about the situation. If there are too few people sent, you may encounter danger or something. And when direct bombardment, you don’t even need to enter the port, just go directly to the port a few meters away. There are still a few kilometers of sea to shell and that's it.
These days, the cities in North Africa and Europe are quite small in area, unlike the cities in Chu State that often have hundreds of thousands or millions of people, and the city area is also huge.
The urban areas of these European indigenous cities are very small, and many of them are fortress cities. For these small cities with small areas and small populations, there is no need to carry out large-scale covering bombardments. Direct and precise shelling can destroy them. The port and the city near it were destroyed.
The artillery used by the European Expeditionary Force of the Dachu Empire were all rifled artillery. Even the relatively backward front-loading rifled artillery equipped by the navy used cylindrical shells with a very large charge.
The front-mounted rifled cannon equipped on the cruiser fired 150mm high-explosive grenades. Compared with this era, its huge power was devastating.
For those small coastal cities that are indigenous to Europe, it is not necessary to use the entire fleet. Just pulling a cruiser or even a frigate over to carry out bombardment can cause huge losses to them.
And relying on such strong strength, the Chu people's mentality has always been very stable: I will hit you, and I will hit the wrong person, but what can you do?
What we pay attention to is the fine tradition of Chu's external expansion: arrogant and shameless!
The same is true now in Tangier. The Chu army that landed did not care who the people were in Tangier, they just landed directly and that was it.
When the first few armed merchant ships carrying soldiers began to land on the side of Tangier City, there was a frigate approaching from the rear, providing naval gun cover at any time.
At the same time, the cruiser Qiongzhou and a frigate were next door, preparing to conduct a named clearing and artillery attack on Tangier and other targets.
Then the Spaniards in the city were dumbfounded.
Before they had time to figure out why the other party was coming, and even before the envoys sent to inquire got on the ship and went to sea, the opposite warship was already shelling a few kilometers away.
As the Chu Navy officially opened fire, huge plumes of smoke and dust began to rise from Tangier Port, accompanied by bursts of dull explosions.
The loudest among them was the sound caused by the explosion of high-explosive grenades fired by the 27-type 150mm front-loading rifled gun on the cruiser Qiongzhou.
The Qiongzhou cruiser is the eighth ship of the Jinzhou-class cruiser of the Chu Empire.
The Jinzhou-class cruiser is the previous generation core battleship of the Da Chu Empire Navy, and it is very special. This battleship is the first large-scale mass production of the Da Chu Imperial Navy, and it is also the last large-scale mass production, and in A main cruiser with a front-mounted rifled gun was used during the design stage.
Because after the Jinzhou-class cruiser, the Dachu Empire's research and development of breech-loading rifled guns was relatively smooth. After the Jinzhou-class cruiser, the new generation of Datong-class cruisers began to use breech-loading rifled guns.
This also makes the Jinzhou-class cruiser the only main cruiser in the Chu Empire that uses front-mounted rifled guns in the design stage.
But although it seems that there is only one kind, the number of Jinzhou-class cruisers is actually very large, reaching a total of twenty-eight.
At the same time, this does not mean that the Dachu Empire's cruisers are the only ones that use front-mounted rifled guns. In fact, the Dachu Empire also modified the previous three Fengzhou-class cruisers, and they were modified during construction. Busan cruiser, then there are four Toongshu-class cruisers equipped with forward-mounted rifled guns.
There are a total of thirty-two ships in the above two stages.
In addition, there are eight cruisers modified from old battleships with relatively small tonnage. Although the performance of these old battleships with iron ribs and wooden hulls and old steam engines is a bit worse, their tonnage is there, no matter what, they are two to three thousand tons.
Therefore, at that time, some ships that were relatively new and in relatively good condition were modified, mainly with front-mounted rifled guns, and continued to serve as cruisers after modification.
The forty cruisers mentioned above are the main cruisers of the Chu Empire currently equipped with forward-mounted rifled guns. They are widely distributed in the Atlantic Ocean, the Indian Ocean, the Atlantic Ocean and the coastal waters of the mainland, and undertake the main combat missions.
In addition to them, there are actually more than twenty old cruisers that have no modification value and are still equipped with front-mounted smoothbore guns.
It's just that because these cruisers are relatively old, some don't even have steam engines... their overall combat effectiveness is too low, and they currently have no modification value.
These ships are basically hanging around in the second and third tier fleets. If it weren't for maintaining the establishment and training officers and soldiers, the Navy would want to retire them all.
There are also some older ones that have been mothballed, but to put it mildly, they are mothballed, but in reality they are just being dumped on the dock waiting to be sold.
Or some ships in better condition may be bought, refitted, and then used as merchant ships, but most of these ships will be scrapped.
Strictly speaking, these battleships that have been mothballed and sold do not have little combat value. At least they are very good for fighting the indigenous people, but the cost-effectiveness of use is too low.
A battleship requires at least two to three hundred crew members, and the crew salary alone is not a small amount. Then a group of highly paid naval officers and soldiers go on a long journey in an old-fashioned battleship equipped with forward-mounted smoothbore cannons... This is perfectly fine. It's an advanced fighter pilot driving a tractor to farm!
waste.
In order not to waste, the current front-line battleships of the Chu Empire Navy basically no longer use smoothbore cannons, but front-loading rifled cannons and more advanced breech-loading rifled cannons.
Smoothbore cannons, not to mention being completely eliminated, are basically invisible in the first- and second-line fleets. They can only be seen in some third-line garrison fleets or some river fleets.
And this situation is not expected to last long, and it is estimated that it will be completely eliminated in three to five years.
After all, the production of breech-mounted rifled guns is increasing nowadays. In addition to equipping new ships, some breech-mounted naval guns will inevitably be used to modify old battleships. The front-mounted rifled guns on old battleships will not be wasted after being removed. , but will be replaced by second- and third-line ships or even offshore and inland river warships, or coastal defense batteries, and the existing smoothbore guns will be eliminated.
According to the Dachu Empire's own goal, it hopes to complete the full rifling of the entire navy before 40 years of Chengshun.
The entire navy's rifled plan started in the 27th year of Chengshun and ended in the 40th year of Chengshun. It is expected to take a total of thirteen years, using both front-loading rifled guns and breech-loading rifled guns.
There is no way, the navy is too large, and there are too many rifled guns required for various warships and coastal defense batteries.
Not to mention anything else, the current number of main ocean-going battleships alone has reached more than 250, requiring tens of thousands of rifled guns of various types.
This is only talking about first-line ocean-going battleships. The specific indicators are: new combined steam engines, front-mounted or rear-mounted rifled guns, iron-ribbed wooden hulls or all-steel hulls, combined with sails or pure steam engine power.
Among these first-line ocean-going battleships, there are 28 Jinzhou-class cruisers alone.
The more advanced Datong-class cruisers, which use breech-mounted rifled guns and have a full load displacement of 3,000 tons, currently have six ships built and more than ten more are under construction.
There are twenty battleships with a full load displacement of more than 4,000 tons, including eight Suzhou-class battleships with a full load displacement of more than 4,000 tons, the Hantian battleship with a full load displacement of 5,500 tons, and six under-construction battleships with a full load displacement of more than 4,000 tons. There are six Yingtian-class battleships of 1,100 tons, which use front-mounted rifled guns, but there are six Taiyuan-class battleships with a full load displacement of more than 7,000 tons.
As for the new-generation Jinling-class battleship equipped with breech-mounted rifled guns, it is expected that the full-load displacement can reach tens of thousands of tons. The first ship is still under construction.
The larger number is the Baling-class frigate, which is even more useless. A total of seventy-five ships were built... and these sixty-five Baling-class frigates only took a total of five years. On average, Fifteen ships were built in one year...
More advanced...well, in fact, it is a Qingyang-class frigate that has been reskinned on the Baling-class frigate and equipped with a 120mm breech-mounted rifled gun. More than ten ships have been built, and they are currently being built on a large scale. , it is estimated that it will be dozens of ships in size.
The above-mentioned front-line battleships, whether newly built or renovated, all have several common characteristics, that is, they are ocean-going main battleships equipped with rifled guns, combined steam engines, and excellent endurance.
This does not include the larger number of offshore patrol ships, inland river gunboats, and other various auxiliary warships.
Many senior naval officers are not sure how many of these secondary and auxiliary ships there are, but the total number must be very large.
Because the Bangladesh Squadron alone has more than 30 inland river gunboats and more than 20 offshore patrol ships. Plus some auxiliary ships, there are more than 100 ships.
There are more than a dozen similar large-scale overseas squadrons that perform both coastal and inland river tasks.
And there are even more small squadrons!
The main ocean-going battleships are coupled with offshore and inland river battleships, as well as a large number of auxiliary battleships. In addition, the navy also has many large-scale coastal defense forts.
These require massive rifled guns.
Therefore, the navy's rifled gun replacement pressure is much greater than that of the army!
This is why in this European expedition fleet, the two main forces sent by the Army are equipped with the latest breech-loading rifled guns, but most of the warships sent by the Navy are equipped with front-loading rifled guns. .
There are only two of the latest Qingyang-class frigates.
Moreover, strictly speaking, these two Qingyang-class frigates are not here for combat, but for testing.
The Navy wants to know how effective the Qingyang-class frigate with a full load displacement of more than 1,700 tons will be in overseas combat using a 120mm breech-loaded rifled gun.
If the combat effectiveness is good, the Navy will decide to further expand the number of equipment for this frigate.
After all, the current Datong-class cruisers with a full load of more than 3,000 tons are a bit expensive. The Navy wants to replace some of the cruisers' combat tasks with more frigates in order to reduce the size of the new cruisers.
As for the new generation battleship navy, it is more like scolding the mother. The tens of thousands of tons of the new generation Jinling class battleship is a complete cheat.
Too expensive.
The Navy also finalized an order for eight ships at the beginning, preparing to build two 10,000-ton battleship squadrons for fun.
As a result, when the quotation came out, the normal orders were canceled on the spot, leaving only four ships.
Because the domestic industry actually offered a price of 2.5 million Chu Yuan for this piece of crap.
In the eyes of the Navy, this price is simply insane!
You must know that the purchase price of the previous generation Yingtian-class battleship of more than 6,000 tons was only more than 800,000 Chuyuan, while the purchase price of the Taiyuan-class battleship of more than 7,000 tons was more than 900,000 Chuyuan.
The current 10,000-ton Jinling City battleship has a tonnage of 3,000 tons more. If the price were normal, such as one million, the Navy would bite the bullet and accept it.
But two and a half million? To be honest, the Navy can’t afford it!
Even after the order was cut to four ships, the Navy still felt it was too expensive.
He was thinking about reducing the order for two of the 10,000-ton battleships and replacing them with two cheaper battleships.
We don’t want a 10,000-ton advanced battleship. We can just build two small battleships of 6,000 to 7,000 tons. As long as they are equipped with large-caliber breech-loading rifled guns.
Not only are battleships more expensive, but now new cruisers are also more expensive. The purchase price of the Datong cruiser with a full load of 3,000 tons has reached more than 600,000 yuan, which is a direct increase of more than 200,000 yuan compared to the Jinzhou class with a full load of 2,800 tons.
The navy was also very scolding about this.
In the end, there was no choice but to focus on frigates with lower positioning and cheaper prices, and try to let the frigates assume part of the tactical positioning of cruisers.
This is why the new frigates are equipped with multiple 120mm naval guns. The Navy wants this frigate to replace cruisers and undertake some of the main combat tasks, especially overseas garrison operations.
In the forward fleet that landed in Tangier this time, one of the two frigates, the Shiquan frigate, was the fifth ship in the Qingyang-class frigates. This time, reinforcements came from China specially and traveled half the world before arriving here to participate in the battle. .
The purpose is to test combat performance.
At this time, they also followed the side of the Qiongzhou and bombarded the port area of Tangier.
But during the bombardment, several navy officers frowned slightly, because the 1934-year-old 120mm breech-mounted rifled naval gun on the frigate Shiquan seemed to have pretty good firepower. Installing a rifled gun is much faster and easier to operate.
However, in terms of explosive power, it is still far behind the shells of the 217-type 150mm front-mounted rifled naval gun on the cruiser Qiongzhou.
After all, the explosive power has nothing to do with the front-loaded and rear-loaded guns. Both are rifled guns and fire cylindrical shells. When the caliber is the same, there is actually not much difference in the explosive power.
Originally, the Navy thought that the caliber was smaller, but if fixed ammunition was used, the rate of fire would be faster, and the final firepower should not be much worse.
But in actual combat, the gap is larger than imagined.
An exaggerated description is that if a 150mm artillery shell is dropped, there will be no grass growing within a hundred meters, but if a 120mm artillery shell is dropped, there will still be people jumping around within a hundred meters.
In addition, the 120mm naval gun's impact on buildings and solid fortifications is also much less effective.
When bombarding the coastal defense forts in Tangier, the 150mm naval gun on the Qiongzhou used semi-armor-piercing projectiles to clean up these rocky and civil-structured coastal defense forts. As long as the shot was accurate, one shot would be knocked out!
However, semi-armor-piercing shells fired at 120 mm sometimes fail to penetrate. Occasionally they do penetrate because the explosive charge in the semi-armor-piercing shells is too small and the explosion power is not enough, resulting in insufficient damage capabilities.
After watching a round of shelling, several officers dispatched by the Navy Headquarters who were observing the ship looked at each other and sighed in unison. The plan of the Navy's top brass to save money may not work.
This 150mm breech-loaded rifled gun cannot be spared!
Not only cannot it be saved, but it also requires a large amount of equipment.
However, the reason why new warships are expensive is that in addition to new technologies such as steam engines and hulls, a considerable part of the new cost is due to the breech-mounted rifled gun.
Large-caliber long-barreled breech-mounted rifled guns are very expensive.
The breech-loading rifled guns used by the Army are far inferior to the large-caliber long-barreled naval guns used by the Navy in terms of manufacturing process difficulty and cost.
It is also a 150mm artillery piece. The Army's 150mm light howitzer only has a barrel seven or eight times larger, and the craftsmanship is very simple.
However, the 1934-year-old 150mm breech-mounted rifled gun used on the Navy's Taiyuan-class cruisers has a barrel length of 25 times, and the maximum range can even reach 10,000 meters.
The current series of breech-loaded rifled guns in the Navy are basically 25 times the barrel. The barrel does not seem to be high, and is not even as high as some medium-caliber front-loaded smoothbore guns. However, there is a big difference between rifled guns and smoothbore guns. Go.
Just under high bore pressure, when the gun barrel rotates along the rifling and comes out of the chamber, how to ensure that the rifling is not seriously worn and strive for a higher service life is a very complex process issue, involving the barrel material, the inner bore processing and a series of other issues.
Moreover, the larger the diameter and the magnification, the more difficult the process will be. At the same time, the scrap rate will be higher, and the cost will remain high.
This is why the navy's naval guns of the same caliber far exceed those of the army's field guns. The craftsmanship requirements of the two are not even on the same level.
It is because the cost of new naval guns and other new technologies is too high that the Navy wants to use cheaper frigates to carry out some of the combat missions of cruisers... Unfortunately, in actual combat, the firepower of existing frigates is not enough!
You said that equipping the frigate with a larger caliber naval gun, giving it a 150 mm naval gun or even a 170 mm naval gun, is putting the cart before the horse.
For the Chu Empire, the most expensive thing was the new naval guns that had just appeared a few years ago, while the hulls were not worth much.
As for a larger hull requiring more power, which will lead to an increase in power costs, there is no need to worry about this, just reduce the speed.
To deal with the indigenous sailboats, the speed of pure steam engines is 14 knots, 12 knots or even 10 knots. In fact, the difference is not big, they are all a drag... As for daily navigation, in order to save money these days, the Dachu Empire Navy, in addition to large-tonnage battleships, In addition, other ships basically use sails for daily navigation, and at most they run steam engines at low power to speed up.
This is why there are obviously more advanced steam engines now, but the pure steam engine power of various new warships in the Navy is basically below 14 knots. No matter how high the cost is, the cost will rise sharply, and the practicality is just that. Not worth it.
This is also a situation unique to the navy of the Dachu Empire. This situation would basically not occur in the modern countries of the original time and space, because they all have competitors in the modern countries of the original time and space.
As powerful as the British Royal Navy, it still faces challenges from the French. When designing warships, comprehensive considerations must be taken to maximize combat performance and cost.
But the Chu Empire has no rivals, not even one!
Therefore, when designing warships for the Chu Empire Navy, cost and performance-to-price ratio were the first considerations.
Otherwise, the 10,000-ton battleship will be built for you in minutes, and the new generation of Jinling will not be built for more than two years, and the hull has not yet been completed.
The navy was slow to fund the project, and the shipyards and supporting manufacturers naturally did not actively construct the project if they had no money.
Optimistic estimates suggest that the battleship Jinling may not enter active service in the navy until the 40th year of Chengshun.
Considering the huge maintenance and navigation costs of such a 10,000-ton giant ship, there is a high probability that this thing will also become a dock museum after it is completed and put into service!
Not to mention anything else, just the coal burned and the ammunition used for a training trip to sea were enough to cause the Navy heartache for a long time.
Moreover, the new ship uses too many new technologies, and there must be many faults. If something goes wrong with this thing when it is driven out, such as the power failure, the navy's top brass will be dumbfounded.
It’s better to just stay at the pier and become a pier museum!
