The West Sea Fleet is a very special fleet in the Chu Empire Navy because it is the first pure inland sea fleet in the Chu Empire Navy.
Its history is not short. It was established in the 23rd year of Chengshun. However, for a long time, it was only equipped with a few small ships, and they were basically wooden ships. The additional steam engine power units were often also installed. Very small. , the overall combat effectiveness is actually very limited.
This is because due to the long distance and backward transportation methods, it is difficult for the Chu Empire to transport heavy equipment and equipment to Xihai City. It can only use ant moving to transport some small equipment and parts one after another, and then assemble them locally. Some small wooden boats equipped with small steam engines.
Therefore, the West Sea Fleet had no sense of existence for a long time. It can be said that it is an inland fleet of the navy, but it is better to say that it is a small fleet that cooperates with the frontline army operations. It has several small steamships of dozens or hundreds of tons. Just a powered wooden boat.
But what really brought about earth-shaking changes in the West Sea Fleet, which allowed it to start possessing hundreds of tons of modern warships, was the completion of the Central Asian Railway Network, the Turkey-Western Railway.
With the Central Asian Railway Network, the Turkish-Western Railway, there is a channel that connects the Shuanghe Province of Turkey to the western border towns, and is also the estuary of the Ural River and the port of the West Sea (Caspian Sea).
Only some heavy construction equipment, ship parts, such as shipboard steam engines can be transported to Xihai City by rail.
Using this railway, the Chu Empire not only supplied a large amount of military supplies to the garrison in the Ural River Basin, but also transported a lot of heavy equipment to Xihai City. It built a small shipyard in Xihai City and used the cargo transported from the inland. Ship parts began to be assembled to build advanced military ships.
After these military ships were assembled, they served in the newly established West Sea Fleet.
So far, the West Sea Fleet has commissioned four capital ships, three of which are Tong'an-class offshore patrol ships. In the past ten years, the Chu Empire has built and commissioned a large number of Tong'an-class offshore patrol ships.
This offshore patrol ship with a full load displacement of more than 300 tons has many features such as its shallow draft, low cost, relatively large hull, good living space for its members, and good endurance, making this offshore patrol ship The number of ships and their slightly improved models built has exceeded one hundred.
It is widely deployed in coastal waters and inland rivers in many places such as overseas and borders, and undertakes many combat missions. It has a very high appearance rate. It can even be said that such offshore patrol ships can be seen along the coast where Chu people are present.
In the past, the Chu Army frequently dispatched this warship to support landing operations and inland river operations in many operations in Europe. The standard draft is 2.5 meters, and the draft is only 2 meters when lightly loaded, allowing it to travel in many offshore waters. and river areas.
At the same time, it is equipped with a 100 mm breech-mounted rifled front main gun, which has a long range, high power, and high accuracy. Coupled with the 75 mm rear main gun and four 35 mm single-barreled rapid-fire guns, the The ship has powerful firepower...well, compared to the natives.
Even though this kind of outstanding offshore patrol ship has been around for nearly ten years, the Dachu Empire Navy still has no intention of designing new and updated ships to replace it. It has always modified this ship type and proposed an upgraded model.
Its latest model of Tong'an-class patrol ship has changed its power from a double-expansion steam engine to a triple-expansion steam engine... Mainly, the triple-expansion steam engine has been around for many years. At present, the technology has gradually matured and stabilized, and the cost has begun to decline significantly, making more All cheap warships can be equipped with this new steam engine.
Because of its excellent performance, low cost, and very good applicability, the Da Chu Empire Navy also brought this patrol ship to the West Sea (Caspian Sea). Of course, it is not built directly in the shipyards on the eastern coast and brought over. Can't do it yet.
At the same time, the small shipyard in Xihai is not large enough, and its technical capabilities are still insufficient to build it alone. Therefore, the method adopted is to build the main parts in the eastern shipyard, and then transport the parts to Xihai by rail. Simple assembly on site at the shipyard.
In this way, the West China Sea Fleet acquired three Tong'an-class patrol ships in just two years and used them as main warships.
However, the people of the West Sea Fleet soon discovered that although this Tong'an-class patrol ship had various benefits, it was still somewhat difficult to truly cooperate with the army in entering the Volga River.
I have to say here that the Russians are quite cunning. The river defense forts they deployed in Astrakhan have a very unique location for their shore defense artillery.
Its fort did not directly face the West Sea and the lower reaches of the Volga River. Instead, it chose to deploy behind a low mountain.
This means that although these river defense naval guns cannot directly attack the Volga River channel at the mouth of the sea, the Chu army's warships cannot calmly bombard this fort from a long distance at the mouth of the Volga River in the direction of the sea mouth.
How should I put it? This thing is a bit like a reverse-sloped river defense fort. The Chu army's long-range naval guns coming from the direction of the Caspian Sea basically cannot directly bombard the fort... They have such a big low mountain as a bunker.
But as long as the Chu army's ships continue to penetrate deep into the Volga River, they will directly face the threat of artillery fire from the Russian river defense fort after crossing a bend in the river. The distance is only three to four hundred meters... At this distance, the Russian Even if the Jiangfang Fort uses forward-loading smoothbore guns, it is still enough to pose a threat to the Chu Army's Tong'an-class patrol ships.
After all, the reason why the Tong'an-class patrol ship has so many benefits, but it is not without its shortcomings, is that in order to control the draft, in order to control the cost, in order to obtain strong firepower, and for a longer endurance, it has also been paid for. The price is lower speed and poorer protection.
It doesn't matter if the speed is lower. Anyway, it has a speed of eight to ten knots, which is enough to face the natives.
But the protection is not enough... As an iron-ribbed wooden hull patrol ship, this thing is positioned as an unprotected patrol ship in the Chu army. It has no steel protective armor, and the wooden shell is not too thick.
When bombarded by solid shells from large-caliber smoothbore cannons at close range, it is possible for the ship's hull to be penetrated.
Not to mention that the deck is basically open to the sky and the superstructure has little armor protection. It will also cause huge losses when it is attacked by grenades.
The Tong'an-class patrol ship was not designed to engage in bombardment with enemy forts within a short range... The ship's design purpose is very clear. It conducts offshore patrols and blockades on a daily basis, and goes deep into the sea when necessary. The river provides fire support to the Army.
In these usage scenarios, the combat distance will basically be one thousand meters or even more than several thousand meters. We will not go within a few hundred meters to attack the enemy's smoothbore artillery.
That's just asking for trouble!
After all, front-loaded smoothbore cannons can kill people, not to mention that twenty-three years have passed. The grenades with wooden support disc fuses used by the Chu army in the early years are no longer a secret. Even if these natives are a little stupid, they can still kill people. Some samples of these original grenades were obtained through many channels and then copied.
Even if the quality of the imitations is poorer and the cost is higher, there is still no problem in getting a few equipped with large-caliber coastal defense naval guns.
Although the Chu army has long since lost use of these early wooden support wooden fuze grenades, it is undeniable that these can still cause a certain degree of casualties to the open decks of the Chu army's warships, and even damage the superstructure.
At the same time, large-caliber front-mounted smoothbore cannons can also threaten iron-ribbed wooden hull ships if they fire spherical live iron bullets.
Therefore, Astrakhan's river defense fort posed a considerable threat to the Chu Army's West Sea Fleet, and to a certain extent blocked the actions of the Chu Army's West Sea Fleet.
Under such circumstances, will the Western Sea Fleet of the Great Chu Empire Navy sit still and wait for death?
Certainly not……
And will the Da Chu Empire Navy be helpless in this situation?
Not at all!
The Russians are not the first indigenous nation to do this.
In fact, over the past many years, in order to deal with the strong threat from the Chu Empire's navy, many indigenous countries, especially those in Europe, have worked hard to build coastal defenses and river defense forts.
As the saying goes, there is no defense in the sea, so in front of the Chu army, it is equivalent to fortification. The Chu army can attack wherever they want... These indigenous countries also feel deeply threatened and have made great efforts to this end.
Therefore, various turrets emerged in endlessly, wooden pallets, wooden fuze grenades and large-caliber front-loading smoothbore cannons appeared and were equipped one after another.
As for the Dachu Imperial Navy, when attacking the enemy's coastal defense forts, they naturally don't have to worry too much. They can just pull a few frigates and cruisers over, or even pull a few battleships over, and just hit them with large-caliber naval guns.
However, the Imperial Navy of the Chu Empire had also been prepared for the Jiang defense forts that were cleverly arranged and equipped with large-caliber smoothbore cannon firepower, making it impossible for the large-tonnage warships of the Chu army to attack, and making ordinary unprotected warships vulnerable to threats. Several shallow-water gunboats were built that adopted a comprehensive protection approach.
Although Tong'an-class patrol ships can also enter inland rivers to carry out combat missions, there are preconditions, that is, when necessary... To put it bluntly, don't casually enter inland rivers controlled by other people's indigenous people, otherwise you will be attacked by the other people's indigenous people. If you get close enough to be ambushed by artillery fire, you might end up capsizing in a ditch.
In the final analysis, the Tong'an-class patrol ship is just a vessel designed for offshore operations. Even if the draft is very shallow, it is still not a professional inland river gunboat.
The warships that directly break into the inland river and engage in bombardment with the enemy's river defense forts are some of the shallow-water gunboats in the Chu Empire's navy that adopt a comprehensive protection design and have excellent protective performance. They range in tonnage.
The Type 34 gunboat is a shallow-water gunboat designed to penetrate deep into inland rivers and engage enemy river defense forts.
It has a standard displacement of 380 tons, a speed of eight knots, pure steam engine power, a relatively short endurance, and two 100mm main guns.
Its firepower layout is very special. It adopts a central double-mounted design. The two artillery are clamped on a rotating platform that is powered by a steam engine and can be rotated by manpower when necessary...
But the reason why this thing is special is that it does not have the open-air rotating platform parapet armor that is common on contemporary Chu ocean-going battleships, or a fully enclosed gun room. Only one gun hole is exposed and the gun barrel is used for shooting.
Instead, a fully enclosed turret armor was built directly on the rotating platform.
If you only look at this turret, you will find that it is actually no different from the turrets of later warships.
It's just that the armor of the fort is very thin, only 30 millimeters.
The reason why the Dachu Empire Navy does this is purely because the current technology is still relatively limited, but it wants to obtain greater protection capabilities, and after taking into account the threat of the indigenous people, it specially created such a semi-open turret. .
Although this kind of armor is only thirty millimeters thick, it does not use wrought iron armor, but a kind of conformal armor that combines wrought iron and steel plates. Its protective capabilities are better than pure wrought iron steel plates or pure steel plate armor. It is the current armor of the empire. Better armor.
It can effectively resist the shelling of solid shells from large-caliber smoothbore cannons. Well, as long as the enemy's large-caliber smoothbore cannons don't directly hit the gunship within a hundred meters, it won't be a big problem...not to mention the shock wave of anti-grenade.
So even though 30mm doesn't seem high, it can't withstand the armor-piercing projectiles of the Chu army's new 75mm naval gun... but the natives on the opposite side don't have breech-loading rifled guns.
Tong'an-class offshore patrol ships and Type 32 shallow-water gunboats are all used to deal with the indigenous people, not to fight the civil war... The offshore battleships used to fight the civil war are the Guards fleet and the navy. The thousands-ton offshore battleships of the Second Fleet are very thickly armored.
In addition, it’s not that I don’t want to build thicker turret armor. The main reason is that the technology is not good enough to build a turret that is too thick and heavy... It is not easy to push a turret weighing dozens of tons to rotate. To build dozens of tons of armor is really unreliable considering the current technical capabilities of the Chu Empire...
So in the end, we came up with such a compromise product... To put it bluntly, a three-sided semi-enclosed thin armor plate was installed on the commonly used open-air rotating turret to resist low-intensity threats from indigenous people.
But even so, the two 100-millimeter naval guns and the weight of the turret still caused a relatively high center of gravity, so the side of this type of ship was very low, making it a typical low-freeboard gunboat.
The hull is also made of pure steel, and the waterline and deck are armored.
This is a serious shallow-water gunboat that adopts a comprehensive protection approach. It has excellent protection capabilities and strong firepower. Of course, its speed and endurance are somewhat inferior.
Battleship design is like this. Among the major factors of speed, protection, firepower, endurance, and living space, you can either make a battleship that is relatively mediocre in every aspect, or you can make trade-offs on a few of them to highlight a certain aspect of performance.
In the 34th year of Chengshun, the first Type 32 gunboat entered service and began to be deployed overseas. Although it was not built in large numbers, it was deployed and participated in battles in India and Europe, and its performance was very outstanding.
Therefore, after the Navy learned that the river defense fort in Astrakhanli at the mouth of the Volga River in the West Sea was relatively useless, it transported parts by rail and assembled it on site at the West Sea Shipyard to temporarily build one.
This is also the No. 6 gunboat of the West Sea Fleet, the No. 6 gunboat of the West Sea Fleet.
It has just been assembled and put into service at the end of last year. It has been undergoing various tests and training in the past few months. So far, it can only be said that it has barely formed preliminary combat effectiveness.
However, as the war broke out, the La Liga No. 6 gunboat, which had just formed its initial combat effectiveness, also rushed to the battlefield, preparing to enter the Volga River with many other gunboats, destroy the Russian river defense forts, and cover the subsequent army's bridge-crossing operations.
On April 24, Chengshun 42, eight large and small patrol ships and inland river gunboats from the West Sea Fleet broke into the lower reaches of the Volga River. Subsequently, the three Tong'an-class patrol ships did not continue forward, but were far away from Russia. The human fort was anchored about two thousand meters away and raised the fort to carry out long-range coverage and artillery bombardment at the location of the Russian river defense fort.
Although this kind of shelling cannot directly hit the Russian fort on the back of the low mountain, it can still block the battlefield through covering shelling and intercept possible Russian reinforcements or artillery maneuvers.
Under the cover of artillery fire from three Tong'an-class patrol ships, the La Liga No. 6 gunboat led four inland river gunboats of more than 100 tons and equipped with certain armor protection capabilities to continue up the river.
Not long after, they crossed the river bend, bypassed the low mountains, and appeared directly in front of the Russian river defense fort.
Because the Russian river defense forts were built directly tens of meters away from the river, the Chu army's gunboats were only three to four hundred meters away from the Russian river defense forts at this time.
At such a distance, even smoothbore cannons are extremely powerful and can effectively threaten some warships of the Chu army.
The Russians also observed and learned about the arrival of the Chu army's gunboats early, and made various preparations in advance. When the Chu army's river warships appeared, they immediately opened fire.
The solid shells fired by the large-caliber smoothbore guns flew directly out of the barrel, and then rushed towards the La Liga No. 6 gunboat. Perhaps because the Russians had already planned to shoot Zhu Yuan, the artillery fire was very accurate. In the first round of shelling , a shell directly hit the La Liga No. 6 gunboat.
However, the seemingly powerful solid shells only left a shallow crater after hitting the armor belt of La Liga No. 6... and did not cause effective penetration at all.
As the saying goes, it is disrespectful to reciprocate. The Russians took advantage of the position and opened fire first. The La Liga No. 6 gunboat did not passively take the beating and did not fight back. It quickly raised its muzzle, and the two 100mm naval guns fired one after another within a few seconds. .
Two 100-millimeter semi-armor-piercing projectiles flew directly over a distance of several hundred meters and hit the Russian fort... A distance of three to four hundred meters for a breech-loaded rifled gun is no different from a face-to-face shelling. The hit rate is It's so scary that he got a hit in the first round.
The powerful power of the semi-armor-piercing projectile also directly penetrated the outer layer of protection of the Russian fort and exploded deep inside.
Immediately afterwards, the No. 6 gunboat of La Liga continued its bombardment, and several subsequent river gunboats also followed up using 75mm naval guns, 50mm, or even 35mm naval guns to carry out suppressive bombardment.
Amidst the rumbling sound of artillery, the Russian forts continued to raise huge explosion smoke, and the soil and gravel were thrown up. Occasionally, flying corpses could be seen in the soil and gravel.
Just twenty minutes later, the Jiangfang fort, which the Russians had high hopes for, was completely in ruins. Except for a few of the hundreds of meters of artillery deployed inside, most of them were killed or injured by the Chu army's fierce shelling.
The Russians' tactical idea of taking advantage of their geographical advantages and using large-caliber smoothbore cannons to fight against the Chu warships only lasted twenty minutes and completely came to nothing!
(End of chapter)
