Chapter 133 : A Pincer Attack? Think Again
Chapter 133: A Pincer Attack? Think Again
“Cognition”
This somewhat disingenuous thing could, many times, sway a nation, decide the final course of a war, even determine victory or defeat for both sides from the very beginning.
The gunboats had been firing merrily, pressing the Church’s flagship so low it could not lift its head and could not give effective orders to the fleet.
But the Church was not the sort to just take a beating. Several mech bodies over six meters tall leapt into the sky and cleaved the air at the gunboats with magical attacks. Some missed, but the hits drove the shield generators on the gunboats to the brink.
Sensing disaster, the pilots immediately disengaged from the battlefield, climbed, and fled — giving no chance for further strikes.
Rather than say the Church navy had been severely harmed because the Federation had ambushed them, it was more accurate to say that the excuse of being “ambushed” gave them some small psychological comfort.
Because if this fight had taken place on the open ocean, Doolittle would never have seen those ridiculous hundred-ton small wooden sailboats; they would not have been qualified to enter the visual range of an iron warship in the first place.
At Doolittle’s command, the torpedo boats that had been projecting machine-gun fire remembered their proper duty and began to open their compressed-air tanks to pressurize torpedoes.
When the air-compressors started, dozens of torpedoes formed a dense pattern and, with splashes, launched toward the small boats charging in the distance.
At 17 knots their speed utterly outclassed the sailboats’ top speed, and in the terror or bewilderment of those aboard, they had a painfully intimate close encounter with negative distance.
“In Ovinia they called us barbarians, said we only used outside force and only ambushed. Once they closed with us, we’d fall like wheat.”
“But sister said only the unambitious are barbarians.”
Tina pointed at the towering fires and splintering wood in the distance. “Look now — they don’t even seem able to close with us anymore, do they?”
The torpedoes hit the hulls of the hundred-ton sailboats. The violent explosions were more than just holes; often they blew the vessels skyward, because the traditional wooden sailboats’ magazines were usually below deck.
With the volume of a hundred-ton sailboat, even being at the center could not escape the torpedo’s blast radius, and with cannon shots the sympathetic detonations were trivial to trigger.
Most interestingly, the Federation’s torpedoes were still in a fire-and-forget state after launch — who they hit was a matter of luck. The Church’s small boats, however, had used mass charges and foolishly rammed straight into them.
The fierce and sudden explosions finally toppled the last shred of reason among the Church soldiers. A large number of ships left their courses and fled; even when the command ships waved signal lamps frantically they could not bring them back.
Just as the outcome seemed decided, many sails appeared on the horizon. Observers on the scout boats, looking through telescopes, saw this and urgently used radio to call Admiral Doolittle in the flagship’s command room.
“Detected a large enemy fleet from the Nome direction!!! Estimated to be the Church’s reinforcement fleet to Nome.”
Doolittle swore under his breath, walked to the observation room, and raised a telescope. From a rough headcount he could confirm the enemy had deployed everything.
Clearly the Church also had long-range maritime communications — and that was troublesome.
Because the Federation navy’s flank was toward Nome; there was a real possibility of being pinched, and turning a fleet at sea was not easy.
Their objective in this battle had been to prioritize annihilating the Church fleet from the Coparac direction, cut that line of communication, and then detach forces to harass Nome’s harbor at sea.
With the cruisers’ speed and fire-control advantage, simply fighting a guerrilla sea campaign could be a living nuisance to the enemy.
Nome’s response speed had somewhat exceeded the Federation’s expectations.
Doolittle ordered at once: “Use the War Horn as vice-flagship; Captain Marlon take command and lead the rear seventeen cruisers to shift turret bearings, break from the line, and intercept the Church reinforcement fleet!”
The Church reinforcement fleet sailed in a V-formation, reducing density; the ranks of sails on the sea made them look almost invincible.
Yet their guns were, for the most part, on the broadsides. The vice-squadron, with turbines spooling up to disengage from the original line, still did not fear this new enemy.
Or rather, through the recent sea fight the Federation navy had gotten a full understanding of this opponent’s mettle — a bunch of small fry.
The arriving reinforcements steadied the morale of the Church’s nearly collapsing main fleet; no matter how advanced their equipment was, if they were being encircled there was no way to exploit maneuvering superiority.
But Marlon, who took over command of the vice-squadron, chose a bold tactic: he did not order the turrets to turn toward their stern; instead he commanded the seventeen cruisers to raise to maximum speed and begin U-shaped maneuvers on the sea.
They curved back to draw a new arc-shaped T-head, pulling away from the original fleet to avoid being caught in crossfire.
U-turn maneuvers were risky because their bottom paths were fixed, meaning the enemy could concentrate covering fire on that必经点 and likely score several hits.
However, they were still outside the Church’s gun range, and the bottom of the U was not facing the reinforcement fleet’s north but northeast.
The reinforcements could not swing to open broadsides due to the distance; after completing the turn their turrets would still point at the enemy and could quickly recalculate firing solutions.
【Hold steady; their shells still can’t hit us. Switch all ships to armor-piercing rounds. Lead ship fire a test shot to correct coordinates, remaining vessels wait for data and fire in staggered salvoes!】
【Torpedo boats perform a round of torpedo launches first — let them taste these things!】
The torpedo warhead used a new explosive, trinitrotoluene — TNT. Its explosive power was actually lower than that of dinitro compound, only about 70% as powerful.
But compared to the raw materials for the dinitro-type explosives — diatomaceous earth and nitrated glycerin — TNT was cheaper to manufacture, chemically stable, and could be stored long-term. So Mitia had skipped a generation and produced TNT directly.
In the uncertain environment of the battlefield, durability and low cost were the real winning attributes; if one shot wasn’t enough, throw another; two shots were always better than one.
The third-generation explosive, RDX (Hexogen), was already in trial production, but its synthesis cost was still too high to permit mass production; per gram cost could more than buy two small steamed buns.
It was indeed expensive, but Mitia had alternatives. Through trade with the Dwarven Kingdom she had found they possessed extremely rich phosphate ore deposits.
When the Dwarves settled there originally, they had been impressed by the astonishing richness of the geology; however, they disliked phosphate ore because miners sometimes accidentally carried it home to smelt with iron — and the consequences were predictable...
Which simple-minded miner shovelled some into the furnace would see a bigger fire and, effectively, they would be inside a sealed poison-gas chamber.
Mitia, however, knew very well that phosphate ore was a treasure trove: phosphorus itself was a raw material for fertilizers, and phosphorus fertilizers were highly effective.
Among them, yellow phosphorus had another name: white phosphorus.
So whether for military or civilian uses, phosphorus could add bricks to the progress of all humanity, both in practical and military terms.
This was why Mitia’s approach had grown progressively tougher; however sweet her words or smooth her honorifics, the rebellious undertone in her speech could not be hidden.
She restrained herself only because she could not yet beat them. If not restrained, it was because she wanted to beat them.
If pushed hard enough, she had the ability to play the devil’s advocate in the Church’s eyes.