The Fox of France - Chapter 523 (Patreon)

Chapter 523: Night Raid (3)

However, the other two colonial cruisers were moored a bit far from the "Miracle", and although the Sardinian Bay was as calm as a large pond, it was still the sea and there was noticeable swaying. There were rumors that the Academy of Sciences was researching a cannon stabilization system, but whether these rumors were reliable was known only to heaven. There were also rumors that a major task of the Ministry of Truth was to spread such truths and falsehoods in the market. Many research directions, in principle, indeed had the potential to be realized, but once you really invested money in research, you might hit a technical issue at any time, and then? It would naturally be like controlled nuclear fusion power generation of later times, always fifty years away from practical use. It was said that the British had more than once been led astray by the French in scientific directions, spending a lot of money but gaining little progress, with almost no usable results.

Thus, the rumors about the cannon stabilization system were also beautiful to hear, but whether they were also a big pit into which bundles of money were thrown without any noise being heard, no one really knew. At least for now, neither the British nor the French had any type of warship using such a thing.

As France's nearly lowest-end large warship, the colonial cruisers obviously didn’t have this technology, so although the range of the ship's guns had long exceeded five kilometers, in actual combat, the distance between the opposing sides generally did not exceed one kilometer.

At this moment, the distances between the other two colonial cruisers and the "Miracle" were about seven or eight hundred meters. At such distances, the French's hit rate was also not high. The two colonial cruisers fired several shots, none of which hit. However, the design of the tracer shells did indeed play a certain role, as at least the landing points of these shots were getting closer.

Several shells fell nearby or flew overhead before the "Miracle" noticed the other two ships firing at her.

The British were unaware of the composition of the combined fleet, but they could guess that for such an operation, the French could not possibly send a main fleet, most likely just a few colonial cruisers. But how many colonial cruisers the French would send, the British did not know. However, considering that the ship that had been using the searchlight to illuminate them hadn’t fired its big guns at them, but rather the two farther ships were firing at them, the British commander aboard the "Miracle," Joson, made this judgment:

"The one using the searchlight on us isn't a warship, but an unarmed transport ship."

Therefore, Joson immediately ordered the "Miracle" to turn, using the body of the "Atlantic Transporter" to shield against the enemy ships’ shells.

Joson's tactic immediately took effect; the two French colonial cruisers firing at the "Miracle" had their firing lines blocked by the "Atlantic Transporter," and since the "Atlantic Transporter" itself was unarmed and immobile, the "Miracle" could directly close in and bombard it.

Because the distance between the sides narrowed to just a few tens of meters, the bombardment from the "Miracle" almost all hit. The "Atlantic Transporter" caught fire. But the searchlight still stubbornly focused on the "Miracle."

Joson knew that using the cannons aboard the "Miracle" to sink a ship was very difficult, but if a fire started on a ship, that was another matter. Since the "Atlantic Transporter" had already caught fire, and the fire clearly was getting out of control, Major Joson decided to switch targets, not to waste shells on the "Atlantic Transporter" anymore, and more importantly, not to waste time on the "Atlantic Transporter."

The French warships were already catching fire, although it would still take some time to restore power. If too much time was wasted on the "Atlantic Transporter," the situation could become dire.

Moreover, at this time, another ship—the "Lucky" was unfortunately hit by the French and also caught a large fire. From a distance, Joson saw the fire on the "Lucky" and knew that he had lost the "Lucky." No way around it; his fleet was an entire era behind the opposing fleet in terms of firepower.

At this time, because the "Miracle" had moved behind the "Atlantic Transporter," the French cannons couldn’t reach her, so those cannons all concentrated fire towards the "Lucky." As a result, the "Lucky" unfortunately took several more incendiary shells and was now burning like a giant torch. However, at this time, the "Lucky" at least acted as a bullet magnet, successfully shielding the "Miracle."

The "Miracle" began to increase the distance from the "Atlantic Transporter." At this time, due to the fire damaging the

 wiring, the searchlight of the "Atlantic Transporter" went out. This also gave the "Miracle" another opportunity to hide in the darkness.

"We'll circle around the enemy's warships and attack those transport ships," Major Joson ordered.

The previous battles had proven that even if the enemy's steam warships temporarily lost power, the new cannons and new shells gave them almost a one-hit kill power. So, even under such circumstances, sailing warships were still no match for steam warships. The current situation of the "Lucky" fully illustrated this point.

However, Major Joson felt that he didn't actually need to engage the French warships directly.

"Their docks are not yet complete, so the cannons must still be on those transport ships. Destroying those transport ships will destroy those cannons. Achieving this point, our objective would be met," Major Joson thought.

But where could the other possible transport ships be? Now, with two ships burning brightly on the sea, theoretically, this should help Major Joson find his targets. But in reality, because of the stimulation of the light, it made people's pupils contract, and as a result, places that were already dark felt even darker.

However, the positions of those transport ships were still traceable.

Inspired by the "Atlantic Transporter," the three French warships also turned on their searchlights and swung them wildly over the sea. But it was obvious these searchlights deliberately avoided certain angles. Clearly, they knew there was something they couldn't expose, so without a doubt, those ships were in the places that the light beams intentionally circumvented.

Major Joson carefully maneuvered his warship, dodging the beams of the searchlights. He circled around to the places the searchlights deliberately avoided. Sure enough, he soon discovered a ship.

The "Miracle" quietly approached, and at that moment, the searchlight of that ship suddenly lit up, covering the "Miracle" with its beam. The intense light made it almost impossible for the sailors on the "Miracle" to open their eyes. At the same time, a burst of gunfire rang out from the opposite ship.

To pursue a high hit rate, to severely damage or even eliminate the opponent in the shortest time, the "Miracle" and the target ship were very close, even less than fifty meters apart. This distance was already within the accurate shooting range of rifles. This round of rifle shooting immediately knocked down more than a dozen sailors busy on the deck.

But the British immediately returned fire, twenty cannons at such close range fired in unison. At this close distance, eighteen of the twenty cannonballs hit, a hit rate so high it was like executing a close-range shooting.

Even so, solid cannonballs might have good lethality against personnel on the ship, but they had very limited lethality against the ship itself. Just relying on solid cannonballs, sinking an enemy warship was a very rare case. Unless you could directly hit the opponent's gunpowder store, otherwise, even if you ran out of cannonballs, and each one hit, it was impossible to sink the enemy warship.

So, in the age of sail, the true purpose of bombardment was to kill as many of the opponent's crew as possible, then take the enemy ship through boarding. But now, taking over enemy ships, in such a short time, was completely impossible. The French warships were already catching fire, and in at most another half-hour, the French warships would restore power to some extent. In such a short time, completing the action of taking over enemy ships was completely impossible. So, the British had to adopt another method, using "incendiary shells" as the main attack weapon, hoping to cause fires to destroy the enemy ships.

The so-called "incendiary shells" were actually just solid iron cannonballs heated in a furnace until red-hot, then fired with cannons. These red-hot iron balls, when hitting the opponent's ship, were very likely to cause fires.

Of course, this primitive type of incendiary shell, compared to the French and even the British's own new types of warships using semi-armor-piercing incendiary shells, was far from a little or two points in performance. The efficiency of these shells in causing fires was far below that of the new types of incendiary shells. As long as the damage control personnel on the opponent's transport ship was not particularly large, the fires caused by these shells were not very difficult to control.

On the other hand, these shells needed to be heated before firing, which took time. The number of furnaces also limited the number of "incendiary shells" that could be fired per unit of time. Moreover, they were cumbersome to load, which would reduce the firing rate. But in the current situation, this was still the most feasible plan.

Of course, the cannons couldn’t wait for the furnace to slowly heat the shells, so the British always included a few

 "incendiary shells" in each round of volley, hoping to ignite the opposite transport ship with them.

The continuous close-range bombardment, even using such outdated things as solid cannonballs, still caused significant casualties to the people on the ship. If the infantry on the ship had not already gone ashore, the number of casualties might have been even greater.

Because of the large number of casualties, the damage control capability on this mixed cargo-passenger ship called the "Shepherd" quickly declined. Several places on the ship began to smoke. If the attack could continue for a while longer, the fire on this ship would most likely become uncontrollable.

But the lookout sent a warning; they noticed that the smokestacks of the three French cruisers began to emit sparks—an era's steamships’ smokestacks at night looked like they were emitting sparks. Seeing these sparks now meant that the few French warships would soon restore power. If the attack continued, once the French warships restored power, they would not be able to escape.

Major Joson calculated the results of tonight's battle. His fleet, facing a French fleet that was clearly superior in both number and technological level, lost a sailing corvette; destroyed a steam transport ship, severely damaged another steam transport ship (this ship had already caught fire, whether the fire could be extinguished was still uncertain. But Major Joson felt that even if it could be extinguished, this ship was probably done for), and possibly severely damaged a French cruiser. For a fleet that only had two old-style sailing corvettes, achieving such results was almost miraculous. And such results would definitely make him a hero in Britain. But to enjoy the benefits of being a hero, one of the prerequisites was that he must be able to retreat intact tonight.

"Cease attack, full sail, we're retreating." Having thought through this point, Major Joson immediately issued the retreat order.

It must be said that Major Joson's orders were issued a bit early; from the experiences of those who later recalled this battle, he actually still had time for two more rounds of volleys. But in the dark and chaotic battlefield, Major Joson could not possibly make such precise commands. So, it can be said that Major Joson's timing in retreating was actually quite good.

The "Miracle" slowly moved away from the battlefield, disappearing into the darkness. During this process, the searchlight on the French transport ship kept illuminating her, and the French three cruisers also fired at her from a distance, but because the distance was too far, and the shooting angle was restricted, all their cannonballs missed the target.

And at this time, it was also the middle of the night, the moon had set, and the sea became even darker, the "Miracle" quickly vanished into the darkness.

Philippe Treveil and Leon Bertier both witnessed this sea battle from shore. The cunning and decisiveness of the British left a deep impression on them. Later, Philippe often mentioned this night when educating his own descendants, telling them: "When you have the advantage, be even more cautious and careful."

When dawn came, the French assessed their losses. After this night, their combined fleet with the Dutch could be renamed the French Southern Africa Squadron. Because the only ship flying the Dutch flag had been burned down. However, considering the friendship with the Dutch, the French Southern Africa Squadron lent another transport ship (the one that was severely damaged) to the Dutch, so, the fleet could still continue to be called a combined fleet.

Besides, there was another small problem: with the Dutch transport ship burned and sunk, the Dutch could not find a large Dutch national flag to hang on the transport ship's mast. But this issue was simple; the French gave them their own spare national flag, then let them modify it a bit, and it became a Dutch national flag.

Overall, the French, in the face of the British's despicable and shameless sneak attack, responded calmly and not only repelled the enemy but also sank a British warship. In extremely unfavorable conditions, achieving such results, while only paying the price of a transport ship, and more importantly, not a single person died on that ship! The French felt that they had won this battle.

So on this night, the French Navy and the British Navy achieved a win-win situation.

However, the material and personnel losses were really not small; in this battle, the allied forces had one hundred twenty dead and two hundred nineteen injured. Among these, there were quite a few seriously injured. Although these seriously injured generally felt that they could still be saved, considering the conditions in South Africa, most of them were likely beyond help.

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