The Royal Navy sent to North America has one less capital ship than the U.S. Navy. Pen Fun Pavilion www.biquge.info This is also a matter of no choice, after all, the Americans have accumulated twenty years, while the British have lost naval battles and sunk many ships despite the restrictions on the export of technology.

The five capital ships of the Royal Navy, except for the battleship Sovereign, which was already significantly behind, one self-built Dreadnought and three Bellerophon-class ships were all very combat-effective. The four battleships were all over 20,000 tons in tonnage, the Dreadnought was slower, only 19 knots, and the three Bellerophon-class ships could run at 21 knots. The Sovereign was an ironclad ship, half the tonnage of four battleships, and it was modified with new power to barely reach a speed of 16 knots.

The problem of disjointed speed of warships also plagues the U.S. Navy, which is also a 21-knot, Connecticut class that is not inferior to the Dreadnought and Bellerophon class, but the rest of the ships are slow, and their Chishach-class is not much different from the Royal Navy's Sovereign-class, all of which are ironclad ships wrapped in iron.

The capital ships of the two fleets were about the same in terms of total tonnage, and relatively speaking, the Royal Navy had the upper hand. Comparing the cruiser formation and the escort formation, the US Navy operates on the mainland, and the scale is slightly larger. But in terms of the quality and quantity of cruisers, again the Royal Navy had the advantage. After all, the British Royal Navy is an old power with hundreds of years of naval heritage, and even if the United States is open, there is still a gap.

The Royal Navy Task Force has 14 cruisers, of which the lightest cruiser has a tonnage of more than 4,700 tons, the heaviest is 9,300 tons, and a third is a heavy cruiser equipped with 203 mm guns.

Simply comparing the size of the fleet, it is not possible to really get the actual combat power, the Royal Navy is aggressive, it is staring at the US Navy to find a decisive battle. The British did not intend to use any tricks, they believed that they had to face each other head-to-head on the sea, so that the world could re-examine the power of the Royal Navy.

Although the Royal Navy seeks a decisive battle, it is not careless at all, on the contrary, they are extremely careful to verify every piece of information and make the most rational choice. The fleet commander of the Royal Navy is none other than Nelson, and this is the first time he has led such a large fleet of the Royal Navy into battle. He studied the previous failures of the Royal Navy, and the Americans used bombers to disrupt the Royal Navy's position. Nelson understood, however, that those bombers had a limited range, especially since the Americans did not have many of them, and that as long as his fleet was kept mobile, they posed no threat to his fleet.

Nelson also attached equal importance to the use of aircraft, and some of the British cruisers were seaplanes capable of conducting reconnaissance over large areas of the sea. At the same time, Nelson also brought a number of frigates. The Royal Navy's frigates are not quite the same as the Datang and American frigates in terms of design. Considered expendable, these frigates were small in tonnage, from a few hundred tons to a thousand tons, and had negligible defenses, but they were armed with ten torpedo tubes and rapid-fire guns with an astonishing rate of fire. In particular, these frigates can reach speeds of up to 29 knots, which are also the fastest ships in the Royal Navy.

The main role of these frigates is to launch a quick surprise attack, block the guns of their own capital ships, and have a certain reconnaissance capability. It's a pity that the ocean-going capabilities of the corvette under this positioning are not good, and there are many problems. But the British could build several ships a year, and they quickly replenished their fleet.

Before the campaign, Nelson's water reconnaissance aircraft first spotted the cruiser formation, two cruisers and four frigates of the US Navy at a position more than seventy nautical miles east of Newfoundland. However, Nelson did not pounce directly, but ordered the reconnaissance plane to continue to expand the search area, and sent a fast frigate over.

Nelson's caution proved necessary. Because this cruiser formation was a decoy thrown out by the US Navy to the British. Once the British bite the hook, this fast cruiser formation will lure the Royal Navy into its ambush area, and the American Navy, which has been positioned in advance, will greet the British with cannonballs.

The Americans, on the other hand, were more agitated because Nelson did not bite the hook, and their water reconnaissance planes were also expanding their reconnaissance range, but they still did not find the main force of the Royal Navy. Instead, the U.S. Navy ordered the cruiser formation, which was used as bait, to pursue the mine-strike frigate, which had a tonnage of only about 700 tons.

However, the lightning frigate did not run away at all, and just when the US Navy thought that the enemy was scared, several white lines suddenly appeared in the turquoise water, a huge explosion sounded, the water splashed, and the US Navy cruiser hit two torpedoes in a row, and a large number of water entered the water!

But the Americans kept a good eye on the corvette and did not see her make any attacking moves.

Only then did the US Navy wake up from a dream, this is a submarine.

Nelson's reconnaissance force was not only a frigate at all, he also arranged a total of four submarines under the surface. The technology of the British man-made submarine is not mature, and it is much worse than the submarine of Datang, but the British still relied on their own boat management skills to drive several small submarines to the waters of Newfoundland and successfully ambushed the American cruiser.

In the end, even the corvettes fired torpedoes, and two American cruisers and a frigate were sunk in this surprise attack.

The US Navy got off to a bad start, losing two important cruisers without inflicting any damage on the enemy. The bigger trouble was that the British already knew where their main fleet was, but the Americans had not yet grasped the whereabouts of the other side.

In order to catch their opponents, the Americans wanted to track the opponent's seaplanes with water planes, because the opponent's seaplanes would definitely return. At the same time, the US Navy used all possible means to expand the search area and stepped up anti-submarine operations. After all, the time for submarine activities under water at this time is actually extremely limited, and the speed is very slow, after the British submarine attack just now, with its speed of no more than 4 knots, it is impossible to run too far. And after a while these submarines will have to float for ventilation, the Americans do not know the design indicators of British submarines, in fact, the maximum time of activity of the British small submarines under water does not even exceed 6 hours. Erdatang's latest Dolphin-class submarine has been able to continue to sneak underwater for 72 hours.

The U.S. Navy doesn't have much experience in anti-submarine warfare, but they know that if they don't catch these small fish, they may turn into the most dangerous sharks in battle. (To be continued.) )