Chapter 728 This guy is really a genius

"Lieutenant General, there are some things you may not understand." Geprat disagreed with Charles's organization, but he said in a calm and tactful tone: "We usually pursue fleets of warships of the same type, because the main guns of warships of the same type are the same, which is more conducive to hitting the target."

Fighting with warships of the same type has an advantage: as long as one of the warships achieves cross-fire on the target, the other warships can make slight adjustments based on the shooting parameters. In actual combat, they can often achieve concentrated fire on the target or even sink it.

(The above picture shows the "cross-fire" or "sandwich" of the target. Once the shells land in front of or behind the target, it means that the parameters are accurate and can effectively cover the target. The popular British warship tactic at the time was to line up the warships and fire at the target in turn at intervals of 10 seconds. The most accurate warship immediately passed the parameters to other warships)

Lieutenant General Geprat thought that Charles, as the army commander, did not understand this knowledge, so he put two different types of warships together.

Unexpectedly, Charles replied calmly: "You are right, Your Excellency. But if we do this, they will also be more vulnerable to being hit by the enemy, and this is obviously disadvantageous to the side with more numbers and smaller displacement, don't you think?"

Lieutenant General Geprat suddenly realized that Charles did not fail to understand, but was intentionally doing so on the basis of understanding.

After a moment's thought, Lieutenant General Geprat realized that Charles was probably right.

Charles' destroyer fleet generally has a small displacement and small caliber guns. In this case, if they appear in front of the enemy's battleships in a group, they will provide the enemy with an excellent target, and a salvo will always hit several warships.

In addition, destroyers using torpedoes to siege battleships also require encirclement from all directions rather than a concentrated attack from one direction.

If this is the case, there is no need to provide reference parameters to other warships, because they are too far away from each other and the provided parameters are meaningless.

While Geprat was thinking, Wells asked in confusion: "But why don't we group two ships of the same type together? For example, destroyers with destroyers, light cruisers with light cruisers, wouldn't this be more conducive to coordination and command?"

Before Charles could answer, Vice Admiral Geprat explained: "We intend to attack the enemy battleships with torpedoes, Mr. Wells. It will be more beneficial for us to mix forces."

"What?" Wells didn't understand the difference.

He actually has some obsessive-compulsive disorder. Wouldn't it be nice to have two identical boats neatly arranged together? He had to put the big one and the small one together.

Vice Admiral Geprat explained: "Torpedo attacks do not have the problem of transmitting parameters, so the impact of mixing on us is minimal, but the impact on the enemy is huge."

Wells said "Oh" and seemed to understand.

The 100MM or so naval guns on light cruisers and destroyers were almost a tickle to battleships, so naval gun attacks were abandoned from the very beginning.

If there is no naval gun attack, there is of course no need to consider whether the naval gun models are the same or whether the parameters are the same.

But he still didn't quite understand: "But General, why does this have such a big impact on the enemy?"

Geplat glanced at Charles and started to talk on the table with coffee cups and matches:

"This is the enemy's battleship, and this is our destroyer."

"If our destroyers are exactly the same model, the enemy battleships can easily measure the distance to our destroyers, and very accurately."

"But if the models are different and the sizes are different, the situation will be different, and it will cause them a lot of trouble."

(The above two pictures are mechanical rangefinders from World War I, which are divided into "coincidence type" and "stereoscopic type", but the principle is the same. They rely on the principle of misalignment of the target observed on the left and right sides, and fine-tune until the left and right images overlap to read the distance data. The error of the rangefinder during World War I was about 10%. The distance measurement error alone was as high as more than one kilometer for a distance of more than ten kilometers)

Wells was an expert in shipbuilding and had some knowledge of these devices, but he lacked practical experience and did not think of them for a while.

At this time, Gai Pratt reminded him and he understood: "So, mixing two different types of warships can reduce the hit rate of enemy naval guns?"

"Yes, you can say that." Lieutenant General Geprat glanced at Charles.

It would be terrible if Ciel had thought of this earlier.

Is this a genius? Not only is he proficient in land warfare, he is also proficient in naval warfare!

Impossible. Naval warfare requires knowledge and understanding of equipment, and Charles has never been involved in naval warfare.

But why could Charles formulate such a strategy?

Is it just a coincidence?

While I was wondering, I saw Charles calmly take over the topic:

"The benefits of mixed forces are more than these, Your Excellency, Lieutenant General."

"As I said before, our fleet's tactics seek a kind of 'guerrilla warfare'."

At this point, Charles glanced at Wells and continued, "I assume that Mr. Wells has discussed this idea with His Excellency the Lieutenant General?"

That was a discussion Charles had had with Wells at the Brest shipyard not long ago. The gist of it was that the fleet would rely on speed to maneuver outside the range of the enemy battleships, first eliminate the destroyers, and then besiege the lone battleships.

Geprat nodded, and then suddenly realized: "So, light cruisers will have a strong firepower advantage over destroyers in guerrilla warfare. This can ensure that our warships will win in guerrilla warfare?"

Japan's "Tianlong-class" light cruiser has four 140MM caliber naval guns, which cannot be compared with the battleships' naval guns that are often several hundred millimeters in caliber, but it is extremely advantageous compared to the destroyer's naval guns that are generally around 100MM.

Ciel nodded and concluded:

"This is 'asymmetric warfare' on the ocean, gentlemen."

"We use speed to ensure our initiative, crush enemy destroyers with our naval guns, and attack enemy cruisers and battleships with torpedoes."

"In addition, our light cruisers can also carry large-scale communication equipment and reconnaissance equipment, which can enhance the coordination between various groups."

Lieutenant General Geprat nodded repeatedly with a happy look on his face: "The most important thing is that we have aircraft to cooperate with us."

"Yes." Charles was very happy that Vice Admiral Geprat understood: "So, you should understand how to train our navy?"

"Of course, Lieutenant General," Geprat replied.

I exclaimed in my heart: God, this guy is such a genius, and his naval tactics are no exception.

Charles felt that other aspects were fine, but he believed that the most difficult aspect was the coordination between sea and air.

During this period, radios were not yet used on airplanes, and even if they were, they were prone to malfunction and the signals were unstable.

This means that communication can only rely on flags and flares, and coordination relies more on tacit understanding.

However, it is not a big problem at the moment. If it really doesn't work, let the pilots focus on bombing the enemy's large cruisers and battleships.

(End of this chapter)