Munitions Empire

Even more, these fuses had a safety mechanism that was completely separate from the shell, to be installed only at the time of firing.

When the soldiers used a special tool to twist the safety on the shell and put it in a fully activated state, the enemy\'s nightmare seemed to begin.

This shell was then loaded into the cannon, followed by the propellant, and then the breech was tightly sealed.

The brand new breech, an improvement over the C64\'s wedge breech by a generation, opted for a threaded style more appropriate for large-caliber artillery. This was better suited for naval guns and also increased the rate of fire.

After the breech was rotated and locked into place, the gun captain pulled the firing mechanism of the artillery eagerly, and the rear of the cannon jolted backward, the intense cannon sound reaching everyone\'s ears through the steel plates.

Despite wearing special earplugs, the sound was still earth-shattering. Some covered their ears, others turned their backs to the cannon, all trying desperately to relieve the pressure on their ears.

The shell\'s propellant was ignited by the cannon\'s fuse, and the powder aggressively became flame inside the chamber. The gas expanded instantly, embedding the slightly oversized shell into the rotating threads, as it spun rapidly forward.

As the shell spiraled down the barrel, the immense force deformed the surrounding metal by the rifling, accelerating violently inside the barrel, before suddenly breaking free at the muzzle.

In that instant, without the rifling forcing it to keep spinning, the air friction dropped and its speed suddenly leapt to hundreds of meters a second.

The surrounding air was blasted away by the shockwave, flames from within the barrel surged out the muzzle, wreaking havoc around the artillery.

The next second, the shell, having broken the sound barrier, sped over a distance of more than 700 meters in just over a second, precisely hitting a sail warship that was firing.

The shell\'s casing, glowing red-hot from friction with the air, kept rotating slowly, maintaining an extremely stable trajectory.

When the shell struck the relatively soft wooden hull, its fuse was activated upon impact, igniting the detonator inside.

The detonator exploded immediately, igniting the shell\'s internal charge. The fire instantly filled the shell, causing the air inside to expand dozens of times over.

The shell\'s casing, already red-hot from the heat of friction, shattered under the burden, releasing itself and cutting through everything it encountered.

The shrapnel destroyed the surrounding wooden compartments, severed hammock ropes, and penetrated bodies soft as tofu, snapping bones more fragile than bamboo.

The shockwave spread, mangling and tearing everything nearby, as if a gale were slicing through corpses and the ship\'s sturdy structure with ease.

The improvements to the fuse slightly delayed the detonation, greatly enhancing the destructive power upon hitting the wooden sail warship.

As the explosion spread, reaching further areas, the part hit by the shell was already a total mess.

When sailors, twisted and disfigured in the lower body, began to fall from mid-air, sailors further away already had their internal organs shattered and bled out.

In the next second, the deck of the wooden warship heaved as the airflow from below lifted it, bulging as if inflated like a balloon.

The soldiers standing on the deck were flung into the sky along with the wood beneath their feet and then fell back down heavily.

Due to the severe explosion, the seemingly impregnable ship was slashed into even more sharp debris, filling almost all empty spaces amidst the flying shrapnel, reminiscent of the scattering of flowers by heavenly maidens.

And all of this likely happened within a second, so that by the time it ended, even those with the capacity to think had no chance to react.

As countless fragments fell to the ground, the lives around the explosion had already fallen silent, without a trace of sound.

Then, with its keel structure damaged and deck supports broken, the integrity of the ship\'s body was lost. The mainmast, torn by wind and released from its bindings, began to collapse.

It cleaved the yardarm on a mast ahead, bringing with it an abundance of canvas and ropes, crashing heavily onto the foredeck.

The executive officer beside the stern wheel barely managed to climb up from the deck, feeling dizzy, before recognizing the captain beside him, only to feel the warship tremble beneath his feet.

Then, a larger explosion suddenly blew him away—the warship\'s internal stock of gunpowder, the propellant for muzzle-loading cannons, had detonated. The second explosion instantly disintegrated the entire warship into a heap of splinters.

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Some were lucky, another warship following the one hit by cannon fire was struck, yet, it did not explode catastrophically.

At this time, sailors on the tilting warship, which had already started to list, had their gaze drawn toward the explosion nearby.

They watched in shock as their comrades were lifted into the air by the blast, breaking into two pieces in mid-rise.

When they turned their attention back to the deck beneath their feet, their warship had already listed by at least 15 degrees.

Water intake had overwhelmed the massive warship\'s masts, snapping the ropes and falling toward the listing side.

Screams were continuous, and the moans of the injured sent chills down the spines of onlookers. Some had already jumped into the water to escape, while others were trying to salvage their warship.

Finally, the muzzle-loading cannons fixed in place broke loose because of the tilt, their wooden wheels crushing the toes of the gunners trying to stop them from sliding to the other side, rushing toward the lower side.

Afterward, these heavy cannons collided with the ones on the opposite side, causing the warship\'s list to worsen even more.

Then, the warship capsized into the sea, rolling over completely, dumping everyone on board into the water.

Some climbed onto masts, some clung to sails, some stood on the side of the hull, and some had just poked their heads out of the gun ports they had crossed over.

They saw, a few hundred meters away, a warship billowing thick smoke cut through the waves without sparing them a glance, as it followed in the wake of another identical warship ahead.

From the beginning to the end, the capsized sail warship had only been hit by two shots, one of which was the pitiable 75mm caliber C64 antique ship cannon...

But now it had capsized entirely and would soon sink into the ocean depths. It hadn\'t even fired once, because the enemy ship was still 800 meters out when they were hit.

Bernard had no intention of sparing any of Taren Kingdom\'s warships, so after crushing twenty-one warships on one side of the "Ba" formation, he ordered the fleet to speed up and make a wide circle along their course.

The fully heated boilers could now operate at full capacity, pushing the entire Great Tang Group\'s fleet speed to 30 kilometers per hour.

This speed dwarfed that of all fleets of the era, so after the Great Tang Group\'s fleet made a wide circle, they overtook the enemy\'s other fleet side, which was slowly turning around.

In other words, when Valen\'s fleet was maneuvered into the complex "vertical hook" formation, the Great Tang Group\'s fleet caught up to them from the outside.

The positions of both fleets had turned into an interesting "子" shape, only the left stroke of the "子" was a bit short.

While cutting in, the Great Tang Group\'s fleet turned its guns, aiming all turrets toward the other side.

After all, they had initially faced the enemy with their starboard side and now had switched to engaging on their port side. This change allowed the other side\'s gun positions of all warships to join the battle.

Because Bernard\'s fleet was moving so quickly and from the outside, Valen, who was in the middle of turning his fleet, still was unable to get a full view of the Great Tang Group\'s fleet.

He could only see the black smoke lingering on the sea and the remnants of his sub-fleets scattered across the battlefield.

Valen couldn\'t understand why he had fallen into such a passive situation when he clearly had an absolute advantage in numbers.

He brought 70 first-rate sail warships, which were the absolute dominators of the seas just a year ago.

Each warship bore dozens of expensive muzzle-loading cannons, and each could accommodate hundreds of brave and skilled soldiers.

Yet now, he stood on his flagship unable to see what his enemy even looked like.

More than fifty warships lay across the sea\'s surface, his being in a position towards the front of the fleet\'s arrangement. This position now had no view of the tail end of his own battle line; he could only watch helplessly as chaos spread within his fleet.

As a naval general, he did not consider himself a fool. He had led troops for many years and achieved many sea battle victories.

Before today, he was extremely confident, even somewhat arrogant, and even believed himself to be the best naval commander—without peers!

He knew he couldn\'t issue complex commands frequently during battle, as the limitations on communications meant he couldn\'t coordinate the entire fleet in a timely manner.

However, the overwhelming strength beyond his comprehension forced him to abandon the pre-arranged plans and to change his deployment on the fly during the battle.

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