Chapter 298 The Speed of Life and Death in the Sea Battle of Saros

At the same time he gave the order, he asked the flagship to turn around the hull immediately, as an example, to face the Dionia fleet and speed up.

After seeing the warships around it, they quickly made corresponding actions, but for the Carthaginian warships that were far apart, they first heard the bugle to retreat, and soon changed to attack. The trumpet, the two diametrically opposed orders puzzled them.

This is a newly formed fleet. Although the vast majority of its crew survived the storms of the previous Carthaginian fleet, it has been reorganized after all. One of the biggest problems is that although Ademi Card once expressed strong opposition, but with the support of the Senate, Annobas still mixed the survivors of the previous Carthaginian and Iberian fleets and assigned them to each new warship, so that As a result, all warships are under the unified command of the naval commander, and there is no longer any independent Iberian fleet.

So when this new fleet has not been fully run-in and hurried into battle, they have not yet developed a good obedience to the new fleet commander (for the Iberian crew, Annobas is unfamiliar ), the usual patrols and voyages are still not visible, but at the moment of crisis, the problem is exposed: some warships are hesitating whether to carry out this later order.

And just when the Carthaginian fleet was disjointed and chaotic due to two orders, the attack of Dionysian 3rd Fleet continued to show its power, and the crow warship smashed the circle like a hammer. The outer shell, and then rushed in was the fast three-layer oar warship. Their small hulls shuttled quickly in the narrow inner space of the circle, as nimble as swimming fish, but after discovering the fighter plane, they became The ferocious sharks smashed the oars of enemy ships and crashed their hulls, making the already chaotic Carthaginian ship formation even more chaotic...

At this point in the battle, some Carthaginian warships saw bad things and began to withdraw from the battlefield.

Speaking of which, the new Carthaginian fleet originally had 190 warships. After arriving in Sardinia, 40 warships that originally belonged to the Phoenician city-state of Sardinia were merged, bringing the total number of warships to 230. After Nobas formulated this plan, the new fleet was almost equally divided: in order to ensure that the warships in charge of ambush in the open sea, commanded by Admika, could resist the attack of the Dionian warships and form a complete melee The situation could persist until the fleet he personally led came and formed a double attack (because Annobas believed that if he rushed to the battlefield too early, the Dionysian fleet, which had not yet entered into the battle, was likely to have a bad experience and Escaped early, resulting in little success), so the 110 warships he assigned to Admica were all Carthaginian warships, and the 40 Phoenician warships, which were weaker in combat, were incorporated into his fleet. , he believes that in the case of a great advantage, there is no need to worry about the combat effectiveness of the Phoenician warships.

But the current situation is that the fleet led by Annobas is in a situation of passive beating. In the face of the fierce attack of the Dionysian warship, several Phoenician warships chose to obey the previous command of the flagship, while the following The order to attack came unheard, and they retreated.

Their retreat also affected the fighting spirit of the nearby Phoenician ships,

They all followed and retreated, causing the entire Carthaginian fleet not to mention the attack, and even the defense became difficult to maintain.

After Annobas learned about the situation through the watchman, he stomped his feet in anger and couldn't do anything about it.

"Sir, let's retreat quickly, we won't be able to leave if we don't go!" the captain urged eagerly, because at this time there were the Dionian warships on the left and right sides of the Carthaginian flagship. Annobas personally supervised the battle, and the situation was slightly better. If this continued, the flagship would be cut off and surrounded.

"...Retreat..." Annobas said sullenly, covering his face and sitting on the deck, completely daring to face the fact that, as a naval veteran, when he was suddenly attacked by the enemy, he first hurriedly Setting up the wrong formation and then changing orders repeatedly turned an otherwise dominant battle into a rout...

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"The enemy has retreated! The enemy has retreated! Wang Wangshou shouted excitedly above the mast.

Midorades' face did not show ease, and asked anxiously: "How far is the Carthaginian fleet behind us?

"Only three hundred meters or so!"

"Order all warships not to stop, accelerate forward! Remember, do not stop!" Midorades shouted sharply.

"Captain, the flagship has raised three green flags!" shouted the stern watcher of a crow warship at the forefront of the fleet.

"What?! Green flag!" The captain frowned, and the green flag's navy's language was "speed up" (when the Dionysian Navy originally formulated the slogan, green represented spring, the recovery of all things, the thawing of glaciers, and the galloping forward. meaning, and the opposite is the white flag, which represents retreat, the Dionysian Navy has no slogan of surrender), which means that they have to let the ship in front of them panic and pass horizontally in front of their bow. Although the Carthaginian warship was unwilling, the order must be obeyed. The captain sighed helplessly and said, "Charge speed, go straight forward! Unload the crow suspension bridge!"

All the warships of the 3rd Fleet were carrying out similar orders, which made the entire fleet speed up again, which forced the Annobas fleet to speed up their escape, and even in the panic, collisions were seen from time to time in order to escape.

When these slow-moving Carthaginian ships saw the fast-approaching Dionysian ships, they were all dead. But a miracle happened, and the Dionysian warship passed them as if not seeing them, and sailed forward.

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Admika regretted it.

He led 110 warships to ambush in the distant sea under the order of Annobas. The crew rode the warships tossed in the wind and waves, and waited tremblingly for the Dionia fleet to take the bait. As a result, after waiting for most of the day, the merchant ship serving as the bait reported that : The Dionysian fleet chased them halfway and returned.

Admika was disappointed. While notifying the fleet to return, he sent a clipper to investigate with a glimmer of hope.

As a result, the Clippers reported that the Dionysian fleet was intercepted by the fleet led by Annobas.

Admika immediately turned from disappointment to excitement, and he ordered the fleet to speed up.

Sure enough, he saw the Dionysian fleet ahead, but at this time, instead of ordering the fleet to attack immediately, he let the fleet slow down and line up the formation at the same time.

The reason why he did this was considered: First, in the naval battle at Seedium a few months ago, the Iberian fleet he personally led was once defeated by the Dionysian fleet, and the Dionysian fleet was defeated. The Dionysian Fleet, which had just started fighting the Annobas Fleet at this time, was fully capable of separating some of the warships and turning around to block his attack, causing great losses to the fleet he led. .

Second, although he is now under the command of Annobas, he is not convinced. He hopes that the fleet commanded by Annobas will suffer more losses in this war, while his own losses are very small, which is beneficial to himself in the war. The prestige in the new fleet is increased, and the right to speak is increased.

Therefore, after Admika let all the warships unfold to form a double-column formation, he stood still, watching the development of the battle ahead, and at the same time being alert to the possible escape of the Dionysian fleet.

But he never imagined that the commander of the Dionia Fleet would be so decisive, that he would ignore his threat and let all the warships participate in the attack.

He didn't even think that the fleet under the command of Annobas would perform so poorly. The battle only lasted for about 10 minutes, and it was somewhat unsupportable.

Admika had to give the order to attack immediately after getting a general understanding of the situation ahead through his watchman.

It took the Admiral Fleet about seven or eight minutes to let the warship reach the extreme speed from a standstill, pass a distance of nearly three miles, and rush to the rear of the Dionysian Fleet. Tangled, Admika also asked the flagship trumpeters to blow the attacking bugle with the utmost strength.

But in the end all efforts proved to be futile. By the time they arrived at the battlefield, the Dionysian fleet had passed through the Carthaginian fleet and sailed into the distance at full speed, leaving only the damaged Carthage. The base warships and the Carthaginian warships with most of the sailors chopped down were scattered on the sea, and many Carthaginian sailors floating on the sea shouted loudly to the fleet for help, but they became obstacles to the progress of the Admika fleet.

Of course, not all the Dionysian ships fled in time. Seven or eight Dionysian ships were either slowed down due to damage to their hulls, or had to be evacuated due to failure to withdraw the fleet's infantry in time. They spent more time waiting, or had to collide because the panicked enemy ship suddenly appeared in front and could not dodge, so they couldn't rush out quickly... In short, they haven't been able to leave the battlefield, and they fell far away on Dio The rear of the Nia fleet.

The Admika fleet chased after them, and the Dionian ships saw that they could not escape, and they turned around to fight. Even though they were heroic, they fought more with less, and the Carthaginians quickly won the battle. victory.

During this process, the Dionysian Third Fleet did not turn around to rescue, but instead accelerated away.

Looking at the Dionysian Fleet, which had disappeared in the distance, and the devastated battlefield around him, Admika hesitated for a while, and when it was impossible to catch up with the Dionysian Fleet, he decided to go first. Rescue your compatriots.

At the same time, he also sent the Clippers to investigate the movements of the Dionia fleet, and also asked the Clippers to find the escaped Carthaginian warships and let them return to the fleet.