Steel, Explosives, and Spellcasters

——The Cut——

The navy had carefully selected an anchorage sheltered by an unnamed island, with each ship maintaining a safe distance, scattered across a natural harbor.

A small boat was lowered into the water from The Glorious, and Winters followed Cage down the rope ladder onto the small boat.

Cage tightly clenched a wooden chest containing sea maps and the fleet's next destination.

To ensure the secrecy of their course, the captains of the other ships, except for the high-ranking officers aboard The Glorious, only received the location of the next anchorage when the fleet regathered. This way, even if individual ships were captured, the enemy wouldn't know the entire fleet's route.

Although the Retribution Fleet had a massive target, accurately intercepting this fleet in the vast ocean wasn't that easy.

Four sailors paddled vigorously, accompanied by the sound of oars slapping against the water. The small boat left The Glorious, gliding over the undulating waves towards the galley "Golden Lion."

As the afterglow of the sunset lingered, Winters sized up the galley before him.

The Golden Lion wasn't purely an oared vessel or a sailing ship but a product of pragmatism. Whether oars or sails, I want them both.

Compared to the "broad-shouldered," The Glorious, the Golden Lion had a more narrow and slender hull to accommodate more rowers. The entire ship was relatively low, with only one deck, and both the bow and the stern also had only one deckhouse.

There were no gun ports on the hull's sides, just dense arrays of oar openings. Remembering the layout of The Lucky, Winters speculated that the Golden Lion's cannons were likely arranged along the ship's length at both bow and stern.

"Why is the freeboard of this ship so low?" Winters patted Cage on the shoulder from behind and asked, "Isn't that a disadvantage in combat?"

Although he had only experienced one naval encounter, Winters had understood that in a fight, higher was better, and the side with the taller ship held an advantage. That's why warships' deckhouses were built taller and taller until they looked like castles upon the deck.

The Glorious not only had a higher freeboard than the Golden Lion but also had three deckhouses. Sailors on the Golden Lion were akin to facing a wall when up against The Glorious. Attacking The Glorious from the Golden Lion meant having to fight upward, while The Glorious could easily dominate from above.

"Of course, it's a disadvantage; that's why new warships being built are round ships. The Golden Lion is an old ship constructed over a decade ago," Cage explained patiently to Winters, turning to face him.

"Indeed, sailships are out of luck when there is no wind," Winters remarked, thinking back to the sea battle he had been through.

"Actually, I think that the design of warships now is too extreme, much like cavalry soldiers who ended up covering both themselves and their horses in iron plates." Engaged in a topic he was fond of, Cage suddenly became animated, gesturing towards The Glorious and critiquing it to Winters, "The Glorious looks powerful but is actually very cumbersome. With such high deckhouses, its center of gravity is unstable, and they dare not place too many cannons there. Besides, high deckhouses have another drawback: they have a large windward side, which makes turning difficult..."

"But having high deckhouses gives an advantage in naval combat, doesn't it?" Winters weakly interjected, his confidence low as this wasn't his area of expertise.

Cage slapped his thigh, "That's why I say it's extreme, just like those full-body plated knights. In hand-to-hand combat, the more solid the armor, the better, so the nobility ended up encasing themselves entirely in metal plates. But what if the enemy switched from hand-to-hand combat to using firearms? It's the same at sea: in order to have an advantage in boarding actions, they made deckhouses taller and taller. The Glorious is a warship that went to the extreme in boarding combat, but what if the enemy doesn't board?"

"Not fighting a boarding action... how else do you fight naval battles?"

Never pretending to understand when he didn't, but instead asking questions, it was one of the good habits Winters had learned from Antonio. After ramming tactics gradually declined, for nearly a thousand years naval battles involved two ships closing in, sailors shooting bows, crossbows, and muskets at each other, and finally, deciding the battle in hand-to-hand combat. Winters genuinely couldn't think of any other method.

"With cannons," Cage confidently replied. "Sink those cumbersome ships from a long distance."

Winters snorted with laughter, "Aren't there already cannons on board? And with the accuracy of cannons, on the heaving sea, let alone at a distance, it's hard to hit another ship even fifty meters away."

"The cannons on the ships, other than the large caliber short guns, are swivel guns, which can only be used at close range," Cage explained hurriedly. "Think about it, equip mobile and agile ships with long guns, firing only from a distance without boarding. Big ships like The Glorious can neither catch up nor hit the target; they can only take the hits helplessly. It's a pity that all the old stubborns at the navy's headquarters aren't innovative. They just like mighty and imposing big ships like The Glorious, and all the funding goes into building these high-rise round ships!"

Cage punched his thigh angrily.

"I don't know much about naval battles, but on land, there was a similar battle. In the Battle of Calais, the infantry of the Ancient Empire couldn't catch up with Palati's cavalry, were worn down by archery until their morale collapsed, and were finally harvested by the heavy cavalry," Winters joked. "If I ever become the military governor, I'll allocate the entire naval budget to building the ships you want."