Chapter 229: , Black ship

Ireland's sweeping and anti-sweeping operations have entered the most critical and difficult period. In order to support the Irish Independence Army and leave a bleeding wound to the British, the French government increased the freight for transport ships to Ireland by 50%.
As a teacher in later generations said: "As soon as there is a proper profit, capital will be bold. If there is a 10% profit, it is guaranteed to be used everywhere; if there is a 20% profit, it will become active; With 50% profit, it will take the risk; with 100% profit, it will dare to trample all human laws; with 300% profit, it will dare to commit any crime, even risking its head."
Originally, the profit would not be low when I ran Ireland once, and coupled with the increase in freight, although it has not yet reached the point where people "dare to commit any crime, or even risk hanging their heads", it has also reached the point where people are willing to "take the risk." "To the point. Therefore, since this time, more people have ordered flying shears in the shipyard of the military-industrial complex, and the number of flying shears heading to Ireland for adventure is rapidly increasing.
However, the British have also taken precautions for a long time. As early as a month ago, the Duke of Norfolk wrote a letter to the British Prime Minister, pointing out possible problems and making suggestions:
"The brigade’s flying shears hovered in the ocean near Ireland, waiting for the storm to arrive. Once the wind on the sea, they would pounce on Ireland like sharks smelling blood. As far as I know, the French’s There are more and more flying shears, and soon, when their number is large enough, they can even directly report that they have saturated our interception capabilities to break through our interception.
On the other hand, there are too few steamships in the hands of the Royal Navy, and another weakness of these ships is now fully revealed, that is, the proper rate of such ships is too low. After a period of intense use, this problem became more prominent. The commander of the first detachment of the Irish Coast Defence reported to me: ‘Our ships are either being repaired or waiting for repairs. The entire Haiphong First Detachment has a total of five steam frigates, but now only one can go to sea.
The inconsistency in the manufacturing of steam frigates also makes maintenance more complicated. The five steam frigates in the first detachment of coastal defense use five types of steam engines. Others, including paddle wheels, including transmission equipment, have almost no parts. the same. This makes each boat need unique maintenance, and when two boats have problems, we can't put together their available parts into one boat to ensure that one of the boats can be quickly repaired-I I really don’t know how this stupid thing happened! Why can't the same standards be used to produce the same steam frigates?
I suggest that the Royal Navy should purchase more steam frigates and adopt a completely unified construction standard for steam frigates. Even if the performance is appropriately reduced, the maintainability of these warships must be ensured. Don't let these warships become quay-pressing monsters. "
The British also know that if they lose Ireland, the blow to Britain will be too great. So while the French accelerated the production of flying shears, the British also began to accelerate the production of steam frigates in various shipyards.
In terms of shipbuilding capabilities, the British have considerable advantages over France. But this refers to the production of general ships. Steam ships are still clearly different from other ships because of the need to install a series of machines. In contrast, the difference between flying shears and traditional ships is even smaller. Therefore, the production of flying shears by French shipyards is much faster than the production of steamships by the British.
Moreover, although the number of British steamships is increasing, the problem of low intactness rate has not been solved very well. I have to say that the Duke of Norfolk's idea of ​​all parts being interchangeable is very genius, but it is also beyond the era, at least beyond the level that the UK can achieve in this era. You know, in another time and space, at least until the 1980s, the latest fighter jets produced by a major eastern country could not be exchanged for parts.
Therefore, although more and more flying shears were sunk or captured by the British, the supplies received by the Irish increased.
Of course, the British did not get nothing. From a captured flying shear boat, the British seized two sets of intact flamethrowers, which gave the British one more choice, that is, to copy the French flamethrowers immediately and then install them on the copycat flying shears. , And finally rely on strong production capacity to defeat the genuine with copycat.
But all this will take time, and the Irish, who have regained supplies, have also begun to intensify their counterattack. And once again launched a flanking offensive, and once again captured a military station.
In the base areas, because of logistical difficulties and the ineffective use of the "security forces", the British army's losses have also increased significantly, and their efficiency in sabotaging the base areas has been significantly reduced due to the passive slack of the "security forces". And why do the "security forces" slow down even when performing simple tasks such as "destroying potato fields"?
According to the British, that is because: "Irish people are lazy, as long as they have the opportunity, they must be lazy; even if there is no chance, they must be lazy to create opportunities."
But if you ask Captain Jarvis with the same question, Captain Jarvis will tell you that there is a reason for this. The main reason is that the Irish are too bad. Whoever spoils the crops and spoils the most vigorously, they give priority to hitting whoever is the first, and the attack is dark and brutal. It's just that the guys in our security forces are too stupid. Every time they go to the British army for help, they either go too late or stupidly take the British army to step on the landmines of the rebels.
In this way, in order to protect the British soldiers, it would be better not to spoil the crops. Therefore, the "security forces" can't do anything, and even ruin the crops, they can't compare to a donkey.
Since the "security forces" could not be counted on, the British army also tried to do it themselves and spoil the crops. Then, they found that they had fallen into a strange circle. If the brigade is concentrated to do this, the efficiency will be too low, to the point where it is not as good as a donkey; but if it is scattered to do this, it will always be attacked by rebels. In these attacks, the authentic British army suffered heavy losses.
As a result, even the Duke of Norfolk, who has been yelling "persistence", had to admit that continuing to carry out raids in non-security areas no longer makes much sense. So he issued a new order, declaring that the crusade against the rebels had achieved phased success, and now he could win the class.
To say that the Duke of Norfolk was right, his actions did cause considerable losses to the base area. And it did make the Independent Army consume too many supplies. If the British can effectively prevent the Irish from getting enough supplies before the harvest season when the potatoes are ripe, it will be difficult for the Irish Independence Army to regain its strength within two to three months after the potatoes are ripe. At that time, the British will have another big sweep, I am afraid it will directly create a big famine in the base of the Irish Independence Army.
Of course, all this mainly depends on two points. The first is whether the British can cut off France's supply of Ireland more effectively, and the other is whether the United Irish Federation can realize production and self-help as soon as possible. After all, weapons and ammunition may be solved by overseas rescue, but it is almost impossible to rely on overseas transportation capacity to solve the food problem. If overseas transport capacity can really solve the food problem, then either Britain has collapsed, or the base area has shrunk so much that there is almost nothing left.
In the following days, a new phenomenon appeared in the sea, that is, the flying shear ship from France was once again attacked by the British flying shear ship. And this time, "Greek fire" also appeared on the British flying shears. Because of being caught off guard and lack of survivors. In the beginning, such an attack was not discovered, and everyone just found that the number of ships able to return to the port has decreased a lot.
This situation naturally made the crew alert. Soon after, someone finally brought back the exact news: the British were also on fire in Greece.
The news is that a Danish captain named Oleg, on the way back from Ireland, rescued an Italian sailor who was floating on the sea holding a plank. The Italian sailor told everyone that the ship he was on was attacked by a British flying shear ship loaded as a French ship. The British first lit their ship with Greek fire and then shot and killed the ship. Sailor escaping from the sea. He escaped the British shooting by hiding under a large plank.
Soon after, the situation worsened. The British had more and more flying shears, and they even began to intercept and attack ships heading to Ireland in a fleet. In this series of battles, both sides have suffered a lot of losses, but relying on stronger shipbuilding capabilities and closer distance to the base, the ship has a lighter load and a faster speed, and it is easier to gain the advantage of the upper wind position. The spray distance of the flamethrower has a great influence, and the party that has the upper hand can attack at a longer distance), and gradually gains the upper hand in this series of battles.
Because of the excellent performance of the copycat version of flying shears, the British converted those expensive and inconveniently maintained steamships into ordinary cargo ships, and continued to increase their orders for the copycat version of flying shears.
"In another month at most, we will be able to have no French flying shears in the waters off Ireland. Once we cut off this supply line, we can quickly put down the Irish rebellion." Prime Minister Addington said Facing the question from the House of Commons, he vowed to say so.
On the same day that the Prime Minister made such a promise to the members of the House of Commons, a strange warship with a long and slender hull and painted black as a whole was launched into the water at the Toulon Shipyard.
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