The sun was shining brightly, the sea was as clear and blue as a jewel, and a light fleet flying the 10,000-character flag was taking off and splashing from east to west. Pen @ fun @ pavilion wWw. ｂｉｑUｇE。 infoIn the sunlight, the two leading Königsberg-class cruisers stand out: their slender and slender bodies are equipped with two triple 210 mm main gun turrets with a diameter of 7 meters, a feature so unique that almost anyone in the industry will not be mistaken.

German Rear Admiral Mekel stood on the bridge of the Cologne, his neat blue-black military uniform hunting and flying in the sea breeze. He held the large binoculars in both hands and looked with all his might to the northwest. The cyan sky is clear and high, and it is particularly clear against the background of the deep blue sea, and a faint little black smoke can be seen spreading at the junction of the sea and the sky, adding a bit of strange color to this picture-like scene.

"The British are in front." Merkel was excited, and the hand that grabbed the lens barrel couldn't help but exert a slight force. Half an hour earlier, he had received a telegram from the Bismarck: the British battleship Rodney had been heavily damaged, and was waiting for his fleet to deliver the final blow to the British ship. Merkel, who received the order, did not slack off in the slightest, and immediately ordered all the warships under his command to sail to the open sea. Merkel was mentally prepared for a head-on fight with the British Navy, and the most important task of the Weser exercise was to thwart British interference in Germany's occupation of Norway.

In fact, the Third Fleet assigned to Merkel by the German Navy Headquarters was originally designed to meet the needs of a head-on battle with the British Navy. At this time, in addition to the two Königsberg-class cruisers with a standard displacement of 7,500 tons, which were reclassified as heavy cruisers after the thirties, Merkel also held six small destroyers of the Beast class. The latter was built in the late twenties of the Weimar Republic with a standard displacement of 1000 tons, a speed of 35 knots, and was armed with 3 105-mm guns and 8 600-mm torpedo tubes.

When the German Navy successfully copied the Japanese oxygen torpedo, the torpedo tubes of this class were immediately replaced with 610 mm with a similar caliber. Although this type of destroyer has a small tonnage and weak firepower, with its considerable speed and anti-sky torpedoes, any enemy ship will tremble when it encounters her!

The bow of the ship jumped, the machinery shook, and the eight warships rode the wind and waves, speeding away at a high speed of 30 knots in the direction of the black smoke generation. Within ten minutes, the officers and men of the German ship saw a gray shadow appear at the junction of the sea and the sky, from which the black smoke had come out. Over time, the German lookouts counted a total of 6 ships, and when they were observed through the main rangefinder, the outline of the target was undoubtedly very different from the style of their own ships!

"4 large ships, 2 small ships, and the British turned out to have only 2 destroyers protecting their battleship?" Merkel had a look of disbelief in his eyes, and he used his telescope to look at the gray shadow in the distance. Although the target is still more than 20 kilometers away from him, it is not difficult to distinguish between a large battleship with a total length of more than 200 meters and a destroyer with a total length of more than 100 meters. Merkel was stunned for a moment, and suddenly thought of a possibility: Admiral Kars must have lured the swarming British light ship group away and created this excellent lightning strike opportunity for himself!

"Order, all ships are torpedoed and launch a surprise attack on the enemy ship at full speed!" Mekel, who figured out this section, did not hesitate any longer, and immediately ordered loudly. The signal soldier next to him answered the order, turned around and ran away. After a short time, a Z-shaped flag, symbolizing the battle, was hoisted on the mast of the Cologne, and the whole ship began to speed up further, approaching the limit speed of 32 knots. The cruiser, known for its gunnery warfare, was also capable of lightning strikes, with a quadruple 610 mm torpedo tube mounted in the center of its stern.

Although the use of expensive cruisers for dangerous torpedo charges was too wasteful and could have sunk the ship at the slightest deviation, thanks to the ultra-long range and lightning speed of the Type 93 oxygen torpedoes, the two heavy cruisers Cologne and Karlsruhe did not need to get too close to their targets. Therefore, they could still pose a considerable threat to British battleships under the premise of ensuring safety.

Twenty kilometers away, a sharp alarm bell sounded on the British warship, and the sailors ran with all their might on the passages and decks, nervously running to their respective positions. The boiler output rose in a straight line, and all the guns that could be used, large and small, were pointing at the incoming enemy ships. In a few moments, a deafening thunder resounded through the sea and sky, and heavy shells burst out like meteors, bursting out in the cascading flames of purple and red, piercing the sky.

Inside the bridge of the battleship Warrior, Admiral Forbes stared at the eight German ships emerging from the coast in shock and exhortation. He suddenly realized that he had made a serious mistake, that is, he did not carefully reconnoiter the specific enemy situation in the surrounding waters.

When encountering the German battleship at dawn, Forbes subconsciously thought that this was the German sea force used to cover the landing force, and at this time it was coming to stop his attack on Bergen - after all, the other side had already predicted the movement of his fleet, and at this time he must bring all his family to resist his own strong fleet. But who would have thought that the Germans would go against the principle of naval warfare and keep a sizable fleet in the harbor, which was completely unexpected by Forbes.

If that were all there was to it, it would have been a good thing for Forbes, because he would have been able to concentrate on the German fleet and greatly increase his chances of victory. However, as the situation unfolded, the reality was completely out of his script.

In order to damage and even sink the two German heavy battleships with amazing defense with torpedoes, Forbes scattered almost all the light ships under his command. And because the enemy battleships basically did not slow down much, the British destroyers who were desperately chasing were long out of Forbes' sight at this time, and they were at least 20 nautical miles away from the battlefleet. When another batch of German warships appeared in front of the British battleships, this scarred main fleet fell into a dangerous situation without the protection of the younger brother, especially the Rodney, who was slow and seriously flooded, and was simply the most ideal target for German light ships to carry out lightning strikes!

"The Germans were able to succeed with this tactic, could it really be that God abandoned Britain?" Looking at the German destroyers speeding in the distance, Forbes's heart was filled with a little depression and bitterness, and he was full of desolate thoughts. If the previous two German battleships could not withstand the firepower of their own battleships, or if they broke the stall in the artillery battle and could not maneuver at high speed, then they would not face this tricky situation at this time, and the light ship group with a strong lineup could easily annihilate these small miscellaneous fish in front of them with a single assault. It's like now, only 2 destroyers are on anti-submarine alert around me, and 3 of the 4 battleships are damaged, and the secondary artillery fire is not fully exerted at all!

Suddenly, Forbes understood the root of the problem. The current situation is not God's favor, but entirely due to the decline of Britain itself: if Britain could still have the scorching power of the beginning of this century, then the capital ships under its command today are definitely not old ships such as Warriors and Royal Oaks, and the number is at least three times that of today. Forbes smiled wryly, the pain in his chest was like a knife, and the last glory of the Royal Navy was probably gone as this war continued.

Amid the thunderous artillery fire, the German light fleet rushed towards the enemy in front of it like an arrow from a string. Unlike in another battle, the wounded old British battleships were completely unable to run at the same high speed as the Bismarck-class, and the German ships rushed forward and soon circled to the torpedo firing position in front of the British ship's right. Rear Admiral Merkel keenly noticed that the starboard side of the British battleship was almost all wounded, and the secondary artillery fire was missing, so he immediately chose to launch a surprise attack on its right front. The two German heavy cruisers each aimed at one British destroyer and bombarded the opponent with their 210 mm guns, although they failed to achieve the ideal hit rate due to their frequent changes of course to avoid the guns of the British battleships, but their fierce firepower had completely suppressed the only two British destroyers.

When the distance between the two sides was reduced to 12,000 meters, both the Cologne and Karlsruhe fired their own torpedoes mounted in the tail. The two ships then began to turn in order to minimize the danger to themselves. Because the path of the oxygen torpedo was not obvious, the British sailors did not see the pale white waterline speeding on the sea until 4 kilometers away, and in an instant the sound of exclamation and screaming was incessant, and the helmsman slammed the compass and maneuvered the warship to quickly dodge.

However, this is exactly what Major General Merkel wants to see. The British battleships in the turn not only had a low rate of artillery fire and a sharp reduction in the threat to the six rapidly advancing German destroyers, but more importantly, they had to take the initiative to catch up with the latter's advancing course, causing them to get closer to each other even faster. Merkel very wisely chose to use 2 heavy cruiser chicken rib mineloads to create a more ideal lightning strike opportunity for the destroyer; After this maneuver, the German destroyer fleet had advanced 3 kilometers to the British battleship.

"Boom!" With a loud bang and blazing flames gushing like a volcano, the German destroyer "Wolf" was hit by a 381-mm high-explosive bomb in the rear waterline, and the entire stern of the ship was immediately blown away, and countless fragments were scattered into the surrounding sea like a torrential rain. The ship's speed slowed sharply and began to sink slowly at a speed visible to the naked eye. However, there were five other sisters next to her. With the huge plopping sound of heavy objects constantly entering the water, 40 torpedoes weighing 2.7 tons dived at 50 knots at an ultra-high speed like electricity, and a distance of 2,500 meters took them less than 100 seconds to cross!