"Battlecruisers? The Grand Fleet is also here?! On the Cologne, Rear Admiral Maas looked incredulously at the place where the cannon was heard. I thought that this was just a skirmish operation for the Royal Navy to enter the German defense zone and conduct a sneak attack, but now it seems that the British want to fight a decisive battle with the main force?

"Retreat! Fall back! Retreat in the direction of Helgoland! "The second round of shelling by the British had already begun, and the shaking of several shells of about 600 kilograms exploding nearby caused the Cologne to roll on its back. Rear Admiral Maas, who almost fell in the shock, almost stuck to the ear of the captain who was holding him, Lieutenant Commander Weidinger, and roared!

Can't be cowardly! Let's go! No matter how tenacious the light cruisers under his command were, they were meaningless in the face of the 343-mm guns of these British behemoths. And the British light cruisers, which had been pursued all the way by themselves, obviously wanted to find themselves to collect their debts after receiving support, and these Brits couldn't wait to start turning around, wanting to give themselves a blow!

Seeing that the German light cruisers were beginning to turn to retreat, the British, of course, would not just let them go. Goodenough's light cruisers under the Bristol class are basically the same, because the ships are named after the city and are collectively referred to as the city class light cruisers with a speed of only 25.5 knots, naturally they can't catch up with the Germans, but Betty commanded the battle cruiser fleet under the leadership of the Lion to catch up with a speed close to 28 knots!

"Inform the 1st Reconnaissance Fleet that the 2nd Reconnaissance Fleet is being pursued by 3 battle cruisers of the British! The situation is critical! Request immediate support! Rear Admiral Maas ordered, but he himself knew that the First Reconnaissance Fleet under Vice Admiral Hipper's own command could not have arrived so quickly.

When Hipper noticed that visibility in Helgoland Bay was not high at 8 o'clock, he was worried that only light cruisers might be in trouble due to the weather, so he decided to send large cruisers to the formation. After consulting the commander of the Ocean Fleet, Admiral Ingnoor, at 8:20 the order was given to the First Reconnaissance Fleet to be dispatched.

The low tide, which reached the lowest water level at 9:33 a.m., did not affect the sortie of the 1st reconnaissance fleet. Due to the development of cargo ships such as container ships and ro-ro ships in Germany and the continuous expansion of the scale of the shipping business, the supporting facilities of Wilhelmshaven have also been upgraded, and the outbound waterway of Wilhelmshaven has been deepened and desilted every year, so even during the low tide period, the average water depth is still about 10 meters.

The Blucher class was completely free to enter and exit, and although the Moltke and De Fringer classes were still in danger of bottoming out at low tide because of their deeper draft, the German Navy was not unprepared for this. Hipper requisitioned all the tugboats in the harbor, including civilian vessels, and brought three Moltke-class and one D-Fringel-class out of the harbor first, and then lit a fire outside the harbor and waited for the Blucher-class to come out before setting off.

However, even so, the First Reconnaissance Fleet could not have arrived on the battlefield so quickly, and the sortie of these large cruisers was not as simple as that of the light cruisers of Rear Admiral Maas's Second Reconnaissance Fleet, and the Moltke-class and the De Fringer using oil-fired boilers required more than one hour to make a fire, and the Blucher-class with kerosene boilers took nearly two hours.

So when Rear Admiral Maas sailed out of the Wilhelmshaven waterway with the light cruisers, passing by four large cruisers, these battleships could only move slowly with the help of tugboats, and had no ability to sail.

It will take at least an hour for the First Reconnaissance Fleet to arrive, but within this hour it may be completely annihilated!

"Bastard!" Seeing through the binoculars that his naval guns had hit the British several times, the 150-mm naval guns could only hit the hull of the British with bursts of sparks, and then they turned into fragments and flew away.

The shells fired by themselves were bounced off by the opponent's armor, and the opponent continued to rush towards them unexpectedly, and the heavy shells kept falling around him, and these shells only needed one shot to tear the light cruiser to pieces!

Just when Rear Admiral Maas was first dissatisfied with the power of the 150-mm naval gun of his proud flagship, the roar of the German-made 210-mm naval gun sounded in the southwest!

"Marquis Bismarck and Hohenlohe?!" Rear Admiral Maas could hardly believe his eyes, what did two heavy cruisers built in 1903 and now have a speed of only 19 knots come to do ?! I encountered a telegram from a British battlecruiser, and they should have received it!

In the face of the light inquiry signal from the Cologne, the Marquis Bismarck, who was in charge, replied: "We have 12 210 mm naval guns and 120 mm thick armor, and our task is to delay time!" ”

The two heavy cruisers docked at Helgoland had already started their fires when the 5th Destroyer Group received orders from Vice Admiral Hippel to set out, but the coal-fired boilers of these heavy cruisers, built in 1903, took more than two hours to produce enough steam before rushing to the war zone at a speed of 19 knots.

These two slow-moving old ships have become the strongest German warships in this sea area at this time! After receiving a telegram from Rear Admiral Maas about his encounter with a British battlecruiser, the captain of the Marquis Bismarck, Colonel Karpf, not only did not give the order to turn to evade, but continued to advance towards the battlefield!

At 12:40, after the Marquis Bismarck saw the towering three-legged mast of the British battleship in the mist, the 210-mm naval guns immediately roared at the enemy who was much stronger than itself in the distance!

The 210-millimeter naval gun with a 30-degree elevation angle can fire 108 kg of shells at a distance of nearly 18,000 yards, which is completely worthy of range!

However, Betty was not ready to rely on his advantage of heavier shells and more stable ballistics to engage in a long-distance artillery battle with the Germans, Betty looked at the two German heavy cruisers in the distance and decisively ordered to close the distance, he wanted to use the 24 13.5-inch naval guns in the fleet to defeat the opponent in the shortest possible time!

Betty smiled coldly in his heart at the light cruiser that turned closer to the German heavy cruiser, and he could guess what the other commander's was thinking. The other party knew that there were 4 light cruisers behind him, so he was worried that if the 2 heavy cruisers were not protected by light ships, they would not only fall behind in the battle with the battle cruisers, but they would also be powerless in the face of the bite of the light ships, so they wanted to use their light cruisers to protect them, anyway, there were only 3 battle cruisers on their side, and they couldn't take care of them before hitting the heavy cruisers.

The idea is very good, and the courage not to continue to run away is commendable. But it didn't make much sense, because there were two more battlecruisers coming behind him. By the time the Invincible and the New Zealand arrived on the battlefield, the Germans would know how boring their courage was in the face of absolute power.

"Closing the distance to 6,000 yards, the Queen Mary Lion rallied the first German heavy cruiser! The Celestia Celestia attacks the second ship! Betty straightened the military hat she was wearing and ordered.

As an improved version of the Lion-class, the Queen Mary in the formation is equipped with a 13.5-inch Mark-V (H) naval gun and the Mark-V (L) naval gun equipped with the Lion have slight differences, the 635 kg shells fired are much heavier than the 574.5 kg shells of the Lion, and the explosives in the warhead are also 2 kg more.

However, in the face of a siege of 16 13.5-inch naval guns, the Marquis Bismarck hit the opponent first. One 108-kilogram shell smashed into the Lion. However, the Lion class is not as crispy as the invincible and tireless class after all, the 9-inch armor belt of about 3 meters can be called conscience, and after a mass of explosion dissipated, Colonel Karpf looked at the Lion in despair and left only a scorched black mark on the main armor belt.

However, in fact, the Marquis Bismarck's shell still caused damage to the Lion, in fact, another shell hit the upper armor belt under the bridge, gouged through the 6-inch upper armor belt and exploded inside the ship.

The penetration of the 108-kilogram armor-piercing projectile was barely enough in the face of the upper armor belt with a thickness of 6 inches, and after penetrating the hull, it exploded after smashing through only two compartments, and the charge inside the shell was not large, so it blew up only 4 compartments and caused a small fire.

Of course, such damage did not change the situation of the Marquis Bismarck, and soon the British returned fire on the Marquis Bismarck.

A 574.5-kilogram shot smashed into the 120 mm main armor belt of the Marquis Bismarck, and a fireball exploded in an instant, and the strong vibration made everyone feel that the hull of the ship was tilting to the other side, and then being pushed back under the action of buoyancy. The entire side was swept by fragments and became a mess.

However, when Colonel Karpf inquired about the damage, the answer turned out to be that although the main armor belt was badly dented, the British shells did not penetrate! This simply made Colonel Karpf feel desperate!

However, the British did not see that there was a problem with their shells, so the appearance of the Marquis Bismarck at this time was indeed very miserable. As a 10-year-old ship, the Marquis Bismarck was repainted every year, and the 5 mm thick paint on the hull burned immediately after being shot, and the raging fire made the British think that the heavy cruiser had been badly damaged.

Over the next 20 minutes, the British again hit several shells from the Marquis Bismarck, and the entire battleship was almost completely enveloped in flames, but not a single shell caused a breakdown! Colonel Karpf even exclaimed in amazement: "Are the British shells made of dough?" ”

However, although the turret, ammunition depot, and power system were all intact, the situation of the Marquis Bismarck was not at all good, the superstructure was swept away by fragments, the burning fire could not be contained, and the scorching heat made people worry whether the solid steel plates would not be baked. If this fight continues, the British will be able to burn the Marquis Bismarck into a wrecked ship just by burning.

But now, her six 210mm guns are still roaring.

The Lion was hit by 5 shells, 1 of which hit the gun profile under the bridge, destroying 2 4-inch secondary guns, and 1 shell hitting the conning tower, although it was blocked by the heavy armor, but it still made Betty disgraced inside.

Betty was scared for a while when the command tower was hit, and she couldn't help but scold: "These damn Germans are really accurate!" ”

But looking at the German ships that were still fighting back in the raging fire, Betty also had to sigh at the tenacity of the German naval officers and men, and at the same time curse that the German battleships were really ****** tough.

But no matter how hard it was, the Marquis Bismarck was just an old heavy cruiser, and the Queen Mary's 635-kilogram shells eventually broke through the already battered armor. A shell pierced through the 120 mm armor belt, smashed down through the top of the 50 mm dome and exploded behind the side of the turret seat!

Not only did the shell that pierce through the core zone completely deform the seat of Turret 2, but the explosion damaged several compartments and caused fires, and these compartments were adjacent to each other in the ammunition depot shared by Turrets 1 and 2! If the fire spreads here and these shells are detonated, the bow of the Marquis Bismarck will be blown away by Zigan!

"Immediately fill the front ammunition depot with water! Immediately fill the front ammunition depot with water! Knowing that the situation was critical, Colonel Karpf shouted into the microphone, but there was no response from the ammunition depot, and a chill spread from Colonel Karpf's tail vertebrae to the back of his head in the face of the silent microphone.

"Damn it! Immediately get people to the ammunition depot! Otherwise all of us will be blown up to the sky! Colonel Karpf shouted. But now that the compartment below is in shambles, will the damage management personnel be able to get to the ammunition depot in time? The colonel himself has no bottom.

In the ammunition depot of the Marquis Bismarck, a bright red trail dragged across the deck, and at one end of the trail, a figure was crawling on the ground.

Second Lieutenant Schmidt was the last survivor of the ammunition depot, and the rest of his comrades were slammed into the bulkhead in a violent tremor, and then their entrails were shattered by the blast transmitted by the bulkhead. And he was lucky that he didn't have a mess of cotton wool in his stomach like his comrades.

But with his legs broken off on the deck, and the constant coughing up of blood mixed with soft debris and blood dripping from his nostrils to the ground, the 23-year-old lieutenant could only crawl on the deck, his body dragging a long trail of blood from his coughing up to the ground.

Schmidt heard the captain's order from inside the microphone, but he was unable to answer, and could only drag his body to the water filling valve with both hands.

A position that would have taken only a dozen seconds to reach is now far away, and it took several minutes to climb under the valve, but the valve, which was only about 1.5 meters high, hung above his head at this time, but he couldn't touch it.

Gripping the vertical pipe tightly with both hands, he climbed up with difficulty, slowly pulling his body off the ground, using all his strength, the severe pain caused by the broken legs and severe internal injuries made his cathartic screams unable to come out, and the rapid loss of physical strength made his every movement extremely difficult.

Finally, he grasped the red valve wheel with both hands, and then pulled his body up like an explosion with both arms, and the legs that regained the weight of his body gave him a fierce warning, and he had to lean his body on the wheel and use his body to share the weight with his body, but the pain in his abdominal cavity also gave a serious protest.

But Schmidt still held the wheel tightly with both hands, and then used the weight of his body to drive the wheel to start slowly turning. With a creaking sound, the valve opened, and the raging sea water rushed in.

Turning the roulette wheel to the end, Schmidt, who had completed the task, could no longer squeeze the slightest strength out of his body, and he fell heavily into the seawater, making a huge splash. Feeling the water slowly sinking over his body, the young lieutenant struggled to touch the pocket on his chest, which contained a picture of the bride he was going to marry on his next vacation. (To be continued.) )