On the cold-winded platform of the Scharnhorst, the lookout post was dressed in a thick winter coat, scarf, earmuffs and leather gloves, staring intently at the sea. ∈♀

The horizon is dark and unclear, and the visibility is only about six or seven nautical miles.

The port side looked up the telescope, and a faint shadow appeared in the eyepiece, and from time to time a dazzling fire burst out near the shadow.

The news of the sighting of an enemy ship in the left front quickly reached the ears of Colonel Hoffman on the bridge.

Finally caught it, and if it weren't for the Admiral Hipper and the Lützov all the way to guide it, it would have been as difficult to catch a high-speed warship as it would have been to put a camel through the eye of a needle in this dark ocean.

The Scharnhorst's first telemeter was immediately activated, and the four 283mm guns raised their muzzles and turned to the port side, instantly spewing out four orange fireballs.

Clouds of gunpowder smoke rose from the deck, and when the cold wind blew, it scattered over the bow of the ship.

On the port side of the Scharnhorst, the bow of the Gneisenau flashed with fire, followed by a thunderous blast of gunfire.

Eight 283-mm armor-piercing shells flew across the sea in an instant, blasting a tall column of water around the Fame.

Shrapnel mixed with sea water flew into the sky and scattered onto the deck.

Colonel Martin looked at the splashes of foam and searched the starboard fan-shaped area.

Ten seconds later, a vague figure of the Shane twin ships finally appeared in his telescope.

In the end, he was still caught up, and Colonel Martin's heart was twisted.

After inquiring about the command of the Home Fleet, Colonel Martin received a message that made him despair, except for the four light ships. There are no friendly ships in this area.

Did these two enemy ships fall from the sky? Why is it suddenly here?

Employ the method of elimination. Colonel Martin filtered out the names of the German battleships one by one. The names of these two interceptors quickly came to mind.

The Scharnhorst and the Gneisenau, who did not participate in the previous naval battles, did not expect to appear here, did the good fortune of the Prestige end here?

The Prestige is a veteran ship commissioned in 1916 and has been modernized twice to reduce its maximum speed to 28 knots.

The speed of the twin ships of Shane can exceed 30 knots at most, and the Admiral Hippel, who is tracking behind him, is also a high-speed battleship with a speed of more than 30 knots, and the slowest armored ship is also at a similar speed as the Prestige, with a pursuit of more than three hours. The fact that the Prestige did not shake it off is proof of that.

I'm afraid I'm going to be doomed this time!

After standing for a few seconds, Colonel Martin gritted his teeth and said, "Inform those four battleships that enemy reinforcements have arrived, and the original plan will be canceled, so that they can quickly move away from the battlefield."

Inform the command that our ship was besieged by four German battleships and was doing the final battle.

Tell the boys to cheer up and fight the enemy to the end. ”

Colonel Martin's order was quickly conveyed to every corner of the British mainland, the four friendly battleships, and the Prestige.

Six fifteen-inch guns and fifteen four-inch secondary guns spewed out flames incessantly, and the Prestige instantly turned into a living pyrotechnic launcher.

The flash of the muzzle of the Prestige. The coordinates and trajectory of the Prestige were given to the four German battleships.

The Prestige turned around and fled northeast, and the Shane doubles also turned northeast. It was about seven or eight nautical miles southeast of the Prestige and went parallel to the Prestige.

To the south, the heavy cruiser Admiral Hippel, to the south, and to the northwest was the Lützov, which had approached about five nautical miles and was sailing alongside it.

In the midst of the frantic firing, a loud bang rang out from the front of the bridge, and the fire dazzled Colonel Martin's eyes.

Turret No. 1 was hit by a bullet and caught fire, and within a few minutes thick smoke and flames quickly emerged through the cracks in the turret and surrounded the front of the bridge.

Seawater poured into the turret through the bullet holes, and then invaded the ammunition compartment beneath the turret, where the bombardier and gunner drilled into the ammunition bay and braved the flames and bitter cold seawater to quickly rush to the dry ammunition that was approached by the flames.

The damage control team then joined the rescue team, and after artificially filling the ammunition compartment with water, the fire was quickly contained, but the No. 1 turret was incapacitated and the prestige's firepower was drastically reduced.

Undeterred by the intense desire to survive, Colonel Martin commanded the Prestige to fight and retreat, allowing the ship to turn to the left and to the right, bombarding the German battleship with the first No. 2 turret and stern main guns.

The four-inch secondary guns on the left and right sides opened fire together, pouring armor-piercing shells onto the German ship.

The Prestige's stubborn resistance paid off, and the Scharnhorst was hit by two fifteen-inch shells, the mainmast was blown off, and the stern radar was destroyed.

Colonel Hoffman did not stop the pursuit, and then tore open the deck in front of the main gun in the aft of the Fame with a 283-mm shell, and the flames from the explosion set the superstructure on fire, making the Fame an even more striking target.

The Gneisenau also chased and fought fiercely all the way, hitting the Prestige one after another.

The smoke extraction device of the No. 2 turret of Prestige was destroyed, and the gun emplacements were filled with smoke, and the gunners could not continue firing.

Five four-inch secondary guns were blown away one after another, and where the shrapnel passed, the gunners were killed and wounded, and corpses were strewn all over the ground, and blood stained the red deck.

A 283-mm armor-piercing projectile drilled through the upper part of the water pipe into the No. 1 boiler room, blowing up a steam pipe.

The boiling steam rushed into the cabin, and the bare-chested, sweaty boiler soldiers were screaming and screaming out of the steamer.

The pressure inside the boiler dropped, and the Prestige slowed down to twenty-five knots, and then to fifteen.

Under the strict orders of Colonel Martin, the chief of the electrician rushed into the cabin of the heat wave, and worked together with his assistants to block the steam pipe torn by shrapnel, and the speed of the Prestige began to recover again, and it was soon restored.

By this time, however, the Prestige had been beaten and bruised all over its body.

The superstructure on the deck was blown out beyond recognition.

The deck was strewn with blood, with dead and wounded officers and men, stumps and severed arms, and countless scratches from shrapnel splatters.

In the cabin, personal belongings such as food, bedding, books, and photographs of the crew are scattered everywhere, creating an apocalyptic scene.

"Left full rudder!" Colonel Martin roared, and the Prestige slowly turned to the left, turned due north, and the four German ships then turned to continue the pursuit.

The Shane twins, with their speed advantage, gradually overtook the starboard side of the Prestige, and there was a tendency to surround the Prestige.

At the last moment, two slender and short figures rushed out of the waves, met the fire of the Scharnhorst's starboard secondary gun, approached about 2,500 yards from the starboard side of the Scharnhorst, and fired twelve torpedoes in the bow in a row.

The destroyers USS Volunteer and USS Prowler, who did not heed the advice of Colonel Martin, rushed to the battlefield in time to fire the "first shot" of the rescue.

Colonel Hoffman urgently ordered the rudder to turn and successfully avoided the harassment of the torpedo, but broke out in a cold sweat.

The Gneisenau also made an emergency evasive maneuver.

After a brief blockade, the distance between the Prestige and the twin ships of Shane widened again.

The enraged deputy gunners responded with 150-mm shells to the arrogant enemy, and the masters were not far behind.

The destroyer Prowler then fired seven or eight shells and sank into the sea with smoke and fire.

The volunteer swayed and disappeared into the raging waves.

Having come full circle, reloading the torpedo, the Volunteer again rushed to the Scharnhorst to release the torpedo.

On the Scharnhorst, the prepared gunners quickly smashed 150 mm, 105 mm, 40 mm, and 20 mm shells at the Assassin.

The 20-mm Gatling cannon was the first to hit the Volunteer, carving numerous bullet holes in the hull, followed by the 40-mm anti-aircraft gun.

By the time the 105-mm anti-aircraft gun and 150-mm secondary artillery shells fell on the Volunteer, the Volunteer had already turned into a fireboat and rushed towards the Scharnhorst.

The Scharnhorst avoided six torpedoes and the Volunteer, which launched the decisive ramming, but was even further away from the Prestige, out of sight.

Thankfully, thanks to the glow of the fire on the Prestige, the Scharnhorst's main guns did not lose their target.

The Shane ships fired a salvo each, tearing open its seaplane hangar, and the superstructure and lower decks were also hit and caught on fire.

The Prestige turned into a fiery hell, flames erupting through cracks in the steel plates, and the entire battleship was enveloped in smoke and flames.

The Admiral Hipper arrived belatedly, but delivered a fatal blow.

Four torpedoes hid under the water and pounced on the Famine, one of which was just below the starboard bridge, and a white column of water rose into the sky, splashing water rolled up the deck, and the Famine could not help but tremble violently.

The icy water poured into the cabin from the torpedo blast, mercilessly drowning the crew who had not had time to escape, and then flooded the bilge, tilting the Fame to starboard.

Colonel Martin saw the windshield of the bridge shattered, and the flying glass scratched his cheeks.

As far as the eye could see, the No. 2 turret in the bow of the ship was also hit, and thick smoke billowed up into the air.

Colonel Martin wiped the blood from his face and turned on the megaphone.

"All attention, wear life jackets, abandon ship!"

As soon as the words fell, three torpedo-induced explosions sounded on the starboard side in succession, and Colonel Martin was caught off guard, and he and his staff rolled to the ground again, and before they could get up, a 283-mm shell pierced the bridge from the right side, and the fire swallowed all the life in the bridge.

After taking four torpedoes in a row, the Prestige crawled north of the sea at a speed of less than five knots, the starboard railing was flooded, and the bow sank to the surface, slowly twisting and sinking to the bottom of the sea.

The surviving officers and men climbed up to the windswept main deck, only to be ruthlessly thrown into the sea by the sloping deck, and then struggled and cried out in the chilling waters, desperately trying to escape the burning, undulating oil trails and the impending whirlpool.

Five or six minutes later, the stern of the "Scharnhorst" was raised, the propeller was lifted high out of the water, and it "marched" into the depths of the ocean with an unstoppable momentum.

Five or six minutes later, the Admiral Hippel rushed into the dissipating clouds of smoke and searched for the surviving British crew members in the sea covered with debris and floating corpses (to be continued, please search, the novel is better and faster!).