"Hey, number two, where do you say, where will the German fleet appear?" A pilot of a British No. 1 reconnaissance plane asked on a communication channel.

They had been patrolling the target route for more than 10 minutes, but they had not found even a shadow of the German High Seas Fleet. If you don't meet the German High Seas Fleet for 10 minutes, you will have to wait longer if you want to run into the German High Seas Fleet if you want to sail with the slower ships of the Royal Navy.

"I don't think the Germans will show up." The pilot of another reconnaissance plane No. 2 chatted with his partner on the communication channel: "The German fleet, in any respect, is inferior to our Royal Navy. This time we launched a large-scale attack, and the Germans did not necessarily get the news. And once they knew that the Royal Navy was gathering heavy forces to surround them, they probably fled back to the harbor to hide. ”

On the sea, there were only two reconnaissance planes. Because the 1st Detachment of the British Home Fleet did not have aircraft carriers, they were all surface fighters that took off from battleships. How many seaplanes can be carried on a battleship, and it is not an aircraft carrier, it is already good to be able to carry two.

"Huh?" As soon as No. 2 finished his morale-boosting words, he suddenly noticed something unusual from the distant sea: "What is that?" ”

"Two, did you find anything?" The pilot of the No. 1 reconnaissance plane asked suspiciously on the communication channel.

However, before No. 2 could answer him, he had already answered the question with his own eyes.

At the end of the line of sight, countless small black dots surging slowly rose from the sea in the distance...... After a while, the black dots became more and more, bigger and bigger, overwhelming, and densely surging in.

"Enemy aircraft?!" The two British drivers exclaimed in unison.

From the beginning, they ignored the possibility of this happening. In terms of the internal experience of the British Royal Navy, in normal naval battles, reconnaissance opportunities are often sent to detect enemy warships first. Because the planes move faster, the speed of the battleship is quite slower, and when the enemy and our fleets are at the same distance, the reconnaissance planes can often be one step ahead of the battleship and find the enemy warship.

However, this time, the German High Seas Fleet did not follow the usual naval battle process and put the battleships into the front line as the main force of naval warfare. From the very beginning, Lütjans, who commanded the First Fleet, pinned the victory of the duel on the aircraft carrier fighters.

Because it no longer relied on warships sailing on the sea, but fighters soaring in the air, the combat range of Lütjans was expanded from the range of the battleship's guns to the flight radius of the battleship.

The expansion of the combat radius also means a change in the mode of combat. The First Mixed Fleet of the High Seas Fleet, which had changed its mode of warfare, naturally did not put its warships in a range that could be quickly searched by British reconnaissance planes.

"We're thinking in the wrong direction! It is necessary to turn back and warn the fleet....... "The pilot of the British No. 2 reconnaissance plane, while preparing to turn the plane, reminded his comrades in the communication channel: "Leave immediately, leave immediately......."

Unfortunately, as soon as the two British reconnaissance planes completed their turn, a dense burst of fire flew from the rear. Their planes were also damaged to varying degrees in an instant.

Listening to the noise of the loss warning equipment in the cabin, as well as the dazzling row of red lights, the hearts of the two British pilots suddenly sank to the cold water, completely devoid of the calmness of the previous easy chat.

Two minutes later, the two destroyed planes turned into two fireballs and fell diagonally into the blue sea, turning into two beams of black smoke......

Farther away, two huge Zeppelin-class aircraft carriers, in an inverted V-shaped escort formation, moved slowly.

.............

"Why did the reconnaissance plane suddenly lose contact?"

"Where did the German fleet go? Without a report from a reconnaissance aircraft, there is no way to confirm it at all! ”

On the Ark Royal, the flagship of the British fleet, a group of operational staff officers were chatting anxiously. More than 20 minutes have passed, and according to the deductions that have been repeatedly verified before, at this time, the reconnaissance aircraft should have confirmed the location of the German vanguard fleet a long time ago.

However, the result now is that instead of sending back information, the reconnaissance planes have lost contact with the rear one after another.

Without the report of the reconnaissance planes, relying only on the small reconnaissance ships and destroyers deployed on the periphery, even if the German fleet was discovered, it would lose the best opportunity to prepare and rush to meet the battle at a very close distance.

It shouldn't be like this! Not to mention the anti-aircraft fire of the German warships, it is impossible to accurately shoot down every batch of British reconnaissance planes, even the reconnaissance ships on the periphery and the high-speed destroyers cruising around the periphery, and there should not be a trace of the German fleet at all. Their battleship, as if it hadn't come close at all.

Battleship...... Didn't get close to ......

Chewing on the first few words of information repeatedly, Cunningham seemed to have discovered something, and it was as if nothing had been connected.

Shouldn't the Germans have made up their minds to fight a decisive battle with themselves? Why, apart from the discovery of the first batch of reconnaissance planes on the outskirts of the German fleet, and the confirmation of the existence of the German High Seas Fleet, there was no further discovery of their main positions?

The discovery of the outlying high-speed patrol ships of the German First Squadron was actually completely considered the luck of the British reconnaissance planes, which inadvertently evaded the German fighters. If they didn't happen to dodge the planes released by the Zeppelin-class aircraft carriers, the outcome would have been the same as those lost contact.

However, they did not bring back the most important piece of information, that is, the German 1st Mixed Fleet had a strong carrier-based aircraft strength.

Now, with what little information he had, Cunningham could only rely on the location of the German perimeter patrol ships that he had discovered for the first time, and rely on his common sense to roughly estimate the location of the main force of the German Vanguard fleet. After all, it is inferred from the discovery of the German peripheral training ships, so the range of positions inferred in this way will naturally be very vague and broad, but there is a direction, which is better than nothing.

"You can't go on like this!" Cunningham clenched his fists and gritted his teeth and ordered: "Let our First Squadron move at a steady pace in the direction where the reconnaissance aircraft first spotted the German outer patrol ships, and our Second Squadron will follow closely behind." As soon as you encounter or spot the German fleet, immediately charge at full speed and quickly defeat them! ”

If something is not done to break the current stalemate, the pressure on the officers will continue to increase, which is not good for the later operations. In order to alleviate the pressure caused by this silence, Cunningham had to change his strategy and take the initiative to search and launch a charge on the German High Seas Fleet.