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Of course, Lütjans didn't really want to ram the British warships, and although the British ships were generally weakly armored, they were capital ships after all, and a head-on collision would not please either side.

The meaning of Lütjans's words was only to let the High Seas Fleet go up and engage the British fleet in hand-to-hand combat.

One may wonder why Lütjans did not let the fleet turn back and distance itself from the British fleet and give full play to its superiority in caliber and armor.

In fact, there are two main reasons for this, one is that the speed of the German warships is slower than that of the battlecruisers of the British fleet, and the steering cannot be separated at all. The second is that the four German ships are all in the main gun layout of the front two and one behind, and if they turn their backs to the British fleet, they will lose two-thirds of their firepower, while the British fleet will lose only one-third of their firepower with the bow facing the German ships.

So after thinking about it, Lütjans decided to turn the fleet and rush towards the British ships, losing a third of the firepower in exchange for a smaller bomb area, and at the same time covering his superiority of the heavy cruiser fleet to rush into the enemy line to attack the light cruisers and destroyers on the opposite side.

As for the threat posed by the British ships at close range, Lütjans was not afraid, and it can be said that as early as when he received the order from the Supreme Command to set sail to find the British fleet for a decisive battle in the fleet, all the officers and men of the navy, including Lütjans, were ready to never return, and all of them wrote suicide notes before setting sail and stored them in the naval headquarters, and as soon as the news of their death was transmitted back to China, their suicide notes would be sent to their loved ones along with a new set of naval uniforms, death pensions, and a second-class Iron Cross.

The two fleets opened fire and charged at full speed at each other, and after only one or two rounds of artillery bombardment, the two fleets were at a distance where they could easily see each other's bridges.

At a distance of 9,000 meters, Lütjens and Baron Tovey gave the order to turn almost simultaneously, and the fleets of both sides entered the same battle again.

At a distance of 9,000 meters, for well-trained soldiers on both sides, it is almost guaranteed that each salvo can hit the target with at least one shell, so to this extent, the warships of the two sides are purely fighting whose armor is thick, whose inclination angle is large, and whose steel quality is good.

And there is no doubt that in these respects, the German fleet, which has two cutting-edge ships, has a lot of advantages, and although the shells of the British ships can penetrate the armor belt of the German ships, most of them are barely penetrated, and they do not cause much damage to the core compartment. However, the shells of the German ships could easily penetrate the armor belt of the British ships and cause great damage inside.

After entering a distance of 9,000 meters, the warships of the two sides exchanged more than a dozen rounds of fire, among which shells from the battleship Tirpitz hit the battlecruiser Counterattack, which was located behind the British battle line.

Finally, after being hit by 12 406mm shells in succession, the Counterattack, which was already wounded, completely lost power, and the hull was heavily flooded due to multiple damage, and gradually began to tilt to the left.

The captain of the Counterattack was clearly not willing to admit defeat, and while he mobilized more men to join the displacement operation, he ordered the battleship to continue firing at the German ship.

But the battleship has now completely lost power, and the large dewatering pump on the ship has also struck, so the damage management personnel can only rely on the small dewatering pump to pump water out, and at the same time, the cracks in the hull are so many and large, not to mention the divers responsible for repairing the blockage, not to mention plugging the breaches, even they themselves were almost sucked to death in the sea by the frenzied water pouring into the hull.

At four o'clock in the afternoon, the battlecruiser Counterattack announced that the damage management had failed, and at the same time, Baron Tovey directly issued an order to the battlecruiser Counterattack to abandon all ships, and two nearby supply ships were ordered to carry more than 1,000 officers and men of the abandoned ship.

At 4:11, all the officers and men on the counterattack had been evacuated, and the hull tilt angle had reached 30 degrees.

At 4:15, the 38,200-ton battle cruiser completely capsized, and then quickly disappeared into the sea.

The German fleet sank the two capital ships of the British fleet one after another by virtue of its superiority in battleships, but as a veteran fleet that had dominated the world's oceans for more than 300 years, the British home fleet did not make the German fleet feel better at all.

Under the direct command of Baron Tovey, the battleship George V had been battering the battleship Friedrich, which had been badly wounded but still fighting.

Although the main gun of the King George V was only 14 inches in caliber, its penetration depth was not weak at all, and it was even higher than the 16-inch guns of the Nelson-class battleships.

The battleship Friedrich learned this deeply, although its armor was not thin, but it was as fragile as paper under the onslaught of King George V, and a 356mm shell continued to penetrate the starboard armor of the Friedrich and then burst into the hull, and the situation of the Friedrich became worse and worse.

But Lütjans had no choice, for the battlecruiser Prestige had been pestering the Bismarck and the Admiral Schell, leaving them to take care of the Friedrich without any flaws. At the same time, at this distance, the 203mm guns of the German heavy cruiser could not penetrate the armor belt of the capital ships, and could only try their best to attack the weakly armored British cruisers and destroyers, ensuring that these warships equipped with deadly torpedoes could not get close to their own main fleet.

After more than 20 minutes, the mortally wounded Friedrich finally could not withstand the heavy fire from the King George V, and like the Counterattack, it began to tilt rapidly due to the massive flooding of the hull.

The difference was that the Friedrich's power system was still effective at the start of the capsizing, which allowed the Friedrich's large pumps to be quickly put into draining operations.

With the help of several large pumps, the damage control crew of the Friedrich once controlled the hull inclination of the ship to 12 degrees, and at the same time, under the orders of General Lütjans, the warship began to steer under its own power, and slowly left the battlefield at a speed of 8 knots.

However, Baron Tovey and the King George V clearly had no intention of letting the Friedrich survive, and the 10 14-inch guns were still pouring ammunition at it at a rate of two salvos in one minute.

At 4:42 a.m., the Friedrich again began to tilt rapidly to the right, but this time the damage control crew failed to control the inclination.

At 4:45, the captain of the Friedrich issued an order to abandon the ship, but because the Friedrich was already some distance away from the main fleet, no large ships could quickly come to pick up the crew, and more than 1,300 officers and men, including the captain, had to put on life jackets and jump into the sea, and swim away from the sinking Friedrich as hard as possible to avoid being dragged into the sea by the whirlpool formed by the sinking of the warship.

At 4:48, the second battleship of the Third Reich Navy, the Friedrich Albert, left its post forever.

：。 ：

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