At 6:57, the light cruiser "Glausden", which served as the vanguard of the German High Seas Fleet, issued a signal that "a three-legged mast can be seen on the sea", and only one minute later, the first battle cruiser designed and built by the British Navy, the "Invincible", finally capsized after a painful struggle, and most of the 780 officers and men of the ship died in the previous ammunition explosion and the fire in the ship, and the abandoned escapees were rescued in time by two British destroyers. Pen fun and pavilion www.biquge.info

This is the first capital ship lost by the British Royal Navy since the beginning of the war, and the first 10,000-ton warship lost by any country since the outbreak of the First World War, but the tragic battle has just begun......

At 7 o'clock, a huge and eye-catching battle flag was raised on the main mast of the "Frederick the Great," the general flagship of the German High Seas Fleet, and a tactical signal of "one compass point to the right of all turns" was hung out on the signal cable. On each German dreadnought, the commanders issued combat orders to all combat departments, and the crews began to raise armor-piercing shells and propellants from the heavily armored ammunition depot to the turret, and the small-caliber secondary guns and machine gun operators in the open air were in place, and the crews responsible for ammunition delivery also distributed the first batch of ammunition to be used, and stood by in the sheltered position during daily exercises; On the accompanying German light cruisers and large torpedo boats, the guns of large and small ships were on standby, and the damage control and repair personnel were on standby, while the torpedo firing personnel carefully followed the operational rules to check the condition of the equipment again and confirm that the torpedo was set to a certain depth.

Seeing that the battle formation of 14 German dreadnoughts was coming up from the sea in front of them, the atmosphere in the bridge of the "Lion" was extremely depressed. In fact, when the lookout post reported that a large column of smoke had been seen in the southern sea, David Beatty had already realized that he had fallen into a trap for the Germans, and that the Hippert reconnaissance fleet shelling the British coast was the decoy of this trap. Of course, judging from the current development of the war, this fat-looking bait is actually a group of piranhas with sharp teeth - if the loss of the "Invincible" is attributed to bad luck, then at this point in the battle, the "New Zealand" was seriously injured and withdrew from the battle, the bridge of the "Australia" was damaged, the "Queen Margaret" lost half of its firepower, the "Royal Princess" was shot and caught fire, the "Lion" was also covered with bruises, and the German side "Goeben" and "Blucher" were almost unharmed, and "De Fllinger" , "Moltke" injuries are controllable, combat strength is still sufficient, only "Seydlitz" withdrew from the battle due to injury, the stark contrast is enough to show that there is an unexpected significant gap in the strength of the two sides!

It was not enough to fight the Hippel fleet alone, and Betty knew very well that if her fleet was attacked by two powerful formations of enemy rangers and dreadnoughts, the end would be extremely tragic. However, the distance between the Hipper fleet and its own has been reduced from 18,000 meters to 11,000 meters, the routes of the two sides are almost parallel, and the speed is basically the same. Even if this "danger period" lasted only four or five minutes, the appearance of a battleship that was wounded and lost was a situation that the British Navy could not accept.

At the moment of the overall situation, Betty had to grit her teeth and make a decision, and the "Lion" immediately raised the signal flag that "the First Battle Cruiser Squadron turned left at full speed for 14 compass points" and that "the light ships made every effort to cover the maneuver of the main force." Immediately after that, Betty's flagship issued a light signal to the accompanying Fourth Light Cruiser Squadron and the Third Destroyer Squadron to "carry out a torpedo attack on the approach of the enemy fleet."

Thus, before the dreadnoughts of the German High Seas Fleet swooped up, Betty's four battle cruisers led some light ships to make a sharp turn and try to escape from the Germans by taking advantage of their speed advantage, while five reconnaissance cruisers and 17 destroyers, which had been ordered to carry out torpedo attacks, fought out with fearless courage. In order to give full play to the effective combat power of torpedoes, they must brave the fire of the German fleet to complete the 10,000-meter journey, and after the previous battles, the British have learned the ferocious artillery fire of the German navy, especially the 150 mm twin naval guns as the main guns of the battle patrol and the main guns of the light cruiser, its accuracy and destructive power can be called "light ship killers"!

What Betty didn't expect was that the "Seydlitz", which had "withdrawn from battle due to injury," quietly circled the rear of the reconnaissance fleet and commanded its combat ships by radio, while the "Frederick the Great," the flagship of the High Seas Fleet on the other side of the sea, was also using the same means of communication to convey the contingency plan for the battle.

At 7:02, the "Seydlitz", which pretended to withdraw from the battle sequence, issued an order to the ships belonging to the German reconnaissance fleet: the fleet turned 18 compass points to the right, and the stepped array was adjusted to a single combat column, and concentrated firepower to attack the British ships that were rushing at high speed on the sea in the northwest!

Having received new operational orders, "De Fllinger", "Moltke", "Goeben", "Blucher" quickly stopped shelling the British battle patrol formations, and they turned right at an average speed under the direct cover of light cruisers. At the same time, the ship's main and auxiliary guns turned around, lowered their muzzles, and aimed at the group of British destroyers rushing from the sea to the northwest.

At this moment, on the sea more than ten nautical miles away from the battlefield, the "Bismarck" with an alternative shape once again turned to the direction of the wind, and on the wide and flat flight deck, six biplanes with the same appearance but different numbers took off one by one, and each of them carried a cigar-shaped torpedo under their belly, and on closer inspection, they were almost no different from the common 450 mm torpedoes, but in fact they were much lighter than ordinary torpedoes, and this did not mean that their attack power had been greatly weakened. It was only at the expense of speed and endurance that the overall weight was reduced, and a special firing pin fuse was used to adapt to the technical requirements of aircraft projection. Like the Bismarck, this aerial torpedo was classified as a top secret of the German Navy until the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand, the heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, in Sarajevo.

One by one, the single-wing Hubert E attack planes flew north, and between the "Bismarck" and the high seas fleet battleship group, six torpedo boat carriers converted from old protective cruisers had also slowed down, and their crews were using mechanical booms to unload high-speed torpedo boats to the surface. The mother ships of these torpedo boats themselves are swaying and jolting in the surging waves, and the torpedo boats hanging on steel cables are also swaying left and right, and when the amplitude is large, it is inevitable that they will collide with the mother ship, and every time they hear the sound of metal scraping, the crew is nervous, and the pilots sitting on the high-speed torpedo boats are also constantly praying, knowing that the torpedoes on the boat have been equipped with trigger fuses, and the slightest carelessness may cause an explosion.

Named after the German princess, the "Victoria Louise" is a second-class cruiser of the German Navy, which was completed in 1899 and is actually only 15 years old. From 1909 onwards, they were converted into training ships, and if it were not for the large-scale refit of torpedo boat carriers, they would certainly not have had the opportunity to participate in the combat operations of the High Seas Fleet.

On the bridge of the "Victoria Louise", Prince Christian of Oldenburg, who commanded the 1st Mobile Torpedo Boat Group with the rank of Lieutenant Commander, watched without saying a word as the crew used davit posts to unload multi-ton high-speed torpedo boats to the surface. Each torpedo boat carrier is equipped with two heavy davits with a maximum load of 10 tons and two light davits with a load of 5 tons, and when the wind is calm, half of the torpedo boats can be retracted and released in 5 minutes, and these powerful high-speed torpedo boats are like horses yearning for freedom, just waiting to be freed, they can't wait to neigh and gallop.

In the past, Christian must have been the leader of this group of horses, driving the boat on the sea, chic and uninhibited, and finally waited for the opportunity to fight, but a "driving ban" from the royal family made him helpless to watch.

The adjutant on the side saw Christian's depression, and he explained: "Your Highness, our torpedo boat brigade participated in the battle as a fighting collective, no matter who sank the enemy ship, it was the glory of the entire brigade, no matter how many years, the Germans will remember that on August 7, 1914, the German Navy's 1st Mobile Torpedo Boat Group achieved unprecedented and outstanding results. ”

Prince Oldenburg, who had his own thoughts, squeezed a wry smile from the corner of his mouth, and he looked up into the distance, how much he wished he had become a figure that she admired like him. However, extraordinary wisdom cannot be obtained by any effort, and only by becoming a great hero with outstanding achievements can she match her incomparably noble status and near-perfect temperament.

In accordance with the operational plan and the instructions sent by the flagship, the 12 "Thunder" ships took the lead in attacking this time. They are the heavy assault of high-speed torpedo boats, each equipped with four specially made light torpedo tubes and a 13mm rotary tube machine gun, and the cockpit is lightly armored and tempered glass, and the overall combat weight is 7. 9 tons, equipped with two 280 horsepower Daimler gasoline engines, with a maximum combat speed of 39 knots and an unladen top speed of 48 knots, it is widely regarded as the best ultralight assault ship of its time, and once inflicted heavy losses on the Italian fleet in the Battle of Aeolia in the Italo-Turkish War.

The "Thunder" left in groups, and then 18 "Lightning-14" were hoisted down from the torpedo boat carrier, this new high-speed torpedo boat claimed to be an upgraded version of the old "Lightning" that began service 10 years ago, in fact, their internal structure and power settings are very different, the common thing is that each type of "Lightning" is known for its speed, so it is equipped with a single cockpit and only one torpedo. The Lightning-14 can reach an astonishing speed of 45 knots under combat load, but the combat radius of the full-speed assault is only 50 nautical miles, which means that it is a very targeted tactical weapon.

(End of chapter)