Towards midnight, the waters of Jutland are surging with strong winds and raging waves. Pen | fun | pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 infoAfter the two dreadnoughts of "Gorgeous" and "Giant" were sunk one after another, the "Courage" of British Vice Admiral Bernie had become the next prey of the German 1st Battlefleet, and at this time, the high-speed advance "Frederick the Great" and "Caesar" had cut into Bernie's battle line, which meant that "Courage" and the "avant-garde" and "Neptune" followed by not only the fierce "Frederick the Great" and "Caesar", but the six best performing dreadnoughts of the German Navy, Four of them received an angle of full-board fire salvo, and the other two could exert half of their firepower, and the situation was already precarious for the British.

From the wolf-like attack of the German dreadnought detachment in front of him, Bernie realized that the old British battleship formation that sailed into the battlefield from the north was "difficult to quench the thirst of the near water", and even if he gathered the remaining six dreadnoughts, he was not the enemy's opponent, not to mention that the German dreadnought fleet that had fought before could pounce on the port side at any time, so he simply abandoned all thoughts and devoted himself to conserving combat strength, and then competed after meeting with Jericho's main formation. However, by the time he gave the order to communicate with the ships under his command, the German shells had already been fired.

Facing the British dreadnoughts within the range of the secondary guns, the German gunners of "Frederick the Great" and "Caesar" launched a hearty shooting performance, and the rough sea conditions at this time were also a real test of their gunnery skills. Back in the days of sail warships and breech guns, people were groping and pursuing the accuracy and stability of shooting at sea. In the event of wind and waves, the early countermeasure is to calculate the azimuth angle of the gun's shooting, and then determine a suitable firing time point in the ship's swing cycle according to the amplitude of the broadside inclination, so as to reduce the impact of the hull swing on the shooting accuracy, but the disadvantage is that there is only one chance to launch in a swing cycle.

After the birth of rapid-fire guns, in order to accommodate the swing cycle, the actual rate of fire has not been able to increase. At the turn of the century, the British Navy took the lead in adopting a new method of aiming stabilization, and they improved the high and low engines and direction machines of naval guns, so that the muzzles could quickly pitch and maneuver, and the target could be continuously visually aimed at the target with a simple tube sight. When the ship tilts down, the muzzle of the gun is shaken high, and the muzzle is lowered when it rises, so that the target is always in the center of the sight reticle, so as to offset the delay in the rate of fire of the lateral rocking machine, and the hit rate of the medium and close range is increased by a multiplier. The mechanically savvy Germans soon improved on this method of aiming stabilization, with the electric operation of the turret and the hydraulic lifting of the main gun making it possible to fire steadily from large-caliber naval guns, and the use of gyrocompass and attitude gauge further reduced manual calculation time and improved aiming accuracy. At the same time, the seaworthiness of the capital warship, which is increasing in tonnage and widening, has been significantly improved compared with previous ships, thus providing a more stable firing platform for artillery.

Shells of different calibers flew at different speeds and ballistic trajectories, and the whistling of the air was different, creating a symphony of intense and continuous shelling at sea. Under the guidance of their own searchlights, relying on sophisticated observation and sighting facilities and command systems, the well-trained and high-morale German naval fighters bombarded Bernie's squadron flagship "Courage", and the artillery fire that fell around the British battleship stirred up a dense column of water, and the flying shrapnel quickly shattered the searchlights and signal lights on the ship, and it had to be on the side21. The extreme speed of 5 knots desperately withdrew eastward, while the stern and port guns fired ineffectively blocking fire.

The opportunity that our old battleship group endured in exchange for purgatory, how could the surging German dreadnought detachment be wasted? The actual speed has reached 23. The 6-section Frederick the Great and Caesar were temporarily deflected by one compass point to the north, allowing the two twin main turrets on the aft deck to continue aiming at the frustrated Courage, and after straddle fire on the target, the two German dreadnoughts began to enter the rhythm of all-board rapid fire. 8 12-inch guns with 2 per minute. Five rounds of fire were fired at a rate of four, and with the effect of the time-delay fuse, these German armor-piercing shells filled with TNT explosives almost always exploded after penetrating the outer armor. Suddenly, a large flame burst out from the rear chimney with dazzling brightness, and the large three-legged aftermast, which was as tall as the front mainmast, suddenly collapsed to the right. Under the reflection of this firelight, the German crew thousands of meters away could clearly see its scarred hull through the telescope, some of the wounds were caused by the shelling just now, and some were "memorials" of the previous artillery battle with the Reims formation.

It took several seconds for the light to fade away, and a clear explosion reached the ears of Natsuki, who was watching the battle from the bridge of the "Frederick the Great". This scene just now looked similar to the previous explosion of the whole ship of the "Gorgeous", but the luck of the British battleship in front of him was slightly better, it did not continue to have a chain of explosions, and the pouring rain also helped to suppress the fire. Through the beams of the searchlight, the dense raindrops had become beaded curtains, and the outlines of the lead-gray British battleships were blurred. Although Natsuki is not bloodthirsty and hard-hearted, he knows that now is not the time to be merciful, and in addition to the three British dreadnoughts slightly closer to starboard, the far end of the starboard side is the British old battleship group, and there are three dreadnoughts in the dark in front of the starboard side, and Jericho's main formation is also trying to rush to this side, if the luck is biased and the British are reasonably deployed, the situation of the battle may still be reversed at any time.

Immediately after the two pilot ships turned one compass point to the left, the "King" and "King Albert" joined the ranks of the all-board rapid fire, which meant that seventy or eighty 12-inch and almost the same number of 6-inch shells were fired at Vice Admiral Bernie's ship every minute, and the fire was so dense that it was difficult for each German battleship to accurately see its own impact point, but it was obviously irrelevant. To add insult to injury, the explosion had reduced the speed of the "Courage" sharply, and if it continued at this rate, the distance between it and its opponent would have been reduced to a kilometer in less than ten minutes. In the case of a face-to-face engagement, the ship's 12-inch main guns can certainly resist the same caliber naval guns of the German new dreadnoughts, but after all, it is more than one enemy, and the front main guns were even damaged during the exchange of fire with the Reims formation. Two 12-inch German-made armor-piercing shells penetrated from the side armor near the stern one after another, not only directly threatening the operation of the engine, but also cutting off a large number of pipelines, causing the No. 4 and No. 5 main turrets in the stern direction to lose power supply, and then a low-flat ballistic flying armor-piercing projectile hit the No. 4 turret mount, blowing up the roller, and the two 45 times the diameter of the 12-inch main gun stuck in the previous firing angle, and the high and low machines of the left gun also had mechanical failure and could not operate, basically losing combat capability. Suddenly, the main turret on the port side was also hit head-on, and the Germans' 12-inch armor-piercing shells cracked through its 11-inch-thick frontal steel plate, killing all but two of the British gunners in the turret. At this point, the "Courage" had only one main turret capable of firing normally, but it was located on the starboard side of the battleship and could not fire at the German fleet in the direction of the port side.

Time passed minute by minute, but the miracle did not befall Bernie's battleship, which continued to decline in speed while the German dreadnoughts got closer and closer, and the searchlight column through the darkness and rain curtain brightened again. In the face of these wolf-like opponents, the tenacious British crews fought with every remaining gun on the port side, and the shells of the small-caliber rapid-fire guns kept falling on the two leading German battleships, and the Germans seemed to be enraged, and they opened fire on the "Courage" from hundreds of meters away, like a strong man beating a wounded man who was unable to fight back, and any neutral person would feel unbearable when he saw such a scene......

Inside the battle bridge, the commander of the German High Seas Fleet Command looked through the rain-washed viewing window at the indomitable British battleship on the starboard side, the flag of the commander of the detachment on its mainmast fluttering in a rain of bullets. Before the outbreak of the war, the British and German navies had maintained relatively close exchanges, and many generals and officers knew each other well, and if there were no major personnel changes or unexpected circumstances such as illness during the war, they could deduce the identity of the enemy commander from the ship type and formation situation, and between 1911 and 1913, Vice Admiral Bernie led the formation to visit Germany twice, and his demeanor and quality left a good impression on his German colleagues.

"In a completely hopeless situation, will they choose to surrender?" Von Ingnoll seemed to be talking to himself, and Natsuki, who had been standing beside him, hesitated for a moment, shook his head, and said, "Those who regard honor as their life would rather face death than have their reputation damaged." ”

After a while, Natsuki added, "Anyway, this is indeed a group of opponents worthy of respect. ”

At the last moment, the "Regent of Louitel" and "Catherine" of the German 1st Battleship Detachment also joined the hearty offensive feast with rapid fire on the whole side, and the hull, deck, and superstructure of the "Courage" were full of flickering flames and billowing gunsmoke, and because the communication antenna of the mainmast had long been damaged, the crew could only use the signal light on the starboard side to signal the "Avant-garde" not far away -- "Please turn to the flagship 'Iron Duke': I have done my best, Cecil Bernie."

Soon after this signal was issued, the hull tilt angle of the "Courage", which was flooded with a lot of water on the port side, had exceeded the warning value, and before the German fleet turned its artillery fire to the "avant-garde" and "Neptune", many shells hit its deck directly, and the deck armor was only 4 inches thick, even the secondary guns of the German dreadnoughts could not resist it, and the lower compartment was full of fuel, as if it had become a hell on earth with flames everywhere, and the drifting rain falling from the sky could not contain the spread of the fire at all. The British crews who were lucky enough to survive the rolling waves and floating fuel, and only 32 of the ship's more than 700 officers and men were rescued by German torpedo boats.

After sinking the "Courage", the German 1st Battleship Detachment, under the leadership of the "Frederick the Great", turned three compass points to the right, and although the bad sea conditions affected the speed of the ships, they still reached a speed unexpected by the British with the overload mode turned on, and thus grabbed the last two battleships of the Bernie squadron, the "Avant-garde" and the "Neptune", and once again grabbed the T-head. In order to cover the two capital ships to get out of the predicament, the remnants of the British light ships desperately advanced despite the rough waves, trying to force the German fleet to turn with torpedoes, but the German fleet had already seized a strong position, and the secondary artillery fire of the six dreadnoughts compiled a terrible death net on the sea, and the accompanying German 4th reconnaissance squadron and the 1st and 5th lightning strike groups, at this time there were 3 light cruisers and 7 large torpedo boats guarding their battle line, whenever a British ship broke through the fire network and rushed closer, With the courage and will not inferior to that of their opponents, they fought each other and made great contributions to the main ships in constantly turning tactical superiority into victory.

(End of chapter)