Forty-seven months ago, when the Frederick the Great slid down the slipway at the Volzon shipyard in Hamburg, the soldiers were so excited and the people were jubilant that no one could have predicted that this new battleship, designed and built to the size of a flagship, would have rammed the enemy ships in succession during the Great Anglo-German War, otherwise the engineers would have fitted it with traditional ramming angles and draped in extra solid heavy armor on the side of the ship. Pen "Fun" Pavilion www.biquge.info

At 0:23 a.m. on August 8, 1914, only seven minutes after the collision with the British battleship "Benbang", the "Frederick the Great" carrying the commander of the German High Seas Fleet, Admiral von Ingnoor, the chief of staff, Prince Joachim, and other commanders, collided with the "Orion" again. There was no explosion of flames and smoke, no friction of sparks and scrapes, only a breathtaking roar, and the two 30,000-ton warships collided firmly -- the bow of the "Frederick the Great" slashed at the trunk of a tree with an axe, cut through the opponent's 12-inch main armor that was difficult to shake by the armor-piercing bullet in one go, and plunged into the rear of the "Orion" hull from the port side, and the point of impact was the rear bridge between its No. 3 and No. 4 main turrets, roughly three-quarters of its longitudinal line, and the depth of the incision was nearly ten meters. Almost touched the central axis of the battleship!

The violent collision caused both battleships to have extremely violent shocks, and the huge inertia caused many unfixed objects to fly out in place, and 17 British sailors fell overboard, but the "Orion" was silent for only a moment, and the 6-inch secondary guns on the port side barked impatiently, and the shells bombarded the bridge of the "Frederick the Great" in unison, but these shells could not help the German flagship 13 at all. The 8-inch-thick bridge armor all jumped, and the Royal Navy-equipped Vickers machine guns swept in vain against the deck and superstructure of the Frederick the Great, and the Marine officers prepared for what appeared to be a broadside attack from the Age of Sail......

Striking the sideside of the opponent with its own bow, the "Frederick the Great" was undoubtedly in an advantageous position. Its bow part is like a bladed sword, the whole thing has been seriously deformed, the deck is arched high, the underwater part has become a deflated iron box, the anchor engine room and watertight cabin are all damaged, but the injury is not as good as the forward ammunition magazine, as long as the corresponding watertight hatch is properly closed, the battleship is not in danger of capsizing, but it is difficult to cruise proudly in the stormy waves at a high speed. The British ship's port guns fired intensively, and the twin 6-inch secondary guns on the starboard front of the German flagship also seized the opportunity to exert their power, while the 88-mm single auxiliary guns on the side of the bridge and the 37-mm machine guns above the bridge also lost no time in firing at each other. Except for the thick bridge, which these shells could not threaten, the other deck buildings were left to their "picking". The area behind the bridge of the "Orion", between the masts, thus left countless bullet holes.

Unlike the small and medium-caliber guns, the main guns of the two battleships have the ability to completely end the battle in this near-zero range, but if any battleship is attacked by an ammunition depot and the whole ship explodes, the other battleship will inevitably be affected, and may even end up together. However, before the commanders of both sides could argue over whether to use their main guns to bombard their opponents, and without giving the British Marines a chance to show their heroism, the two warships were already out of this strange state of integration. A completely different fate awaits them - instead of a tearing wound from a large-caliber armor-piercing projectile, the port side of the "Orion" suffered a heavy blow that penetrated deep into the viscera and wounded the spine, the double deck of the mine protection compartment, the fuel tank, the sailor compartment and the watertight compartment at the bottom and even the hull of the ship were completely destroyed, and the turbulent sea water poured directly into the boiler room, and spread rapidly along the functional compartments and internal passages on the upper level of the watertight tank, and the battleship tilted to the left at a very noticeable speed. And when the angle of inclination exceeds the limit state to maintain the balance of the hull, capsizing is inevitable.

As for the perpetrator of this major traffic accident, the "Frederick the Great", the direction of sailing turned 60 degrees in the impact, and after separation, it crossed the track of the "Orion" and headed south, its hull was tilted forward by 10 degrees due to the large amount of water entering the forward compartment, the bow deck was submerged in the sea, and the speed was sharply reduced to 8 knots.

At the same time, the British battleship "Benbon", which had previously collided with the German flagship, had been besieged by the three German dreadnoughts "Caesar", "King" and "King Albert" and turned into a large mass of burning material floating on the sea. Before the last moment of the "Benbang" arrived, "Caesar", "King", and "King Albert" went to support the flagship "Frederick the Great" at full speed, and in the following ten minutes, the stubborn "Benbang" was bombarded by German warships such as "Regent Louitport", "Catherine", "Helgoland", "Oldenburg", and "Westphalia". It was not until 0:40 that it completely disappeared from the sea with a violent explosion.

The level of defense of the British Iron Duke-class battleships can be seen!

While many German officers and sailors who participated in the war were amazed by the excellent protection capabilities of the British Navy's capital ships, their own main battleship, the Frederick the Great, the flagship of the High Seas Fleet, also demonstrated the exquisite skills of German shipbuilding to their opponents. After previous battles and two abnormal warship collisions, its water intake once reached 2,200 tons, close to the theoretical danger extreme, and the casualties on the ship also exceeded 300, equivalent to 25% of the full crew. After the close encounter with the Orion, most of the damage management personnel concentrated in the lower cabin in the middle and front parts. In order to increase the buoyancy of the battleship and raise the deck close to the surface of the sea, 30 divers divided into 5 groups, one by one, entered the bays filled with seawater, and did everything possible to plug the breaches between the compartments, dangerous eddies and sharp angles of the broken bulkheads threatened the lives of these warriors at all times. With unimaginable courage and perseverance, the damage management personnel successfully repaired part of the watertight compartment. With the balanced filling of the aft compartments and the full draining of the forward compartments, the Frederick the Great gradually returned to a horizontal state and increased its speed to 11 knots, but this situation was clearly no longer suitable for continuing to lead the German fleet into battle.

Because of Ingnorr's silence, the senior staff officer, Colonel Hoffert and others, never mentioned the replacement of the flagship, but in the end, it was the captain Colonel Lubic who took the initiative to make this suggestion, and Ingnoll did not object, and Natsuki became the decision-maker again. Because it was difficult for small transport boats to sail long distances on the rough seas, the "Frederick the Great" sent a letter calling for the large torpedo boat V-25 cruising nearby, but the transport boat for the transition had not yet been lowered, and a third British battleship appeared on the sea. At a distance of six or seven hundred meters, the British gunners were surprisingly accurate, large and small shells fell around the "Frederick the Great", and the agitated columns of water forced the officers of the High Seas Fleet Command to suspend the transfer. The scarred Frederick the Great returned fire with only four main guns and a few secondary guns, but it was not long before the No. 1 turret on its foredeck was hit by a British battleship's large-caliber armor-piercing shells, and after a violent explosion, the German flagship was left with only a twin main gun in the stern direction that could still fire normally, and to add insult to injury, the ship's radio antenna was also damaged. Faced with a fierce attack and the appearance of a fourth British battleship, it had no choice but to turn to avoid the battle and send a helping hand by light signal.

The "Caesar" and "King", who were full of combat power, were already approaching, and they ignored the capsizing "Orion" and the large number of people who fell into the water, but like two calm and cunning wolves, quietly observing the movement of their targets in the dark. It was only when they were in a suitable firing position that they both turned on the ship's high-powered searchlights, firmly locked onto the third British battleship with a piercing pillar of light, and then bombarded their opponents with rapid and heavy full-board artillery fire, which resulted in a single three salvos. The "King Albert", which was a little further away, soon joined the shelling, hiding its huge body in the rain, firing only four of its front guns in the first few rounds, and after turning left to bypass the wreckage of the "Orion", it bombarded the target with full-board fire.

The third British battleship to appear after the "Benbang" and "Orion" at the beginning of the bombardment by the German fleet, the Orion-class III ship "Conqueror", was bent on attacking the "Frederick the Great", which was basically in a crippled state. Although the rough sea conditions greatly reduced the accuracy of the gun's fire at close range, and its guns still hit one after another, the German Caesar-class battleships had a better protection design than the British Iron Duke-class, with strong waterline armor to withstand the onslaught of British ships, and a solid barrel-like bridge also stood tall in the stormy artillery fire. After some of the ship's lighting, communications, and sighting facilities were destroyed, the "Conqueror" finally turned its guns to the German battleship "Caesar", which posed the greatest threat to itself. The "Thunderbolt", a ship of the same class following the "Conqueror", also concentrated its main firepower on the "Caesar" at the request of the friendly ship, intending to defeat it in one fell swoop, but the cannon flames behind the German ship flickered, and more and more shells hit the "Conqueror". As the news of the sinking of the "Benbang" and the capsizing of the "Orion" was confirmed, the wireless telegraphy of the "Iron Duke", the general flagship of the British Grand Fleet, prompted the "Conqueror", "Thunderbolt", and the "Avant-garde" and "Neptune" who had joined Thomas's formation halfway through to turn in unison and take the initiative to disengage from the German fleet.

Before the British battleships escaped into the rain one by one, several German dreadnoughts belonging to the 1st Battleship Detachment bombarded their backs as they drifted away, but none of the British battleships were left behind due to injuries, and only the Germans themselves were left in sight. At this time, the German cruisers and large torpedo boats in the vicinity of the sinking sites of the "Honbang" and "Orion" shifted their energies to rescuing the survivors of the British ships. In the stormy seas, no matter how good the water is, it is difficult for a person to support himself for several hours. Driven by the instinct to survive, not a single British sailor refused to board a German battleship, even though an uncertain future awaited them as prisoners of war. As a life-and-death rival on the battlefield, the Germans did not embarrass or humiliate these British sailors, and it was the duty of every soldier to fight for the country, not to mention that the officers and men on these two British capital ships fought desperately and defended the sacred honor of the British Royal Navy with a heroic and fearless spirit.

(End of chapter)