Although the "Moltke" is a battle cruiser, its protection capability has reached the level of Nassau-class dreadnoughts, and its anti-sinking performance is first-class. Pen? Interesting? Pavilion wWw. ｂiquge。 info Below its waterline, a raised mine-protected compartment is set outside the 5-11-inch thick main armor belt, the partition of this mine-protected compartment is 2 inches, and the bulkhead is filled with water to cushion the explosive power of the torpedo, and between the wall and the interior compartment there are fuel compartments and watertight compartments in turn, and the watertight bulkhead plate is 5. The design of the 9-inch thick steel plate was perfect in 1914, but there is no such thing as a foolproof line of defense, nor is there a foolproof strategy, and the slightest laxity or bad luck can cause irreparable consequences.

When a violent explosion came from starboard, one of Moltke's most senior non-commissioned officers, First Sergeant Otto Eisenretner, was on standby with his sailors near the supply channel of the No. 2 turret. They are dressed in the same clothes as regular crew members, but each carries an emergency kit on their backs, making it easy to see at a glance that they are the ship's damage management personnel. For the most part, they did not participate directly in the battle, but they were the most indispensable figures on the ship, and at critical moments, they were better able than the gunners to decide the fate of the ship.

The violent concussion of the explosion was the order to attack, and Eisenreitner immediately moved with his sailors to the stern of the ship. After a while, a deep voice came from the ship's radio: "The starboard side has been attacked, and the outer wall of the 11th compartment on the third floor is broken, please go to the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th loss management teams immediately." ”

Eisenrettner knew all about the labyrinthine passage of the ship's cabin, and he came to the gangway to the lower cabin, and turned to the young men behind him: "Keep up, this ship is waiting for us to save!" ”

A look of relief suddenly appeared on the faces of the sailors. Although the relationship between the strength and weakness of the Anglo-German navy had not yet been reversed, after the first two naval battles, the Germans had gained unprecedented confidence, but the British confidence was increasingly lost, and this gap was quietly affecting many details of the war.

The Moltke is divided into four floors from the deck down, the upper two floors are the living quarters, with the sailors' quarters, the dining room, the medical cabin and the side fuel tank, and the lower two floors are the functional areas, the boiler room, the engine room, the ammunition depot and the fuel tank are separated by watertight compartments.

In combat mode, most of the watertight doors in the lower cabins are closed or manned. Eisenreitner's damage management team soon arrived at Cabin 7, where the sailors had closed the horizontal watertight doors of Cabin 11 and the adjacent compartments to prevent seawater from pouring into the other compartments and causing the water to spiral out of control.

Cabin 9 was separated from compartment 7 and compartment 11, and Eisenreitner quickly checked the pressure gauge next to the watertight door, which showed that the sea water had not yet completely filled compartment 9. He immediately ordered his men to open the watertight door. The two burly members of the damage management team worked together to turn the turntable and lean against the watertight door, and when the latch exited the slot, the heavy steel hatch was pushed open by a powerful force from the inside out, and knee-high water gushed out.

The sailors outside had already been prepared, and they all stood firmly.

The constant flow of seawater meant that the innermost compartment 11 had lost its watertightness. If the seawater is allowed to penetrate, the three adjacent compartments will inevitably "collapse", and too much seawater will cause the hull to tilt seriously and even capsize. At that time, if you want to quickly restore balance, you will have to urgently fill the watertight compartment on the other side, and then drain it with a water pump to gradually restore the ship's floating state.

Containment of the leak in Cabin 11 is clearly the best outcome in the current situation.

The power supply to compartment 9 had been cut off, and Eisenreitner waded in with a flashlight, several damage control personnel rushed in, and the rest of the sailors nervously watched from the outside of the watertight compartment.

After some investigation, Eisenreitner instructed the damage management personnel who were on the outside to restore the power to the lighting lines and turn on the drain pumps.

The dark chamber was soon bright again, and a clear rumbling sound could be heard in the ears, but the water was still rushing out, and it was clear that the water could not be drained as fast as it could enter the water.

Eisenreitner quickly found the location of the damage, and it turned out that there was a crack in the seam of the watertight door between cabins 9 and 11, presumably caused by the impact of the explosion. He fumbled to determine the shape of the crack and ordered the damage management personnel to nail it with a wooden wedge wrapped in rubber skin.

Then, Sergeant Eisenreitner ordered the damage management team to open the watertight door leading to the fourth-floor compartment from compartment 7 outside compartment 9, and quickly probed the bottom watertight compartment, found that there was no seawater leakage there, and reported the situation to the damage management command room with the nearest internal communication phone.

At the same time, two other damage management teams were doing roughly the same work in the two outer compartments adjacent to Compartment 11.

On the bridge, most of Hipper's staff officers were relieved to learn that the ship's injuries did not affect the overall situation, but Hipper and his chief of staff were gloomy, because they knew that the state of the "Moltke" was certainly not suitable for breaking through the English Channel to the Atlantic Ocean to carry out far-sea operations, but they had no time to think further at this time, because the British Navy's group of mine-striking ships in front of them was launching the most violent wave of attack. The sea was littered with white torpedo trails, and lookouts could not describe the attack in words. At this moment, the 22 ships of the Hipper's fleet are trying to evade it, but they can almost only obey their fate.

With his wounded body, "Moltke" turned one after another, avoiding a number of torpedoes fired by enemy torpedo boats, but in the end it fell short, and another torpedo was in the starboard side, and the explosion location was not far from the old one, but it was not certain whether the depth of the two British torpedoes was the same - if the bottom compartment was damaged, the damage management situation could deteriorate rapidly.

During this round of attacks by the British lightning strike ship group, the light cruiser "Rostock" also unfortunately received a torpedo. Although this new battleship, which was completed at the end of 1913, had subdivided compartments and a double-bottom anti-sinking design, the tonnage and purpose of the light cruiser were there, and even if the torpedo hit the secondary part, it would be difficult for it to continue fighting with injuries.

Faced with this sudden change of situation, the German officers, who had been full of ambition a few minutes ago, could not help but gasp. All along, they served on capital ships, obsessed with fleet warfare, and looked down on "short-legged" speedboats that had only a few tens of nautical miles. In previous joint training or public exercises, they were not really convinced by the performance of high-speed torpedo boats, and they always felt that as long as they sacrificed such a big weapon as shrapnel bombs, these high-speed boats would not be able to get close at all.

After exhausting all the torpedoes, the British mine-striking ships sailed head-on towards Dover, damaging one German Navy's battle cruiser and one light cruiser, which was not a great success, and paid a heavy price under the strong resistance of the German fleet: only half of the 57 ships were given the opportunity to fire torpedoes in close proximity, and only 21 returned to the port of Dover unharmed.

After repelling the British lightning strike group, the German fleet regrouped in formation, but the "Rostock" did not return to the group, but sent a signal to the flagship: the ship was out of combat power and needed to evacuate as soon as possible.

Hipper had to send two large torpedo boats to escort it out of the battlefield, while the remaining 19 ships continued to sail towards the Strait of Dover.

Seeing this, the commander of the defense of the Port of Dover, Colonel James Dowton, was overwhelmed with astonishment, and he immediately ordered his officers to call the naval staff and tell the generals there that the German fleet was about to force its way into the Strait of Dover.

Then Colonel Dowton said to his adjutant: "How dare they break into our minefields without minesweepers?" ”

The adjutant on the side was also curious, and in the face of the fierce momentum of the German fleet, he did not say a contemptuous word after all.

The two stood together at this observation post facing the North Sea, wanting to see what the Germans were up to.

The depth of the Strait of Dover is 25-50 meters, and the deepest depth is only 64 meters, which is suitable for laying anchor mines, and the tactics of defending against the enemy with mine arrays have been used for hundreds of years, sinking countless ships, but they are not always able to play the desired effect. Dowton and his officers were vaguely worried that the British pilot ships would basically lead their ships back and forth in and out of the Strait of Dover every day, and as long as any ship had German spies, they would be able to provide safe routes to the German Navy after disembarking, and in recent times, due to the lack of mines in stockpile, the Dover fleet has only increased a small number of mines, and the deployment of minefields has not changed much

Britain made good use of spies, so it also took many precautions against enemy spy infiltration, but it was not fully aware of the changes brought about by military technology to the war; German airships often monitored the activities of Allied ships in the strait at an altitude of several thousand meters, and German submarines often followed behind British ships through thunderstorms, so the German navy had long been well aware of Britain's mine laying in the Strait of Dover and even the Great English Channel.

The German fleet was calm and unhurried, and as soon as the target came into range, the British artillery at the fortress of Dover could not wait to open fire. The rumbling of artillery resounded across the coast, and large and small shells whistled across the sea, blasting countless columns of water, but the German battleship was not shot for a long time.

Hipper's fleet was not in a hurry to rush into the minefield, but wandered leisurely beyond the precise range of British artillery fire, and their water reconnaissance planes circled over the coast of Dover. After a while, realizing that they were just wasting ammunition in vain, the British fortress artillery stopped firing, and then, the German fleet on the sea suddenly turned the rudder, and they rushed in the direction of Dover for a while, the four battle cruisers raised their guns high, and suddenly sprayed blazing artillery flames, and the heavy shells smashed into the British fortress and coastal artillery positions, and in just a few rounds of adjustments, the German fleet's artillery fire hit a British artillery fort, and the loud noise caused by the explosion of ammunition was earth-shattering, probably faintly heard by people in London.

After a few minutes of rapid fire, the German fleet turned again, evading the fierce return fire of the British coastal artillery with a deft maneuver, and then returned to its original position unhurriedly.

(End of chapter)