When the dense sound of artillery was faintly heard on the northern sea, Xia Shu of the "Yue Dai Ku" was commanding the 1st Battleship Detachment, consisting of five Caesar-class and one King-class cutting-edge battleship, to pursue the "Avant-garde" and "Neptune". www.biquge.info With the successive sinking of "Magnificent", "Giant", and "Courage", the two wrecks of the Bernie detachment knew that they were invincible, and without waiting for the German fleet's artillery fire to pour down, they hurriedly turned right, from west to east to north to south, and retreated at full speed towards the Jericho formation.

For these two ducks that have reached their mouths, Natsuki wants to swallow them in one bite, but he also knows that it is taboo to rush forward rashly. Therefore, he ordered the communications officer to send a telegram to the Scheer fleet, asking about the latest battle situation and the position, speed, and course of the enemy's main fleet, and ordered the Lance formation to send a light code signal to let them join his battle line from the rear.

A few minutes later, the lights of the lead ship of the Reims formation "Helgoland" appeared in the port direction, and they had been following from the attack on the "Giant" by the 1st battleship detachment, but the heavy rain greatly affected the vision, and the sound of rain, cannons, and explosions completely obscured all the noise they made, which made them appear as if they had appeared suddenly.

In order to maintain consistency in formation, Natsuki quickly ordered the ships to adjust their speeds to 20 knots, a speed that the six cutting-edge dreadnoughts operating at overload power would only need to achieve with normal power output, which was slightly more difficult for the Nassau-class and Helgoland-class, which could reach speeds of 21 knots when there were no wind and waves. In the rain, the eight old German dreadnoughts equipped with triple 11-inch guns became heavily polluting factories, each chimney spewting thick black smoke, and in the boiler room, the stokers who could easily get a short break had to return to intensive manual labor, compared to the German stokers assigned to the battle cruisers. This is a significant difference between oil-fired and coal-fired boilers.

Although the two British battleships that were trying to flee south could only run at a speed of about 20 knots, the rain became heavier and heavier, the effective irradiation distance of the German searchlights continued to shrink, and the British took the lead in turning, and by the time Natsuki led a complete main formation of 14 dreadnoughts to the south, the "avant-garde", "Neptune" and the few remaining British light ships had disappeared from the chaotic sea.

Having previously inflicted heavy damage on Betty's fleet and having just taken out three British dreadnoughts, the German Navy seemed to have won the victory, but Jericho still had ten ships in his possession.13 The cutting-edge dreadnoughts with 5-inch naval guns, that is, the so-called "super dreadnoughts" of later generations, in addition to the two capital ships that had just slipped away, the Bernie detachment had three damaged dreadnoughts that had escaped before, so that the British fleet still had 15 dreadnoughts, and the German fleet had to count Hipper's three battlecruisers in order to occupy a numerical advantage.

Since the actual situation of Jellico's fleet was not yet known, Natsuki sent the remaining ships of the 4th Reconnaissance Detachment and the 1st Thunderbolt Group to carry out a fan-shaped combat alert in front of the battle line, and the remnants of the 5th Thunderbolt Group spread out on both flanks, causing the 14 dreadnoughts to narrow the distance. Soon after, the Hipper's fleet sent a telegram: sinking 1 of the enemy's old battleships and seriously damaging 2 of them, the enemy's battle formation was completely chaotic, and our ships were only slightly damaged, and they are currently out of engagement, waiting for the next order.

After reading the content of the telegram, Natsuki said to his colleagues with great excitement: "Our main reconnaissance fleet is really good! ”

Admiral von Ingnoor's eyes also brightened, and he nodded slightly, and said to Prince Joachim, who was less than half his age but extremely talented and decisive: "The ammunition consumption of the Hipper's fleet needs to be paid attention to in successive battles, and the ships have been in a state of high speed for a long time, and the mechanical wear and tear cannot be ignored. ”

He immediately ordered Captain Gord to collect and count the combat attrition of the main fleet, and asked the communications officer to send a report to Hipper: On behalf of His Majesty the Kaiser, I would like to pay the highest respect to all the officers and men of the heroic and warlike reconnaissance fleet, the battlefleet is now sailing south, and there may be an exchange of fire with the British main fleet at any time...... Chief of Staff of the Fleet Joachim.

In a short time, the Hipper fleet sent a telegram that they had disengaged from the old British battlefleet and were turning south at a speed of 22 knots, and that the main guns of the ships had been depleted by nearly seventy percent. At the end of the telegram, Hipper also sent very valuable information: they spied on the light code signal of the mutual identification of two British ships during the voyage, and successfully deceived the outpost ships of the old British battlefleet.

Hearing this, Natsuki was overjoyed and ordered the communications officer to send a signal to the enemy ships to verify their identities. Immediately afterwards, Captain Gord returned to the bridge with the situation reported by the ships. The six new dreadnoughts of the 1st Battleship Detachment fired a total of 1,606 rounds of ammunition for their main guns, an average of 33 per main gun. 5 rounds, accounting for 38% of the ammunition reserve, and the "Frederick the Great" and "Caesar" were the first to enter the battle, and the actual consumption reached more than 50% of the ammunition reserve; The 8 old dreadnoughts of the 3rd Battleship Detachment fired a total of 2,594 rounds of ammunition for their main guns, with an average of 27 rounds per main gun, accounting for 30% of the ammunition reserve, and the consumption of each ship was relatively even. The same was true for the capital ships, with 342 and 310 rounds fired respectively from Frederick the Great's 150-mm guns, and 507 and 481 rounds from their 88-mm guns, far more than the rest of the ships, and these costs were concentrated in the starboard gun position.

After listening to the full report, Natsuki looked around at everyone and nodded calmly: "Enough for the last battle." ”

The officers present did not dispute this assertion.

Because no one could predict the situation of the next battle, Colonel von Lubic did not organize the crew to replenish the starboard side with ammunition from the secondary gun ammunition depot on the port side in advance, but walked to the side and smoked a cigar. After the previous fierce battles, the gunners' energy and physical strength were greater than the consumption of the ammunition itself. With new encounters likely to take place at any moment, the fighters remained in their positions, the rotational officers sent chocolate, coffee and canned beef to the various gun emplacements, and in the infirmary, the medics finally had time to bandage the less injured crews......

The desperate battle between the two naval fleets entered a period of interval, but the rain storm became more and more intense. The world seemed to return to its primitive state of chaos and distortion, with no distinction between sea and sky, and despite its excellent seamanship, the swaying and jolting of the new dreadnought caused obvious discomfort to the crew. In such bad sea conditions, no one wanted to stay outside the bridge for an extra second, and the lookout guards could only be on duty in the enclosed mast watchtower, and even if the searchlights were turned on, the naked eye could never see more than a kilometer on the sea, which brought many unpredictable complications to the naval battle of the fleet.

Colonel von Lubitch smoked a hand-rolled cigar, and Natsuki finally waited for a telegram from Scher, who was already commanding the 2nd Battleship Detachment on the "Braunschweig".

"Germany, Hesse, Pomern were sunk, Silesia, Hanover, Alsace, Prussia were heavily damaged, the 2nd reconnaissance detachment lost 2 cruisers, and the 4th Thunderstrike Group lost 7 large torpedo boats."

In order not to increase the pain of everyone, Natsuki read the first half of Scheer's telegram at a faster pace, and then raised his eyes to scan the circle, and the atmosphere in the battle bridge was unusually heavy. When the High Seas Fleet sailed out of the Gulf of Yard, everyone knew the difficulty of the trip, so they were prepared for the loss of ships and personnel, but the course of the naval battle was beyond most people's expectations, with exquisite tactical deployment and excellent command skills, the German fleet annihilated the Betty Cruiser and severely damaged the Bernie Dreadnought Fleet, and only paid a small price for two battle cruisers to withdraw from the battle and more than a dozen light ships to sink, according to this trend, the German Navy deserved a glorious victory. But the heavy losses of the Scheer fleet brought the officers of the fleet command back to the harsh reality of the British home fleet, which was the largest in the world in overall strength. If nothing else, as long as the ten cutting-edge dreadnoughts under Jericho's command were not scattered, the German main fleet could not imagine winning the one-sided victory as it had previously disintegrated the Bernie formation.

After a pause, Natsuki continued: "During the battle, our artillery fire damaged many British capital ships, possibly causing heavy damage to one or two, but we did not see them withdraw from the battle. Ten British capital ships have taken advantage of their high speed to gradually break away from the battle, their course is due north, the speed is about 20 knots, the tail of the battle line is located about 4 nautical miles northeast of us, the first ship of the battle line can be calculated according to the distance of 500 meters between each ship, and I will continue to fire green flares directly above to mark our position. ”

The loss of half of the ships of the 2nd Battleship Squadron and the failure to sink a single British dreadnought at such a huge cost were understandable, but for a moment unacceptable to the aspiring German officers. Such a ratio of battle losses is not only a reflection of the ship's technology, but also affected by the arrangement of troops and the command of the battlefield on both sides. Scheer is a brave general, and Jericho is a cautious and steady commander, and it is not surprising that a weak spear meets a strong shield, and the spear breaks the shield, and he can delay the opponent's tactical task.

In front of the observation window towards the bow, several staff officers held binoculars that had not been used for a long time, and one of them couldn't help muttering: "Didn't you see the green flare?" ”

"At the height of the rain clouds, they are at least 10 nautical miles away." Ingnoll replied lightly.

This tone seems to have reached a transcendent state of mind, or a non-responsible state of mind.

Everyone was speechless, but Natsuki said, "I hope they will keep firing flares." ”

Hipper left the old British battleship group and turned south, and Scheer was left by his opponent to go north, and the ships of the two sides temporarily disengaged from contact, but more than a hundred ships gathered in this sea area, even if the night was dark and rainy, it was only a matter of time before they encountered each other.

When the sentry ship V-28, deployed in the port direction of the fleet, sent a warning of encountering the enemy, Natsuki looked down at his watch, and it was only a quarter of an hour before midnight.

This time, the identification signal provided by Hipper came into play again. V-28, the German 1913 class large torpedo boat that had recently torpedoed and sunk a British destroyer, claimed to be the British cruiser "Falmouth", and deceived the other party into giving his real name, and it turned out to be one of the survivors of the Bernie fleet, the battleship "Bellerophon", accompanied by the "Dreadnought" and "Collingwood", as well as a light cruiser and two destroyers, all six British battleships were injured. The V-28 then tried to use his acting skills to lure the lost British ships into the guns of the main fleet, but the frightened birds were not fooled. Suspicious points were found in the signal question-and-answer, and they neither refuted nor attacked, but quietly disappeared into the depths of the night rain without a trace.

(End of chapter)