At the end of the battle, the German reconnaissance fleet under the command of Admiral Franz von Hipper, including the battle cruisers "Seydlitz", "De Fllinger" and "Goeben", and the light cruisers "Strasbourg" and "Rostock" suddenly entered the battlefield and launched a fierce attack on the British battleship "Neptune". www.biquge.info They are the elite cavalry of the German Navy, the essence and pride of the German cruiser, from the fierce battle of Betty's fleet before dusk, they have completed a legendary combat voyage with the efforts of Hipper and all the officers and men, they directly sank 3 British battle cruisers, heavy damage 1, sank 1 British old battleship, heavy damage 2, the record of this German reconnaissance fleet alone made the British Royal Navy greatly damaged, Moreover, their active tactical role affects the course of naval warfare as a whole.

After many fierce battles, Hipper's three cruisers were inevitably wounded, but their sharpest weapons, heavy artillery and speed, were not greatly affected. They rushed at high speed in the rough seas, and more than an hour ago they were pinning down the old British battleship group, and now they have joined the main battlefield and become the "surprise soldiers" that the British did not expect.

On the "King", which served as the temporary flagship, the arrival of the Hipper's fleet was reported by radio, and the frowning brows of the officers were relaxed one by one, and the haze of the heavy damage to the "King Albert" suddenly disappeared. Natsuki, who was in command, immediately ordered the communications officer to send a signal from a searchlight in the opposite direction of the British fleet, ordering the "Regent of Louisport", "Thuringia", "Posen", "Nassau", and "Osterfriedland" to rush to the battle. Except for the "Thuringia", which responded that "the ship is seriously injured and may not be able to continue fighting", the other four warships were called one after another.

To the south were 6 dreadnoughts led by the "King", and to the west were 3 dreadnoughts of Reims and 3 battle cruisers of Hipper, and the battlefield situation became 12 German capital ships against 8 British dreadnoughts, not counting the three British dreadnoughts whose whereabouts were unknown - "Bellerophon", "Dreadnought", "Collingwood", and the German fleet finally had a significant advantage in overall strength!

In addition to the strength, the position advantage of the German fleet is also more obvious, two battle formations of equal strength to form a flanking attack on the British main fleet, the extremely limited width of the battlefield allows them to respond to each other and cooperate closely, the only advantage of the Jericho formation is the concentration of troops, and in addition to the two old seriously damaged dreadnoughts, the remaining 6 are all powerful super dreadnoughts, and the development of the war situation is far from the time when the British are completely desperate. In the face of the fierce attack of the German battle formation on the west side of the battlefield, Jellicoe ordered the "Avantgarde" and "Neptune" to withdraw north at full speed, and the "Conqueror" and "Thunderbolt" joined up with the flagship and the three George V-class battleships as quickly as possible, and reorganized into the strongest main battle line.

After a series of turns, the three sisters of George V, "Ajax", "Daring" and "George V", who regretted the loss of the "Centurion", and the flagship "Iron Duke", whose damage situation was not very optimistic, became a north-facing navigation state. Temporarily freed from the hand-to-hand combat of the three German capital ships, they began to concentrate their fire in the port direction, delivering a salvo at the German battle formations that seriously threatened the two old dreadnoughts.

Noticing the combat adjustment of the British fleet, Natsuki issued a radio command from the "King", asking the Reims formation to cover the Hipper fleet to attack the two British capital ships that were trying to evacuate at close range, and the "Caesar" and "King" no longer waited for the four old dreadnoughts with a slightly slower speed, but ordered the accompanying light ships to closely guard the seriously injured "King Albert", and pursued the British fleet north at full speed.

In order to coordinate with the three old dreadnoughts of the Reims formation, the speed of the Hipper's fleet was reduced to 16 knots at one point, while the top speed of the three battle cruisers in still water was above 26 knots, and the top speed of the two light cruisers reached 27 knots and 28 knots respectively. Ordered by the flagship, the five ships advanced in hussar stride, and the rough sea conditions limited their top speed to about 23 knots, but this was still beyond the top speed of any British dreadnought or super-dreadnought—the situation could not change until the Queen Elizabeth class entered service, but that would be at least a year later.

On stormy nights, the view on the sea surface is extremely bad, and the effective illumination distance of high-power searchlights is reduced to almost one-tenth of the normal level. A few minutes later, the lookout suddenly observed the activity of small ships on the sea in front of them, so they hurriedly sounded the alarm, but the distance between the two sides was too close, and the "Seydlitz" could not dodge at all, if it was two ships of similar tonnage, such a high-speed collision would inevitably lose both, and what appeared in front of the Hipper's flagship was only a British destroyer close to 1,000 tons, and the weight and size of the two sides differed by more than 20 times, "Seydlitz" The straight bow of the axe-like ship slammed into the hull of the enemy, severing its stern from the hull, and only 10 of the 96 crew members of the British destroyer survived.

However, the early St. Vincent-class dreadnought had lost all its main guns in the previous battle, and its secondary guns alone could not withstand the impact of a strong opponent, and the combat angle of the underwater torpedo tubes in the bow and stern direction was extremely limited, so the escort destroyers had to launch torpedoes to intercept the opponent. At a distance of 300 meters, two British destroyers hurriedly fired four torpedoes at the target, and the German battle cruisers did not observe the torpedo track, let alone evade it, but these torpedoes invariably deviated from the target.

When it was only about 200 meters away from the "Avant-garde", the "Seydlitz" turned to the left with a steady rudder, and the main guns available on the ship lowered their muzzles and pointed to starboard in unison, followed by "De Fllinger" and "Goeben". Three German battle cruisers suddenly turned on their searchlights, and more than a dozen Krupp guns of 11- and 12-inch caliber poured a dense and heavy fire on the "avant-garde" at this easy distance. In less than a minute, the almost defenseless British dreadnought was hit by seven large-caliber shells, the main armor belt of the waterline with a thickness of 7 to 10 inches was pierced one after another, the fire on the upper deck was not extinguished, and the bow was surrounded by raging flames. In order to put an end to the British battleship's painful struggle, and to save ammunition for its own battle cruisers, the "Strasbourg" and "Rostock" fired six 500 mm G-torpedoes at it in succession, but the lightning strikes at close range were as missable as the British light ships.

After crossing the "Avant-garde", Hipper's three battle cruisers aimed their guns at the "Neptune", its level of protection is comparable to that of the St. Vincent class, the five main turrets have a new design, and are equipped with a majestic tower bridge, but only 10 inches of waterline armor at the thickest point cannot block the fire of the German capital ships, and the main turret with 11 inches of frontal armor has also been frequently destroyed in the fierce battle, and its few remaining main guns pose a certain threat to the German war cruisers, However, the water ingress of the ship's hull has deteriorated, and the efficiency of the water pump pumping out can no longer keep up with the speed of water intake. In order to save the lives of the crew, the captain ordered the ship to be abandoned and sent a distress signal to the friendly ship.

Under the firelight, Hipper saw that the hull of the "Neptune" was seriously capped and a large number of crew members abandoned the ship and escaped, so he ordered the ships to cease fire. Led by the "Seydlitz", the German reconnaissance fleet made a 180-degree turn in a counterclockwise direction, and then continued to ravage the "Avantgarde", which was still in a sailing state, with artillery fire. At this time, the three old dreadnoughts of the Reims formation had also approached the sea not far from the "avant-garde" and decisively joined this one-sided artillery battle. Due to the loss of the stored fuel, the oil tanks on the side not only could not play an auxiliary defensive role, but increased the explosive power of the enemy's armor-piercing shells in the ship, and this raindrops of artillery fire finally destroyed the tenacious will of the "avant-garde" officers and men, and in the case of 14 damage to the waterline armor and the complete destruction of the superstructure, it became another abandoned British capital ship, but more than half an hour after the German ship stopped attacking, it sank into the water with more than 400 crews, and among the 592 officers and men who survived, Only 97 people were rescued by British ships that night.

Two brave admirals of the German Navy, Franz von Hipper and Wilhelm von Reims, joined forces to stab a sword in the weak position of the British fleet, and if Jojellico and his officers and men, who were still holding out, were the first to learn of the dire situation in which the "avant-garde" was endangered and the "Neptune" had abandoned the ship, their fighting faith would probably be crushed by this last straw. From this point of view, the inflexible means of communication gave Jericho a glimmer of hope for saving the fleet and the entire country. As Hipper's fleet ravaged the "Avant-garde" and "Neptune" one by one, the four British capital ships, which had turned around, were heading at full speed towards them, turning their guns on the Reims formation to new targets—whether or not Jericho knew at the time that these were the German battlecruisers that had earlier routed Betty's mobile fleet and attacked the old battleship group, it was a certain fact that his four capital ships possessed the strength to quickly annihilate their opponents in a close-range artillery battle.

The battle began at a distance of no more than 400 meters, and because the searchlights on the three German battle cruisers and two light cruisers had not yet been turned off, the "Ajax" and "Daring", which were the first to open fire, hit accurately and fiercely, and the port side of the "Seydlitz" to meet the enemy was immediately covered by a column of water that rushed into the sky, and shrapnel directly shattered four searchlights; The German Navy's newest and most powerful battle cruiser, the De Fllinger, was even more hit with a powerful 13. The 5-inch armor-piercing projectile exploded directly on its amidships, and the flames of the explosion were as dazzling as a red flare, and the terrifying impact blew away more than twenty crew members on the open gun emplacement, and the rapidly expanding yellow-green smoke ball was even more inexplicably bewitching.

After the explosion, the neat and compact superstructure of the "De Fllinger" was suddenly unrecognizable, a twin secondary gun was missing, a large piece of the bridge base was missing, and the base of the main chimney revealed a terrifying gap, and the deck and the adjacent secondary armor belt were seriously deformed.

The strong counterattack of the British fleet may have been something Hipper had not expected, and with "George V" and "Iron Duke" quickly joining the battle, the situation of the German battle cruisers was even worse. However, when the opponent was clearly stronger than his own, Hippel kept the ships in battle position, bravely met them, and pointed their searchlights at the opponent, exposing Jericho's ships to the sight of the German fleet, while Jericho's four capital ships remained brightly lit. As a result, a nervous Jericho and most of his staff regarded the five German battleships in front of them, especially the two German light cruisers with twin turrets, as the main ships of the German Navy—although they had just left behind three German dreadnoughts and more than half a dozen old dreadnoughts, they were not entirely sure how many more dreadnoughts the Germans hadught. Until the outbreak of the war, the British navy's top brass and intelligence services believed that the German Navy had more than the 14 dreadnoughts they had announced, and that they were likely to have built 1-2 in secret, which could not only reduce the reaction from the British, but also give the opponent an "unexpected surprise" on the battlefield. Taking into account the fact that 3 King-class dreadnoughts of the same class as the "King" are also likely to be commissioned earlier than expected, the British naval top brass believes that the German Navy may have a maximum of 17-18 dreadnoughts and more than 16 in a decisive naval battle. For this reason, Jellicoe brought with him nine old battleships, which were considered "quasi-dreadnoughts", but their most notable effect was to slow down the main fleet, causing the Betty fleet to face the attack of the entire German navy on its own before dark.

(End of chapter)