In the process, a number of British light cruisers opened fire one after another, but their naval guns were limited by elevation angles and range, and none of them posed a real threat to the German reconnaissance plane, while the pilot of the water reconnaissance plane, the pilot of the "De Fllinger", Navy Ensign von Insedel, was an adventurous young aristocrat. Pen | fun | pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 Info saw that the friendly plane was already flying back, and he decided to create some confusion for the British while carrying out a reconnaissance mission.

The Junkers 3-C, which was put into production in 1912, is a two-seat water reconnaissance aircraft developed by Hubert Aviation for large warships, it uses Daimler's 4-cylinder water-cooled piston engine, with an output of 110 horsepower, and can continue to fly for 4 hours in a windless state.

In the daily training exercises of the German Navy, the Junkers 3-C most of the time only carried out reconnaissance and warning and artillery fire correction tasks, and the flight personnel only received the theoretical and practical tutorials of aerial bomb delivery in the last two months near the outbreak of the war, and carried out several bomb throwing training, and the attack accuracy of the manual bomb was unsatisfactory, but it was equipped with the H-13 aerial bomb used by the reconnaissance aircraft and was well received by the flight personnel. Attacks by unprotected personnel on land are reliable and easy to use, and the rate of rotten eggs is low. In the course of the previous bombardment of the British coast, the Hipper fleet had ejected two reconnaissance planes, which had to continue to hover at an altitude of 1,000 meters in order to facilitate the calibration and communication, and unfortunately missed the record honor of bombing the British mainland.

After identifying the position of the enemy's flagship, Second Lieutenant von Insedel ordered his observers to attach the two H-13s on board to the trigger fuses, and then flew around the rear of the British fleet and began to fly along the British fleet line. The main and auxiliary guns of the British fleet on the sea, the battle cruisers and reconnaissance cruisers are all conventional designs, and the pitch angle of the guns is limited by the gun mount structure, which makes it difficult to carry out effective anti-air fire, while the 47 mm rapid-fire guns and machine guns are limited by the angle of fire Although the firing angle is smaller, their original use is still maritime defense, and there are great technical limitations in the means of observation and sighting, the rate of fire, and the firing range. When the German reconnaissance plane flew close to the fleet, the British crew could still pose a threat to it with rapid-fire guns and machine guns, but when it flew directly above the fleet, it entered the blind spot of most rapid-fire guns and machine guns relying on gun mounts or mounts, and the British crew had to take out their rifles from the inner compartment and fire on the deck with their heads in the sky.

Intuitively reckoning, the second lieutenant of Admiral Insedel shouted to his deputy, "Throw the first one!" ”

The 5-kilogram bomb was not enough to produce the thrill of whizzing down, and it fell silently, and both men on the plane leaned out and watched in amazement as it quickly turned into a black dot, and then exploded into a white wave of water twenty or thirty meters behind a British cruiser.

The second lieutenant was lamenting, only to hear a soft pop, the right wing of the cloth was cut open by the bullet, although it did not affect the normal flight of the aircraft, but strictly speaking, it meant that the surface ships of the British Navy damaged the German Navy's water reconnaissance planes.

"Throw the second one!" The second lieutenant shouted and waited for his deputy to drop the bomb, and he immediately pulled back the lever and increased the throttle, causing the Junkers 3-C with minimal injuries to climb slowly. The Daimler engine let out a low roar, and a moment later a non-deafening roar came from below, and Sergeant Lohr, the observer, immediately shouted excitedly:

"Hit it! Ha! Hit the mark! ”

Second Lieutenant von Insedel was busy probing to see, this was really "intentionally planting poplars and poplars, and unintentionally planting willows and willows". The second hastily dropped bomb hit one of the enemy battlecruisers and landed on the deck between the bridge and the chimney in front of it, and the sea breeze quickly blew away the smoke from the explosion, but the fire was still visible in the smoke, and it was possible that the bomb started the fire.

In the process of shelling the British coast, the Hipper fleet successively sank two escort warships and a number of high-speed torpedo boats of the British Navy, this aerial bomb was not the first "greeting gift" given by the German Navy to the opponent since the outbreak of the Great War, but it still set a record for the first hit and the first death and wound of an aircraft on a ship in this war - Ensign von Insedel and his partner did not know at this time that the bomb they dropped killed a sergeant on the British Royal Navy's battlecruiser "Royal Princess" on the spot, Four other sailors were wounded to varying degrees.

Stimulated by this bomb, the British fleet's anti-aircraft fire increased sharply, and after the R-030 climbed high, several 47mm rapid-fire shells flew close to the wings, if they were equipped with a time-delay fuse and properly set up, this wood-boned and skinned water reconnaissance aircraft was likely to be torn to pieces by the shrapnel of revenge, however, the weapon technology of 1914 was more than one level different from that of 1944, and the war thinking of the vast majority of people was still in plane mode, In vain, the British fleet fired hundreds of small-caliber shells and countless bullets, and in the end could only watch the German reconnaissance planes "flee" with victorious battle reports.

Two German maritime reconnaissance planes appeared in this area far from land, and the commander of the British fleet, the 43-year-old brave general David Beatty, naturally did not dare to take it lightly, but he had neither new operational information nor direct reconnaissance reports, so he could not judge the true intentions of the Germans. When the third German reconnaissance plane, perhaps the first to appear and return, flew in from the southwest direction of the fleet, Betty made a countermeasures: a Weymouth-class light cruiser, a Positive-class reconnaissance cruiser, and six destroyers accelerated out of formation to conduct a warning reconnaissance in the southwest sea, and at the same time, the flagship "Lion" sent a telegram to the main force of the Grand Fleet under the command of Admiral John Jellicoe about the encounter with the German reconnaissance plane, and the "Royal Princess" was bombed and slightly damaged.

In the waters southwest of the British Mobile Fleet, the German reconnaissance detachment sailing in a formation at a speed of 22 knots was also adjusted at about the same time, with five battle cruisers changing from a single-line marching column to a ladder-like battle formation, six light cruisers divided into two teams, three Magdeburg-class light cruisers "Magdeburg", "Strasbourg" and "Strasund" serving as fleet outposts, and two relatively weak Colburg-class cruisers "Kolburg" and "Mainz" together with an improved version of this class "Rostock". "The arch guard is in the right rear of the battle patrol formation.

At 5:56 p.m. on August 7, 1914, the lookout of the British reconnaissance cruiser "Positive" saw a columnar smoke cloud over the southwestern sea, so he issued an alarm signal that "15 nautical miles ahead is suspected to be an enemy ship." Theoretically, this alarm could have been a bit presumptuous, for a cargo ship using inferior bituminous coal could also produce a thick plume of smoke when sailing, but the war had just broken out, the situation was still uncertain, and a large number of ships were stranded in port or rerouted to avoid dangerous waters that might become battlefields, and this area was on the shortest route for the German reconnaissance fleet to return to Helgoland Bay, and various factors and their corresponding probabilities combined to make a realistic inference from the British sailors at the lookout.

A few minutes later, three warship masts appeared on the sea, and the British cruiser and destroyer that had gone out to reconnoiter all entered combat condition, and the "Positive" questioned the identity of the other party by means of a light signal.

The other party did not respond, but continued to maintain the current course and speed. After a while, clouds of smoke could be clearly seen at the far end of the sea, and more warship masts appeared at the end of the sea level.

At 6:11, the lookout of the British reconnaissance cruiser "Positive" issued a correction: "An enemy fleet with three light cruisers as advance ships has been detected 10 nautical miles ahead. ”

Only a minute later, the whizzing of 6-inch shells confirmed the lookout's judgment that the three advance ships were indeed German light cruisers, and they were the first to fire at a distance of nearly 18,000 meters, and all the shells fell hundreds of meters in front of the "Positive". Through the exchange of gunnery over the years, the British Navy has formed a widely recognized viewpoint, that is, the firing accuracy of the German Navy ships is superior to that of Russia and France, and it is roughly on the same level as the diligent and diligent Japanese Navy, and only slightly inferior to the British Navy. The reason why these shells were so far off ruled out the possibility that the firing commanders of the three German cruisers were collectively out of order, and there was only one reason for this: the limited range of the naval guns.

Hugh said that it was a dreadnought, and most of the former dreadnoughts and quasi-dreadnoughts built and put into service after 1900 had a range of more than 20,000 meters for their main guns, and before metallurgical casting, gunpowder and ballistic technology were greatly improved, large-caliber naval guns had a long enough range, and the range of 6-inch naval guns was 1. 60,000 meters is a normal level, and a reconnaissance cruiser like the "Positive" with 4-inch naval guns can only hit 1 shell when raising the naval guns to the maximum elevation angle. 50,000 meters, shooting accuracy cannot be guaranteed.

The six British destroyers accompanying it, none of which had guns of more than 4 inches, and could only be beaten passively at the beginning of the engagement, the "Falmouth", which was dragging behind them, decisively adjusted its course, and the Weymouth-class light cruiser fired a salvo in front of the port side with all eight 6-inch guns, and the shells flew over the heads of the "Positive" and the six destroyers, and finally stirred up eight white water columns on the left side of the three German cruisers. Although it is not affected by the other party's fur, the momentum is not inferior!

In the next few minutes, the three German cruisers exchanged two rounds with the "Falmouth", and the shells landed closer and closer to their respective targets, while the British Navy's cruiser "Positive" led its six destroyers at full speed, taking the German cruisers into their own effective range while keeping a close eye on the German battlecruisers in the farther sea, which were gradually revealing their hideous faces.

At 6:23, the "Seydlitz", which was at the top of the trapezoidal battle column, suddenly spewed orange-red flames from its four front main guns, and the thunderous roar echoed on the sea surface for a long time.

(End of chapter)