At 4 p.m. on August 7, 1914, in the southeastern waters of the North Sea. Pen "Fun" Pavilion www.biquge.info

Although there is a refreshing cool breeze on the sea, people's mental and physical energy will inevitably be consumed quickly after being exposed to the scorching sun of midsummer for a long time. Admiral von Ingnoll and his main staff returned to the battle bridge from the open-air command observation deck with a wide line of sight, and refreshments were brought by the orderly dining cart so that the nervous officers could relax a little while holding on to their key posts, and the opening of the hatch kept the heavily protected battle bridge in good air circulation.

The refreshing aroma of Chinese tea infuses Natsuki's recently overused brain with a wonderful spiritual power. After refinement, the intricate thoughts become clear and clear. Looking at his overall plan again, Natsuki knows that there are always gaps in mortal thinking, and even the most well-thought-out plans can be flawed due to sudden changes, and the only way to win is to keep a cool head at all times, and deal with all kinds of complex realities with a focused and decisive attitude.

"Gentlemen, there are still some problems with the tubes of the No. 4 boiler group, and the ship's engineers have worked hard to repair them, but the time to sail at full speed will last at most an hour and a half, and then it will drop back to about 20 knots."

Exposed to the scorching heat of the sun, the captain, Colonel von Lubic, walked up the gangway to the battle bridge, with no restraint or self-reproach. He asked the orderly for a glass of frozen sherbet and dried it up in two bites, and he felt very refreshed.

Since the captain himself didn't think it was a big deal, the youngest fleet chief of staff in the history of the High Seas Fleet responded in a positive tone: "It is very rare for a large fleet to fight and require a battleship to sprint at full speed, not to mention that the Caesar class is the fastest among our battleships. ”

Hearing this, Colonel Lubic showed a proud expression. Among the dreadnoughts in service in various countries, the top speed of 24 knots is indeed at the top level, which can make the Caesar-class with a full load weight of 30,000 tons run such a speed, and Hubert Power's impulse steam turbine is the first to play, and good hull design also plays an important role. Of course, strictly speaking, Natsuki should add "one" at the end of his last sentence, because among the 14 German dreadnoughts in full combat is the newly commissioned King-class battleship "King", which is only 500 tons heavier than the Caesar-class, but has a maximum power output of 42,000 horsepower, and ran 25 in the overload test. Amazing speed of 2 knots. In order to be a surprise soldier, this data was not only strictly kept secret from the outside world, but also known to a very small number of senior admirals within the German Navy, so it was assumed that its speed was on par with that of the Caesars.

The technical performance of the new German battleship was clouded, and there was much speculation about its service time. Judging from the start of its construction time and the construction period of the German dreadnoughts of the Nassau and Helgoland classes, it should have been completed in May and June 1914, and then it would have lasted several months of equipment commissioning, running-in and personnel training as usual, and the formation of combat effectiveness would not be until the end of 1914 at the earliest, while the service ceremony held by the German Navy for it was held at the end of June, and it could already be seen in the naval exercises held earlier. During the Kiel Naval Festival, the King is open to foreign visiting officers and the German public, and visits are normally limited to the above-deck level. Judging by the hull specifications and the layout of the upper deck, it is easy to confuse it with the Caesar class, which is merely 1 for such a large battleship. The difference in length of 6 meters is really insignificant, not to mention that the firepower configuration is exactly the same, and there is no obvious difference in the pattern of the bridge and the style of the mast.

At 4:25 a.m., the officers had finished their afternoon tea and had just pushed the dining cart away, when the young and diligent Captain Gord brought an updated reconnaissance report from the communications room. The LZ-09 zeppelin, which was part of the German Navy, saw a fleet sailing at high speed in the direction of the Helgoland Bay in the central part of the North Sea, and visually saw 6 large warships, 12 medium warships, and 25 small warships, and this reconnaissance data was highly consistent with the earlier report of the U-44.

"If the Hipper's fleet had been sailing along the planned route and at the speed, we would have been able to meet the British mobile fleet in another hour and a half, and we would have another two and a half hours at our current speed."

Captain Golder reported his calculations without explicit suggestions, but by the order in which the sentences were arranged.

After a little calculation in his heart, Natsuki suggested that Ingnorl order to increase the speed.

Up to now, whether it was the reconnaissance fleet shelling the British coast or the main force of the high seas fleet secretly dispatched, everything was carried out in accordance with the battle plan drafted by Natsuki and approved by the Kaiser himself, but despite this, the cautious Ingnoll hesitated for a moment, and then ordered at 4:35: The 1st and 3rd battleship detachments, the 4th reconnaissance detachments, and the 1st and 5th lightning strike groups increased to 18 knots; 2nd Battleship Detachment, 2nd Reconnaissance Detachment, 4th Lightning Strike Detachment, increased to 16 knots; Only the supporting squadron and the 9th Lightning Strike Group continued to maintain their original speed of 15 knots.

In this way, the main forces of the High Seas Fleet will gradually be divided into three parts, the main vanguard consisting of 14 dreadnoughts, 15 cruisers and 23 large torpedo boats, a follow-up force consisting of 15 former dreadnoughts, 5 cruisers and 22 large torpedo boats, and a support force consisting of 8 torpedo boat carriers, 1 aircraft carrier, 3 cruisers and 10 torpedo boats. Two hours later, the distance between the 1st Battleship Detachment, which was at the front of the fleet, and the support detachment that was dragging to the end, would be about 10 nautical miles.

After repelling the British torpedo boat group and sending out a battle report, the German reconnaissance detachment under Hipper's command maintained radio silence so that the adversary could not use wireless direction finding technology to guess its own position. At the same time, the communications department of the squadron's flagship "Seydlitz" paid close attention to the communication signals of both the enemy and the enemy. After receiving the reconnaissance report of the LZ-09, Hipper quickly ordered the "Seydlitz" and "Moltke" ships to eject water reconnaissance planes. When the aircraft catapult technology was invented two years ago, the Americans probably could never have imagined that the Germans on the other side of the ocean would put it into actual combat at such a lightning speed.

As with all new technologies, the ejection of the aircraft was not a tried-and-true cause, or the result of overly nervous operators, or some technical flaws in the aircraft engine itself, the Junkers 3-C carried by the Moltke accidentally crashed into the sea during the ejection, and the two pilots were fortunate to be unharmed, but the aircraft was badly damaged and could not be used again during the operation. Hipper had no choice but to send the "De Fllinger" catapult plane, because the "Blücher" was not designed to carry a water reconnaissance plane due to size limitations, so far only the "Goeben" of the entire reconnaissance detachment had a water reconnaissance plane that could be used at any time.

In honor of the famous Prussian general August-Karl von Goebben, who played a great role in the Austro-Prussian and Franco-Prussian wars, the second ship of the Moltke-class battlecruiser was named "Goeben". In the history of the original, the name of this battleship is closely associated with Ottoman Turkey - it was deployed in the Mediterranean before the war, sailed to the Ottoman Empire after the outbreak of war to avoid the pursuit of Allied ships, nominally resold to the Turks, but continued to be piloted by German officers and crews, and then shelled the Russian coast and forced the Ottoman Empire into a major war, causing the war to spread to the Near and Middle East, for which the Allies had to expend a large number of troops far from the main battlefield. The Ottoman Empire also ended up on the path of disintegration. Amazingly, while most of the German capital ships found their home on the icy seabed of Scapa Bay, the Goeben escaped the Allied post-war liquidation and the subsequent Second World War until it was sold and dismantled in 1971.

The Moltke-class battlecruisers designed by Natsuki have a better level of defense and power configuration than the historical original. In order to have the most powerful "reconnaissance fleet" possible at the time of the war, Natsuki made a slight move, so that the German capital ship sent to the Mediterranean in 1912 was changed from the "Goeben" to the slightly less powerful "von der Tann", and the light cruiser "Breslau" was stronger than the historical version of this class of battleships, and the firepower of the four twin 150 mm guns could easily cope with most of the Allied cruisers built in advance.

After nearly 40 minutes of searching, the Junkers 3-C reconnaissance plane numbered R-024, which successfully ejected and took off from the "Seydlitz", finally saw its target. At an altitude of 700 meters, the observer Sergeant William Atner had a panoramic view of the British fleet through a pair of binoculars: the commander's flag was hoisted on a majestic Lion-class battlecruiser, followed by another Lion-class battlecruiser, then an improved version of the Lion-class, the "Queen Margaret" commissioned in the fall of 1913, and the other three battlecruisers were two Indefatigable and one Invincible, which were almost the same in tonnage, layout, and performance, and belonged to a typical offensive and defensive weak type. Their armor was not even as thick as that of the German Navy's junior battle cruiser, the Blucher, and their protection was seriously flawed - of course, until the world came to this conclusion through actual combat, they were still the main deterrent ships of the British Royal Navy.

According to the essentials and skills mastered in the usual training, Sergeant Atna judged that the speed of the British fleet was about 20 knots through careful observation of the bow waves of several British warships, which was much slower than the reconnaissance conclusion of the German submarines earlier. In terms of technology, the maximum speed of British battle cruisers was above 25 knots, and light cruisers were even better at speed, and it was not difficult to drive in formation at 24 knots, but it was difficult to maintain such a high speed for a long time. With the metallurgical forging technology of this era, even the British Navy, which has more mature and reliable power technology, is prone to failure of machinery and equipment under heavy load, but compared with the Germans, the biggest advantage of Britain's new ships is that the oil-fired boilers reduce the labor intensity of stokers - because of the concerns about fuel supply, the German Navy only designed oil-fired boilers on the new cruisers that they valued. The load is large, and the performance of the ship is affected to a certain extent.

The flight regulations compiled by the General Staff of the German Navy clearly require that the distance between one's own aircraft and airships and enemy ships when carrying out reconnaissance missions should exceed the effective range of small-caliber rapid-fire guns, so as to prevent vital reconnaissance information from being transmitted to one's own fleet because the aircraft are shot down by the enemy. Therefore, after about 5 minutes of circling reconnaissance, the R-024, piloted by Navy Sergeant Florian, turned around and returned to prepare to bring this vital news back to the Hipper's fleet, and the R-030, which happened to eject from the "De Fllinger", also flew to this area, and naturally took over the tracking reconnaissance of the British fleet in the place of R-024.

At this time, from Florian's point of view, there were already two faintly visible pillars of smoke in the direction of the German reconnaissance squadron, and the two avant-garde fleets with different missions but quite close strength were approaching each other, and the prelude to this naval battle was destined to be unveiled by them together......

(End of chapter)