"Sir, now that the wind is northeast and the wind speed is 33 knots, the 2nd and 3rd tactical teams are ready to take off. Pen | fun | pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ”

In the cramped and crowded bridge of the "Prince Heinrich", a young naval non-commissioned officer reported the real-time weather conditions to the commander.

Originally an armored cruiser, the Prince Heinrich was converted into the second aircraft carrier of the German Navy, and its current captain, Lieutenant Commander Otto Herrel, who had just turned 40 a few months earlier, is a young naval officer. He mastered the art of piloting an airplane as early as 1909 and became one of the first flight instructors in the German Navy. In 1912, the German Naval Flying School was established, and Heller served as the principal and chief instructor, training the first carrier-based pilots for Germany. After the Bismarck was secretly commissioned, Hällel became the ship's flight commander and flew in the Battle of Jutland, bombing the British battlecruiser with aerial bombs. It can be said that this is a commander with a deep theoretical foundation and rich experience in actual combat, who understands the role played by naval aviation in modern naval warfare, and is familiar with the capabilities of pilots and the performance of carrier-based aircraft, and perhaps no one in the entire German Navy is more qualified for this important post.

"Adjust your course and move forward with the wind! After receiving the order to attack, the 2nd Tactical Squad took off first and launched an attack on the British fleet in the central waterway of the Faroe Islands. The 3rd tactical squad unloaded the torpedoes, loaded the aerial bombs, and waited for the order to strike. Herel simply and decisively gave a series of instructions.

The ship's 2nd tactical squad was composed of Hubert-E3 two-seat monoplane bombers, a new type of carrier-based aircraft capable of carrying 300 kg of aerial bombs to bomb targets within 150 km, and the German Navy was equipped with new 100 kg armor-piercing bombs that could effectively penetrate 80 mm of deck armor from a height of 200 meters - only a few battleships of this era had some deck armor that exceeded this thickness.

While turning to the northeast, the "Prince Heinrich" replied to the "King", the general flagship of the High Seas Fleet, with a light signal: everything was ready to send carrier-based aircraft formations to attack enemy ships at any time. In view of the current sea conditions, the aerial torpedo could not be used normally, and the torpedo machine was replaced with aerial bombs.

Moments later, the "King" sent back a brief communication signal: agree to attack, good luck to the pilots!

On the flight deck, which is 24 meters wide and 128 meters long, four Hubert-E3 carrier-based bombers with a wingspan of 11.6 meters are arranged in a staggered formation on the left and right in the take-off area at the stern, the 160-horsepower Daimler engine makes a loud roar, and the two-bladed propeller that resembles a razor-shaped propeller rotates rapidly, driving the air flow to make the air crew behind the plane shoot the corners of their clothes. At this time, the waves on the sea surface were four or five meters high, and under the action of the wind and waves, the "Prince Heinrich", with a full load displacement of more than 10,000 tons, swayed horizontally and vertically, and the flight crew had to stuff skids under the wheels to prevent the aircraft on the deck from slipping. Seeing the take-off signal, the aircrew pulled out the wheel skids of the four carrier-based aircraft of the 2nd Tactical Team one by one, and then watched them move towards the bow one by one. The oncoming sea breeze is already strong, and a few years ago the plane could not take off in such weather, but now these sleek, solid and powerful aircraft can fly proudly, which shows how amazing the power of technology is.

After a difficult and slow flight taxi, Hubert-E3 with an aerial bomb hanging under the wing root and under the fuselage rose into the air in turn, they gradually climbed up, and turned sideways in the gloomy sky, the whole process looked trembling, but after the steering was completed, they flew significantly faster in a tailwind state, and after a while, they became small black dots, and below these black spots, at the end of the sea level, a faint touch of blue-gray was faintly visible.

Between the East Island and the Isle of Kars in the north-central part of the Faroe Islands, the mighty British fleet was heading at full speed for the open waters outside the Channel. At this time, looking at the sea from the air, the three British battle cruisers in the shape of a zigzag and the seven British capital ships in a column are very eye-catching. The former was large and slender, the latter was relatively short and wide, and the former reached the northern end of the strait, where it was five or six nautical miles away from the latter. Light combat and auxiliary ships could not provide adequate protection for the capital ships in this narrow waterway, and if the German Navy had deployed a large number of submarines and high-speed torpedo boats here in advance, and the weather was calm, there would have been a great chance of slaughtering the British fleet. Of course, the British, who had suffered defeats in the previous naval battles, were well aware of this, so after leaving the Dogle Sandbank and heading north, they only made a short stop at the Scapaflo naval base in the Auckland Islands, and before approaching the Faroe Islands, they dispatched submarines, planes, and airships to conduct detailed reconnaissance of the surrounding waters, and made sure that there were no German naval ambush ships before they quickly arrived. Because of this, the sudden appearance of German aircraft disturbed the mentality of the entire British fleet, so there was a strange scene of hundreds of naval guns violently firing at a German carrier-based aircraft.

"Behold, those are our bombers...... Good luck, brave lads! ”

On the bridge of the "Iron Duke", Charles Madden grabbed his military cap in his hand and waved it vigorously, and two Velthorp "Falcon" seaplanes hanging on torpedoes were flying low from a low altitude not far away. The British planes sent to reconnoiter had been slow to discover the traces of the main German fleet, and only found a large torpedo boat of the German Navy more than thirty nautical miles northeast of Kars Island, and in this case, Vice Admiral Madden smelled the danger signal from the oppressive and dreary atmosphere and the sea breeze that was not violent enough, and he felt that the air force of the British fleet could not wait any longer, and must act decisively before the Germans caused great trouble for the British fleet with carrier-based aircraft -- to put the torpedo planes into the search for the waters northeast of Kars Island, Attacks were carried out directly upon the discovery of the German fleet, and the first targets were the aircraft carriers of the Germans, followed by their battle cruisers and dreadnoughts.

However, Sir Jackson did not agree with Madden's proposal, and he advocated that the torpedo planes should be dispatched after determining the orientation of the German fleet, after all, the torpedo planes carried by the British fleet were seaplanes, and it was easy to catapult and take off, and it would be a very difficult process to land in the wind and waves and then hoist back to the mothership, which was equivalent to only one chance to attack torpedoes, and the German navy's tactics were cunning and changeable, and the current situation was far from enough to judge that the German main fleet was north of Kars Island. The two almost got into a heated argument. At this time, the veteran Edward's statement helped Madden, and he suggested that the four torpedo planes carried by the "Athletic" should help Betty clear the way - the 1st Battlecruiser Detachment was heading for the sea northeast of Kars Island at this time.

As a theorist of the Navy, Sir Jackson's stubbornness was often manifested at the level of strategy, he was not as experienced as Jericho in the timing of battles, and coupled with personal connections, he was willing to listen to the opinions of the veteran Edward, and also trusted his judgment. As a result, the "Athletic" quickly dispatched all four torpedo planes, and the other two seaplane carriers, the "Hagmet" and the "Luno", also released two torpedo planes each, thus launching the first offensive against the German fleet that was still hiding in the shadows with eight Velthorp "Falcons".

When British torpedo planes flew over the main fleet in pairs, two Newport IV seaplanes used for combat reconnaissance missions also appeared in the nearby airspace, trying to find the previous German carrier-based reconnaissance plane and shoot it down, but the cunning German carrier-based reconnaissance plane disappeared completely after hiding in the clouds. The German pilots were obviously aware that their communication frequencies were being interfered with by the British fleet, and as a result, important reconnaissance information could not be transmitted, and the most direct way was to return home as soon as possible -- if the British could realize this and use reconnaissance planes or even torpedo planes to follow them, they would not only be able to find the exact position of the German fleet, but would also have the opportunity to strike at the other side.

However, none of this happened.

Under the command of David Beatty, the British fleet's three battle cruisers and four light cruisers finally sailed out of the narrow waterway that was not conducive to the fleet's maneuvering, and a large expanse of open water was presented in sight. Fears about the re-enactment of the battle of Mingliang did not materialize, and the formidable German fleet did not appear in front of them in battle, but where exactly was this terrible and cunning enemy?

Jackson, Madden, Edward, Betty, Browning...... The senior officers of the British fleet were eager to know the answer.

The British torpedo planes turned around the northern tip of Karls Island and flew northeastward, and not long after, four German carrier-based planes suddenly appeared at the northern end of the East Island. After determining the flight path by the contours of the islands, the German planes descended rapidly and pounced on the sailing British fleet at an altitude of about 200 meters above the sea. The flagship, the Iron Duke, was at the head of the British main fleet, so it was natural that the German pilots were the first target of attack, and this time, the lookouts on the British escort ships sounded the alarm in time, and the ships responded quickly to fire at the incoming German planes after the previous warm-up. In an instant, hundreds of shells flew into the air, and a dense network of firepower was woven over the fleet, and the scene was magnificent, and the British officers and men were greatly comforted by this -- with such careful preparations, our fleet would not be overwhelmed by the harassment of German carrier-based aircraft, as in the previous naval battles!

If the time-delay fuse of the artillery shell is set to delay the detonation of one second after firing, the explosion distance is about 600 meters, and if it is a two-second delay, the explosion distance is increased to 1300 meters, and only if the calculation is accurate and the setting is accurate, the anti-aircraft fire of multiple warships can form a barrage area that is difficult for enemy aircraft to penetrate, but such harsh conditions were impossible to achieve in 1914. Like eagles brave through the storm, four German carrier-based bombers finally flew through the barrage over the British fleet and dropped bombs on the "Iron Duke" with rudimentary bomb sights.

(End of chapter)