On the night of February 26, 1928, in the bright moonlight, the black vulture cross flag fluttered in the wind.

Inspired by them, more than 100 ships and tens of thousands of outstanding soldiers are full of ambition and ready to go. In a dozen hours, the landing operation on the Hawaiian Islands, which plays a decisive role in the situation in the Pacific Ocean, will begin.

On the night before the war, it was quiet and serene, and under the special care of the officers, the soldiers who had been incorporated into the landing force were each given a small bottle of brandy at dinner, and before 11 o'clock they could drink a little wine or play cards, but after 11 o'clock everyone had to sleep honestly.

With the exception of a few more conservative officers, most of the officers and men were understanding and welcoming, and relaxation was one of the factors, and for some of them it would be the last night of their lives.

Since the main force of the escort fleet left the large fleet and rushed towards the Japanese fleet, the battle cruiser "Wools" became the temporary flagship of the remaining fleet. This battle cruiser belongs to the German Navy's newest Brandenburg class, which has a total of three warships, namely "Brandenburg", "Weisenburg" and "Wurs", all three ships were started in 1925, the first ship "Brandenburg" was put into active service at the end of 1927, and "Weisenburg" was two months behind it. "Wools" was the latest to serve, and it was not until February 1928 that it was officially included in the combat sequence of the German Navy, which also coincided with the opening ceremony of the German-Russian War. The new battleship, which still smelled of paint in its cabin, was soon incorporated into the German Home Fleet and participated in a series of military operations of the German Navy in the Baltic Sea, but it carried out mostly some alert and blockade missions, so it did not perform too prominently in the German-Russian war, at least not as dashing as the "Brandenburg" in the Mediterranean.

Like the other two warships of the Brandenburg class, the "Wools" has a standard displacement of 31,000 tons, and a full load displacement of 36,000 tons when performing combat missions. In terms of displacement, the Brandenburg class was essentially the same as the German Navy's battle cruiser, the D-Fllinger class, which was quite a "big ship" 15 years ago, but since 1914. In the nine-year-long era of "Three Maritime Powers", the United States and Japan successively built a series of capital ships with a displacement close to or more than 2.04 million tons, such as the South Dakota-class battleships, the Lexington-class battlecruisers, the Kii-class battleships, and the Amagi-class battlecruisers, and Germany also built Graf-class battleships and Mackensen-class battlecruisers without showing weakness.

It was against this background that the German Navy's four new Kaisafettre-class battleships and three Brandenburg-class battlecruisers became the products of "swimming against the current", and not only foreign experts, but also many generals within the German Navy expressed doubts about the construction of these two types of warships. Especially when it was learned that the cost of their single ship was not inferior to that of the Graff-class, the conservative opinion was that they would rather build three more Graff-class ships than spend a lot of money to build these so-called new warships that were not outstanding in size, firepower, and speed.

In the midst of all doubts, the German Navy, with the support of the German Supreme Ruler, completed the construction of these warships one by one and successfully incorporated them into active service. Although they were not particularly optimistic about these new warships at that time, many veteran captains who had served in the Navy for more than 40 years still offered to be the commanders of these warships, but the final decision of the Admiralty disappointed them. A number of commodore and rear admirals who were not very outstanding in terms of qualifications and achievements were appointed as commanders of these new warships, and what is even more surprising is that none of these people are under the age of 50, which caused no less shock within the navy than the decision to build these warships in the first place!

Gunther standing in the command room of the "Wools" at the moment. Commodore Lüttejes was such a "lucky man", before receiving the letter of appointment signed by the Kaiser himself, he did not dare to expect that he would be able to become the captain of such a capital ship at the age of 40, and he was also an official captain!

Spring 1927. At that time, Lütjeons also commanded the heavy cruiser "Bremen", which was part of the German Home Fleet. "Wools" was still lying on the slipway of the shipyard at Danzig, when Lütthejes was summoned to the Royal Naval College for a strange examination.

This was followed by a six-month special training course, which was attended by 20 other naval officers. Eventually, seven of the 21 men became commanders of seven new warships, and since the Wools was the last to be completed, Lütthejes became the last of the seven to receive an appointment.

Until now, Lütthejeus often calls this period "wonderful" and "fantastic" for himself

Although the battle cruiser is, to a certain extent, a heavy cruiser magnified several times, but from a heavy cruiser captain to a battle cruiser captain is not a simple promotion, it means that he has stepped from the ranks of non-capital ship commanders to the ranks of capital ship commanders, which means that the future mission is no longer auxiliary operations but real operations. It means that the door of the senior admirals of the Navy has been opened to themselves.

It all happened to Gunther. Before the age of 40......

"Report to the general, the destroyer 'Ruhr', which is on guard duty 22 nautical miles southeast of us, has sent an urgent telegram that they have spotted on the radar a fleet approaching at high speed, the other side has two large warships, five medium warships and ten small warships, and there is almost no possibility that the national fleet will appear in that position!"

The Commodore in front of him was taken aback by the communications officer's report, and for the next few seconds, Lutejes's high-speed brain quickly analyzed the possibilities of the contingency.

"Well, the Japanese fleet was found in the northeast, and this southeast ...... Yes. It must be, this must be a Japanese strategy! Lutetheus quickly figured it out, and his speculation was exactly what the Japanese had planned, that the Japanese fleet in the northeast was just a plan to divert the tiger from the mountain, and the real raiding fleet was in front of him!

"Send a report to Feng. Schbal and von. Admiral Dalvik, a Japanese fleet is approaching our landing fleet at high speed from the southeast, it is estimated that it is composed of enemy battle cruisers and fast cruisers, our ships will delay the other side as much as possible with their existing strength, and ask them to send capital ships to reinforcements as soon as possible! ”

After a concise telegram explaining the current situation and his plans, Lütthetheus ordered his warships and escort ships under his command—1 Schlieffen-class light cruiser, 1 Guardian-class light cruiser, 1 Medal-class destroyer, 2 Fish-class destroyers, and 3 Bayonet-class destroyers—to form a battle formation and prepare to meet the enemy.

Just 15 minutes later, a force appeared in the sea southeast of the German landing convoy.

The "Man" shaped battle fleet with the battlecruiser "Wools" as the core - on either side of the "Wools" were the light cruisers "Amberg" and "Rattennau", and six destroyers were on the two flanks of the squadron. Judging from the formation and momentum, this is a fleet with high morale and ready for battle, with experienced officers and well-trained sailors, and only waiting for an order from the superiors, the naval guns and torpedoes will open fire on the enemy at the first opportunity.

On the sea less than 40 nautical miles ahead, the Japanese fleet flying the sixteen flags of the rising sun was speeding at a speed of 30 knots. More than twice the fleet of Lütthetheus. In terms of firepower, the 10 410-mm guns of the "Atago" plus the "King Kong" and the eight 356-mm guns of the "Atago" also had an absolute advantage over the nine 343-mm guns of the "Wools", and there were also two 10,000-ton heavy cruisers in the Japanese fleet.

Judging by the data of all kinds, it seems that the victory of the Japanese fleet is within reach.

On the bridge of the "Wools", Gunther. Lütthejes was full of confidence, for no other reason, the "Eagle Eye IIA" on the bridge was the greatest technical advantage of the German Navy at present. As a student at the Royal Naval College, Lütthejes was well aware of every technical aspect of this new type of warship, and he had dreamed of commanding such an epoch-making capital ship, and now his dream has finally come true. And there is a nice "litmus test"!

45 minutes later. The long-standing silence on the sea was broken by the rumbling of cannons, and while the two fleets to the northeast of the German landing fleet were still in pursuit, the battle unexpectedly began in the southeast of the fleet.

The first to fire was not the Atago, which had the world's strongest naval guns, the 45 times diameter 410 mm naval guns. And not the "King Kong" with a 45x diameter 356 mm gun, but the 6 45x 343 mm front guns of the German battle cruiser "Wools"!

230,000 yards, over-the-horizon shelling, an error of less than 500 yards from the target, this is the role of the "Hawkeye IIA", in comparison, although the maximum range of the two Japanese battle cruisers can also reach 230,000 yards, but in the absence of a calibrator to observe the impact point, forcibly carrying out such a distance of over-the-horizon shelling will only be a thousand miles away!

Before the two Japanese battlecruisers were able to accurately return fire, the six 343-mm guns on the foredeck of the "Wools" in a triple configuration were guided by radar to fire at a rate of 125 rounds per minute. The shells fell over the open sea and closer and closer to the Japanese fleet. During the first shot, the shells fired by the German ships finally hit the Japanese heavy cruiser Myoko. Nearly half a ton of shells immediately smashed a large hole in the deck of the unlucky cruiser, and the ensuing huge explosion almost scrapped the "Myoko" at once, and the skyrocketing fire suddenly lit up the night sky.

In the eyes of the Japanese officers and men, the significance of the surprise attack has long been gone, and the "terrible warships" on the other side are even more incredible.

In the two front main turrets of the "Wools", the gunners are quickly extracting armor-piercing shells and cartridges from the bottom ammunition magazine, and the gunners are quickly but unhurriedly using semi-automatic equipment to feed the shells and corresponding ammunition packs into the chambers. After the tempering of the German-British, German-American wars. The German Navy not only has a large number of experienced, brave and tenacious sailors, the warship designers of various shipyards are also constantly learning from the actual combat experience, the German surface ship structure that was already ahead of the countries has been further improved, "Wools" can be said to be the essence of these technologies - with flame-proof lattices and water filling devices of the ammunition depot channel design so that even if the turret is directly hit by the opponent's shells, the fire will not spread to the bottom ammunition depot, In this way, the lethal threat posed by the explosion of the ammunition depot of the battleship was greatly reduced.

In addition, in addition to reducing the dispersion of the impact point and increasing the density of fire, the triple turret also allows the designers to increase the armor thickness of the outer wall of the turret at the same weight, according to the experience of the German-American naval battle, the Caesarfitret III class battleships and the Brandenburg-class battlecruisers have specially strengthened the armor on the top of the turret, because the capital ships of both sides are increasingly inclined to conduct artillery battles at a longer distance, in which case the shells often fly from above at a large angle of 15 to 25 degrees, Destroy the horizontal armor and turret top armor of the old dreadnought battleships, which were defenseless or sub-defensive, and penetrate to the inside of the hull and explode, as was the case with the sinking of several British battleships and battlecruisers in the Battle of the North Sea.

Although Japanese shipbuilding experts have been paying close attention to these new features and new technologies, due to financial constraints, the Japanese Navy is simply unable to constantly update its capital ships like the Germans, and when all the German King-class battleships are retired from active service, the Japanese Fuso-class battleships and Kongo-class battlecruisers of the same era are still the first-line capital ships of the Japanese Navy.

For these battleships, whose design has long been outdated, all Japanese ship specialists can do is to tinker like tinkerers.

At 1:14 a.m. on February 27, after an explosion that resounded across the sea, a large hole several meters in diameter appeared in the tall and beautiful bridge of the Japanese super battlecruiser "Atago", billowing smoke and raging flames continued to pour out of the breach, the life and death of the senior officers in the control tower were unknown, and the four front main guns on the ship were still firing at the German fleet that was only more than 12,000 yards away from it according to the final order issued by the control tower.

At this distance, the main gun of the "Wools" was somewhat frighteningly accurate.

"The whole fleet turned 30 degrees to the left, the 2nd destroyer detachment went to the north of the fleet 5 nautical miles to wait for the waiting, and the 2nd destroyer detachment' 'Brozo' and 'Karakau' took the place of the 2nd destroyer detachment!"

Lütthetheus decisively issued a series of transfer orders, and as the fleet turned, the "Wools" was able to use all nine main guns of the ship to fire at the Japanese fleet on the opposite side, and by this time three of the Japanese fleet had already set fire to the Japanese fleet, so that the German officers and men could see the Japanese fleet less than six nautical miles away.

The open sea between the two fleets reflected the dark red bright spots that flew by like meteors, and the tall columns of water rose from time to time, and when the violent cannonballs smashed against the steel objects, they burst out with a dead roar.

As the distance narrowed little by little, the light and heavy cruisers in the Japanese fleet also joined in the artillery battle, and the cruisers of the German fleet did not show weakness.