At 8:54 p.m., the communication lights of the German High Seas Fleet's flagship "Frederick the Great" flashed rhythmically. Pen ~ fun ~ Pavilion www.biquge.info After a while, the battleships sailing with their lights closed turned left in an orderly manner, and the 4,000-meter-long single-line column gradually turned into a soothing arc, while the escort ships continued to guard their positions, covering their own capital ships from far and near. At the same time, radio waves weave through the air, delivering their own information to the receiver, and the intricate and ingenious coding will make it difficult for the interceptor to understand the meaning - early radio direction finding technology can only calculate the approximate position of the target, and cannot accurately locate it like an optical rangefinder, let alone guide artillery fire to carry out accurate strikes.

Combat deployment has already been made, and unless a new situation arises on an ad hoc basis, the next thing the fleet commander will do is just wait. Ingnoll chose to stand alone in front of the observation window, and most of the staff officers stayed on the bridge of the battle ship, talking in low voices, or thinking about themselves, and some climbed up to the observation platform to breathe and observe the situation on the sea. Colonel Rubic remained a rare silence, while his officers were busy with their duties, after all, the battleship was a huge machine composed of countless equipment and facilities, and it required the cooperation of more than a thousand officers and men to play its due role.

Natsuki didn't go anywhere, but asked the adjutant Lieutenant Lutjens to bring a cup of coffee. There is no elegance of fine porcelain here, and the small stainless steel cups that are light and durable represent the spirit of the navy with bitterness and tenacity. Natsuki savored the mellow and bitter taste while contemplating the next battle. For the strong opponent of the German fleet, the Grand Fleet commanded by the famous British Admiral Jericho, Natsuki did not take any chances. He judged that until the German dreadnoughts ceased shelling, Betty's ships had been reporting to the British Grand Fleet on the movements of the main German fleet, and that the British officers headed by Jellicoe on the general flagship of the British fleet must have used the intelligence and information they had to devise a strategy for engaging the German fleet. If the German dreadnoughts continued to pursue the remnants of Betty's ships north, and by the time they had cleanly disposed of the last three British battlecruisers and other light ships, they would have been under the guns of the British battleship group, and the victory would have been lost in an instant.

Precisely because of this clearly, the commander of the fleet, Ingnoll, proposed "turning left or right", and directly ruled out continuing north. The last telegram sent by Hipper's fleet provided the direction and course of the British battlefleet, and based on this important intelligence information, Natsuki finally chose to "turn left", and, he suggested to Ingnoll that the 14 dreadnoughts turn at a smaller rudder angle, and the 15 front dreadnoughts turn at a relatively large rudder angle, and after the turn, the dreadnought group and the front dreadnought group also travel from southeast to northwest, but the route of the dreadnought group is farther north, and the route of the former dreadnought group is farther south, In this way, in the event of combat contact with the British fleet, the gap between the two German battleship groups would not be easily exploited by the adversary.

After careful but quick weighing, Ingnoll took Natsuki's advice and issued tactical instructions almost word for word.

At this time, looking out from the bridge of "Frederick the Great", the flares that slowly slipped down could be seen in the northwest direction, and the hazy figures of ships could be seen on the sea surface illuminated by them, but even the most sophisticated optical instruments were not enough to confirm their type in this case - those could be the capital ships of the British Grand Fleet, or they could be light ships serving as cover on the flanks or in the rear, so it was impossible to determine the specific location of the British dreadnought group, the only thing that was certain was that the distance between the two sides was quite close, The battle of the two main fleets is about to break out!

……

Looking at the flares slowly drifting in the sky, John Jellico's brow furrowed into three deep creases. Throughout the ages, naval warfare is not only about strength, but also about the combination of weapons and tactics, the fit between the commander and the soldiers, as well as will, luck, timing, etc., these unquantifiable factors together determine the victory or defeat of a naval battle. If the collision between the British Grand Fleet and the German High Seas Fleet had occurred during the day, it was believed that the British Grand Fleet would still have the upper hand by virtue of the hard power of its ships and the hard quality of its officers and men, even if Betty's mobile fleet suffered unexpected heavy losses, and that a steady fleet artillery battle would have ensured the invincible position of the British side.

Now, unless the British Grand Fleet left Betty's remaining ships behind and turned to avoid the battle, the battle was bound to take place at night, which placed higher demands on the strategy of the commanders on both sides, and the influence of luck on the outcome of the battle would be greatly increased. It is possible that the two main fleets will not discover each other until they are several kilometers away, and a chaotic artillery battle ensues. The technical superiority of the British dreadnought's guns in larger caliber and longer range will be greatly offset, and the German dreadnoughts will take advantage of the smaller caliber but fast rate of fire and high accuracy of the main guns, and what worries Jellicoe even more is that the report sent by the Betty fleet clearly shows that the German main fleet has a strong torpedo combat power, and the British battlecruisers that could have used the speed to withdraw from the battle were hit one after another by torpedoes projected by aircraft and high-speed torpedo boats, although the power of these torpedoes was not very great, but it completely changed the course of the battle. The fall of night was supposed to make it impossible for the Germans to use their planes, but the high-speed torpedo boats would become even more dangerous. Based on this information, Jericho fell into an unprecedented hesitation, fearing that the elite of the British Royal Navy would be lost in this sea of chaos, and on the other hand, realizing that the voluntary retreat of the Grand Fleet would have catastrophic consequences—the honor of the British Empire would fall to the bottom along with the confidence and morale of the army and people, and his reputation would be irreparably damaged.

Weighing the pros and cons, Jericho made a decision that was contrary to his usual cautious style. In order to guard against a surprise attack by the German torpedo boat group, he deployed half of the light cruisers and two-thirds of the destroyers on either side of the main battlefleet, and quoted Nelson's famous quote in the order: "England expects everyone to do their duty", suggesting that the officers and men of the light ships did not hesitate to protect the capital ships when necessary.

In several key naval battles that decided the fate of the country, British naval officers and sailors used their actions to interpret the belief in "honor first". Now, in the extremely bad situation, the Betty fleet in front still calmly observed and reported the movements of the German fleet, and Jericho did not rush to the rescue with the battlefleet, but calmly carried out the battle layout, so that the fleet under his command could enter the battle in the best condition. To this end, he ordered the main formation of 17 dreadnoughts and escort ships to slow down and wait for the "Dreadnought" and 9 forward dreadnoughts to catch up, and those armored cruisers with different performance also took advantage of this to adjust from the rear to the flanks of the main formation, so that they could use their speed and firepower superior to ordinary cruisers to break into the battlefield at the necessary moment. Because of these adjustments, the overall speed of the British Grand Fleet was much slower than that of the last observation of the Hipper fleet, and due to the limitations of observation conditions, the night reconnaissance efficiency of the German reconnaissance aircraft pilots was far less than that of the daytime, and they failed to detect the deceleration and formation adjustment of the British fleet in time, and even failed to confirm the location of the British battleship group, but even so, the flares constantly dropped from the German reconnaissance planes made the British naval officers and men feel an invisible sense of oppression at all times- His every move was under the control of the enemy, and he knew very little about the enemy's movements, especially after the German dreadnoughts ceased shelling, and this fear grew over time, fearing that the German fleet had already dug a trap in front of it, and that when countless flares and searchlights were lit together, the British fleet would be greeted by extremely heavy artillery fire and flying torpedoes.

……

While the hands of Colonel Brent's watch were pointing to 9 o'clock, the reconnaissance cruiser "Positive" under his command was sailing at a speed of 18 knots on the open, empty, and eerie sea.

Built in 1911 with a crew of 320 ships, the British battleship was classified as a reconnaissance cruiser by the Royal Navy's classification standards, with a standard displacement of 3,440 tons, a maximum output of 18,000 horsepower, a maximum speed of 25 knots, 10 102 mm and four 47 mm guns, and two 21-inch torpedo tubes. Unlike the Boudisia-class and Blonde-class reconnaissance cruisers of similar tonnage, the "Positive" and two sister ships of the same class were designed as the flagship of the destroyer detachment. After being put into service, they were not included in the squadron of light cruisers, but became the flagships of each of the three destroyer detachments of the Home Fleet, each of which consisted of four destroyer detachments for a total of 15-16 destroyers.

In the outpost battle at the beginning of the contact between the Betty mobile fleet and the Hipper's reconnaissance fleet, the destroyers under the command of the "Positive" took the lead, and they were full of ambition to solve the three light cruisers in front of the German fleet with a beautiful torpedo attack, but they suffered a great loss in the face of the accurate artillery bombardment of the Germans, and then they were bombarded by the heavy artillery of the German battle cruisers, and the result was that the troops were lost and returned in embarrassment. Due to a large amount of water ingress caused by the near-miss damage of the hull, the "Positive" took nearly an hour of emergency repairs to restore speed, and thus missed the "death charge" of the light ship group against the Hipper's fleet. It then gathered two destroyers that had survived from the guns of the German reconnaissance fleet and worked together to catch up with the Betty fleet, and then witnessed the long-range shelling of the German dreadnought group and the torpedo assault of the German high-speed torpedo boat force.

The "Positive" was regrouped into the battle of Betty's fleet, but by the time night fell completely, the three dying British battle cruisers could only carry out damage repairs while slowly withdrawing northward under the cover of the remnants of the light ships. Despite all kinds of unwillingness and unwillingness, Betty and his officers and sailors could only be mentally prepared to abandon the ship at any time, but the German dreadnought group suddenly stopped shelling, which gave the officers and men a glimmer of life again. Soon, the flooding of the "Queen Margaret" was effectively controlled, and the malfunctioning power equipment was gradually restored, because its hull condition was no longer suitable for combat again, Betty ordered it to evacuate first accompanied by two destroyers, and she stayed behind to guard the "Royal Princess", which had eaten two torpedoes, and led the "Australia", which had lost most of its power due to the explosion in the boiler room, and the remaining light ships to continue the difficult trek.

When the German fleet carried out artillery bombardment, the officers and men of Betty's fleet could also make a rough ranging and positioning by observing the enemy's artillery flames, so as to report the traces of the German fleet to Jericho's large fleet, and now the artillery flames were gone, and only the faint starlight could not track the track of the enemy fleet, and the Betty fleet was not equipped with even a single water reconnaissance aircraft, so they had to select a few ships in good condition from the existing ships to carry out reconnaissance - the "Positive", which had been mostly emptied in the bilge, once again became a brave outpost reconnaissance ship, Scattered among them were a Sentinel-class reconnaissance cruiser and an eight-hundred-ton Beagle-class destroyer.

Because he did not know the size, array, and specific location of the German main fleet, Colonel Brent did not dare to order the searchlights to be turned on, so he had to let the lookouts and the crew in the battle position open their eyes and ears in the darkness. Due to the high state of mental tension, the lookout on the mast issued false alarms one after another, once taking the waves in the direction of port for a German battleship, and once being startled by the sound of the waves of their own battleship, thinking that the German battleship was ahead, but fortunately both false alarms were quickly corrected.

From under the dark battle bridge to the drawing room, Colonel Brent finally returns to the world of light. The navigator had just ascertained the ship's current position with a sextant, and on the updated chart, the "Positive" had sailed seven nautical miles due south after leaving Betty's fleet, and if the German fleet was still pursuing Betty's fleet, it would have been long overdue to meet those terrible German battleships.

"They've turned!" Colonel Brent came to an undoubted conclusion, but they went to that side? To the east, in the direction of the Skagerrak Strait, the German fleet could either return to Kiel, or turn halfway and follow Jutland to Wilhelmshaven; To the west, in the direction of Britain, the endurance of German light ships was not enough to carry out another combat operation across the North Sea, but they could take the initiative to close the distance with the British Grand Fleet and choose the right time to enter the battle; The U-turn is a straight drive to Helgoland Bay and Wilhelmshaven.

All three paths seemed to Colonel Brent to be possible.

"Inform the signalman to issue a light code in the direction of the stern of the ship: This ship has sailed 14,000 yards to the south, and there is no trace of the enemy fleet, and it will continue to reconnoiter south at a speed of speed, and then it will be notified by radio every twenty minutes."

The order was quickly transmitted to the signal station on the aft mast, and the signal corps signaled a light code in the direction of the stern of the ship. Because of the fear that the line of sight at night is not good, before getting the other party's light response, the signal soldier sent the signal over and over again, and the non-commissioned officer on the side waited anxiously with a telescope, and after about four or five minutes, a rhythmic light signal finally appeared on the dark sea: "Receive the signal, continue to the south, good luck!" ”

Interpreting the message of "good luck", the two messengers on the rear mast signal station felt a sense of relief in the tense and oppressive atmosphere, and at this time, the British crew on the foremast lookout faintly saw several hazy and blurred black shadows in the sea ahead. Because of the lessons they had learned, they decided to see more clearly and report to the bridge, but within a single cigarette, the shadows disappeared from sight as if they had never existed. How did the British sailors know that what they had just seen was the tail of the German battlefleet, several large torpedo boats of the 1906 class acting as the rearguard. They were called "torpedo boats", and their role in the German Navy was basically the same as that of the destroyers of the British Navy, but the German Navy did not use the title of "destroyer" during this period, and with the increase in size and tonnage of large torpedo boats of the 1898, 1906, 1911, and 1913 classes, the so-called large torpedo boats of 1885 and 1892, which were only one or two hundred tons in the early days, have been reclassified as "minehunters". In fact, the large torpedo boats of the class of 1906, with a standard displacement of nearly 700 tons, were designed by Prince Joachim, the "genius of Hohenzollern", and except for their inferior endurance, their combat performance was roughly equivalent to that of the E-class and F-class destroyers in service in the British Navy. Armed with three 105 mm guns and three 450 mm torpedo tubes, they had a top speed of 32 knots, and the night fighting environment was also conducive to their combat performance, and several ships worked together to lay siege to a British light cruiser, which was probably difficult to take advantage of.

(End of chapter)