At 6:42, under the command of Rear Admiral Franz von Hipper, the stepped battleship of five German battlecruisers quickly and neatly turned four compass points to the right (each compass point was 11 degrees 25 minutes), changing from bow to broadside to facing the enemy. The main guns of each ship www.biquge.info turned accordingly as the ships maneuvered, and the high muzzles were always aimed at the British battle patrol formation, which was slightly superior on paper on the sea.

From an external point of view, these succinct and imposing German battle cruisers were like daily training, and there was no rush and panic on the ship, nor did there be any mistakes in the busyness, but inside the cabin, every crew member at every post was waiting for the upcoming battle with nervous and apprehensive mood.

In the shooting observation room on the upper part of the bridge, it is usually a combination of one or two senior officers and a group of young officers and non-commissioned officers, who use their experience and skills accumulated in training exercises to skillfully use the Zeiss stereo rangefinder. After the fleet had completed its turn, the flagship "Seydlitz" raised the signal flag of "corresponding fire", which meant that the ships were firing at the corresponding ships in the enemy fleet array -- from the point of view, the German fleet was in the order of battle "Seydlitz", "De Fllinger", "Moltke", "Goeben", and "Blucher", and the British fleet was "Lion", "Royal Princess", "Queen Margaret", "Australia", "New Zealand", and "Invincible". Since the British battlecruisers numbered six, one more than the German fleet, the "Blucher", which was at the bottom of the German battle column, directly jumped over the enemy's "New Zealand" and regarded the "Invincible" as a target.

Looking closer, the German battlecruisers' seemingly large main turrets, which were not at all spacious, had been turned into large steamers with steel shells by the previous burst of fire, and the gunners were still sweating their clothes even as the exhaust fans kept pumping in fresh air. For artillery with a caliber of more than 6 inches, the loading of shells has been very man-to-arm, from the early multi-person pole lifting to the mechanical assistance of the 20th century, the technical content and loading speed have been continuously improved, and the gunners need to pay less and less physical strength, but the environment of this work still puts forward high requirements for people's physical fitness and spirit, so the gunners are usually selected to the gunner post are usually young and strong sailors, and their direct commander, the gunner, must have both experience, courage, skill and judgment - Even with the very advanced unified firing command system of the whole ship, in a real battle, the bridge observation equipment and the communication lines in the ship may be damaged at any time, in order to maintain the combat effectiveness of the battleship, it is necessary to rely on the observation and sighting equipment of the turret itself, and sometimes even direct visual observation, in this case, the role of the gun commander is very important.

Due to the peculiarities of the construction of the fully enclosed turret and the operating environment, telephone lines and loudspeakers replaced the microphones, and the firing parameters were displayed on the parameter gauge through the electrical pipeline, and in extremely harsh conditions, the traditional way of manual transmission of signals could also be used.

"The level of the target is 285. 23, elevation angle 11. 45, right-revolver, reloaded. ”

The gun commander clearly conveyed the firing command in his sonorous baritone, and then the password in the ammunition depot echoed from afar, the difference was that the gun commanders repeated the azimuth coordinates of the shelling one by one, and the officers in the lower ammunition depot shouted "Load ordinary ammunition...... Two (three)".

With the click of the gear chains, nearly 1,000 pounds of shells were lifted into the main turret through a long feed tunnel through two fire doors that could be closed at any time. Historically, the German Navy had to go through the bitter lessons of the Battle of Dogle Sandbank to understand the importance of such safety facilities, and now they have a brilliant young designer, Prince Joachim of the Hohenzollern royal family, and many seemingly inconspicuous but significant details of the war were taken into account during the design and construction process.

The German gunners, who had been waiting at the entrance of the passage for a long time, moved the raised shells to the slide rails corresponding to each main gun with a quick and accurate movement, then pressed the mechanical switch, pushed them into the breech with an electric strut, and then opened the metal cartridge that was also transported through the ammunition supply channel, took out the quantitative propellant pack from it, filled it into the chamber, and closed the gun door. The gunners reflexively shouted: "Gun position X is ready!" ”

A moment later, a male voice came from the loudspeaker inside the turret with a raised tone: "Alternate first round, fire!" ”

The agitated or calm gunners immediately stepped on the firing pedal. "Alternate rotation" usually means that one gun of a twin or triple gun fires first, then adjusts the parameters according to the impact point, and then fires with the other guns, and so on, until a salvo is given, and then all the guns are fired at once. The rotational mode is usually used in the initial phase of artillery battles, which is suitable for quick adjustment of firing parameters and can also reduce the ammunition consumption during the calibration phase.

The sound of large-caliber naval guns firing was deafening, especially in the enclosed turrets, and the gunners were accustomed to it. The piercing roar still echoed in the ship, and the "freezing magic" attached to them was instantly invalid, and they decisively put down the fingers stuffed in the ear holes, and reloaded the shells according to their respective division of labor. During the whole process, the gun commanders stared intently at the observation port of the turret rangefinder, and after a dozen seconds, the results of the shelling "far away", "near" or "off" would pop out of their mouths.

On these five German battlecruisers, when the unified firing command system of the whole ship was operating normally, the adjustment of the firing parameters of the main guns did not require the gun commanders to "work hard".

"The level of the target is 284. 73, elevation angle 11. 42, second shot in rotation...... Fire! ”

Driven by electric motors, the massive and heavy turret was fine-tuned quickly and accurately, so that after the firing commander's "fire" command fell, the whole battleship shuddered with a roar one after another.

Judging from the German naval reconnaissance planes hovering over the heads of the British fleet, the long-range artillery bombardment accuracy of the German battle patrol formation, which took the lead in firing, was quite high; the fourth round of firing of the flagship "Seydlitz" formed a straddle fire on the British flagship, and the "Moltke" and "Goeben," which used triple main guns, also found the target at about the same time, and even the "Blucher," which had always been in the middle and lower reaches of the naval exercise, also performed well. Of course, across 1. At a distance of 80,000 meters, the rays of the setting sun were slightly favorable to the British fleet, and the observers on the German battleships were obviously not as intuitive as the pilots of the reconnaissance planes in judging the impact points, so the water reconnaissance plane with the number R-026 that took off from the "Goeben" constantly reported the information of the calibration to its own fleet -- if the plane carried a radio that could talk instantly, the observers could shout with full emotion: Tell the gunners of the Seydlitz that they are doing a very good job and continue to fire cross-fire. Soon you will be able to crush the enemy's flagship!

Unfortunately, in the early 20th century, the radio station was extremely bulky and large, the radio communication technology was still in the experimental stage, and the German reconnaissance aircraft needed to use signal lights or flight maneuvers to send messages, and the communication efficiency was very worrying, but fortunately, the brave R-030 arrived in time to share some of the troubles for his companions.

At 6:46, less than a minute and a half after the German battle patrol formation opened fire, the British battle patrol formation led by the "Lion" was not to be outdone. Thanks to the efforts of "Daddy Fisher", the British Navy firmly held a leading position in the construction of dreadnoughts and battlecruisers, so that the Germans were always in a catch-up position, but this did not mean that all British capital ships were being built according to the original design thinking, and they paid great attention to the new warships built by the mechanically skilled Germans, and the information gathered through various channels also allowed them to see some of the successes of German battleships. The design of the four triple 12-inch guns of the St. Vincent-class dreadnoughts was a positive response to the use of triple main guns on the German warships of Nassau and Helgoland, and the subsequent construction of the Indefatigable battlecruisers also used the same main gun configuration, so that the standard displacement at the time of construction exceeded the original plan by 3,500 tons, reaching 2. 30,000 tons, the length and width of the ship have also increased accordingly, and the cost has increased by 300,000 pounds compared with the budget plan, and it is known as the fastest and strongest capital warship in the world when it was built, and the corresponding waterline armor belt is only 9 inches at the thickest point, and the armor on the front of the turret and the important parts of the conning tower is only 9-10 inches, while the German Moltke class built at the same time uses 11-inch guns with smaller caliber and lighter weight, and its turret, conning tower and waterline main armor are all 11 inches, and the level of defense has been comparable to that of the Nassau-class dreadnought.

As an improved version of the Invincible class, the British Navy's Indefatigable class battlecruisers were built in two, the first ship "Australia" and the second ship "New Zealand", both of which were in the mobile fleet commanded by David Beatty. After the artillery battle began, Betty, who was as brave as a lion, did not follow the rules like his opponents, and he decisively ordered the flag "Lion" and the accompanying "Royal Princess" to join forces to attack Hipper's flagship "Seydlitz", and the other four ships corresponded to attack the other four battle cruisers in the battle sequence of the German fleet, namely: "Queen Margaret" against "De Fllinger", "Invincible" against "Blucher", and "Australia" and "New Zealand" attacked "Moltke" and "Goeben" respectively.

The arrangement of fate is often indescribable: "Queen Margaret" and "De Fllinger" are the latest combat cruisers of the two navies, "Invincible" and "Blücher" are the first to be designed and built by the two navies, more or less experimental in nature, and the Indefatigable and Moltke classes are also natural fateful opponents. It was just that due to the "misalignment" of the arrangement of the German fleet, only the relatively weakest warships, the "Invincible" and the "Blucher", had the opportunity to fight each other from the very beginning.

Looking at the heavy shells that swept through the air and the white water columns that rose into the sky, the British officers and men on the "Invincible" did not have invincible domineering in their chests. Although from the date of laying the keel, the age of this battle cruiser is only 8 years, but these 8 years is the most intense period of the Anglo-German naval competition, the two industrial powers rely on their respective technological advantages to constantly innovate, in order to accommodate larger and stronger warships, the main docks of the major shipyards have been expanded repeatedly, and when the war broke out, the two sides have the latest battle patrol displacement has been more than 10,000 tons more than the "invincible", the weight of more than 10,000 tons not only means that the size of the ship increases, its firepower, defense, The speed has been improved in steps, all of which overshadows the infinite "invincibility" of the service time......

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