One day in mid-June, the early summer sun shone on the rough North Sea, and the huge German Imperial High Seas Fleet sailed through the Skgerrak Strait. Pen? Interesting? Pavilion wWw. ｂiquge。 In the info queue, the giant ships are majestic and domineering, and the light and fast ships are cleaving the waves and are majestic, and each column seems to be positioned by an invisible ruler, and the neat state is in line with Germany's rigorous and serious national character. The ferry passengers and freighter crews who occasionally pass by here are all shocked by this magnificent scene.

Spring is over, and the German Navy personnel are changing into summer clothes. The sailors wore white hats, white clothes and white trousers with dark blue hat belts and naval collars, and the officers still wore dark blue shirts and jackets, white shirts and white pants and white shoes. Corresponding to the simplicity and majesty of the light gray painted warships, the Industrial Revolution freed them from the shackles of canvas rigging and possessed unprecedented maneuverability while wielding long swords and heavy armor; The huge propeller flew beneath the surface of the sea, propelling the hull of hundreds or even tens of thousands of tons to move smoothly at a cruising speed close to the same level, leaving deep water marks behind him......

Among this majestic group of ships, the "Frederick the Great", flying the command flag of the fleet, is the benchmark of the entire fleet. It belonged to the first dreadnought designed and built by the German Navy, and was specially built as the general flagship of the High Seas Fleet. In addition to the same weapons, defense, and power standards as ships of the same class, a series of command and communication facilities have been added, and conference rooms, command cabins, and officers' canteens are also configured according to the specifications of the fleet's general flagship.

When all the ships at the rear of the fleet sailed out of the raging waters of the Skagerrak Strait, several signal lights flashed in the same rhythm on the bridges of the front and rear of the "Frederick the Great", and these commands were received by the detachments and flagships of the detachments, and then relayed to the corresponding fleet members by the same means of communication, and the ships began to maneuver. After about a quarter of an hour, the fleet's formation adjustment was basically completed:

The reconnaissance detachment, which was originally at the forefront of the fleet, advanced to the left front sea, and this fast column led by the "Seydlitz" consisted of 5 battle cruisers, 2 armored cruisers, and 7 light cruisers, and 14 ships formed a double column, far ahead of the rest of the large group of ships with a speed of more than 20 knots;

Under the guidance of the lead ship "Caesar", 14 dreadnoughts and 12 forward dreadnoughts turned to the left at a speed of 15 knots, forming a 6-kilometer-long arc, which was like a bow without strings, and the battleships in it were enough to shoot at targets in the centrifugal direction of the arc at the same time, and only based on the main guns of each ship, 48 305 mm guns, 124 280 mm guns and 20 240 mm guns were enough to form an extremely terrifying fire storm;

On both sides of the main column of battleships, it was divided into 10 detachments and classified into more than 10 ranks, and built 19 cruisers and 60 large torpedo boats that had been in service for 20 years, playing the role of auxiliary operations in a down-to-earth and dedicated manner. Some of them are in formations of three or two, leaving the vicinity of the remaining fleets to take on combat alert tasks, while others are in groups of six or seven, guarding the waters near the battleship columns in a staggered manner, and when the fleet enters a state of engagement, they will adjust their deployment and carry out tasks such as releasing smoke screens, striking at high speeds, and fighting with enemy artillery at any time.

On the "Frederick the Great", the general flagship of the fleet, in order to facilitate observation and command, a large open-air observation and command platform is set up on the top of the bridge command tower, where the fleet commander, the captain of the ship, and the staff staff often coordinate the overall situation. Witnessing the orderly and accurate formation adjustment of this large and complex fleet, most of the naval officers standing here were happy, and the commander of the fleet, Admiral von Ingnoor, who was about to celebrate his 57th birthday, asked his colleagues with a calm expression: "If a strong enemy is in front and the cannonballs are whistling, can we change the formation with such speed and accuracy?" ”

As always, the Captain Hoffert, the founder of the fleet command, who was quite accomplished in the fields of tactics and tactics, nautical formations, exercised his right of precedence:

"With the spiritual quality of the German soldiers, as long as they are fully psychologically prepared before the war, they will be able to effectively display their training level when the battle is about to go, and it is possible to exert themselves at a higher level under the stimulation of a sense of crisis."

With the usual thinking of the German army officers, when the arguments of the authorities are in line with the views of the majority, no one will say anything more.

Von Ingnoll was not satisfied with this answer, and he asked: "Do the others have a different opinion?" ”

As usual, this is an opportunity for young officers who are interested in attracting the attention of their superiors.

On the observation and command platform of the "Frederick the Great", among the dozen or so officers, the majority were capable and calm middle-aged officers, and only a few were under the age of 35.

"Your Excellency, I personally think that no matter how strict and realistic the training exercises are on weekdays, there is no way to completely replace the actual combat experience. The vast majority of people like me, who were born after the reunification of Germany, have not experienced the tempering of war. According to people's normal psychology, it is inevitable that the first time they fight, they will be slow to react or even make non-subjective mistakes due to excessive nervousness. ”

The Fleet Commander turned his head to look at the young speaker, his eyes as if approving, and then he turned to another young man present, a young man whose rank, fame, and status did not correspond to his age, a member of the German royal family, Prince Joachim Franz Hubert of Prussia.

"What does Your Highness think?"

From the moment von Ingnoll asked the first question, Natsuki had been looking down at the people on deck, and during the exercise, they did their part, and they did not show the slightest bit of laziness, but they did not have the nervousness and solemnity of the actual battle. In June, just one step away from the historic point in history when the Great War broke out, ordinary people were completely unaware of the looming catastrophe.

"I believe that in this fleet, which is the great pride of the German nation, the vast majority of officers and sailors are able to calmly cope with real battles, and the situation that Captain Gord has just said is inevitable, and no matter how hard we try, it is impossible to avoid this risk, but only to let the officers and men temper their will in battle after battle, and finally become impeccable and qualified soldiers."

Natsuki's answer is obviously not perfunctory, but the different analyses made around the same topic are enough to see the differences in people's visions, minds, and thinking consciousness.

At this time, Naval Commander von Lubic, the current captain of the battleship "Frederick the Great", interjected: "If we first engage the weaker countries, accumulate experience through battles with fewer casualties, and then fight stronger enemies step by step, and finally fight the most powerful navy in the world, we will be much more sure of victory." ”

This idea is certainly in line with the logic of thinking, but how can the current situation have become a state of checks and balances among various countries, and the slightest disturbance may trigger a war crisis, how can there be a chance for the German Navy to train in advance? So, for the "naïve" idea of Lubich, the officers of the fleet command simply chose to ignore it.

The two reconnaissance detachments under the command of Rear Admirals Speer and Maas gradually disappeared from the flagship's field of view, but they did not go far, but followed the predetermined plan of the sea exercise and carried out a wide range of maneuvers. After the turn, the single column of the battlefleet returned to a straight formation, and the light cruisers and large torpedo boat detachments followed suit. Soon after, the sound of falling artillery was heard in the sea area on the left side of the fleet, which was the ship on an anti-submarine mission using its guns to expel the submarine trying to approach the fleet. Of course, these submarines were also part of the exercise, they departed from Wilhelmshaven, arrived at the predetermined location at the scheduled time of the exercise, and their periscopes sticking out of the sea were indeed spotted by the escort ships of the main fleet, and the two sides began a contest of attack and defense.

Up to this point, sonar technology had been invented for several years, but its main purpose was to detect icebergs. Before the war allowed people to really see the hideous fangs of submarines, anti-submarine means remained in the primitive stage of visual artillery firing, and the German Navy became a secret "early adopter". In February 1914, the K25 large torpedo boat built by the Friedrich shipyard became the first warship to be equipped with sonar equipment, and every large torpedo boat built in the 1913 class after that was equipped with a secretly developed Type I sonar from Siemens. Its detection range is pitifully short, its detection accuracy is unsatisfactory, and it is very susceptible to external interference, and with ship-borne guns and simple depth charges, it still has combat value beyond the reach of traditional means. In just a few months, the young officers of the Navy's torpedo boat unit had already figured out a set of anti-submarine tactics. By June 1914, nearly 50 ships of various types in the High Seas Fleet had been equipped with Type I sonar and carried out special anti-submarine training, thus initially forming an effective anti-submarine system.

The anti-submarine drills of the escort ships were in full swing, and the main battleship group was still patiently waiting for the opportunity to show its skills. Following the flagship's instructions, the accompanying armored cruisers "Prince Heinrich" and "Friedrich Karl" catapulted and took off two Junker maritime reconnaissance liaison planes one after another. After circling the air over the fleet, the two reconnaissance planes began to use the signal lights on the belly of the aircraft to transmit Morse codes to inform their own fleet of the various "enemy situations" observed in the air, and as a result, the fleet's observation line of sight was greatly extended, and the commanders and officers and men of the ships had much more time to make preparations for battle.

As the flagship "Frederick the Great" calmly issued combat orders, the majestic formation of 26 battleships once again formed a curved bow, and the centrifugal direction of the arc gradually turned to the target direction reported by the reconnaissance aircraft. By the time the fleet lookout observed through telescopes the target groups set up by the reconnaissance detachment, the main guns of the ships were ready to fire at any time.

During the early training in the Baltic Sea, the high seas fleet had already carried out an artillery bombardment test with the maximum firing range, and even if there were water reconnaissance planes to carry out impact point calibration, coupled with the auxiliary role of the firing commander, the results were still not satisfactory, and the fleet command, staff team, and artillery technical departments came to a unanimous conclusion: Under the existing artillery technical conditions, the distance from which the fleet artillery battle was launched should not exceed 2. 20,000 meters, otherwise no amount of salvo is a waste of shells; In 1. 8 to 2. 20,000 meters, the artillery hit rate is about 3 to 7 per 1,000, depending on the sea conditions; 1。 4 to 1. 80,000 meters or the ideal distance for the current German fleet to carry out artillery battles, ships equipped with a unified azimuth firing command system for the whole ship, the hit rate of the main gun jumped to more than 2 percent, and the armor-piercing shells were enough to play a destructive effect, while the shooting hit rate of ordinary warships was less than 1 percent; 1 to 1. At 40,000 meters, the shooting accuracy of the German fleet and the effectiveness of armor-piercing shells increased sharply, and the large-caliber secondary guns of battleships could also pose a threat to the superstructure and non-key protection areas of enemy ships, but the shooting accuracy of ordinary warships using traditional optical equipment for observation and aiming also began to be greatly improved, and the technical advantages of the whole ship's shooting command system were neutralized. After that, the closer the distance of the counterfire, the less obvious the advantage in the firing accuracy of the German battleships became.

In the goal enter the 1. After a distance of 80,000 meters, von Ingnoll gave the order to open fire.

Hundreds of heavy artillery guns are in unison, and its momentum is like the prelude to a terrible storm, rolling thunder resounding across the sea, and lightning pierces the sky!

With the same type of artillery, the same set of elevation angles, the trajectory of the discharged shells is almost the same, and as long as there is a slight difference in either aspect, it will show a completely different state. The sound of artillery still echoed in my ears, and more than 100 heavy shells glowed dark red due to the violent friction with the air, and they were divided into several waves with obvious differences in height and distance in the line of sight. Therefore, from the point of view of the launcher, they are not like meteor showers, they are scattered in fragments, but like tuna in the sea, moving in groups, each in its own position......

On the observation and command platform on the bridge, most of the officers headed by Ingnoll were like wooden men with impermeable ears and impermeable noses, indifferent to the deafening sound of artillery and the thick and pungent smoke of gunpowder, and they held their binoculars one by one and were engrossed in the distant sea. In the blink of an eye, white water curtains suddenly rose on the surface of the sea where the target was located, and the waves were churning, and its momentum was amazing, like the legendary Poseidon Fury, and as if a mage with boundless magic power was performing a stunt.

After more than a minute, the wall-like white curtain of water gradually dissipated, and the rumbling sound of the cannonball's explosion was heard. The officers are still looking in that direction, but with a heightened perspective. Due to the distance of the flight position from the fleet, the light signal was difficult to read, and the two maritime reconnaissance planes switched to using rocking wings, rotating circles, and colored flares fired by guns to transmit information.

"Ha, Your Excellency, the first salvo destroys a large number of targets, which is really beautiful! At this level, we are already invincible in the world! "Von Rubich's words and expressions show his frank character.

As usual, the members of the fleet command chose to ignore it.

Not in his position, not in his position. Being able to accurately carry out the orders of the superior and manage the officers and men of the whole ship can be regarded as a qualified captain, and the ability required to rise to the level of fleet command is more than that. In this fleet, which embodies the will and spirit of the nation, officers and sailors at all levels are the indispensable cornerstones, and the commanders who really hold the real power of the fleet should really take the lead, and their decisions will have a direct bearing on the fate of the fleet and navy.

Admiral Friedrich von Ingleno, commander-in-chief of the fleet;

Vice Admiral William von Reims, commander of the 1st Battleship Detachment;

Vice Admiral Reinhardt-Scher, commander of the 2nd Division Battleship Detachment;

Rear Admiral Felix Funk, commander of the 3rd Battleship Detachment;

Rear Admiral Franz Hipper, commander of the 1st reconnaissance detachment;

Rear Admiral Lebret Maas, commander of the 2nd reconnaissance detachment;

……

(End of chapter)