Prince Oldenburg's unauthorized attack is not a trivial matter, but it is directly related to the fate of the main fleet. Pen fun and pavilion www.biquge.info

Inside the bridge command tower, only Natsuki became anxious because of this. As the most prominent figure of the younger generation of the Hohenzollern royal family, he made many friends, especially with many young officers in the navy, but in his heart there were very few sincere and reliable friends. It is said that childhood is the best way to see a person's character, and for Christian, Natsuki is just the opportunity to look at children with an adult eye. He is not smart, occasionally naughty, but absolutely not fancy, he has a good cultivation, values fame, pursues meritorious service, he is often a tendon thinking, destined not to become a Rommel-type military general......

Don't let anything go wrong with you! Otherwise, Louise would have been doomed to marry someone else's wife!

Natsuki muttered inwardly as a cheer from the officers dragged his attention back to him. On the sea 10,000 meters away, the super-dreadnought that bombarded the "Caesar", the flagship of the British fleet, was mostly shrouded in smoke mixed with gunpowder and burning smoke.

"This big guy finally can't support it anymore!" A staff officer said excitedly, "It is a miracle that Caesar's shells hit it a total of 34 times, literally from bow to stern, and it has been suffering for so long!" ”

Natsuki didn't count them in detail, but he knew that many of the 34 hits were caused by the secondary guns of the "Caesar", and the real destructive power was the armor-piercing shells fired by the 50 times the diameter of the 12-inch main gun, and their number should be about 10 rounds, for the British super-dreadnoughts wearing heavy armor, such damage should be bearable in terms of design, but with the aggravation of the damage to the hull and the increase in the number of casualties among the crew, the rate of decline in the survivability of the battleship is something that engineers cannot calculate.

In the telescope, the condition of the British flagship looks really bad, and it is certain that conventional means of communication such as flags and lights are already difficult to play a role on it, and in the artillery flagship, both fleets are conducting radio jamming methods against each other, and the only way to get rid of the signal blockage is to constantly change the frequency, but in this way it is difficult to ensure that the communication information is transmitted to its own ships in a timely and accurate manner.

Due to the sudden reduction in the speed of the British flagship, the British super-dreadnought that served as the battle leader appeared very abrupt, and within two minutes, another round of accurate salvo of the "King" smashed over, and a violent explosion immediately broke out on the ship, including the mainmast, more than half of the deck buildings had collapsed, and the rest were also twisted and deformed beyond recognition, and only two of the five main turrets were able to continue fighting.

This is the second duel between the British and German main fleets, like the top duel on the green field, most of the time, the two sides are evenly matched on the field, it is difficult to say that the team with better defense is more worthy of victory, but at least in this game, the side with excellent defense has taken a big lead, and three of the five capital ships were seriously injured, and the condition of the other two is not optimistic, even if the British fleet has the intention to fight back at this time, it is powerless to reverse the tide of the war, the most direct signal is the action of the British destroyer group to release a smokescreen - More than a dozen destroyers created a long smoke screen on the right flank of the British fleet, and the German capital ships could not directly observe and see, and the efficiency of the seaplanes' unimpeded communication could hardly ensure the accuracy of the fleet's artillery battles, and the British fleet simply ceased fire.

At this time, Scheer and his officers were not in a hurry to cheer victory, knowing that the British fleet was only a tactical retreat. When the damage to the capital ships is brought under control and the combat effectiveness is restored, they will certainly wait for an opportunity to return.

After a hard battle, the condition of the main German fleet was not much better than that of the opponent, and the ships "King", "Elector", and "Oldenburg" were all undergoing damage management and emergency repairs. At this time, the British fast fleet and the German reconnaissance fleet, to be more precise, the battle cruiser formations of both sides, would be the key to deciding the victory or defeat of this sea.

Where is Hipper?

Scheer finally asked such a question. Because of enemy radio interference, the flagship lost contact with the Hipper's fleet for more than an hour. It was certainly on its way, but it is not known whether it was pinned down by British ships or whether it took the most direct route.

On the other hand, in the face of the ferocious attack of the German torpedo boat group, the British Rapid Fleet suffered heavy losses, the battle cruiser "Indomitable" basically lost its combat capability, the "Indomitable" was slightly damaged, and only the "Indomitable" still had full combat strength, and the forces under the command of Rear Admiral Parkenham were left with these two battle cruisers, one loading cruiser, three light cruisers, and ten destroyers. The pace of the Packenham fleet was slowed down by successive German torpedo boats, which was obviously not entirely a bad thing, at least the relatively slow "Ireland" gradually caught up. With this super dreadnought, Parkenham has the confidence to continue the attack, not to mention that another general who is resolutely advocating the attack, David Beatty, is sitting on the "Ireland". If Parkenham wanted to retreat from the battle, he would not have agreed.

Through the smoke screen left by the German torpedo boats, the British ship's lookout could see the ship's mast in the distance, but the prey was not within easy reach. The frequent attacks of German planes carrying torpedoes once made Parkenham and his officers and men feel deeply worried, but the gunners on the British battleships had apparently sensed the tactical rules of the German torpedo planes, and in order to protect their motherships from attack, some German pilots lost their due calm, they risked flying low, and projected torpedoes too close to the British ships, only to be shot down by the opponent at the same time as hitting the opponent - in a short time, the British fleet shot down two German torpedo planes in succession.

The torpedo planes failed to drive away the British Rapid Fleet, and a formation of four German armored cruisers appeared in front of the British Rapid Fleet.

If these four are all known as the "light battle cruiser" Scharnhorst-class, Parkenham may still have some scruples, but the two Scharnhorst-class of the German Navy were attached to the Pacific Fleet thousands of miles away when the war began, and the armored cruisers left on the mainland, the best of which were the Longn-class built in the early 20th century, have a standard displacement of less than 10,000 tons, and there is a significant gap between their combat performance and the last few batches of armored cruisers built by the British Navy, not to mention the regular united patrol built in the dreadnought era.

At a distance of 18,000 kilometers, "Indomitable" and "Indomitable" fired one after another, and the main guns of the four German armored cruisers simply could not reach the opponent. However, they did not choose to retreat, nor did they rush head-on to the British fleet, but sailed from west to east at a speed of about 20 knots.

Parkenham was not surprised by the seemingly strange posture of the German patrol formation, he knew that the opponent was using a delaying tactic, even if it was a few shots from the British fleet, and it was necessary to cover the retreat and transfer of the slow-moving high-speed torpedo boat carriers and aircraft carriers. If the British fleet keeps the current distance from it, it will be able to kill them one by one sooner or later, but it is very likely that the opportunity to annihilate the German support fleet will be lost, and if the British fleet continues to advance, it will not be long before it will take the initiative to enter the combat range of the German patrol formation, as long as the four German patrol ships resist desperately, the British fleet may not be able to achieve a quick victory, and may pay a lot of casualties.

Turning his head to look at the "Ireland" following the stern of the fleet, Parkenham ordered the fleet to slow down and adjust its course, and the two battle cruisers took advantage of the trend to turn the long side of the ship towards the distant target.

After the first few rounds of firing adjustments, the guns of the two British battle cruisers began to find their targets. Threatened by this, the four German patrolmen turned in unison to the north, and when the British fleet adjusted course accordingly, they opened fire, and shells landed on the sea hundreds of meters in front of the British fleet. It can be seen that these German guns did not replace their 210 mm guns because of the outbreak of war, this kind of naval guns is a manifestation of the German Navy's emphasis on the rate of fire, because the age of development and manufacturing is relatively late, and the firing range is longer than that of most countries of the same caliber, but the shells fly more than 15,000 meters, and the kinetic energy has been greatly reduced, and it is theoretically not enough to penetrate the main armor of the British battle cruisers.

Parkenham continued to advance at his own pace, and at this moment, two more clear silhouettes of battleships appeared on the sea not far from the German patrol formation. I saw that the two German ships flickered their guns, and after more than half a minute, the shells whistled and fell, and although they were a thousand meters away from the British fleet, they had already brought the two British battle cruisers into range.

These two ships were the old battleships "Braunschweig" and "Pomerania", the most glorious survivors of the Battle of Jutland. One of them belonged to the Braunschweig class and the other belonged to the Deutschman class, and both were armed with two twin main turrets and a unified 11-inch gun with a 40x diameter. The absolute range of this naval gun was naturally inferior to that of the British 45 times the diameter of the 12-inch gun, but it was far from the German 40 times the diameter of the 210 mm gun.

Faced with the German Navy's 6 quasi-capital ships, Parkenham was in a tangle. He had the confidence to send these German battleships to the bottom of the sea one by one, but he could not afford to spend time. Through the telegram he had received earlier, he knew that Jericho's five capital ships had encountered four capital ships of the German Navy, and that the British fleet was said to have a better chance of winning, but earlier intelligence indicated that the Germans should have six or eight capital ships at their disposal, and that in such an important naval battle, the German Navy had no reason to hide its strength, and if it were not for the error of intelligence, it was that the Germans had a tactical backhand.

The best way to avoid passivity and win the initiative is to destroy the support ships of the German Navy in one fell swoop.

On this point, Parkenham and Betty are always on the same page.

A few minutes later, the British fleet had narrowed the distance between the German battle cruisers and the two old German battleships to 12,000 kilometers, and the distance between them and the two old German battleships was 14,000 kilometers. The six German battleships fired hard, and there were already a few near-misses, but the fire of the two British battlecruisers still had the upper hand.

Two German cruisers were shot one after another, and black plumes of smoke rose from the ships.

With the "Indomitable" hitting again, a German patrol that had been damaged suddenly exploded, and even if it was saved from the doom of war at the moment, it would probably have to struggle for survival for the rest of the time.

Just when Parkenham thought he was winning, a new plume of smoke appeared in the southwestern sea, and the old German battleships and armored cruisers began to turn back.

Soon, a majestic German fleet appeared in the sight of the British fleet.

(End of chapter)