The "De Fllinger", which was located in the second position of the German fleet, and the Austro-Hungarian battle cruiser "Archduke Franz" in the middle position found themselves ignored by the enemy, and the "Royal Princess", corresponding to the "Seydlitz", was attacking the German flagship "Lüzo", while the "Tiger", opposite the "Grand Duke Franz", found the wrong opponent and aimed at the cruiser "Regensburg".

Standing in the artillery conning tower, holding a pair of binoculars, he stared at his British opponent in the distance through the observation window. In the 8x binoculars, the Tiger was just a blurry gray shadow, and the outline could not be discerned at all.

He saw through the telescope that the British battleship was shining with a few fires, and about a dozen seconds later, the cannonballs fired from it flew high above the head of the "Grand Duke Franz" with a sharp whistling sound, and flew towards the cruiser "Regensburg", which was about 1,500 meters away from the "Grand Duke Franz". The German light cruiser was hiding on the sea, and its shells splashed several white water columns tens of meters high, instantly obscuring its figure.

"Oh my God, poor 'Regensburg', it's taking on a battle cruiser!" Observer Sergeant Lehman shouted, "No one is attacking us, do the British regard us as friends?" ”

"Target 13200, azimuth 97, all starboard fire ready!" The gun commander, Major Simmic, had already locked on to the target, he looked down at the artillery preparation signal light box, the 4 main turrets and the 8 starboard secondary guns were all lit green, and he reported to the captain in the command room below through the microphone in front of him, "Gun fire ready, sir!" ”

The artillery firing bell rang, and the officers and men quickly stuffed cotton balls in their ears, while some covered their ears with their hands and opened their mouths wide to hold their breath. Ten 330-mm guns opened fire on the target, and several large orange fireballs rolled outward on the surface of the sea, illuminating the entire warship. With a loud "boom", the 23,000-ton giant ship seemed to have suffered a heavy blow, slammed down, and then shook violently.

Brown gunpowder smoke spread across the sea, and soon enveloped the entire warship.

Most of the officers on the bridge were holding binoculars in their hands, staring at the sea, and the British "Tiger" shelled the "Regensburg" for 10 minutes, until it was hit several times before realizing its mistake.

The gunners of the two unattacked ships quickly calmed down and began to shell with the same ease as they had during artillery training, which greatly improved their accuracy of hits. In the gunnery tower at the top of the bridge, the figure of the enemy ship on the 7.5-meter optical main rangefinder has been magnified 25 times, and the rate of fire and accuracy that the Germans have always emphasized are beginning to take effect, and the British warship is surrounded by a turbulent column of water.

After only a few volleys, the "Lion" and the "Royal Princess" were hit twice, and the "Tiger" was hit by the "Grand Duke Franz" with four shells in succession, and the turrets in the amidships and aft were incapacitated. Fortunately, the Japanese put forward many useful suggestions for the British in the construction of the "Kongo" class battlecruisers, which made the "Tiger", which was built according to the structure of the "Orion" class battleships, have excellent protection performance that other British battlecruisers did not have, so that it was saved from accidents.

After three rounds of shelling, the "Queen Mary" found the wrong target, and its gunner, unaware of the problem in the distribution of fire, shifted the target to the "Seydlitz", which hit two shells in succession, one 343 mm shell penetrated its turret armor, and detonated the four packs of propellant inside. Thankfully, the Germans learned their lesson after the Great War at the Dogle Sandbank, and the newly installed blast doors in the turret worked to keep the flames out of the ammunition bay. But the No. 3 turret of the "Seydlitz" lost its effectiveness.

Now Vice Admiral Willennik on the "Radetzky" wondered if the British had mistaken the warship flying the Austro-Hungarian Eagle flag as a "warship of a neutral country"?

After only 10 minutes of fighting, the distance between the two sides had been reduced to 11,000 meters, and Betty ordered the fleet to turn right to open up the distance between the German fleet, and Hipper also ordered the fleet to turn slightly left to interfere with the British artillery ranging, and now the distance began to close again.

At 4 o'clock sharp, the front part of the bridge of the German flagship "Luzo" was hit by a shell, but it did not cause much damage, and the battle between the two sides continued to heat up and gradually entered **. Lieutenant Admiral Willennik, who had nothing to do, ordered the "Radetzky" to turn its fire to the British flagship as well, and in 2 minutes the "Lion" was hit twice, and now the British flagship was surrounded by columns of water that rose into the sky, and it completely fell into the fire coverage of the "Luzo" and "Radetzky".

The "Lion" class battlecruiser launched by the British in 1912 conquered the eyes of the always discerning British with its smooth and elegant appearance and British gentlemanly temperament exuded around it, so much so that the British gave it the reputation of "perfect cat" without reservation. So much so that even the Japanese ordered the "Kongo" class battlecruiser ships on it, mainly to learn the design of such warships.

However, this kind of battle cruiser built purely for the sake of high speed and weakened protection was not accepted by rational naval technicians, and in fact no other country in the world built battle cruisers except for Britain and the German Navy, which blindly compared with the British. The Lion had an unprecedented record 48 boilers in pursuit of high speeds, which made its armor only as thick as that of previous armored cruisers, and its survivability in the heat of naval battles was very doubtful.

The "Radetzky" built by the Austro-Hungarian Navy was an accident, in fact, it was a cruiser of battleships, which was similar in design to the German battlecruisers in this respect, but in order to obtain a better speed, the ship was lengthened, and its protection was not very weak, and of course it was not possible for them to reach a high speed of 28.5 knots like the "Lion" class.

Now the British are about to suffer the bitter fruit of Daddy Fisher's paranoia.

Relatively speaking, the German and Austrian warships have now generally adopted a unified centralized firing command instrument for the whole ship, while the British have only equipped a few warships with this new artillery command system, in fact, the British Scott firing command instrument with a mechanical calculator has slightly better performance, but they still ignore this point. Another point is that the stereo optical rangefinder made by Zeiss takes in less light than the British optical rangefinder, which makes it obtain a clearer image in low light than the British rangefinder.

Well, now a large-caliber armor-piercing projectile pierced the armor of the amidships turret of the "Lion", causing an explosion inside the turret. The bombing, the gun chamber and the loading chamber were instantly ignited. The entire warship made almost half a circle on the surface of the sea, and the flames began to spread along the passage towards the ammunition room. At this critical moment, the turret commander, Major Harvey, dragged his broken legs, climbed up to the intercom and ordered the ammunition hatch to be closed, and began to fill the turret with water.

Major Harvey saved the Lion at the last minute and saved it from martyrdom.

The "Lion" was heavily damaged, and now it is covered in black smoke, and the entire hull is obscured. This, on the contrary, saved it from further blows, and the smoke billowing from the sea was so thick that the gun commanders of the "Luzo" and "Radetzky" could not capture its position for a while.

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