In the night battle that took place on the night of December, the first five minutes of the battle rhythm was completely led by the German navy. Although the well-trained Royal Navy reacted quickly after the first round of shelling. For example, the captain of the London took the initiative to make the most correct response at that time without "applying" to his superiors at a critical moment. But the biggest problem with warships is that every qiē reaction has a "lag", especially at night.

It was late at night, and most of the crew and sailors were asleep, and it took time for them to get up from their beds and enter their posts.

It takes time for the captain to respond, and it takes even more time for the fleet commander to coordinate the entire fleet to respond.

It takes time for warships to "turn around and change direction", and it takes even more time for the entire fleet to "turn around and change direction".

When the heavy cruiser London was sunk by the Schahn sisters, the "change of direction reaction" of the entire British fast fleet was only just being revealed.

The cruiser, which was escorting on the right side of the fleet, received instructions from Vice Admiral Holland and began to turn and change direction, preparing to rush towards the position of the German fleet and launch a "lightning strike".

And the cruisers of the avant-garde fleet, which were located in front of the ships "open the way", were in a "worse" position due to the distance, and if they wanted to effectively attack the German ships, they would not have to make "roundabouts" at a greater angle.

The cruisers on the left side of the fleet, the cruisers on the left rear to carry out escort duties, were mostly sunk by the Germans, and the few surviving cruisers were being "bathed" by the 128-mm guns of a fleet and were in a state of insecurity, while the rest of the cruisers on this side. It was also due to the poor position that it was necessary to make a "turn" at a larger angle to switch the hull to an angle suitable for a lightning strike on the German ship, and this took time.

In the first five minutes, the entire rhythm of naval warfare was completely controlled by the German Navy.

After killing the heavy cruiser London in a single shot, the sister Shane turned their guns to the battleship cruiser Prestige, which was turning to the left.

At this time, the British fleet, after receiving the order of Vice Admiral Holland, was turning around and changing direction to the left, changing the bad state of the current unfavorable position and being bombarded from behind by the German ships.

In the process. A "little thing" happened.

Captain Hawke, the captain of the light cruiser HMS Glasgow, which was at the forefront of the British fleet and the most "safe", again sent a telegram to Vice Admiral Holland via radio from Guò. His construction was that the three capital ships continued to move forward, while the remaining cruisers continued to perform the steering lightning strike mission. Until it is confirmed that the lightning strike has the predicted effect, the capital ship should avoid engaging German ships.

Captain Hawke's reasoning was the same: it was likely that the Germans had developed extremely advanced techniques for night shelling. At the moment, our side has not mastered this artillery technique. In the current situation. It was irrational for three battle cruisers to engage in an artillery battle with two battleships in the middle of the night in unclear light.

Captain Hawke's tactics can be made clear in one sentence: the three battle cruisers first dodge away and fight soy sauce, and then consider whether to participate in the battle after the cruiser force's night lightning strike tactics have results. Let's make it ugly again: that is, the capital ships are withdrawn first, and the inferior cruisers are on top.

Vice Admiral Holland replied with only one sentence: it was just two battle cruisers.

Then he "vomited" to the combat staff officers beside him. That coward actually believed the Germans' boastful claims that those two warships were battleships?

The Scharnhorst-class battleship, whether it was a battlecruiser or a battleship, for the Royal Navy, is a very interesting topic.

In January 1938, Schahn was officially incorporated into the German Navy and began service. At that time, the German Navy claimed that it was a high-speed battleship with a tonnage of 35,800 tons, nine 406-mm guns, and a maximum speed of 32 knots.

But the whole world did not believe the nonsense of the Germans.

With a tonnage of less than 36,000 tons, it was necessary to be equipped with nine 16-inch guns, and to run at a high speed of 32 knots, and to reach the thickness of equipment protection at the level of a battleship, which in the fifties of the twentieth century was impossible to take down without reaching 45,000 tons.

As early as 1937, when the Scharnhorst was still under construction, Britain and the United States and other countries obtained the approximate tonnage of the ship through the intelligence services. As for the size of the two Shann-class German ships, an experienced ship designer, as long as he glances at his photos, can immediately judge his approximate standard tonnage: about 40,000 tons.

However, even with a tonnage of 40,000 tons, it has to run at an extremely fast speed of 32 knots, and with the naval technology of the thirties and forties, such a warship can only be built according to the standards of battle cruisers.

Although the Germans "claimed" that the two Shann-class were battleships and not battle cruisers, in the eyes of Britain and the United States this was nothing more than "bragging" by the Germans. The two Shane-class battleships were simply battle cruisers "disguised" as battleships. In their opinion, this is nothing more than the Hood, which used a larger caliber main gun, which was large and thin-skinned.

As a result, the British Navy considered the biggest threat to the two Shane "Battle Cruisers" to be only his speed, and then his artillery, which had a profound impact on the George V-class battleships under construction.

In order to "save money" and rush the construction period, the people in the navy department believed that the fourteen-inch main gun would be enough to penetrate the thin-skin armor of the Shane-class "battle cruiser", and at most only twelve main guns would be sufficient. In order to catch up with the 32 knots of the Shane-class battle cruisers, some people in the Royal Navy once proposed that the George V-class battleships should also be thinned and lightened for "battle cruise" construction, but this proposal was strongly opposed by the Admiral Churchill and was cancelled. Churchill's reasoning was that the Royal Navy had more than one enemy, and that it would be the most foolish thing to "turn the new battleship" into a "battle cruiser" for the sake of two "German battle cruisers".

In addition, another reason for the abortion of this proposal is the cost issue.

The top speed of 32 knots and the top speed of 30 knots require a huge difference in power.

Due to the factor of wave resistance, there are several thresholds for the speed of the ship, the speed of 18 knots is a threshold, and the speed of 24 knots is a threshold. Thirty knots is a threshold, and after thirty knots, every time the speed is increased, it is another threshold. Between the "thresholds" of this road, if the speed of the battleship wants to rise, the power requirements that need to be increased are all required to rise geometrically. Even if the George V-class battleships were thinned for battle cruise, they would have to reach a high speed of 32 knots, and more boilers would have to be added to the power system, and the proportion of the power system in the construction cost of a battleship was quite high. The British Empire after World War I. It is no longer as extravagant as it was when the naval arms race was played before World War I. As soon as the congressmen heard that the construction cost would be increased again, they immediately shook their heads like a rattle and shouted "No".

Therefore, after the Anglo-German war in 1939, in the eyes of the Royal Navy of the two ships of Shane. The Shane sisters are battle cruisers, not battle columns. What they taboo about him was his speed and the terrible sixteen-inch gun. As for the armor aspect. In the minds of the Royal Navy, the fifteen-inch cannons of the three battle cruisers in active service were enough to penetrate them. In the eyes of the captains of the Royal Navy's battle cruisers, the naval battle was seen as "three eggs with a hammer and two eggs with the same hammer smashing against each other".

But. The judgment of the British was completely wrong.

In addition to the fact that the total tonnage of the two Shann-class battleships was deliberately reduced and underreported by the Germans, the thickness of their armor and maximum speed were close to the true number.

According to the assumptions of the British ship designers, even if a large proportion of welding was used to reduce weight, the tonnage of the Shane-class battleship was estimated to be about 50,000 tons, and the tonnage of the 40,000-ton class could not meet this requirement even if a large proportion of welding was used to reduce the weight, but because the aspect ratio was too large, the seaworthiness was reduced, and the hull was turbulent and severe. The accuracy of the artillery hit dropped to the point of "pit daddy". (I talked about the specific situation earlier, after the end of World War II, the Iowa-class battleships and the British Avant-garde performed ugly performances during gunnery exercises in the Atlantic)

The British admirals thought of it all, but unfortunately, what they did not expect was the "revolutionary" change that the unscientific existence of the ship soul would bring to the ship-building process in the future.

Keel integration, to be precise, is more suitable to be called hull integration. The advent of this "magic technology" can greatly reduce the weight of the "structural backbone" used to support the hull of the warship, such as the keel of the warship, and all the increased weight due to the need for "riveting" has been eliminated, and the keel of the warship can be made thinner and lighter. Because of this technology alone, German battleships could reduce their tonnage weight by more than 10 percent in the "load-bearing structure".

To add additional structural strength, even the armor of the Hannah Shane-class battleship was integrated after completion. In addition to enhancing the overall defensive strength, another unexpected benefit is that these armors integrated with the hull, especially the underwater TDS lightning protection design part, also share a large amount of the load-bearing structure of the whole ship. In such a situation, the original hull keel, which had been "reduced and reduced", appeared to be "too thick".

The integrated technology guides the warship to reduce the weight of the load-bearing structure a lot, and when used in the power system, the use of "integrated pipes" can allow the boiler pipes to withstand greater steam pressure - and the problem of steam pipes has always been a major problem for the German Navy in history. Due to the high steam pressure, the problem of bursting steam pipes of German battleships at high speed plagued until the end of the war.

Coupled with the fact that Lin Han and Hannah spent a lot of faith on the development of metal material formulas, Germany is behind in terms of boiler manufacturing technology, and now it is the world's first and even more advanced than Britain and the United States, as long as it uses fewer boilers to produce more power.

After the emergence of this unscientific existence of the ship soul, the revolution brought about by the construction of ships is far more than that.

In situ, Germany's technology for manufacturing large artillery is actually very different. The weight of a single barrel of the 380 mm main gun of the original battleship Bismarck was 111 tons, while the weight of the 406 mm main gun barrel of the Iowa class battleship of the United States was only 105 tons.

And this plane, due to the emergence of the soul of the ship, due to the large amount of capital and technology investment received after 1929, the gap between Germany's domestic metallurgical technology and Britain and the United States was flattened on the same running line, plus Lin Han and Hannah's "microscopic" magic transformation ability. The barrels of the two Shane-class guns weigh only 103 tons, and the power is still excessive.

In addition, there are two other points, before the computer was applied to the design of the hull, the design of the ship type of the world's warships could only be tested through the guò giant pool, and the world's ship design masters used dozens of hundreds of years of accumulated experience to gradually explore the best ship design under different tonnage and different speed requirements. But there are still some slight errors between the "best" and the "best answer" in reality.

And Hannah and Lin Han appeared like this. The biggest benefit was the German Navy's design of the ship's hull. From the very beginning, you can come up with a design that is closest to the perfect "answer".

The 40,000-ton Shane-class battleship was only tested at sea trials, and due to the captain's maneuvering, it could usually only run at a top speed of 31.5 knots. But there is Hannah who secretly "corrects" and directs the course in the process. But he can often run 32 knots, 33 knots, or even 34 knots. It's not Hannah who boosts the ship's power. Rather, she made good use of the "ocean current" to increase the speed.

Sea water is fluid, and currents flow at different speeds at different locations. As the soul of the ship, he has a strong sense of perception. Both Hannah and Lin can easily sense the flow of ocean currents within hundreds of kilometers around their bodies. She asked the captain to correct the course of the warship and make the most of the increase brought by the ocean currents, which was extremely beneficial to the "economy" of navigation and to achieve maximum speed.

Therefore, after the Shane-class battleship was put into service, not only himself, but also the rest of the German battleships that traveled with him, every time he returned after sailing, the captain was surprised to find that the warship's fuel consumption was much less than expected. And for the German fleet, which had been conducting raid operations at sea for a long time, this was especially important.

As for the secrecy work regarding the specific performance of the two Shann-class battleships, Hannah listened to Lin Han's advice and decided to do the opposite.

As for the specific performance numbers of the Shane-class battleships, except for the problematic tonnage jù that people can understand at a glance, she deliberately did not keep it strictly secret, but deliberately disclosed it to the public after minor modifications.

British spies always easily obtained the important number of the ship's armor thickness when spying on intelligence. Along with these figures, they also get a message that this is what the official superiors have asked us to say to the outside world. However, they obtained the number of the thickness of the armor of the "German battleship" through the "internal channel", and compared it with the number obtained by other means, they always found that it was surprisingly close.

At this time, the intelligence services of the British were faced with a headache: the 40,000-ton Shane-class battleship could not achieve such firepower and such speed to achieve such armor thickness.

There is clearly something wrong with these numbers.

Intelligence may be wrong, but "common sense" and "knowledge" are not. Therefore, after some analysis by the British Navy, it was generally believed that the Germans had falsified their propaganda, that the Shane class was only a battle cruiser and not a battleship, and that the term "high-speed battleship" was completely "blown out".

In addition to asking the council for money and a budget for new ships, they would also use this to promote the threat of the "Shane-class battleships", in fact, psychologically, the captains of the Royal Navy generally regarded them as "enhanced versions of the Hood": acknowledging their strength and threat, but believing that the opponent was not invincible when the two sides pulled out the battle line to bombard.

In the opinion of Vice Admiral Holland, he would be taboo about battlecruisers and battleships confrontation, but would definitely not back down in front of the same battlecruisers when he had numerical superiority.

Under the orders of Vice Admiral Holland, the three ships Hood, Counterattack, and Prestige began the most "criticized enemy-front turn" in this naval battle.

On the night march, a whole fleet is turned, which requires extremely high levels of coordination and dispatch and the simplicity of the sailors. Fortunately, the Royal Navy had been trained for a long time, and even in the extraordinary period of a sudden attack, the dispatchers in the flagship's Shanghai map room urgently came up with a change of direction plan two minutes after the order was given, and it was quickly released to the whole army.

Four minutes and thirty seconds into the battle, when the Shane-class ships teamed up to fire the first salvo at the Prestige, the entire Royal Navy fleet began to turn to the left against the enemy.

Although Vice Admiral Holland rejected Captain Hawke's proposal, he still believed that the Germans had developed advanced night combat technology. In order to close this gap, he ordered that the entire ship be allowed to turn on its searchlights to facilitate steering. At the same time, the whole fleet was ordered to fire flares in the direction of the German ships. For a time, the sea surface of the dozens of square kilometers where the fleets of the two sides were located was illuminated by hundreds of "bright lights" that slowly descended from the sky.

With the help of flares, the British fleet turned and opened heavy fire on the German ships, and the leading Shane twin ships were attracted the most artillery fire. Due to the distance and turn, as well as the ranging error caused by the night battle, all the shells fired by the three main battle cruisers in front of the turn failed, while the rest of the ships in the fleet only achieved a pitiful result of hitting the shells fired by the sister ships of Shane in these four minutes and thirty seconds: it was a five-inch shell, and it was "blind".

For a 40,000-ton battleship. This blow can only be described as "itchy". In addition to killing a few sailors and blowing up a 40mm Bofors anti-aircraft gun, the damage was minimal.

By the time the Royal Navy fleet began to turn, Vice Admiral Holland had already received information from the rest of the fleet's cruisers: the aircraft carrier Ark Royal had been heavily damaged. A fire has been ignited. And the heavy cruiser London suddenly burst into flames. The circumstances are unknown, and it is suspected that it was hit by the opponent's main gun, and communication with the London radio or searchlight has been lost.

Lieutenant General Holland at this time. I have begun to regret my previous instructions. It's just for the generals, and it's taboo to be half-hearted when commanding the battle, and change the instructions of the next step at will. On the command platform of the Hood, Vice Admiral Holland listened to the reports of fleet losses constantly reported by his subordinates, his hands clenched tightly on the armrests, and his fingers turned white.

He kept saying to the "timid" Captain Hawke in his heart, "I hope you're wrong. ”

At this time, most of the German attack fleet, which had taken the lead, had completed a 120-degree turn, switching the hull to an angle parallel to the original direction of the British fleet, and the remaining few light cruisers were about to complete the turn. The "enemy front turn" ordered by Vice Admiral Holland meant that every warship in his fleet would not only have a considerable part of the main guns unusable because of this order, but also that the accuracy of the guns would be severely affected due to the correction troubles caused by the steering.

This is a fatal command.

The battlecruiser Prestige, which was in the midst of three battle cruisers, was besieged by the Shane sisters during the turn, and even the main guns of the third-ranked Deutschland-class pocket battleship joined the bombardment.

When the second round of shells fired by the sister ships of Shane formed a close miss around the Fame, the faster German and Italian were already loading to fire a fourth salvo, and at this time, one of the six 283mm shells they fired in the third salvo had already hit the Fame, and this shell hit the middle and rear of the hull, lifting off a triple secondary gun turret.

The hit of the Deutschland opened the prelude to the tragic beating of the wheel girl by the battlecruiser Prestige.

The third salvo of the sister ship of the Shane began in the sixth minute, when a shell from the front main gun of the Gzötsenau hit the front main gun turret of the Prestige in the turn, and the poor seven-inch turret side of the prestige exposed during the turn could withstand the blow of the 406-mm cannon from nineteen kilometers away, and it was pierced on the spot, and the shell exploded directly inside the turret, and the internal propellant pack was detonated, and the entire turret was blown to pieces.

The nine shells fired by the Shane formed a straddle around the Prestige, and the shock wave and water pressure brought by the shells that constantly exploded on the sea surface caused the 30,000-ton giant ship to constantly sway from side to side on the sea.

At the sixth minute and thirty-seven seconds, the fourth salvo fired by the two German ships combined ended the "short" battle of the Prestige in Lingye.

A shell fired from the Scharnhorst, which was located on the lead ship, hit the position of the auxiliary gun ammunition depot in the front of the ship, and only the armor protection of the battle cruiser level could block the blow of the 406 mm main gun after the magic change.

A few seconds later, when the Shane, which had been reduced to a distance of 18,500 meters, and the Gren, which had been shortened to a distance of 18,500 meters, fired a fifth salvo, as if in response to the shelling, and the eighteen shells fired by the two ships were still flying in the air, the Prestige suddenly let out an earth-shattering loud noise, and all the personnel of the warship on the sea saw a brilliant flash of fire in their position. The detonation of the secondary gun ammunition depot adjacent to the main gun ammunition depot detonated the main gun ammunition depot, and the prestige instantly broke in two, and soon sank to the icy bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.

Interestingly, when the Prestige sank, the fifth salvo of shells from the Shane sisters flew in, and two of them landed on the Reputation's rapidly sinking hull, completing the final "whip corpse" of the checkmate patrol. (To be continued......)

PS: This is a big chapter of 6,200 words, these days for the New Year, in the field, the writing update has been greatly affected, and there may be occasional interruptions for one or two days. But I'll go home after the sixth day of junior high school, and I'll be able to do it normally as soon as I get it, and I'll write another chapter in the evening, and strive to continue updating it tomorrow Monday

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