"Whew!" A shell flew past the mast of the V-187 torpedo boat, and suddenly crashed into the blue waves dozens of meters away on the port side.

On the low aft deck on the freeboard, German sailors were desperately firing back with two 88mm guns scattered at the stern; Every few seconds, a yellow-orange-orange shell is thrown from behind the gun lock. However, compared to the rain of shelling from the British destroyers, this resistance of the German torpedo boats was simply negligible. Sim counted 16 British destroyers in pursuit, and in addition to these destroyers, there was even a ship of better size in the British fleet; If you look closely, there is no doubt that it is an "active" class light cruiser with a standard displacement of 3100 tons!

Inside the bridge of the V-187, a German correspondent in a headset sweating profusely sounded the alarm at an unprecedented speed to Helgoland Bay and Wilhelmshaven, 35 nautical miles away. In the telegram, the correspondent truthfully reported the line-up of the British fleet that he had seen, namely 1 active-class light cruiser and 16 destroyers. In reality, however, this was just an appetizer sent by the British to provoke the German patrol force on the island of Helgoland, and the large British force, including five battle cruisers, was still standing in the rear - out of an abundance of caution, the commander of the British Grand Fleet, Admiral Jericho, made full use of his authority to order David to order David to do so before the operation was about to begin. Lieutenant General Betty led 3 Patrol Ships as the final support, which made the number of British Patrol Cruisers in this operation suddenly swell from 2 to 5 from afar. At present, Betty has joined up with the invincible, New Zealand's K-Fleet, ready to enter the Helgoland Bay at any time.

Artillery fire roared. Flying one after another crashed around the German torpedo boats. Then there was a roar and explosion. The waves are flying. Unlike the German light ships, which focused on lightning strikes, the British designers preferred to install more cannons on their frigates in order to have an advantage in conventional confrontation with enemy torpedo boats. The two classes of British destroyers that currently appear in front of the German patrol force are all cutting-edge ships launched after 1910 according to this concept: they have a standard displacement of nearly 780 tons, a maximum speed of 27-28 knots, two 102-mm guns and two 76-mm rapid-fire guns, and two 533-mm torpedo tubes. Compared with the German torpedo boats with only 3 88-mm guns, the conventional artillery combat capabilities of these British destroyers undoubtedly had an absolute advantage. And the light cruiser was armed with 10 102-mm guns. Its firepower is not in the same order of magnitude as the German torpedo boats!

For a moment, several German torpedo boats seemed to be sailing in boiling water: all around them were columns of water that were constantly rising and rising, explosions were heard one after another, and shrapnel was flying. Seeing this, Sim's heart was full of throat and eyes; The V-187 torpedo boat he was on did not have even 1 ton of armor on its body, and if it was hit by artillery fire, it would ......

Before he could think of it, a loud bang louder than thunder suddenly burst into his ears, and Simon's brain fell into a brief dizziness. The hull of the ship shook violently, and a vigorous wave of fire swept suddenly behind him. The entire back of its neck was burned by the scorching heat. Sim's heart sank, and he turned to look at him suddenly. I saw that a large piece of the left side of the bridge had been cut off, and the two sailors fell on the deck and struggled and howled. The picric acid explosives filled with the HEAT shells were already burning, and the yellow-green poisonous smoke was sweeping backwards as the torpedo boats moved forward at high speed; Since the first explosive with picric acid as the main ingredient was made by the Japanese engineer Masayoshi Shimose in 1891, the explosives with this substance as the main formula have been as powerful as their predecessors in the naval war more than 20 years later!

"Extinguish the fire!" With Sim's anxious roar, several German sailors with rubber hoses rushed in; The silver-white water dragon spurted out, and the unbridled heat flames shrank suddenly. However, before he could come to his senses, two thunderous explosions sounded in his ears one after another; Simon looked in shock, only to see that the stern and amidships were already in a sea of fire, and colorful debris shot out like a torrential rain, and nearly ten people were swept down in a pool of blood in an instant!

"Whoa!" Seeing that the tongue of fire was about to spread to the torpedo tubes located on the amidships of the ship, the frightened German torpedo crews hurriedly shot two 500-mm torpedoes from one of the launch tubes. If the torpedo, loaded with 195 kilograms of Hexanite high explosives, had been detonated on the deck, the torpedo boat would have been broken from the amidship and never recovered! The frightened German damage management troops hurriedly divided into three groups, and in the thick yellow-green smoke, they used the seawater pumped by the pump to press the three impact points. In a few moments, a sailor hurried to the bow of the ship and loudly reported the damage to Sim: the soldier's quarters at the stern and the chart room in the amidship had been destroyed, and the scene was in shambles, but fortunately the power compartment was not damaged, and the entire torpedo boat was still able to escape at full speed at maximum power.

The fire snake is running high, and the water dragon is overwhelmed. Sim on the flybridge took the time to look around, only to see that the nearby friendly ships were also under British fire. The V-182 was blown off with a cannon blown away, and the entire stern of the ship was no longer in shape; G-194 had two large holes in its side, from which billowing smoke was pouring out; The smallest V-1 lightning strike ship completely disappeared from the entire bridge, and it is not known whether the poor captain is dead or alive. Thankfully, however, the four German torpedo boats showed no signs of stalling, and their speeds were increasing rapidly with a visible trend. At present, on the V-187, all sailors except for the damage control troops and the necessary command personnel have poured into the boiler room to help the stokers in the arduous work of shoveling coal. Despite its crampedness, heatwaves, and choosing of coal dust, it was the most intolerable environment in the entire High Seas Fleet; However, compared to saving one's own life, suffering this little sin is nothing at all!

Machinery roared, artillery fire frenzied. After intense furnace operation, the four navy kerosene boilers of the V-187 torpedo boat were at full capacity: the blazing high-temperature and high-pressure steam passed through the steel cast pipes, crashing into the blades of the two AEG-Vulcan steam turbines, causing the two propellers to rotate rapidly. Driven by 18,000 horsepower, the small torpedo boat galloped at a speed of more than 34 knots; It flew like a swordfish, and it was no less powerful than the British torpedo that attacked it before!

In the plane where Qing Ying was in his previous life, the small water-tube boiler with superior performance was undoubtedly one of the most commendable techniques of the German Navy in World War I. Compared to their British counterparts, German marine boilers are lighter in weight and more thermally efficient, and their power output per unit weight is much better than that of their cousins across the Channel. The reason why the German warships did not show speed superiority over the British ships was entirely due to the fact that their main shafts were too short to wet and the length of the pit was arranged, resulting in serious inefficiency of the propellers. And in this plane, this ill of German ships has been solved under the influence of Qing Ying; And their technical advantages in small water-tube boilers are vividly reflected.

From 1898, when the "Sea Dragon" class was built at the Volkeng shipyard, the speed of torpedo boats in the German Navy entered the 32-knot club. On the basis of this, none of the light ships developed by the German Navy advocating high-speed lightning strikes were lower than this speed. As the technology of the steam turbine continued to mature, the torpedo boats built by the German Navy in the last five years reached a speed of 34 knots, running at full speed like the wind. The British destroyers generally sailed at 27 to 28 knots, and even the latest Acasta class destroyers were only 29 knots. When the German torpedo boats began to exert their power at full speed, their speed was beyond the reach of the British destroyers in pursuit.

In a barrage of flying shells, the German torpedo boats hurried forward; Its speed advantage of 5 to 6 knots is enough to ensure that it can quickly widen the distance between it and the British destroyers behind it at a speed of more than 150 meters per minute. In a short time, the distance between the German torpedo boats and the British destroyers quickly increased to four thousand meters. Under the cover of the fog, the position of the German torpedo boats was already difficult to accurately determine; A large number of shells roared down, but the water column was hundreds of meters away from the Germans, and it could not pose any threat to them at all.

The sea breeze is howling and the waves are raging. Perhaps realizing that the shelling at this distance was already an audible rhythm, the artillery fire on the British destroyers gradually thinned out, and finally fell silent. Sim, who had escaped, sat on the deck of the bow of the ship, his heart pounding wildly, his face as white as paper, and his whole body was soaked with cold sweat. How fortunate he was: if it weren't for this sudden fog, his ship would never have escaped with just a few non-lethal shells and surrounded by enemy forces several times his size!

The four German torpedo boats, which were immortal, slowed down slightly and began to gradually converge towards the center. After a flurry of flag exchanges, they decided to return to the innermost line of defense in Helgoland Bay to seek support from the island's heavy shore guns. To the surprise of Sim and other German sailors, the British fleet showed no signs of giving up, and still hung behind several torpedo boats. Seeing this, Sim's mind flashed: as the current fog continues to worsen, it is very likely that the shore artillery on his island will not choose to fire because it is difficult to distinguish between friend and foe!

Just as Sim was nervous and anxious, a group of ships gradually emerged from the fog in the southeast. (To be continued......)

PS: Thank you for the reward of the book on February 30~~