On April 30, 1914, a naval collision gradually began in the North Atlantic. In complete contrast to the previous course of the battle, neither fleet had to make a painstaking cross-cutting in front of the battle. Seaplanes painted with iron crosses and rings staggered viciously through the air, and then began to circle over and over the opposing fleet, which undoubtedly made any form of maneuvering of the T-grabbing almost useless. Although the anti-aircraft guns of both fleets tried their best to repel uninvited guests from the sky, they did little but listen: the anti-aircraft fire of this period was still very primitive, and the planes only had to increase their altitude to ensure effective evasion.

After a two-hour voyage, the two fleets were no more than 17 nautical miles apart. The sky was clear and the sun was shining, and from the top of the King's 50-meter-high mast, you could already see a faint coal cloud in the far southwest. After hearing the report from the mast, Hipper's eyes flashed, and then he spoke: "Order, the fleet turns left two compass points; A telegram was sent informing the reconnaissance aircraft that the main guns of the King were in position and that a half-salvo was about to be launched at a minute and a half of each other. ”

Hearing Hipper's words, a childish young ensign next to him suddenly showed a look of disbelief on his face. Although the distance of today's naval battles has been greatly improved from the 6 to 8 kilometers expected before the war, the maximum distance is only 13 to 14 kilometers; Beyond this limit, the accuracy of the shelling will be greatly reduced by the limitations of the sighting equipment. And at present, the opposing fleet is even outside the range of sight, and Hipper is ready to give the order to open fire, which is completely beyond the scope of his cognition! I am in doubt. Lieutenant Colonel Raeder smiled at him, "Lindeman." You've just graduated from the Kiel Military Academy. It is also unclear what the latest innovations in artillery of the Imperial Navy were. The King, the first test ship, had undergone a month of special training in the Baltic Sea, and now it was time for it to show its results. ”

While we were talking, the six capital ships of the German Rapid Fleet had already begun to make a pre-war turn; The battleship King, a combination of elegance and majesty, led the way, followed by the Elector, De Fringel, Sadritz, von der Tann, and Balfoss. The cameraman on the rear bridge kept photographing the two tail main turrets that were slowly rotating, as if to freeze their blood-boiling majesty into a photographic memory forever. In a turret identical to that of the later Yamato-class, German sailors struggled to push an 800-kilogram armor-piercing projectile diagonally from the loader onto the loading track. and pushed into place by a robotic arm.

After filling the chamber with two sections of brass propellants totaling 310 kg, the 91.2-ton SKL-45 380 mm naval gun began to raise its barrel under the drive of a hydraulic press, step by step to reach the maximum elevation angle it could reach. Since Qingying's positioning of the King-class is to rely on the main force for a long time, the elevation angle of the main gun that determines the firing range has also been greatly improved compared with the previous capital ships. According to the precision gun table compiled by Krupp Military Industry after scrapping dozens of artillery barrels, the armor-piercing projectile with 820m/s discharge can obtain a maximum range of more than 32 kilometers under the launch of a 30-degree elevation angle, which is even in another time and space during World War II.

Within ten seconds, the four dark barrels of the four turrets came to a halt at an elevation angle of 24 degrees, and the left and right guns in the same turret were in the shape of orchid fingers: this was also the situation unique to the German naval capital ships with a half-salvo as the core of the strike. A photographer who hurriedly captured this shot. hurriedly stuffed the cotton ball into his ear and covered it tightly; Having served on the ship for a long time, he already knows very well what is going to happen next!

"Boom!" With a roar of rage like the sky and the earth cracking. The front section of the King's raised cannon suddenly erupted with a fire wave nearly fifty meters long, and from a distance, it looked like four red dragons breaking through the sea and taking off. The battleship shook, the waves rushed, and even if they were dozens of meters away, the photographers on the rear bridge felt as if they were being pushed by an invisible wave, staggering backwards, and their bearded clothes were blown around. Shells with long conical hoods soar to an altitude of more than 4,000 meters and then fall diagonally under the force of gravity; Thomas, who was 28 kilometers away, was mobilizing his troops when suddenly a shrill scream sounded in the air like a speeding train!

"Wow!" There was a loud roar of thunder, waves rushed into the sky, and four huge columns of water suddenly rose from the otherwise calm sea, which was even higher than the mast of the Queen Elizabeth. Looking at the crumbling and collapsing silver waves in the distance, Thomas was frightened and puzzled: he was surprised that the artillery power displayed by the other party in this round of shooting seemed to be more powerful than the German 350mm gun super dreadnoughts he had seen before, and the doubt was that this round of shooting by the Germans was completely unreasonable. Now that the shells are more than 2,000 meters away from our own warships, what is the point of such shelling, which has no accuracy at all?

"The deviation of the impact point is 1200 before and after, and the deviation between the left and right is -1700!" In the seaplane painted with the Iron Cross logo, the German pilot gazed at the sea with a high-powered telescope and then turned his head and yelled at the people in the rear cabin. The headset correspondent's fingers flew, transmitting the number jùtong guò radio waves to the telegraph room on the King in the distance. In fact, this method of using seaplanes as long-distance calibration was dabbled in by the German Navy more than half a year ago; However, at that time, it was a long-range hoist fire from stationary shore guns, and now the target has been changed to a moving warship. Although this primitive method of high-altitude visual inspection made the correction number fed back to the battleship inaccurate; However, for the capital ship, which itself has a scattered number of shells, it is not very difficult to achieve a straddle fire that completes the task in terms of gunnery.

The German battleship turrets rotated, and the gun pitch was fine-tuned to the new numbers coming from the central fire control room. After the reloading, the guns on the other side of the four turrets erupted again with a deafening roar of thunder. Fifty-seven seconds later, a new round of shells roared into the sea, and to Thomas's consternation, the distance of the shells was suddenly reduced to within 300 meters of his own fleet!

"Damn, the Germans are using planes for calibration!" Thomas roared loudly in the conning tower. In previous naval battles, the other side would always do something that he didn't expect; And the introduction of such annoying aircraft is the most typical representative of it. Seeing that the waves caused by the retreat of the water column had spread to the side of the Queen Elizabeth, Thomas did not hesitate any longer, and immediately ordered: "The fleet will immediately speed up to 23 knots, and we must do our best to close the distance and engage the Germans!" ”

With Thomas's order, the British fast fleet began to pick up speed suddenly; The Queen Elizabeth, flying Thomas's flag, cut through the waves, followed by the five capital ships of war-weary, brave, tiger, royal princess, and Australia. Although the Queen's speed is at the bottom of the fast fleet, it is not suitable to be the flagship to lead the higher speed of the warcruiser to operate together; However, since the British had already been frightened by the successive falls of the "perfect cats" in the last decisive battle in the North Sea, they let the faster battleships with better protection take the lead. However, this formation is not absolutely constant, and the Tiger patrol also flies the flag of Rear Admiral Parkham's detachment, and once necessary, the three high-speed patrol ships in the rear can operate alone.

During this period, the 380mm guns on the battleship King had been emitting an earth-shattering roar at a steady frequency; Heavy shells flew like meteors, crashing into the British fleet one after another, stirring up a mountain of rolling water. In the 6th half-salvo, a shell fell straight into the sea less than 30 meters from the Queen Elizabeth and exploded; The undercurrent, which was extremely high-pressure impact, instantly tore several hulls under water in front of the starboard side of the ship, causing water inflow into two cold storage warehouses and one oil depot. Although the losses were not severe, Thomas was already faintly clouded with a gray haze in his heart: was his choice to take the initiative to engage the German Rapid Fleet in this battle a wise move, or was it a reckless choice made without knowing the other party's intelligence?

A few minutes later, the figure of the German fleet was already on the sea level; At this moment, the distance between the two sides is still about 21 kilometers, and even the imaging in the high-powered rangefinder is only a black dot. There was another shrill hissing in the air, giving people an inexplicable sense of crisis and mania; Thomas in the conning tower had just had a hint of foreboding, when a mountain shook and thundered like a mountain suddenly filled his senses!

"Boom!" A 380-mm armor-piercing shell hit the upper armor belt of the Queen Elizabeth on the port side like a lightning bolt: due to the considerable distance, the shell fell at an angle of 22 degrees. After undoubtedly piercing through the 150 mm armor, the remaining shells continued to rush through the ship, exploding before tearing through the lower horizontal armor that was only 25 mm above the core module. With the violent explosion of 26.5kg of high explosives, the No. 3 boiler room below it was instantly destroyed: the steam drum shattered, the water pipe broke off, and under the surging storm of the raging air, this small space suddenly became a tragic hell of blazing steam, burning heavy oil, lasing shrapnel, and vigorous fire!

The aftermath of the explosion of the heavy shell was not weakened, and the lightning swept towards the bulkheads in all directions. There was a roar of thunder, the steel armor burst out, and the thin compartment inside the battleship was torn open without any suspense. The nearby No. 4 boiler room was also affected: two boilers were severely damaged, and the water pipes burst in a large area, and the furnace had to be shut down urgently. After receiving the report from the damage management department, Thomas's heart was soaked in ice; With just one blow, the Queen Elizabeth lost a quarter of its power, and the battle had just begun! (To be continued......)

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