The morning light is dazzling, and the waves are thin.

On the vast blue sea, two fleets of fast light cruisers were lined up in a row similar to that of battleships, and swooped down on each other at a large cut angle. Two rows of white spray erupted from the bow, and the wake that stretched for hundreds of meters rippled behind the ship. After a while, the 152-mm guns on the British cruisers were the first to let out a rolling roar like spring thunder; The majestic waves of the water immediately erupted in the vicinity of the German cruiser, and its peak height undoubtedly exceeded the level of the bridge of the German cruiser!

"Damn the British, what kind of explosives are they filling their shells with?" Looking at the waves of the collapsing and collapsing water column hundreds of meters away, Berdick couldn't help but slam the 100 mm thick command tower façade armor with some annoyance. Judging from the sound of the explosion just now, the explosive power of the British artillery shells is very close to the high-explosive shells of its own 150-mm guns, and at least twice as strong as the armor-piercing shells. And at the moment when the cruisers of the two sides are in contact, the possibility of the other side firing with high-explosive shells is very small!

"Is this why British shells are prone to explode after touching armor?" The thought crossed Berdick's mind. Seeing another row of imposing columns of water rising in the distance of the battleship, he became more and more convinced of his guess. Germany's chemical industry was second to none in the world, and it was impossible for explosives of the same weight to have such a large difference in power against Britain, which could only be due to the huge difference in the concept of shells between the two sides. He made up his mind and said, "Order all ships not to pay attention to the waste of shells fired by the British at a distance of 13 km." Continue to follow the flagship to keep the action. The shells of the British could not penetrate our core cabin. The equidistance is shortened to less than 9 km. Let's shoot again! ”

The artillery roared and crashed into the surroundings of the German cruisers, stirring up columns of water. To the great disappointment of the eager British gunners, none of their shells hit in a dozen rounds of fire for several minutes. Berdick had already expected this; Although the current range of the 6-inch guns had reached a considerable range, the fire control equipment, shell dispersion, and the large disparity in salvo density compared to the battleships meant that the effective engagement range of the light cruisers was still much smaller than that of the capital ships. Based on the experience of exercises of the German Navy. The 150-mm guns on the light cruisers had to be within 8 km to achieve a more effective hit.

"Order, the fleet turns to the right by a compass point, the speed is reduced to 22 knots, and the artillery crews start firing after the maneuver is completed!" Burdick pressed the high-powered telescope to his eye socket and said aloud in the command tower without looking back. At present, the distance between the two sides has been greatly reduced, and it is already a critical point to prepare for battle; Changing course allows for full broadside firepower, while lower speeds can also increase the gun's accuracy over a large range.

"Boom!" With a roar and flames, the six 150mm guns of the German flagship Magdeburg spewed out large waves of orange-red light on the port side. Gray muzzle smoke. The rapid advance of the battleship and the blowing of the sea breeze quickly dispersed, and the gunner's eyes regained a clear discernment of the enemy ship. Although the distance of the enemy ships. The 3-meter baseline rangefinder at the top of the Guò Command Tower had been clearly measured, but since the light cruiser did not have a central fire control system to give specific firing parameters, the German gunners still needed to observe the enemy ship in order to determine the level and pitch angle of the gun most accurately.

After the cannon was fired, the artillery crew struggled to open the gun lock, and the hot orange brass shells and the choking smell of gunsmoke immediately gushed out. The muscular loader with his arms was accustomed to this, and a new 45.3kg shell was held in his hand, and then quickly propelled into the chamber with precise force and angle. The propellant is stuffed in, the gun lock is locked, and then the fire is reopened; In the daily training of the German Navy, this series of reloading processes generally did not take more than 10 seconds for all its gun crews.

Unlike the German reconnaissance detachments that served as decoy enemies in the past, the High Seas Fleet went to sea with only one purpose, and that was to fight the British Navy to the death, so Berdick did not retreat after a short battle like the other plane. Under his leadership, the 2nd Reconnaissance Squadron was rapidly approaching the British cruiser, and the landing points of the shells on both sides were getting closer and closer to the enemy ships, and a red flame that was different from the water waves was about to appear!

"Boom!" There was a roar and a huge shock to the hull, and the "Breslau", which was in second place in the German formation, was the first to be shot. A semi-armor-piercing (CPC) shot from a British cruiser crashed headlong into its aft port deck with a roar, and the enormous power contained in the 3.2kg high explosive charge instantly turned the explosion point into a terrible hell of heat and flames. Eight sailors on a single-mounted 150-mm open-air gun emplacement next to them could not avoid it, and were pierced by high-speed shrapnel and staggered to the ground in a scream, and blood instantly stained the deck. The flying shrapnel also shattered the searchlight on the rear mast of the battleship, and the surging flames more than ten meters high rose from the German cruiser!

At the same time, the "Melbourne" in the British array was also hit: the 150 mm hard cap armor-piercing shell of the pointed hood effortlessly tore through its only 50 mm waterline armor, burrowed into the hull and exploded. A bright flame and black smoke erupted from the torn armor holes, shining like a snake's letter. Although the movement of the 0.99kg armor-piercing bullet was far less shocking than that of the large-charge British semi-armor-piercing bullet just now, the actual damage caused was much worse: the explosion destroyed the steel pillars of the two nearby Parsons-style steam turbines, and the huge turbines tumbled to one side with a violent mechanical friction sound and a severe load throwing. A large number of superheated steam with dozens of atmospheres and temperatures of up to hundreds of degrees Celsius rushed wildly in the engine room, and several British sailors who stayed here were surrounded by steam in a heart-rending scream, and died on the spot.

Although the British sailors changed the valves in time to direct the main steam into the other two intact steam turbines; However, due to the limited output of a single turbine, the Melbourne still lost nearly a third of its power. The ship's speed dropped from 25.5 knots to 21 knots, forcing the British fleet to reduce its speed to maintain the queue. Faced with this situation, the British fleet had no choice but to hope that its numerical superiority could quickly translate into victory on the battlefield.

"The order was given, and the four ships of Kolburg, Mainz, Cologne, and Augsburg began to load high-explosive shells." The commander of the flagship Magdeburg, Berdick, put down the binoculars in his hand and turned to the herald beside him. At the present distance of about 7,000 meters, the silhouette of the British ships has been reflected in the rising sun in the east: from more than ten years of British tracking, Berdick has been able to determine that this is the "Chatham", "Weymouth", and "Brestol" class light cruisers of the British battle cruisers. Among them, the standing displacement of the first two stages is between 5250~5400 tons, the maximum speed is 25~25.5 knots, and it is equipped with 8 single-mounted 152 mm main guns, of which 5 can fire at the same side. The Brestol class is slightly weaker, with a 4,800-ton hull equipped with two 152 mm main guns and ten 102 mm secondary guns, and the top speed is still the standard 25 knots.

In addition to the 4 Chatham-class ships that are facing off against their own Magdeburg-class, the other 4 Wiymouth-class and 4 Brestol-class are dome-armored cruisers without waterline protection, and they cannot directly resist the penetration of cannonballs. In this case, an attack with a high-explosive shell is clearly the best option. Because it is difficult for the armor-piercing bullet to hit the dome armor with a large piercing angle and penetrate the core cabin, and the high-explosive projectile that also cannot break through the defense of the dome armor can just use its own single-shot power to teach these barbarians without vertical armor how to behave!

On the orders of the flagship, the German sailors on the four subsequent cruisers quickly replaced the shells. The cinch lifted onto the deck was no longer a 3.7 times the length-to-diameter ratio of the pointed armor-piercing bullet, but a more slender low-fuse HE bullet. Compared with the former, the high-explosive shell is filled with 3.9kg of explosives, and the power of a single shot is doubled. After introducing the corresponding firing correction factor according to the change in the length of the shell, the German gunner, who had refine-tuned the pitch angle, pressed the fire button again. With a thunderous roar, a red flame erupted from the front of the cannon. When the loader with a big waist and a round waist was holding a new cannonball and preparing to reload, a huge wave of fiery red light suddenly exploded in a dense column of water in the distance!

The air waves burst out, and the fire was like a rainbow. The cruiser "Weymouth", with a standing displacement of 5,250 tons, was suddenly blasted into a large breach of more than one meter on the side of the cruiser, and a large number of shrapnel carried by the high temperature air waves flew in all directions, effortlessly breaking a large number of holes in the shipbuilding steel on the side that were as dense as a beehive, enough to collapse the dense phobia, and the sea water suddenly flowed into these holes. Although the design of the top of the dome above the waterline was originally designed to resist the inflow of seawater, and the coal accumulated on the dome greatly reduced the space that could be occupied by the seawater, due to the poor division of the watertight compartments of the British ships, the hull of the Liverpool still tilted to the right by more than 4 degrees, and the speed of the ship fell by more than 1 knot. And when the British damage control force was about to plug the leak, they found that there were hundreds of holes in that area!

"Boom! Rumble! "Two 102-mm shells crashed into the German cruiser Augsburg one after another, and the aft compartment exploded, bursting with flames. Since the German cruisers had 4 fewer ships than the British, while the battleships in the front were fighting each other, the Bresto class, which was ignored by the Germans in the rear, was also trying its best to fire guns to support the friendly ships in the front. Seeing this, Berdick reacted instantly, and hurriedly ordered the fleet to turn and accelerate in order to appropriately widen the distance between the two fleets. The projection density of the 102 mm gun was staggering, and your own ships had to avoid its effective range. (To be continued......)

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