August 23, 1913, was a day destined to go down in the history of the world's navies. Two of the most powerful fleets on the planet have formed an unprecedented queue in the rough North Sea, marching towards the final decisive battle, waiting and dormant to become a thing of the past. Armored steel against armored steel, rifled guns against rifled guns, the contest of economic strength, industrial base, and technical level in the past two decades, the countless spying and plotting of intelligence officers and commanders, the training of thousands of sailors, and the fate and honor of the two world-class empires, all of which will be finally decided in just a few hours!

There are many masts, and the coal mist is like clouds. In a short time, the lookouts on both sides spotted a dense and towering jungle rising above the sea level, followed by a jaw-dropping battle column. From a distance, it seems that a long steel causeway formed by warships has appeared on the sea, cutting off the entire ocean. It was the first time that the lookouts on both sides had looked at their opponents in such a complete way, and the more they looked at each other's battle lines, the more they were shocked by the lineup displayed by the opposing side.

The alarm bells hissed and the buzz was piercing, and countless British and German sailors began to run on the decks of their respective warships, returning to their posts. Flammable blankets, blankets, and cloths were quickly collected, and some captains even ordered them to be thrown into the sea to completely eliminate the possible increase in burning after being hit by a cannonball. In the hot boiler room, the hard-working stoker finally slowed down the efforts to shovel coal, and the main feed pump, fan damper and main steam valve of the boiler were also adjusted. The speed of both fleets slowed down after fully deploying their arrays, ready to deal heavy blows to each other with the highest accuracy of their guns.

"The British chose the same way as we did." Holding his binoculars high, Ingnoll looked at the endless British battle line in the distance. The words of surprise brought a bit of joy to the hunt. At this time, although the North Sea was stormy and stormy. But the fierce sea breeze quickly blew away the soot from hundreds of chimneys on both sides. The sea view was so good that Ingnorr could identify some of the British warships nearly 20 kilometers away without the use of a special rangefinder. The hull of the leading ship is quite slender, and it is almost certain that it is a Lion-class battle cruiser belonging to the same period as its own De Fringer; They were followed by either George V or Orion, which were armed in the same way with five twin 343mm guns and were regarded by the Royal Navy as a sharp weapon capable of effectively suppressing the German Kaiser-class. "The fleet distributes firepower from front to back, and the gunnery officers of each ship must find their own opponents and use the flagship's artillery fire as the order to attack!" Ingnoll ordered.

Tension brewed in the air. The thick muzzle of the cannon exudes a suffocating aura of slaughter. Compared with the previous confrontation between the fast fleets of the two sides, the scale of the decisive battle at this moment is far from being comparable to before. The large-caliber main guns of the entire 90 capital battleships on both sides found their opponents in a rush and made subtle adjustments to the fire control according to the distance and azimuth given by the main rangefinder.

Silence fell in the tower, and all the staff officers realized what was going to happen next. Ingnoll looked at the rough sea in the distance with a calm expression. In a trance, the spirits of Frederick the Great and Wilhelm I haunted the crest of the waves that danced ahead, shining in front of the thick barrels of cannons, whispering in the thick clouds, telling the value of their generation. For the Prussian-dominated land empire of Germany, this was perhaps their most decisive moment......

"The enemy is 15,000 yards away. Bearing 261! A group of numbers suddenly came out of the microphone. Ingnorr's heart sank slightly, this had entered the farthest range of engagement allowed by the current technical conditions. He took a deep breath. Just as he was about to give the order to fire, the sea surface located east of starboard suddenly burst into red light, and the strong light pierced his pupils and couldn't help shrinking. And the red purple aura that was more than ten meters high was like a heavenly fire rushing, spreading and stretching in an instant, extending from the center of the battlefield to the end of the north with no end in sight!

"At that moment, I saw the aurora that only appears within the Arctic Circle." An officer who served on the battleship Westphalia recalled the scene after the war with fascination and palpitations. "Because of the large number of black clouds gathering in the sky, the light of the early autumn in the North Sea at 12 noon is still as dim as the morning of the winter moon; However, at that moment, the light in this sea of heaven suddenly increased by several levels. So I had the good fortune to experience this magnificent scene again after a trip to St. Petersburg as a teenager. Soon, however, the screeching of large-caliber shells, which I least wanted to hear, was already in my ears, so I reacted on the spot and began to pray to God that our ship would not be hit. ”

"Boom!" Hundreds of large-caliber shells roared headlong into the sea, and the sea area where the German battle line was located suddenly exploded, and the waves gushed out, setting off countless columns of clouds and water tens of meters high into the sky. The silver waves rolled, stagnating in mid-air for 5 or 6 seconds before collapsing, stirring up a surging wave. A 343-millimeter shell from the Trafalgar struck the broadside armor belt of the Frederick the Great, and the hull shook violently, and a huge ball of light burst into the air. Ingnoll didn't have time to pay attention to the damage of the ship, and immediately shouted loudly into the microphone that went straight to the main control room: "Shoot the whole ship, and meet the enemy on the starboard side!" ”

There was a roar and a roar, and the waves rolled like thunder. The rifle flames that were tens of meters long erupted like a red dragon going out to sea, and the light shone brightly, reflecting the entire side of the battleship in a patch of red. After Frederick the Great opened fire, the remaining 40 German capital ships also burst into their own roars; Although the German fleet with a half-salvo was far inferior to its British counterparts with a full-salvo with a large charge in the first round, they also pushed a row of high, wide and towering walls of fire out of thin air on the sea, thanks to the same huge numerical base! From the view of the British ships, the location of the German fleet in the distance is also a mesmerizing scene like clouds dancing; The roar of large-caliber shells and the surging water column caused by the falling water made the entire sea completely boil.

"Many people feel a deep fear when the battle of life and death comes, but we didn't worry at all that day that we would go to see God. Because there are so many things that we need to do, there is no room for the slightest thought to affect our actions. Shells weighing hundreds of kilograms had to be reloaded repeatedly and rapidly to guarantee one and a half salvos every 20 seconds. After the deafening roar, take out the cotton balls, listen to the new round of firing parameters from the central fire control room in real time, adjust the driving angle of the hydraulic press to the gun trunnions, and keep an eye on the red light on the top of the turret...... These immediate and urgent tasks have led us to devote ourselves to the threat and horror of death. A German gunner recalled when asked afterwards about his performance in naval battles.

Aerial shells whistled and shuttled, constantly hitting the deep blue sea, stirring up huge columns of water like mountains soaring into the sky. The 15,000-yard engagement distance was obviously too far for World War I-era fire control and sighting, and apart from a few occasional luck rounds, the initial chorus of hundreds of large-caliber guns on both sides did not achieve significant results. Seeing this scene, both Jericho and Ingnorr ordered the fleet to deflect half a compass point in order to bring the two dreams closer (fog?). Fleets.

As the image of the target in the rangefinders of both sides became more and more obvious, the feedback on the distance calculation and the distribution of the impact point became more and more realistic, and the accuracy of the artillery fire also showed a straight upward trend. A volley of shells struck, stirring up towering columns of water around the battleship "Ark Royal". The British sailors were shocked to find that their own battleships had been straddled by the opposing battleships; This means that as long as the opponent's character is not at a negative level, your own ships will soon be hit under this roughly normal distribution of artillery fire!

"Boom!" It was only forty seconds before the sailors aboard the Ark Royal felt a violent tremor and tremble; A 350-mm armor-piercing shell crashed into the rear bridge, not only were the two searchlights directly blown away, but the X turret on the stern of the ship was also damaged by a huge shock air wave that damaged a hydraulic press, and one of the guns could not be pitched and lost its combat effectiveness. This was the result of the King Albert, which was on the heels of its flagship Frederick the Great, and avenged its sister ship, the Frederick the Great, which had been unfortunate enough to be shot by the British. The Trafalgar, the flagship of the Grand Fleet that previously hit enemy ships, and the Ark Royal, which is currently hit, both belong to the George V class with a standing displacement of 23,000 tons. Although the British ships built in batches in 1910 boasted 305 mm of waterline armor, the height of this part of the armor was only a little more than 1 meter, and most of the shells had to rely on the 229 mm armor in the middle and upper parts to provide fairly limited protection.

Soon after the Ark Royal was hit, huge blood-colored clouds exploded on the other British capital ships; The smoke of the fire rose dozens of meters high, and the originally empty ship's hospital was quickly carried in a large number of seriously injured people. Excellent optical rangefinders, as well as more efficient firing methods, allowed the German battleship to once again find the correct firing parameters one step ahead of its British counterparts. At this time, in order to take care of the queue, it was impossible for the British capital ships to implement a wide range of maneuver evasion, and this also created conditions for the continuous hits of the German ships! (To be continued......)

PS: Thank you for the reward of zhouyu1976~~