"Phew!" The white vapor was steaming, hissing and piercing, and in the left engine room of the British battleship Orion, a blazing steam wave of high temperature and high pressure suddenly shot out. With the sharp increase in the temperature in the cabin, the speed of the main drive shaft connected to it decreases suddenly; After a short time, the entire shaft stopped spinning in the wake of a tooth-wrenching noise of the steam turbine ahead.

In the command tower above deck, the captain of the ship, Colonel Got, listened to the report from the damage management department with an anxious look on his face. After another 19 hours of continuous operation, the ship's third Parsons steam turbine finally could no longer hold on to the disease, and the turbine blades were widely twisted and cracked. Now, the entire battleship can only be powered by the only remaining No. 2 steam turbine, and a dozen kilometers to the northeast, the German fleet with no end in sight is chasing after it!

With the roar of the furnace and the deflection of the valves, the Orion, under the control of British sailors, incorporated all the main steam from 6 of the 18 boilers into the No. 2 engine; However, due to the fact that the main steam turbine of this turbine has also been severely displaced, the theoretical output of 9,000 horsepower can only guarantee the actual shaft power of 7,000 horsepower. At this output, the Orion could only maintain a speed of 13.5 knots at most, which immediately fell behind in the array of the Grand Fleet. After receiving the fault telegram from the Orion, Jericho on the Trafalgar chuckled in his heart, the result he was most unwilling to face had finally come!

Before the Grand Fleet operation, Jericho knew that the Orion, which had returned from the expedition and had a faulty engine, was no longer fit to participate in this hard-fought matchup. However, due to the fact that the strength of the large fleet in his hands is too stretched. The absence of any capital ship can have incalculable consequences; Under the temptation of 10 343-mm heavy guns in its armament. Jericho, who has always pursued the centralized use of the fleet, still gritted his teeth. Let this super dreadnought be incorporated into the camp of the Grand Fleet. Considering the ship's special circumstances, Jellicoe not only ordered it to surrender the position of the flagship of the 2nd Battlefleet to the Irish, but also stuffed it to the bottom of the Grand Fleet behind the Dreadnought, so that it could pick up a soft persimmon and give full play to the power of its guns.

However, what Jericho didn't expect was that the condition of the Orion was actually a roof leak that happened to rain overnight. Before the battle began, half of the ship's engines were stopped due to malfunctions; And after being slapped a few times by the 283 mm L42 toothpick gun on the German decisive battle patrol, its main engine strike was even more out of control. You know, even the Royal Navy started construction of ironclads thirty years ago. Its speed was more than 13.5 knots, and at this speed, it was almost impossible for the battleship to escape the pursuit of the German fleet!

Before he could think about it, Jerichogo listened to a staff officer admonishing him: "Your Excellency, the Orion has stalled at present; Even if you immediately turn sharply to the right and leave the battlefield, it will be difficult to have a chance to escape back to the port. Should we choose to turn left and start a decisive battle with the Germans again? ”

Jericho said slowly, "If the Grand Fleet opens its line to the left again to rescue the Orion, then who will protect the Grand Fleet?" We have already had 5 battleships explode inexplicably, and 1 battleship has capsized and sunk in a very short period of time due to excessive flooding, and I really can't let this fleet continue to fight the Germans. And then lose more capital ships! Signal the Orion to turn right and get out of the battle immediately. The Lord Nelson in the rear followed up quickly, and we could not afford to waste a moment in the retreat! ”

Hearing Jericho's order, the British officers present could not help but feel a strong sense of unwillingness and grief in their hearts. Allowing the Orion, which had only 13.5 knots left, to escape alone was tantamount to abandoning the Paozawa brothers, who were still fighting side by side with them a moment ago, and they had almost no reason to survive under the pursuing German guns. However, if they turn around and cover them, the favorable escape situation created by the destroyer fleet will come to naught; Once the Grand Fleet is completely entangled by the German High Seas Fleet and carries out a new round of desperate attacks, then judging from the continuous explosions of British battleships before, the Home Grand Fleet will suffer an even heavier blow. The British staff officers knew very well that if the explosion of a two-ship warship could be attributed to an accidental phenomenon of the outbreak of the opponent's character, then the fireworks of five battleships in a row except the Bold must have been caused by the British battleships themselves!

The artillery fire was red and the light was shining, and the fleets of the two sides exchanged views for more than 20 minutes. As if the Germans were afraid that the Orion, which had fled the battlefield alone, would escape, an entire detachment of battleships turned its guns and fired heavily on it. Although the Orion flashed left and right, it was still hit by the concentrated fire of the opponent's four battleships. After a while, the battleship was lit up with a hundred-meter-high sky-high flame, and under the whistling of the sea breeze, it was as terrifying as a demon writhing in the air.

At the same time, the former dreadnoughts in the rear of the British battle columns were struggling to move forward in a towering column of water. Without the care of their eldest brother, these cannon fodder battleships had no idea at all, so they could only use their strength to keep up with the pace of the main fleet in front, and flee at full speed without looking back. However, due to the inherent disadvantage of the speed of the former dreadnoughts compared with the dreadnoughts, they still cannot outpace the dreadnoughts under the condition that they are flooded; After a period of time, those German battleships were not only not thrown away, but on the contrary, they were even closer. Almost every second, British sailors were killed or wounded in artillery fire.

"Boom!" Thunder roared, the waves surged, and the Trafalgar's bow rushed past a rolling wave. Jericho grabbed the binoculars with some anger and looked at them, but saw that the battlecruisers of the German reconnaissance fleet were haunted, hanging more than ten kilometers away to bombard their own warships. A cannonball slammed into the stern of the battleship Ajax, causing a sea of flames to rush like a mountain. Seeing these sworn enemies who slaughtered his own fast fleet and caused Betty to sink into the sea, Jericho was furious in his heart, and suddenly exclaimed: "Order George V, let the First Battlefleet give priority to these despicable sneak attackers!" ”

With Jericho's order, a sea of fire suddenly burst out in front of the British ship; The 343-mm artillery shells roared violently, and instantly broke through the sky like thunder. Although the Bold had sunk, the remaining British ships were also badly damaged in the battle with the German Caesar-class; However, compared with the German reconnaissance fleet, which had experienced a series of bloody battles, the situation of the British First Battlefleet was undoubtedly much better. In a short time, they completely pressed the German reconnaissance fleet to the downwind; The German War Patrol was surrounded by a column of water rushing to the sky, and countless tsunami waves and rain swept over its deck.

At 15:41, the battleship George V made the most effective hit of the British fleet since the underwater bomb that ended the Moritz battle cruiser: an armor-piercing projectile whistled like a meteor and hit the De Fringer's conning tower! Although the shell was not able to penetrate its 350 mm hardened armor, the violent blunt collision and violent thunderbolt explosion caused a large area of the internal armor wall to shatter; Countless shards of steel were shot in it, and all the German officers, including Hipper, fell to their stomachs. Medics and damage management teams endured the heat and toxic smoke to drag the fleet commander and chief staff officer out of the pile of dead; However, both of them were seriously injured and unconscious, and the entire fleet fell into a state of interruption of command!

The artillery fire rumbled, and the light was like a rainbow. The battle was undoubtedly in favour of the British fleet, and after a short time, the only usable Catherine turret of the Lützov was blown away by a 343-mm shell, the hydraulic press and the rotating mechanism were damaged, and the main gun fire was completely wiped out. The Von der Thanen and the Seydlitz were also hit one after another, and the flames that had been suppressed were burning again. As the armor-piercing shells were about to run out, the German reconnaissance fleet immediately turned left and left the battlefield under the leadership of the De Fringer, and their mission was finally declared.

And on the main battlefield in the rear, it was the thick-skinned German battleships that once again dominated the battlefield. The British Sixth Battleship Detachment, which had been crushing four Bismarck-class battleship units in decisive battles, was now cracking and trembling under the heavy guns of German dreadnoughts; Its 25 mm thin dome armor, 203 mm shell top, and 229 mm gun mount protection could not be used to survive on the battle line. Although Jericho repeated his old trick of having cannon fodder destroyers launch torpedo attacks aimed at changing the course of the German fleet, his self-inflicted thin-skinned design could only delay but not change its fate.

At 15:58, the 18,800-ton Bellerophon-class No. 4 ship Cyclops sank in a large explosion; Twenty minutes later, its sibling, the Gorgon, was completely deactivated, and became a limbless beast that could only be slaughtered by the German fleet in its place. The Orion was even more bombarded by the enemy's artillery fire, and the whole ship was ignited with surging flames of destruction. Although the German battleships were also hit by continuous heavy damage and fierce fire, they were able to release smoke and retreat calmly under the cover of torpedo boats, but they had the advantage on the field and pursued them!

The only thing that made Jericho feel overjoyed was that one of his own cannon fodder destroyers, the "Jekar", which was swept away in a dog fight, accidentally found the German battleship Pomerania staggering back from the battlefield. The Jekar sank the German battleship, which was powerless to evade, with 2 torpedoes, which saved the last shred of face for the British battlefleet, which had been completely defeated in the decisive battle. (To be continued......)

PS: Thank you for the monthly pass support of the snow and leaves of the book friend ~~~