On January 19, 1916, in Alexandria, Egypt, in the Mediterranean, aboard the Royal Navy's battleship "Queen Elizabeth" class "Malaya", the commander of the Aegean Detachment, was about to take up the post of commander of the Aegean Detachment. Lieutenant General Jerram, together with Deputy Commander John Jerram. Morality. Major General Robeck, Chief of Staff Roger. Commodore Case strolled side by side on the aft deck.

A year ago, the "Malaya", which was narrowly escaped in the Battle of Lingayen Bay, was densely packed with dozens of large and small ships that had gone together to reinforce the Aegean Sea detachment, the most striking of which were the two large light cruisers "Brave" and "Glorious", which were slender and thin but carrying two conspicuous giant guns, which were originally specially designed by the former First Sea Minister Lord Fisher to carry out the imaginative Baltic Sea raid operation. Construction began in October 1914, shortly after the outbreak of the war, and only a year later, in October 1915, the two ships were completed for sea trials, but at this time, the Battle of the Bay of Bengal was defeated, Fisher resigned, and the Baltic Sea raid operation came to naught, and the two ships had to be transferred to the Mediterranean Sea to engage in the "Battle of the Straits" or "Battle of Constantinople", which was always in mind by the Admiral Churchill, and the third ship, which was scheduled to be equipped with a new 457 mm single main gun, which began in February 1915 The Fury changed its design halfway through, and at the end of September began work on the transformation into a high-speed fleet aircraft carrier.

The design of the Valiant class is very individual: the hull with a standard displacement of 19,200 tons is equipped with a twin 381 mm main gun in the front and rear of the same as on the 27,400 ton Queen Elizabeth class battleship, and is equipped with six triple 18 102 mm anti-lightning secondary guns - 12 can be used on the same side at the same time, as well as six 76 mm anti-aircraft guns and ten 7.7 mm Vickers-Maxim machine guns for air defense.

Eighteen Yarrow boilers and four Parsons turbines were installed on the ship, with a total power of more than 90,000 horsepower – more than double that of the earlier Invincible-class battlecruisers, and a maximum speed of 32 knots.

However, in addition to the heavy firepower and high speed, the armor protection of ships of this class is very weak, and the main armor belt of the waterline, which covers a limited area, is only equivalent to the level of a light cruiser - but it is only a layer of 51 mm thick armor steel plate on top of the 25 mm thick outer hull steel plate, the horizontal deck thickness is 20 to 40 mm, and only the main turret and the conning tower are arranged with relatively decent armor - the maximum thickness of the gun mount armor is 178 mm, the front of the turret is 330 mm, the sides are 178 mm, and the conning tower is 254 mm. In addition, the exterior of the hull is designed with a protruding anti-torpedo compartment, which has a certain underwater defense capability. In any case, judging by the main protection of the hull, it is simply impossible to classify it in the category of capital ships, and it is reasonable to call it a "large light cruiser".

A little further away from the "Malaya" are four early dreadnoughts equipped with six 305 mm main turrets each: the "Diderot" and "Condocet" of the French Navy's "Danton" class, which were almost undamaged in the Battle of the Bay of Bengal, and the "Kolbe" and "Ocean" of the "Kolbe" class, the latter is an improvement of the former, mainly the layout of the main turret from 1 front and rear plus 2 symmetrical left and right symmetrical to 2 front and rear knapsack and 1 symmetrical left and right symmetrical. The number of main guns available at the same time on the first side has been increased from 8 to 10, the displacement has also been increased from 21,300 tons to tons, the number of 55 times diameter 140 mm secondary guns has also been increased from 18 to 22, and the maximum speed is still 20 knots.

The Victory, a squadron of aircraft carriers in the Tussar class fleet that was crammed with planes at the back of the wide all-access flight deck, stood out among the few giant ships that simply flaunted their gun barrels, and although it failed to catch the decisive battle in the sinking of Vice Admiral Hood's flagship, the Brilliant, was equipped with a squadron of new carrier-based aircraft that would prove its combat performance in a decisive battle guided by "indirect strategy."

The above total of 5 battleships, 2 large cruisers and 1 fleet aircraft carrier, together with 1 battleship and 1 battlecruiser each of the Aegean detachment previously deployed in the Aegean subfleet, formed the backbone of the "C" fleet, the long-range support force, under the direct command of Vice Admiral Jelam, and their main opponents were the main forces of the Turkish Navy - 1 "Moltke" class battlecruiser transferred by Germany and 2 "Yangbo" class foreign trade battleships ordered from China. Although two of the three capital ships are believed to have been damaged in an engagement with the Russian Black Sea Fleet last year and could not be repaired because Turkey did not have a suitable shipyard, the Entente side cobbled together such an overwhelming heavy group just in case.

Compared with these front-line combat ships, all of which had a displacement of more than 20,000 tons, the seven former dreadnought battleships, which had not even seen the appearance of the enemy in the naval battle of the Bay of Bengal, were so obscene: two 17,400-ton "Edward VII"-class "Afrika" and "Zealander", four 13,300-ton "Duncan"-class "Duncan", "Cornwallis", "Exmouth" and "Montagu", and one 15,400-ton "Defense"-class "Respectable", Their main firepower was one twin 40x diameter 305 mm main gun turret in the front and rear, and the speed was 18 to 19 knots, which naturally could not compete head-on with the aforementioned Turkish naval capital ships, but it was enough to slowly bombard and destroy the fortress beyond the range of the old Turkish coastal defense artillery.

Twelve "shallow-water heavy gunboats" that at first glance appear to be precarious on the bodies of young children with deformed heads will be used as reinforcements for shore bombardment, including six "Lord Clive" class ships of 6,150 tons, four "Abekrombi" class of the same tonnage, and two "Marshal Sirte" class of 6,670 tons. For this purpose, they were equipped with battleship-class guns: the "Lord Clive" class with one twin 35-fold 305 mm main gun, the "Abekrombi" class with one twin 45-fold diameter 356 mm main gun, and the "Marshal Sirte" class with one twin 45-fold 381 mm main gun.

The above seven dreadnought battleships and twelve shallow-water heavy gunboats, together with five other ex-dreadnoughts that had been deployed earlier in the Aegean subfleet, constituted the German ship. The "Flotilla" under the direct command of Rear Admiral Robeck is the core force of the direct artillery attack force.