At this time, the battle between the two avant-garde fleets was like two boxers, at the beginning of the game, the two sides were more engaged in long-distance battles were more just temptation and attrition, after knowing each other, hand-to-hand combat was the way to finally solve the problem, just when Thomas ordered the fleet to begin to approach the opponent, the confident Hipper also commanded the fleet to the right by a quarter of a compass point, and the two fleets began to gradually approach at a smaller angle. And as the distance gets closer, the fight between the two sides becomes more and more intense!

"It's as if we're walking in hell filled with sulfur and gunpowder!" This was recalled by an officer of the German High Seas Fleet after the war. "I will never forget the scene of that day, which foreshadowed the destruction of the cannonball that swept through the air like a meteorite of the end of the world, and the water column that exploded was nearly 100 meters high. Each hit of a single shell on a battleship would bring great damage to the battleship, and as the distance approached, the opponent's attack became more and more violent, and each hit seemed to make the whole battleship tremble. The sound of explosions, the crackling of flames, and the twisting of metal supports came from time to time from the hull, and the power supply to the department's cabins had failed due to breakage, and as we walked through these tunnels, the protection was like a road to hell, the hull shook, and all kinds of tooth-sore sounds came from a distance from time to time, and occasionally there were some noises that seemed to be human moans and roars, and a visceral fear began to spread through the crowd. ”

More and more shells chased the battleship, and the gunners on both sides roared to finish the job at hand, and the machinery made a loud noise. The tearing sound of shrapnel striking armor filled the turret, and people could not see the situation outside, or even hear the shouts of their comrades who were close at hand. Under the influence of loud noises and vibrations. Many soldiers were bleeding from the shock to their eardrums. But they don't have time to deal with their injuries, they are in a race against death, and the only hope of survival is to hit their opponent earlier! The god of war is fair, and in such large-scale engagements, victory always favors the side with a larger number of artillery, a faster rate of fire, and better accuracy.

The Queen Elizabeth-class battleship, which had flaunted its prowess in many naval battles, finally experienced the iron fist of the Germans in this engagement, and while the two sides maintained a distance of 14 km, the Warweary was beaten by the Bavaria, which was the opposite of the battle. Possibly a matter of luck or a mistake in design, the No. 1 and No. 2 turrets in the bow of the Weary were hit by a 15-inch shell. The slender body smashed into the upper deck and lightly pierced the structural steel of the upper deck. This was followed by a hit on the main horizontal armor, and below the main horizontal armor was the power supply engine room, which was responsible for providing electricity to the bow of the ship, although due to the close proximity. The shell, which came from the horizon, failed to penetrate the armor. However, the back plate of the armor was torn apart, and the entire armor plate was misaligned, tearing off a lot of the lines connecting the whole ship. Even a lot of debris directly strained the motor room, the high-speed rotating rotor and the debris had a violent collision, a stream of burnt smell and electric sparks came from the motor, just a few seconds, the whole machine was overloaded, in order to prevent further losses, the motor compartment was urgently closed. And this also caused the two turrets in the bow of the ship to stop running!

The Warweary, which lost nearly half of its firepower, was immediately defeated by Bavaria, and the Warweary, which only relied on four tail guns to counterattack, could only struggle on the field. The barrage of Germans completely covered the poor worm, and countless flames and smoke turned the entire battleship into a flaming dragon. In this case, the Warweary had to release a smoke screen to evade the attack. While war weariness was struggling, Thomas's flagship, the Queen Elizabeth, had the most effective hit since the battle began! The shell hit the conning tower of Hipper's flagship, the Bismarck, well, it's not quite accurate to say that it was in the middle, or more precisely, it was a wipe, but it was this shell that caused Hippel a lot of trouble.

Without warning, the shell grazed the command tower where Hipper was, although the entire command tower had 380MM armor protection, but the energy generated by the violent armor and explosion still made the people inside feel an earthquake of magnitude 7 or more, the entire cabin was shaking, and many items that had been fixed on the armor wall flew up at once! Together with the shattered armor pieces, there was a massacre of the personnel in the cabin, and many people were pierced by countless shrapnel as soon as they tried to get up, and for a time the entire cabin was covered with blood. Moans and cries for help came and went, and although Hipper was not beaten into a sieve on the spot, a piece of shrapnel still pierced his right arm, and the severe pain made his whole body look even more hideous.

After a single shot wiped out nearly half of the command group of the entire German Rapid Fleet, this shell may not feel enough, and the remaining fragments at the same time cut off the radio lines close to the conning tower, so that before the backup system was activated, and until Hippel re-established an effective command system, the entire German fleet was almost alone according to the established policy, but in a short period of time, it did not seem to have a particularly large impact on the occupation.

Just when the British were busy saving the War Weary and the Germans were busy rebuilding their own command system in the front team engagement, the rear team had already shown signs of fighting, and under the continuous blows of the York, the Australia finally couldn't hold on! At close and medium range, the York's 12 14-inch L52 guns were outstanding, while the Australia's defense was clearly worse than the Queens'. In the midst of this, the relative greatest weakness of the British avant-garde fleet finally emerged.

Covered in barrage, the Australia fought back with difficulty in the midst of flames and columns of water. HOWEVER, THE 9 343MM GUNS COULD NOT POSE A LETHAL THREAT TO THE ROUGH-SKINNED YORK EVEN AT MEDIUM AND CLOSE RANGE. Under the suppression of the opponent's absolute superiority in firepower, the Australian can only occasionally set fire to the opponent at most, that's all! However, the attack of the Germans' 12 14-inch guns was very effective, 15 minutes after the start of the battle, the dense rain of bullets hit the turret of the Australia many times, although it blocked the first few long-range hits with excellent frontal protection, but at the medium and close range, the continuous hits of the 14-inch guns finally destroyed the main gun system of the Australia, two of the three turrets failed due to continuous impact, and the last one of the turrets that barely counterattacked only two of them could continue to fight, Another gun was blown in two. At the same time, a dense rain of bullets destroyed the rangefinder at the top of the Australia's mast. At this point, the Australia can almost be considered combat-ready.

At one point, the distance between the two sides was close to about 12 km, and it was at this distance that the York fired the most efficient salvo from the German Navy since the beginning of the war! Out of 12 shells, 4 hits in one round! And the hair bites the meat! The first shell hit the side chord armor of the amidships, and the warhead successfully pierced the protection, but due to the collision, the second half of the shell was broken, and the result was that the half-pulled shell flew into the power compartment and destroyed the two boilers. For a time, the boiler compartment was filled with high-temperature steam, killing almost all the staff in the cabin in an instant. Another shell also successfully penetrated the main load, and what was even more terrifying was that after penetrating the main load, this shell successfully penetrated the power compartment and exploded in the boiler room on the other side of the ship! Although in order to reduce the damage, the Australian adopted a split layout, but these two shells immediately made the split position useless, and in just a few seconds, the Australian was almost completely lost!

The other two shells pierced the tail armor in one shot, breaking two of the four high-speed power axles. The other shot was even more deadly, piercing the torpedo compartment in the front of the battleship and detonating more than twenty bottles of compressed air and two torpedoes! The bow of the entire battleship seemed to be knocked out of the water by a huge explosion, and then smashed into the sea. A hole nearly 10 meters long appeared on the side of the hull as if it had been cut open by a sharp blade, and the bow of the ship, which had been hit many times, completely collapsed under this blow, and any damage and maintenance became futile. The Australia had an extremely severe bow tilt, the hull in front of the No. 1 turret was almost submerged under the water, and the sea water rushing to the deck continued to pound the defunct turret. As more and more water entered the ship, the propellers at the stern of the ship were exposed, and more than forty minutes after the start of the war, the first victim was sent to the altar of the goddess of war, and this was only the beginning!

While the fire and smoke from the amidships of the Australia's hull were still filling, and when the hot steam was spewing out of the breach, the New Zealand, which was catching Moltke right, was playing soundly. Although the foreign trade version of the fast battleships built in China is still a little behind the top of the first battle that has been in operation for about 4 years and weighs more than 7,000 tons, it can be said that it is easy to fight other fast battleships of the same era! Even the Moltke-class fast battleships, which were once generous and brilliant at the beginning of the war, were no match for him!

If compared with the previous behemoths, the New Zealand's firepower is much worse and the protection is poorer, then Moltke's level is that the firepower is much worse and the protection is much worse. Just when the main force of Thomas's fleet was in danger of being beaten by the other side, the New Zealand was comfortably beating its opponent! Moltke cried! As Germany's most battle-like fast battleship, his level of protection is actually similar to that of the Tiger, although the armor is thicker, but the inclination angle is a little smaller. And the other party used a strong charge in a frenzy!

And the power of the 13.5-inch naval gun with a strong charge can be described by the word ghost animal! Originally, this kind of strong charge was generally only used on train guns, but when the battle was fought to this point, the British did not care about anything, as long as they did not blow up the bore, they went on!

Thanks to the book friend zhouyu1976, hukaikaka for the tip~~~. And the monthly pass support of book friend allenmao ~~~. (To be continued......)