October 2, 9:37.

The fast fleet, pursued by the British, finally saw the shadow of the German ship. The lone German ship, looking devastated and miserable, was staggering and fleeing in a southeasterly direction.

This is the German battle cruiser von der Tann, which had been beaten into a torch by the enemy in the battle with the British Indomitable two hours earlier, and although the fire has been extinguished, the equipment has been damaged in many places, and the speed has dropped to 15 knots. Because he was afraid that the fire would ignite the ammunition depot, the captain came down to fill the ammunition depot with water, and now only the rear main gun can be used.

"It's the Von de Tann......," Rear Admiral Thomas recognized, "and it's almost out of combat, so let the Malaya and the Brave stay and sink it, well, send four more destroyers to cooperate." The fleet moved on...... By the way, report to His Excellency Jericho that our troops sank the German battlecruiser von der Tann ......"

"Yes, Your Excellency!" the adjutant hurriedly went to give the order. As for the words "the von der Tann has not been sunk yet", he will not say it, because it is only a matter of time, is it important to have a few more minutes or a few minutes less?

9:55。 Thomas's fleet encountered three more German destroyers, which were also damaged in the previous battle, and fell behind due to the drop in speed. Naturally, Thomas didn't want to waste time on these little guys, so he ordered several light ships to take them out, and he led his team to continue the chase.

Because there were always German planes in the vicinity, the British seaplanes could not beat the other side, and only dared to circle around the fleet, and did not dare to go too far at all, so the reconnaissance efficiency was extremely low.

However, airplanes are airplanes after all, and the observation range in the sky is still much larger than that of warships on the sea. No sooner had the British attacked the three German destroyers than the planes reported that the German Grand Fleet had been spotted at eleven o'clock in the fleet, at least more than 30 ships in terms of the number of smoke columns, at a distance of about 45 kilometers, and was heading south at a speed of about 10 knots.

Seize the main forces of the German army!

Thomas's spirit came up at once, and he ordered to chase at full speed while reporting to the main force behind. As for why the speed of the German army was only 10 knots, Thomas did not think much about it, he thought that it must be a problem with the power system of a certain capital ship.

However, at this time, in order to achieve better reconnaissance results, the seaplane was slightly out of the protective circle of anti-aircraft fire. In less than two minutes, two German planes hovering nearby saw the opportunity and pounced directly. The seaplane was so frightened that it hurriedly dived down to the fleet, and the British ships on the sea hurriedly fired their guns and guns to drive away the two German planes. The seaplane was saved, but the wings were also cut off by bullets, and it landed on the sea in a very thrilling way. The pilots are not stupid either, where are they willing to do such an obvious death-defying thing?

What are you kidding? The performance of this "Spanlow" seaplane is as bad as Xiang, and compared with Erdezi's AR-6, it is the same as Xiang, and it is to be a target when it goes up, and it has no power to fight back at all. If you want us to go up, then give us a better plane!

Thomas thought about it and stopped insisting on sending planes to the adventure. Because just as he was in pursuit, the plane in his hand suffered heavy losses, and now there are only two that can fly. Anyway, the German ship has been found, so there is no need to lose it in vain, although this aircraft is cheap, but it is not easy to train pilots.

10:32。 Lookouts reported the discovery of the main German fleet, although they had now fled south and were turning westward.

Thomas smirked: "It seems that they know that they can't escape, so they simply fight with us...... If you want to fight, I'm afraid they will continue to escape......" He breathed a sigh of relief, Jericho's mission was completed.

"All light cruisers and destroyers are ready for lightning strikes and hold off the Germans!" Thomas ordered. "Besides, let the Malaya and the Gang Yong catch up quickly, it will take so long to break the ship?" Thomas was not stupid enough to use his own strength to fight the main German army, as long as he held them back.

10:40。 The Malaya and the Brave finally arrived, they had just had a little problem with the "execution" of the von der Tann, they thought it would take less than a few minutes to sink a half-discarded warship, but they did not expect the Germans to build the ship so perverted. It took them 29 rounds of 381 mm guns and 6 torpedoes to send the half-crippled ship to the bottom of the sea. Moreover, the Von der Tann was also very effective in its deathbed, although they only had two rear main guns left, but the shooting was extremely accurate, and the Gang Yong actually took two 280 mm shells, blowing up the seaplane catapult and a 152 mm secondary gun. Another unlucky destroyer was blown off the bridge by a single shot, and at the same time caused a large number of casualties among sailors and had to withdraw from the battle.

And the detachment of light cruisers responsible for "executing" the three wounded destroyers on the one side was not very smooth, and the three destroyers turned around desperately when they saw that they could not escape, they fired all the torpedoes at the pursuing British ships, and fought back desperately with the remaining guns. In the end, although the three German destroyers were all destroyed, the British side did not take advantage, a light cruiser and a destroyer were torpedoed and sunk, a light cruiser was bombed and could not take care of itself, and was seriously injured and paralyzed on the sea, and the two destroyers also suffered several shots.

It's a loss-making deal!

was actually pecked a few times by the cooked duck, and Thomas almost fainted when he got the news. Fortunately, for the large home fleet, this loss was nothing.

Now Thomas still has 5 fast battleships and 10 light cruisers, 50 destroyers under his command. He immediately led the fleet to the southeast at a high speed of 25 knots, preparing to seize the T-shaped crosshead position, stop the Germans, and create an opportunity for the main fleet.

..................................................................

11:17。 Britain quickly and successfully intervened in front of the German fleet, and both sides sent light ships, ready to force the other side to change direction with lightning strikes.

11:25。 An exchange of fire began between the light ships of both sides.

But at this moment, a huge roar suddenly came from the sky. I saw that in the northwest sky, a large group of planes painted with iron crosses almost obscured the sunlight, and they were like dark clouds, murderously rushing towards the British fleet.

The Luftwaffe fleet arrived.

In fact, they were supposed to arrive earlier, but because this was the first time that the German army had carried out naval and air coordination, there were many loopholes in command and coordination, and there were many troubles that broke the chain.

Because these groups could not be commanded by Scheer, but by Commander Lendel at the Obenro airport, due to factors such as intelligence delays, the group was in the wrong place at the beginning. When they rushed to the predetermined position, they only found a piece of seawater. Later, after many contacts between the two sides, they finally found the correct coordinates, and then they were very embarrassed to find that they had deviated more than 100 kilometers from the sea area where the British fleet was located......

"Damn, it's a German plane!"

Looking at the group of planes rushing from the northwest, Major General Thomas's face turned green all of a sudden.

"All-fleet air defense array!" he cried out hoarsely.

Coach, this is a foul! Erdezi is unruly, what about a good naval battle?

Thomas didn't think that these planes could pose much threat to his battleships, but the current opponent was not only airplanes, dozens of German capital ships were still ahead, and if they were entangled by these planes, disrupted the formation, and taken advantage of the opportunity by the German capital ships, it would be dangerous.

Wasn't this the case in the recent Russian-Turkish battle on the Black Sea, where Turkish planes broke up the formation of the Russian fleet, and then were violently beaten by the Turkish capital ships. What's more, the light ships sent out do not have too strong air defense and armor, and it is very dangerous to face such high-density air attacks.

But those light ships have just been scattered, where can they be retracted for a while and a half? No matter how fast the warships are, they can't compete with the speed of the planes.

The first to attack was the fighters, because there were no British planes in the nearby airspace, so the German fighter group changed its plan and directly began to attack the warships. Knowing that the British had only a few dozen seaplanes and no fighters, most German fighters carried two 50-kilogram bombs.

The 198 fighters were divided into two waves, and the ones with small bombs began to dive to attack those light ships, they also knew that this kind of bombs were useless against battleships, and even if they hit, it would be a waste, but those light ships were different, their weak armor could not carry 50 kg of bombs, especially those destroyers, as long as they took a shot, it was enough for them to drink a pot.

And those fighters who did not carry bombs aimed at five battleships, they were ready to wash the deck with machine guns and cannons, although the armor of the battleships was thick, but not everywhere was armored, for example, some equipment in the superstructure did not have armor protection, and some small-caliber guns were even arranged in the open air, without even a roof.

This time, the Germans sent He-15 fighters, which were produced by the Germans after introducing a full set of drawings of the J-2. The engine was replaced with a more powerful engine, and the original 7mm machine gun was replaced with a 7. 92 mm machine gun, but the original 20 mm cannon remained.

"Dada...... Da da da ...... "20-mm machine gun and 7. 92-mm machine guns rolled up a bloody storm on the deck of the British ship. The British sailors operated the anti-aircraft weapons on the ship and desperately fought back, but the enemy planes in front of them from all directions could hardly play a role, and on the contrary, these anti-aircraft firepower suffered heavy losses.

On the other side, 120 fighters launched a dive bombardment on British light ships, carrying 50 kg of bombs that rained down. At the same time, the German light ships that rushed over did not watch the show, and they also joined the attack.