At 4 pm on August 7, 1914, the southeastern waters of the North Sea.

Although there is a refreshing cool breeze at the sea, people's mental and physical fitness will inevitably be consumed quickly when exposed to the scorching sun in the midsummer for a long time. On the flagship of the German High Seas Fleet, Admiral Von Ingnor and his main staff turned from the open-air command observation deck with open sights back to the combat bridge. The orderly dining car sent refreshments, allowing officers who were nervous to stay in key positions while relaxing slightly. The opening of the cabin doors allowed the heavily protected combat bridge to maintain good air circulation.

The refreshing fragrance of Chinese tea injects a wonderful spiritual power into Xia Shu's recent overused brain. After the refinement, the complex thoughts become clear and clear. Looking at his overall plan again, Xia Shu knew that there are always omissions in the thinking of ordinary people, and extremely meticulous plans may also have flaws due to sudden changes. If you want to win, you can only keep a calm mind at all times and deal with various complex real situations with a focused and decisive attitude.

"Gentlemen, there are still some problems with the pipes of the No. 4 boiler group. The engineers of the ship have worked very hard to repair them, but the full speed time lasts for up to an hour and a half, and then it will drop back to about 20 knots."

With the hot air exposed by the scorching sun, Captain Colonel Feng Lu followed the gangway to the combat bridge, without any restraint or self-blame. He asked the orderly officer for a cup of frozen fruit dew, and killed it in a few bites, and felt extremely comfortable.

Since the captain himself didn't think this was a big problem, the youngest fleet chief of staff in the history of the High Seas Fleet responded in a positive tone: "There are very few cases where large fleets require battleships to sprint at full speed, not to mention that the Caesar-class is the fastest among our battleships."

After hearing this, Colonel Lu showed a proud expression. Among the current dreadnoughts in various countries, the maximum speed of 24 knots is indeed at the top level. It can allow the Caesar class with a full load weight of 30,000 tons to run at such a speed. Hubert Power's impulse steam turbine is the first to be the best, and the good hull design also plays an important role. Of course, strictly speaking, "one" should be added at the end of Xia Shu's last sentence, because the 14 German dreadnoughts that all members of the crew were fighting include the newly-in-service King-class battleship "King". It is only 500 tons heavier than the Caesar class, but has a maximum power output of 42,000 horsepower. It ran an amazing speed of 25.2 knots in the overload test. In order to play the role of a surprise weapon, this data is not only strictly confidential to the outside world, but only a few senior generals within the German Navy know it, so people think that its speed is no different from that of the Caesar class.

The technical performance of the new German battleship is covered with a hazy veil, and the world has many speculations about its service time. Judging from its start time and the construction period of the two-level German dreadnoughtsman of Nassau and Helgoland, it should be completed between May and June 1914, and then as usual, equipment debugging, running-in and personnel training for several months, forming combat effectiveness at the earliest, at the end of 1914, while the service ceremony held by the German Navy was held at the end of June and was held earlier.

It can already be seen during the naval exercises. During the Kiel Navy Day, the "King" was open to foreign visiting ship officers and soldiers and German people, and the visit was limited to above the deck as usual. Judging from the hull specifications and upper layout, people can easily confused it with the Caesar-class. For such a huge battleship, the length difference of just 1.6 meters is really insignificant, not to mention that the firepower configuration is exactly the same, the bridge layout and mast style are not obvious.

At 4:25, the officers who ended the afternoon tea returned to their posts. The orderly officers had just pushed the food truck away. The young and diligent Captain Gold brought the latest reconnaissance report from the communication room. The LZ-09 Zeppelin, which belongs to the German Navy, saw a fleet sailing at a high speed in the direction of the Helgolan Bay in the middle of the North Sea. It was estimated that there were 6 large warships, 12 medium warships and 25 small warships. This reconnaissance data was highly consistent with the earlier U-44 report.

"If the Hippel fleet had been sailing at the planned route and speed, it would take another one and a half hours to meet the British mobile fleet, and we would have to take two and a half hours at our current speed."

Captain Gold did not make explicit suggestions when reporting his calculations, but made hints through the order of the statements.

After thinking about it, Natsuki suggested that Ingnoll order to increase the speed.

Up to now, whether it is the reconnaissance fleet shelling the British coast or the main force of the high seas, the main force of the fleet was secretly dispatched, everything was carried out according to the combat plan formulated by Xia Shucao and personally approved by the German Emperor. Despite this, the cautious Ingnoll still hesitated for a moment and ordered at 4:35: The 1st and 3rd battleship team, the 4th reconnaissance team, the 1st and 5th lightning strike team, the growth rate was 18 knots; the 2nd battleship team, the 2nd reconnaissance team, and the 4th lightning strike team, the growth rate was 16 knots; the only support team and the 9th lightning strike team continued to maintain the original speed of 15 knots.

In this way, the main force of the High Seas Fleet will gradually be divided into three parts, a main pioneer consisting of 14 dreadnoughts, 15 cruisers and large torpedo boats, a follow-up force consisting of 15 front dreadnoughts, 5 cruisers and 22 large torpedo boats, and a support force consisting of 8 torpedo boats, an aircraft carrier, 3 cruisers and 10 torpedo boats. Two hours later, the distance between the 1st battleship detachment in the front of the fleet will be about 10 nautical miles from the support squadron that is dragged to the last.

After repelling the pursuit of British torpedo boats and issued a battle report, the German reconnaissance squadron commanded by Hippel has maintained radio silence so that the opponent cannot use wireless direction finding technology to speculate its position. At the same time, the communications department on the squadron flagship "Sedlitz" closely monitored the communication signals between the enemy and us. After receiving the reconnaissance report of lz-09, Hippel quickly ordered the two ships "Sedlitz" and "Moltz" to eject water reconnaissance aircraft. When the aircraft catapult technology was invented two years ago, the Americans probably wouldn't have expected that the Germans on the other side of the ocean would put them into actual combat at such a lightning speed.

Like all new technologies, the aircraft ejection was not a test, or the operators were too nervous, or the aircraft engine itself had some technical defects. The Junker 3-C carried by the Moltke accidentally fell into the sea during the ejection process. Fortunately, the two pilots were safe, but the aircraft was seriously damaged and it was definitely no longer available during this battle. Hippel had to change the "Deflinger" catapult aircraft. Due to the size limitation of the "Blucher", it did not design a water reconnaissance aircraft for the entire reconnaissance squadron. At this point, only the "Gober" in the entire reconnaissance squadron has a water reconnaissance aircraft that can be used at any time.

In commemorating the famous Prussian general August Karl von Goben, who made great contributions in the Prussian war, the second ship of the Motch-class battlecruiser was named "Goben". In the original history, the name of this warship was closely linked to Ottoman Turkey and was deployed in the Mediterranean before the war. After the war broke out, it sailed to the Ottoman Empire to escape the pursuit of ships of the Allied Powers. It was nominally sold to the Turks, but it was continued to be driven by German officials and crew members, and then shelled Russia.

The coast forced the Ottoman Empire into the war, causing the war to spread to the Near East and Middle East. For this reason, the Allies had to consume a large amount of troops far away from the main battlefield, and the Ottoman Empire eventually embarked on the road of collapse. What is amazing is that when most German main battleships found their destination on the cold seabed of Scapa Bay, the "Goben" successively avoided the Allies' post-war liquidation and the subsequent World War II, and was not sold and disintegrated until 1971.

The Moltke-class battlecruiser designed by Natsuki's hand has better defense and power configuration than the historical original. In order to have a "reconnaissance squadron" as strong as possible at the start of the war, Natsuki used some tricks, which turned the German battleship sent to the Mediterranean in 1912 from the "Goben" to the slightly inferior "Von der Tannen", and the light cruiser "Breslau" that partnered with was stronger than the historical version of this class of warships. The firepower configuration of four dual-mounted 150mm naval guns can easily cope with most of the Allied cruisers built in advance.

After nearly 40 minutes of search flight, the Junker 3-C reconnaissance aircraft numbered R-024, which was successfully ejected from the "Sedlitz", finally saw the target. At a flight altitude of 700 meters, observer William Atner sergeant looked at the full picture of the British fleet through a pair of binoculars: the commander's flag was hung on a majestic Lion-class battle cruiser, followed by another Lion-class battle cruiser, followed by a Lion-class improved model, 1913

The "Queen Margaret" that was in service in the fall of 2018, and the other three battlecruisers were two tireless class and one invincible class. Their tonnage, layout and performance were almost the same. They were typical strong offensive and weak defense. Their armor thickness was even less than that of the German Navy's primary battle patrol "Blüchel". The protection design had serious flaws. Of course, before the world reached this conclusion through actual combat, they were still the deterrent main ships of the British Royal Navy.

According to the key points and techniques mastered in daily training, Sergeant Atner carefully observed the bow waves of several British ships and judged that the British fleet's speed was around 20 knots, which was much slower than the previous reconnaissance conclusions of German submarines. In terms of technology, the maximum speed of the British combat patrol was above 25 knots, and light cruisers were even better known for their speed. It is not difficult to travel at a 24 knots formation. What is difficult is to maintain such a high speed for a long time. With the metallurgical forging technology of this era, even the power technology

The British Navy, which has more mature and reliable technology, is prone to failure under large load operation, but compared with the Germans, the biggest advantage of the new British ships is that the oil-fired boiler reduces the labor intensity of the furnace drivers. Because of the concerns about fuel supply, the German Navy only designed and equipped the oil-fired boiler on the new cruiser that they valued. So far, all the dreadnoughts they built and served in service use coal-fired boilers, with low thermal efficiency and large loads, and the performance of the ship was affected to a certain extent.

The flight regulations formulated by the German Navy General Staff clearly require that the distance between one's aircraft and airships and the enemy ships should exceed the effective range of the small-caliber rapid-fire gun when performing reconnaissance missions, so as not to be able to transmit the crucial reconnaissance information to the one's fleet because the aircraft is shot down by the enemy. Therefore, after about 5 minutes of hovering reconnaissance, the R-024 piloted by Navy Florian turned around and returned, preparing to bring this crucial news back to the Hippel fleet. The R-030 that happened to take off from the "De Fringer" also flew to this area, and naturally replaced the R-024 to carry out tracking and reconnaissance on the British fleet.
Chapter completed!