Neither the cover of night and smoke, nor the strong support of its own fleet, these British light ships, which had weak defenses, still rushed towards their opponents without hesitation. This situation may remind people of the Battle of Sardova and the decisive battle of the Prussian and Austrian war. The Austrian cavalry used nearly suicide charges to win valuable time for the retreat of the infantry. At that time, the Prussian army was equipped with breech striker rifles for the first time, and the dense firepower eventually gave the Austrian cavalry extremely heavy damage...

From the scene, the British lightning strike fleet launched an attack on four German battle cruisers and four light cruisers with 5 cruisers and 17 destroyers, which had a great advantage in number. However, the effective tonnage of the 22 British warships was only 42,000 tons, which was less than half of the German reconnaissance fleet. The firepower output was also at an absolute disadvantage. What's more fatal is that the German fleet had superb combat qualities and had made careful combat deployments. The officers and soldiers responded without any hesitation and carried out fierce, accurate and rapid shooting under the organization of the "Sedlitz". Almost from the first minute of turning the muzzle, they were ruthlessly massacring the British light ship fleet.

The German battle patrol "Blüchel" turned its main gun and found the target for the first time. The water column aroused by the shells happened to form a stunning wall of water in the middle of the British fleet. The second rapid shooting, with a 40-second interval, was still surprisingly lucky. A shell hit the bridge of the British destroyer "Spear". Several officers, including the captain, died on the spot. The violent explosion also caused a fire across the ship, and the speed also dropped sharply, forcing subsequent ships to detour.

Although the German reconnaissance cruiser "Stralsund" which was heavily bombarded by British battlecruisers during the outpost artillery battle lost a main turret and the bottom cabin was flooded with more than 200 tons of sea water. After emergency repairs, it returned to the battle line and launched extremely fiercely. The 150mm shells it fired quickly damaged the British destroyer "Legislature", causing it to ignite a raging flame, and then injured the Cardinal, forcing the two ships to withdraw from the battle one after another.

Compared with the "Blüchel", which is helping the gods, the "Gobe" with four triple main turrets made up for the shortcomings of luck with diligence. It had previously fired 420 280mm shells and 366 150mm shells, with an overall hit rate of about two percent. After adjusting the target, the crew continued to work hard. The two fast and accurate "right-revolver fire" had not been completed. An armor-piercing shell hit the British light cruiser "Blonde". The shell weighed more than 300 kilograms and directly tore the front armor of the turret like a can. Under the action of the delay fuse, the shell exploded after it penetrated two decks in a row. The huge chemical reaction easily overturned the turret, and smoke composed of underburned particles rushed straight into the air fifty or sixty meters.

Immediately afterwards, the "Gobon" slightly adjusted the shooting parameters. Although the new round of shooting did not directly hit the "Blonde Man", the water column aroused almost swallowed up the entire warship in an instant. Two large-caliber shells fell near the side of the ship and became "nearly missing bombs". The power of the explosion made extremely irregular holes in the outer wall of the lower ship of the "Blonde Man". The sea water quickly poured in from these thrusts, turning the bottom cabin of the warship into a water storage tank.

Before the seawater flooded the "Blonde" in the ship boiler, another volley of the "Goben" came to life. A 280mm caliber armor-piercing bomb hit the armor belt on its port side, carrying huge kinetic energy. The armor-piercing bomb easily penetrated its layers of decks like tearing paper, and eventually triggered a big explosion in the ship's ammunition depot. The warship of more than 3,000 tons was like a hydrogen balloon ignited by a Mars. Its whole body was instantly engulfed by a blazing fireball, and only one of the officers and soldiers in the ship survived.

After killing the Blonde, the Goben pointed the muzzle at the British destroyers that were rushing forward. Through continuous, regardless of consumption, the battlecruiser sank the 1,200-ton British destroyer "Defender" in one breath. Because it detonated the torpedo that was waiting to be launched on the ship, the "Defender" was instantly blown into countless debris like a wooden barrel, causing some interference to several nearby British destroyers.

In the Hippel fleet, the "De Fringer" is undoubtedly the most technologically advanced combat power. Its turret spiral is driven by water pressure, and each main gun is independently pitched. Each tube is equipped with an electric motor, equipped with an electric bullet pusher, a water pressure gyro-elevator and a bullet mover. The launching package is stored in a brass cartridge as usual. It is taken out of the cartridge when used, reducing the risk of ammunition being exploded. The theoretical rate of fire of its main gun reaches 3 rounds per minute; the turret structure of the 150mm secondary gun is equipped with an electric bullet mover, and the supply speed reaches 18 rounds per minute. Although the bullet moves, loading and casting are still man-made, and the effective rate of fire and continuous rate of fire are significantly better than the battleship gun position of pure man-powered ammunition. After the warm-up of the previous stage, the gunners fired

The accuracy of the strike and the efficiency of the artillery fire gradually improved. The ship was flashing with the flames of artillery firing at all times. The smoke of the fired medicine made its new and powerful hull always shrouded in gray-black smoke. During the turn of the fleet, the two double main guns at the stern of the ship carried out seven rounds of rapid shooting in succession. The shells were all ordinary shells. One shot hit the British light cruiser "Nottingham" and almost exploded its bow. Two shots caused near-loss damage to it. Another shot landed on the starboard side of the British destroyer "Cardinal", leaving a rupture of more than a meter long on the outer wall of its hull. The surging sea water made the brave destroyer quickly lag behind his companions. After emergency repairs, it continued to fight.

Since the German fleet adopted a right-turning maneuver of a large radius, British light ships that launched torpedo attacks needed to sail a longer distance to enter the effective range. In the first 5 minutes, they were basically in a passive attack situation. After the distance was closer, these high-speed assault light ships could still only shoot at the German fleet with bow and part of the side artillery. At this time, Hippel's battle cruiser had shifted from the southeast to the north, and returned to parallel to Betty's four battle cruisers, but the distance between the two increased from 9,000 meters at the closest to 22,000 meters, which basically exceeded the effective range of the guns of both sides.

After turning, the four German battle patrols still maintained the original order, namely, the leader of the "De Flinger", "Moltke" and "Gobe" were in the center, and behind the domineering "Blücher", the ships maintained a combat distance of 300 meters between each ship. More than 500 meters behind the starboard side of the "Blücher" were the German light cruiser "Strasbourg", followed by "Magdeburg", "Stralsund" and "Rostock". As for the other two light cruisers of the Hippel reconnaissance fleet, the "Mainz" was still providing supplies to the water reconnaissance aircraft in the distance, and the "Korbor" and the "Sedlitz" sailed west of the battle patrol formation.

"Torpedo! The enemy ship launches torpedoes, and two were found on the sea 2,000 meters behind the port side!"

The high decibel shouts sounded almost at the same time on German warships, especially those battle cruisers. After paying an extremely heavy price, the British lightning strike fleet group composed of light cruisers and destroyers finally passed the "death zone" in the center of the battlefield. As soon as they approached the torpedo range, the first batch of torpedoes could not wait to launch the first batch of torpedoes. The promotion of the Second Industrial Revolution led to the rapid development of mechanical technology, and various designs competed to compete. Surface ships equipped with underwater torpedo tubes are still the mainstream configuration in the naval field in this era. Overwater torpedo tubes placed on the deck or on the side of the ship appeared in

On some small and medium-sized ships, in the British Navy, both the latest and most powerful George V-class battleships and the fastest and most powerful Lion-class battlecruisers are equipped with several underwater torpedo launchers. The newly commissioned Dandong class in France, the newly built Earl Cafur class in Italy, the combined forces of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and the battlecruisers of the Japanese Navy from Britain have also retained this configuration. Among the great powers, only the United States and Germany chose the "alternative" design idea. They resolutely excluded the torpedo launching equipment from the weapon list of the main battleships, and focused on developing naval guns and sighting equipment.

The underwater torpedo launcher is operated concealedly, and the water torpedo launcher is flexible in operation. Both are leading the way. However, whether it is the white-headed torpedo in the UK or the black-headed torpedo in Germany, they are all thermal torpedoes, namely steam gas torpedoes. They use fuel and water to generate steam to drive the thermal engine to rotate and generate thrust. They are stable and efficient. However, the discharged steam forms a clear tail in the water. No matter whether it is a fixed depth of 3 meters, 5 meters or 10 meters, these tails are easily observed by the observation personnel on the ship and perform evasion or interception in advance.

The various ships of the formation issued torpedo warnings. The "Sedlitz" with bullet marks seemed useless, but it was actually unhindered. Seeing that Betty had fled with four battle patrols in a panic, Hippel no longer concealed him. He decisively led the flagship to move closer to the battle patrol formation. When the fleet in the formation was attacked by torpedoes, the flagship was difficult to play the role of unified dispatch. The ships often used passive defense skills on their own. In this case, the fleet was very likely to lose the array. If there was any carelessness, collisions might occur between ships. However, if tactical arrangements were made in advance, the commanders of each ship could strictly implement the established strategies in the tense and complex battles, and they could add active factors to the passive defense skills to form a more effective defense and avoid giving enemy ships an opportunity to take advantage of them.

In order to avoid the incoming torpedoes, four German battle cruisers turned to the right. At first glance, their tactical maneuvering narrowed their distance from the British lightning strike fleet, providing convenience for the opponent's subsequent attacks. In fact, the 150mm and 88mm secondary guns that lowered the muzzle are fully exerting the attack power of the German rapid-fire gun. As the distance is closer, the German battle patrol hits the target almost every three shells, and in terms of naval guns, a British reconnaissance cruiser that attacks the front usually has only two 4-inch guns.

The diagonal sprint can be increased to 6, and some small-caliber machine guns can be put into combat. The firepower of a British destroyer in the same situation is roughly two-thirds of that of a reconnaissance cruiser. Even if the shooting accuracy is not considered, a lightning strike team led by a reconnaissance cruiser, including 4-5 destroyers, is not enough to compete with the firepower of the same German combat patrol. Within two minutes, four German combat patrols and four accompanying light patrols beat one British warship after another with fierce artillery fire like storm, making the flames rise and the black smoke roll.

It took about two minutes for the British torpedo to swim over 2,000 meters. During this period, the German warship's sub-cannons spared no effort to intercept and fire at the torpedoes that were dragging their tails. In order to prevent torpedo attacks, the British Navy's main ships adopted the combination of dynamic and static strategies of installing anti-torpedo nets and assembling small-caliber machine guns. Although the main ships of the German High Seas Fleet were tirelessly assembled and used lightning protection nets during training and maritime inspections, they disassembled these cumbersome equipment during wartime. They were pragmatic.
Chapter completed!