At a distance of less than 7,000 yards, the thickest armor was not enough to give people an absolute sense of security. When the "Grand" exploded and sank in a not-so-gorgeous way, the bridge of the squadron flagship "Courage" fell into a dead silence. From the German Dreadnought team turned on the searchlight to the "Grand" disappeared from the sea, there were only five or six minutes in front of each other. In this extremely painful process, Lieutenant General Bernie's combat instructions did not play a role in turning the situation around, or rather, the Germans did not give him this opportunity at all. The firepower of the German Dreadnought guns in front of him was obviously even greater than that of the German warships that used triple main guns.

The destruction of the "Gorgeous" has become a fact. Lieutenant General Bernie realized that his primary task was not to defeat his opponent, but to save the remaining seven dreadnoughts. At this time, except for the "Default" in the front of the array, which had avoided the enemy's sharp edge, "Berrofon" and "Collingwood", "Giant", "Courtes", "Courage", and "Neptune" were all facing the attack of the German dreadnoughts team. Bernie had changed the previous fleet steering order to each ship directly turn toward the northeast, but their speed was less than 20 knots and the battle distance between the two sides did not increase.

After the sinking of the "Grand", the German Dreadnought Team turned the artillery fire to the "Giant". In almost a blink of an eye, the British battleship built at the same time as the German Caesar-class was covered by dense bomb rains, and the deck and side hulls showed a blazing flash of shell explosions. Although the waterline armor belt was thicker than the Palerolofeng class, the "Giant" turret and command tower armor remained at 11 inches. At the current combat distance, the 12-inch armor-piercing projectile of the German Dreadnought was completely likely to cause direct damage to these key areas.

Seeing that the Giant might repeat the mistakes of the Gorgeous at any time, Bernie's face was solemn and frown. Although the telegram sent by Jelico had clear arrangements, it was difficult to solve the danger in the moment. The artillery bombardment of the German Dreadnoughtsman team by "Courage" and "Avant-garde" had not been completed for a long time. At this time, the sea breeze was strong, and the smoke released by the two destroyers ordered to cover the Giant was still unable to form, which instead affected the sighting and shooting of the Giant. The situation was in a very unfavorable situation.

Just when he was desperate, Bernie suddenly received a report from subordinates. The observation personnel observed that the flame light emitted by naval gun fire appeared on the sea north of the German fleet, which was far more numerous than the German dreadnoughts in front of him. The water columns of artillery shells also appeared around several German dreadnoughts. According to the deployment and communication of the fleet, Bernie guessed that this was the old British battleship team left behind by the main fleet due to poor speed. It consisted of 8 Edward VII-class battleships, 1 Duncan-class fast battleship and some old light ships. Its absolute strength is less than 6 new German dreadnoughts, but it is an important restraining force on the battlefield in front of him.

At first, Bernie imagined that his squadron would join forces with the old battleship team to attack the German dreadnoughts from both north and south. However, thinking that all German dreadnoughts groups equipped with triple main guns might pounce from the left rear at any time, his intention to take a risk immediately turned around. In order to get out of the predicament as soon as possible and strive to meet with Jelico's new dreadnoughts group, Bernie issued a tactical command from his squadron flagship: each ship turns right and heads south.

Finally, Bernie ordered the communications officer to issue a supplementary order to "turn on the forward signal lights of each ship to avoid collisions between the same ships."

After receiving the new order, the seven British dreadnoughts, which were sailing east or northeast, and the escort light ships, turned clockwise. Most ships only needed to fight against increasingly harsh sea conditions. The "Giant" in the engagement position had to fight against the cruel fate. During the artillery battle, it once completed cross-fires of the German dreadnought team's lead ship, and two to three shells formed a near-lost bomb, but the price it paid was too high that it was hit by 9 rounds of the port hull, and the deck was built.

Five rounds of the bullet were hit, but they did not penetrate the armor and formed a penetration in half. The two port-side gun-shaped secondary guns were damaged due to direct attack. The ammunition exploded forcibly evacuated the gunners in the other six secondary guns, causing mechanical failures to rotate the main and auxiliary bridges to be fired due to the incident. Another 12-inch armor-piercing projectile penetrated from the base of the rear chimney, and exploded in the starboard oil storage tank, killing 9 crew members, injuring 16 people and losing hundreds of tons of fuel.

In order to interfere with the German fleet's artillery, the Giant was also constantly deploying smoke screens. The cigarette storage tanks on the side and tail of its ship were quickly exhausted, and later they could only use the method of adding smoke agent to the boiler to create artificial smoke. In the fierce artillery fire of six German dreadnoughts like storm, it completed a 125-degree right turn as if walking on thin ice, and the bow faced south and the stern head faced north. Two minutes later, the steel "giant" finally hid his huge body in the previously made smoke screen belt.

Just when all the British crew members on the ship thought they would get rid of the bad luck, an unexpected scene happened. Several red lights flashed in the dark gray smoke screen, and then a large ball of steam rushed upwards, instantly forming a white smoke column of up to 100 meters. Not long after, two British destroyers carrying out cover drove out from the southern end of the smoke screen belt, but the "Giant" was not seen for a long time. Under the blowing of the sea breeze, the smoke screen belt dissipated at a much faster speed than usual. The hazy shadow of a large warship could be seen in the depths of the fog. The signal lights on the ship emitted an unsettling message: the boiler compartment of this ship exploded, the engine stopped, the speed was lost, and the repair was being carried out with all efforts.

In normal times, the temporary loss of speed of ships only means delays in the range, but on the battlefield, this situation often brings fatal consequences. After the Bernie Squadron turned, the powerful and dominant German Dreadnoughtsman team also made adjustments. They ignored the threats and interference from the north and continued to pursue their embarrassing opponents with a speed advantage of 2 knots. On the sea in the northwest, the Lance formation composed of Nassau and Helgolan-class dreadnoughts turned right 60 degrees, and from the northeast to the northeast to the east, forming a pincer attack on the Bernie Squadron. Aware of the changes in the battlefield situation, Lieutenant General Bernie made the most important and bravest decision in his life: each ship turned right 16 compass points, concentrate firepower to attack the enemy fleet's leading guide ships!

In the Battle of Jutland in history, Reinhart Schell, who was then the German High Seas Fleet, resolutely led the main fleet, which was at a disadvantage, to fight back, but ended up hitting the British fleet in a strong battle. In just over a dozen minutes, the high seas Fleet suffered the heaviest blow in that naval battle. No matter how strong the defense of the German main ship was, it could not withstand the intensive bombardment of the enemy's heavy artillery. In order to help the main fleet escape from danger, Hippel led the German battle patrol formation.

The famous "death sprint" in history was launched. Although all German battle patrols survived, they had lost more than 70% of their combat effectiveness at that time and almost escaped from the battlefield. In order to repair the ships injured in the Battle of Jutland, German shipyards spent a lot of steel reserves, which seriously affected the construction progress of the ships under construction. The subsequent two Bavarian-class ships and the final battle patrol of the Makenson-class were not completed until the end of the war...

Due to the relative dispersion of the main fleets of both sides, Lieutenant General Bernie did not face an unprecedented battle of hundreds of warships fighting each other. After turning again, his squadron temporarily got rid of the difficult old opponent of the Lance formation and instead invested in a limited battle between seven old-fashioned dreadnoughts against six new dreadnoughts. While he gathered "Fearless", "Berrerofon", "Colorwood", "Courage", and "Neptune" into a relatively compact single-line column, he called the commander of the Great Fleet Jelico and the commander of the old-fashioned battleship detachment, Bradford, respectively, to inform them of their own battlefield decisions, and added the words "May God be blessed" at the end of the telegram to show determination.

When Lieutenant General Bernie led six dreadnoughts toward the Giant, stranded in the middle of the battlefield, the German dreadnoughts unit led by the flagship of the German High Seas Fleet, Frederick the Great, had approached this eye-catching behemoth first. Although the sea was still filled with smoke mixed with artificial smoke and hot steam, more than ten high-power searchlights of "Frederick the Great" and "Caesar" still reflected the outline of the "Giant", providing full convenience for the sighting and shooting of "King", "King Albert", "Regent of Louis Potter" and "Caesar". Driven by the belief in victory, the German gunners were in high spirits, with five Caesar-class and new suits.

The "King" was in a fast shooting state that made the opponent's neck difficult for a long time. The rumbling cannon sounded like a group of drummers fighting to beat the drums. At a distance of 2,500 to 4,000 meters, they began to show a terrible hit rate. The "Giant" surrounded by dense water columns was shot one after another. The continuous direct strike of the 12-inch armor-piercing projectile destroyed the two main turrets on its rear deck. The first engine shutdown caused by the piercing and causing the rear bridge was collapsed. The No. 2 chimney located at the back of the section was swallowed by terrifying flames. The flame reflected the figures of the crew members who were tired of repairs and fire extinguishing, and also provided additional guidance for the German fleet's artillery bombardment.

“The starboard target distance is 2,000 meters!”

Unlike Bernie who was killed, when he heard the sighting data reported by the shooting command room, Xia Shu quietly experienced everything that the battle brought, including tension, excitement, anxiety, joy and all kinds of indescribable senses. At present, the old British battleship squadrons appearing on the port side of the sea are constantly firing shells, but the landing distance is still far and it does not constitute a substantial threat. If nothing unexpected happens, the Hippel fleet will restrain them in time and create an excellent opportunity for commanding the 1st and 3rd battleship squadrons to severely damage the British old-fashioned dreadnought group. This kind of mutual plot and response to the battle, the victory or defeat depends on the time to grasp the battle, which can best give people a heartbeat stimulation.

The officers of the Fleet Command collectively maintained a pretended calm state, while Colonel Feng Lu did not hide his pride and overwhelming confidence: "The last two rounds of volleys, let's get rid of this unlucky guy!"

As soon as he finished speaking, the "Giant" was baptized by the scattered artillery fire again. The ship was flashing with explosive flames everywhere, and the cabin and deck quickly turned into a purgatory on earth. At such a close distance, the German warship that lowered the muzzle began to name the superstructure of the "Giant": the main turrets on the front and rear decks and the main turrets on the side of the ship were damaged one by one under the continuous bombardment of armor-piercing bombs, and the towering main bridge was hit one after another. The rolling black smoke rolled out of the terrifying dark red flames, and the silhouetted secondary gun located at the back of the bridge was also destroyed by the opponent's precise shelling. Unconsciously, its tall triangular mast had obvious tilts, and the water inlet in the rear cabin was worse than the front, and the starboard side was worse than the port side. This huge warship had no power and could only go with the flow in the wind and waves.
Chapter completed!