On the sea about 70 nautical miles northeast of Floris Island, the German fleet is crossing the front of the British fleet. All warships face the enemy with the port side, and all main guns and single-sided guns can play a role in combat. This is the standard tactic of seizing the t-head. In this state, British warships can only fight back to the artillery in the past. To resolve this very passive situation, they must quickly adjust their course under the fierce enemy artillery fire.

The Germans would not easily waste this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. The two German battle patrols only carried out two rounds of alternate shooting and turned into volleys. The second round of "Prince Heinrich" and the third round of "Earl of Tirpitz" formed cross-fires on the enemy flagships respectively. Just six minutes after the battle started again, "Prince Heinrich" showed his power, and two consecutive shots hit the Hood directly. One piece of the bow of the British battle patrol was blown away, and the fire ignited again. The thick smoke had seriously affected the sighting correction of the shooting commanders.

The "Prince Heinrich" took the lead. Although the officers and soldiers of the "Earl of Tirpitz" were not willing to fall behind, they were really lucky today. Four consecutive volleys all formed cross-fires at the enemy ship, but they only bloomed but did not bear fruit. It was not until the eighth round of the volley that the Hu opened. The shells exploded a second large gap in the bow of the "Hod". It seemed that it was just a painless blow.

Two Count Tirpitz-class battlecruisers launched violent shellings on enemy ships. Two light cruisers in the German fleet also opened fire on the British fleet for the first time in this naval battle. Their three-mounted 150mmskc/26 naval guns were equipped with a maximum range of kilometers, with a combat rate of 7-8 rounds per minute. Although their shell power was difficult to shake the British main battleship, it was still more than enough to deal with British cruisers of the same level. The artillery battle lasted for ten minutes. The two German light cruisers fired more than 800 main shells, six of which hit the enemy ships directly, and several of them were missing near bullets. One British light cruiser was beaten to pieces, and another destroyer was unfortunately beaten.

During the most difficult ten minutes, the British gritted their teeth and survived. The distance between the two fleets increased to 18,000 meters. The British fleet sailed eastward in the northeastern sea, and the Germans sailed northeastern in the southwest sea. If both sides maintained their respective courses, it would soon become a situation where the German fleet followed and pursued the British fleet. Of course, the commanders of both sides had a cautious and rational option at this time, which was to gradually break away from combat contact and each gained a draw without a distinction between victory and loss.

In the following time, William August and Dudley Pound reflected their choice in the fleet's actions. The German fleet turned left to north, and the British fleet turned right to south, and returned to the parallel duel arena again!

William August's intention was to drag the British fleet and wait for the second wave of carrier-based aircraft group to take off from the "Emperor Carl". The enemy flagship was hit by artillery fire, and the sighting equipment and various types of secondary guns on the ship must have been damaged a lot, and the air firepower has been greatly reduced. This gave the brave and warlike Ju-17 an opportunity to take advantage of it. As long as it can sink this British super battle cruise, the German Atlantic Squadron's adventure will be a great success. The halo of sinking the enemy's main warship for the first time since the war started will surely make his personal reputation at its peak.

Dudley Pound's intention was to hold back his opponent. He knew very well that the German naval power in the Azores was centered on these two Count Tirpitz-class battlecruisers. The performance of those old combat patrols and dreadnoughts had long fallen behind. As long as they could settle the two Count Tirpitz-class in front of them, even if they were only severely damaged, it would play a positive role in the United States and Britain's strategy of joining forces to capture the Azores. What's more, the British Navy, which suffered a crushing defeat in the last war, was in need of a happy revenge to resolve the frustration of years of depression.

After the previous battle, the three ships "Hood", "Earl of Tirpitz" and "Prince Heinrich" have all been damaged to varying degrees, but the "Rodney" is intact. In simple long-range artillery battles, the British fleet has another significant advantage, which is that they have one more heavy cruiser than their opponents. In terms of tonnage and military equipment, most heavy cruisers designed and built in the 1920s can be regarded as "quasi-fighterships". Some heavy cruisers are even more powerful than early battle cruisers, such as the "Cumberland" in the Dudley-Pound formation. This British Kent-class heavy cruiser was born before the signing and implementation of the Limerick International Naval Treaty. Its standard displacement is 14,700 tons, equipped with 9 50-fold 9.2-inch (4mm) naval guns, the armor thickness in the key protection area is 4-6 inches, and the maximum speed is 31 knots. In terms of these major indicators, the Kent-class is no less than the Irish Danu class and the German Prince Albert class, but its cost is only 89% of the German heavy cruiser, and 53% of the Irish heavy cruiser, and the cost performance advantage is still obvious.

Under the dispatch of Dudley-Pound, the Cumberland locked the artillery fire on the German flagship "Earl of Tirpitz". Judging from the situation of the two sides' confrontation, this seems not a very wise choice. After all, the armor-piercing projectile of the 9.2-inch naval gun cannot threaten important parts of the German battle patrol at a distance of more than 10,000 meters, and cannot penetrate through the layers of horizontal decks and enter the lower cabin. At best, it will cause some damage to its deck buildings and auxiliary weapons, create a tense atmosphere for the enemy, and thus disrupt the normal performance of the enemy ship officers and soldiers.

After the last adjustment of the course, the distance between the two fleets gradually decreased from 18,000 meters to 15,000 meters, which was the closest distance between the two fleets since the fight. Due to the damage in many places, the shooting accuracy and speed of the Hood showed a significant decline. The Rodney became the backbone of the British fleet, and the Cumberland was performing better and better. Two German battle patrols were shot one after another. The Prince Heinrich ignited a fire for the second time. The main bridge rangefinder and the second turret rangefinder of the "Earl of Tirpitz" were damaged, and the combat situation began to develop in a direction that was beneficial to the British.

At this moment, the real turning point occurred. The second batch of carrier-based aircraft taken off from the German aircraft carrier "Emperor Carl" and the bomber group flying from the Floris Air Force Base arrived at the battlefield one after another under the radio guidance of the German fleet. With the combat command issued by the "Earl of Tirpitz", eight ju-17s decisively launched an attack on the "Hood". They dived from a height of 1,000 meters and passed through the British fleet's air defense fire network with lightning speed. One heavy armor-piercing bomb after another stirred up storm on the British battle patrol side. Finally, an aviation bomb hit "Hood" The USS., with huge kinetic energy, penetrated the armor on the top of the British ship No. 1 main turret, hit the tail of the gun in the combat room, and then exploded. The terrible power of the bomb plus the three warheads placed in the combat room and more than 200 kilograms of launching medicine were exploded on the spot. The main turret with a total weight of more than 1,500 tons was equivalent to a destroyer and then disintegrated in the air. Three gun barrels with a single weight of nearly 200 tons and the armor plate of the turret that had split into pieces hit hard on the scarred front deck, causing the tail of the warship to lift upward in an instant, and part of the propeller and rudder appeared on the water surface...

In the last war, the most important reason for the powerful British war patrol formation was the brand of shame. The weak defense was the main reason. After the war, the British Navy learned deeply and combined with the technical expertise of the US shipbuilding industry, it completed the design and construction of a new generation of war patrol. Its success was reflected on the battlefield. The main turret of the "Hood" No. 1 was completely damaged in a violent explosion, but the ammunition depot located below the main turret did not have a fatal explosion of double-layer armored partitions and numerous fire doors that blocked the impact of the explosion. The automatic water injection system immediately started to operate, and tons of sea water were injected into the ammunition depot in just 30 seconds to prevent the ammunition depot containing more than 400 main shells and nearly 200 tons of fired medicine from becoming Pandora's box for the warship of destruction.

As the saying goes, blessings are unparalleled, but misfortunes never come alone. All the officers and soldiers of the "Hood" had just walked on the brink of death, and then suffered a heavy blow. An armor-piercing bomb dropped by the German fighter jets into the water sideways. The violent explosion instantly caused a wave of water a hundred meters high. The main armored belt under the water line was immediately exploded, and a terrible hole was poured into the main armored belt from the four oil storage tanks and seven water-tight tanks where the partition plate was broken. The damaged personnel blocked the leakage and rescued the water pumps and drained all the water pumps at full force. These emergency measures still could not prevent the huge hull from tilting to the left. In order to prevent the warship from capsizing, the captain had to order corresponding water in the starboard watertight tank, and the speed of the warship was thus reduced to 16 knots. This change made the tactical maneuver power of the British fleet almost no longer exist.

The German Air Force Base on Floris Island is small in size, with only dozens of combat aircraft for patrol and surveillance deployed, so it was not included in the first strike target by the US and British fleets. The tactical bombers and dive bombers that took off from here did not hesitate to attack the British fleet. The incomparable "Hood" was still the best choice for German pilots. In just over a dozen minutes, more than fifty aviation bombs of all sizes fell down on it. The British patrol, who had lost its power, struggled desperately under the cover of friendly ships, and even shot down German aircraft during the battle. However, as the degree of damage continued to deepen, Dudley Pound, who was commanding the battle on the bridge, began to feel desperate.
Chapter completed!