1890 King of Southeast Asia

"Order the destroyers to move forward and release torpedoes and smoke."

"After the destroyers are dispatched, starting with the Blücher, the fleet will turn right and return to Wilhelmshaven."

Hippel considered the issue of fighting for a while, and finally chose to give up the continued fighting and prepare to retreat.

The current situation is that the German Navy's 9 battlecruisers are facing the British Royal Navy's 5 battlecruisers, and the German Navy has the upper hand.

However, the British battlecruisers appearing here have more significance than that. It symbolizes that the British have discovered their actions and sent out the main battlecruisers.

Hippel can be sure that he is facing 5 ships now, and once he gets into a fight, he doesn't know how many ships he will face.

After all, this is near the coast. Once the British stick to them, the surrounding British warships will soon come to reinforce or block their way back to Wilhelmshaven.

If they want to run away at that time, they will have to pay a huge price and let a significant unit go to cover their retreat.

The current situation is that they have at least sunk two British warships and seriously damaged one, with a total tonnage of 10,000 tons. They have already made a profit.

It is better to stop while they are ahead. Although it is a bit ugly to have only achieved this achievement with a fleet of 200,000 tons, at least they have not lost anything.

"General, if we turn right in front of the enemy, even if there are destroyers interfering, we may face heavy losses."

"Why don't we turn left, make a circle, and then return."

The chief of staff couldn't help but suggest.

A large turn in front of the enemy is already very dangerous, not to mention that the German battlecruiser fleet is facing the British diagonally with the starboard side.

Turning is not just holding the steering wheel and turning it. At present, the German battlecruisers maintain a battle formation, and the distance between the ships is between 3 and 4 chains.

That is about 600 meters, and the minimum turning radius of the battleship is also 500 to 700 meters. The turning radius varies with the ship tonnage, speed, and ship type.

When the fleet turns, for safety reasons, they have to keep their distance and turn in batches gradually, and then reorganize the fleet formation after the turn is completed.

During this period, the change in the direction of the warship is unknown, and the fire control system is still at the stage of visual aiming and hand-cranked computer calculation, so the artillery can basically not work normally.

It can be fired, but it is unknown where it can be fired.

When you turn, the enemy will not rest. Without the interference of artillery fire, the enemy's gunners can aim leisurely and carry out saturation attacks in possible directions. The heading of the warship is very easy to judge when turning, so the attack efficiency is very high.

"Turning left can indeed avoid the British artillery, but this will waste at least 40 minutes, and we don't have that much time."

"The British fleet must have been dispatched, and our support will arrive at least 18 hours later."

"Now it depends on whether we move faster or the British move faster. If we are a little slower than the British, the main force of the 1st Reconnaissance Fleet will be lost in the North Sea."

"For the main fleet and the entire German Navy, this is an unbearable loss. If the fleet is left here, the battle fleet will lose its cover in the strategic decisive battle, which may lead to the failure of the battle."

"So, I must bring the fleet back, in the safest way, and bring as many ships as possible back."

Hippel looked at the destroyers that went forward and explained softly.

"Yes! I understand." The chief of staff nodded. They were not fools. Turning left was just a subconscious choice to seek benefits and avoid harm.

Hipper said this, and the chief of staff had figured it out. The only advantage of turning left is that the ship can be straightened as soon as possible, and the entire fleet does not need major adjustments and can be put into battle immediately.

However, to the left is the British Isles, and the further they travel, the farther they are from their home port. To turn back again, they need to make a 180-degree turn.

Although they are far away from the battlefield during this turn, they will pay a heavy price if they encounter warships from the south during the turn.

The south is the English Channel, London, and the core area of ​​the British Empire. Hipper is not surprised even if a battleship squadron rushes up.

"The fleet has been dispersed, General, please hold the handrail, and then we will make a large-angle maneuver." The captain said respectfully to Hipper.

The destroyers have already moved forward, and the destroyer in the front is only 7 kilometers away from the route of the Beatty Fleet. Of course, it is farther away from the Beatty Fleet.

After all, the warships were moving, and the destroyers were firing ahead of time. Hipper sent out the destroyers to disrupt Beatty's formation and prevent them from firing leisurely.

Tong!

Torpedoes were ejected from the torpedo tubes of the destroyers, and the engines started after entering the water, pushing the torpedoes to rush quickly to the scheduled route.

...

On the Beatty fleet side, the five Lion-class battlecruisers had fired several rounds of shells. Because the main purpose was to attract the attention of the German army, the first two rounds were simply aimed at a distance from the German army.

The subsequent bombardment did have a certain result.

During the fourth round of salvos from the Lion battlecruiser, a 356mm shell hit the middle of the two secondary gun positions on the starboard side of the Moltke battlecruiser. This hit opened a hole in the middle of the Moltke's hull. Although the secondary guns on both sides were not destroyed, the artillery was severely damaged.

Royal Princess scored a hit with both her fifth and sixth salvos, the former hitting her target, the Derfflinger-class battlecruiser Lützow.

Both 305mm shells hit the starboard waterline armor of the Lützow battlecruiser.

The first shell hit the rear of the bow, between the No. 1 and No. 2 turrets, and the second shell hit directly below the midship, which is also the thickest position of the waterline armor.

In theory, the waterline armor of the hull was hit by larger caliber shells one after another. Even if it would not be silenced, it would tilt due to water ingress, thereby reducing the speed.

However, the problem of the British Navy's shells was that the shell fuse was too sensitive, causing the 356mm shells to explode the moment they touched the armor, and they had no time to penetrate the armor structure.

In addition, the British and Germans had different concepts in warship design. The Germans emphasized protection, and the British emphasized offense.

The thickest part of the waterline armor of the Lützow battlecruiser was 12 inches, or 305 mm, tilted 17 degrees, and adopted an armored box layout. Its defense capability is comparable to that of a battleship.

Combined with these two factors, the two large-caliber shells from the Royal Princess did not have much impact on the battlecruiser Lützow.

The explosion had only some impact on the armor, causing it to dent, and nothing else.

Betty saw with his own eyes that two clouds of thick smoke came out of a German warship in succession, but it had no effect at all, and even the speed did not decrease, and it continued to maneuver.

"How thick is the German armor? The shells fired by the 14-inch main gun cannot penetrate it, and this is still a battlecruiser. What about their battleships?"

(14 inches equals 356 mm, and 15 inches equals 381 mm.)

"Do we have a battlecruiser that can compete with the German battlecruiser in terms of defense?" The chief of staff couldn't help but be shocked.

This kind of performance is hard to see in a traditional aristocrat.

"Perhaps, Renown can do it. Renown still uses 14-inch main guns because it can't wait for the development and manufacture of 15-inch main guns. The excess tonnage is allocated to armor and power."

Betty frowned and said uncertainly.

The sturdiness of the German battlecruiser exceeded his imagination. It couldn't even penetrate the 356mm shells.

At this time, the British knew that there was a problem with their shell fuses, but they didn't pay enough attention. They didn't know that the problem with the shells was so serious that it directly affected the combat effectiveness.

"The Queen Mary hit, but still didn't penetrate the core area of ​​the Germans. Only we caused visible damage to the slightly smaller warship." The staff pointed to a battleship behind the Moltke.

That was the target of the Queen Mary, the Seydlitz battlecruiser, which was an improved version of the Moltke class. There was only one ship of the same class.

In terms of firepower, the 305mm 50-caliber main gun is still maintained, but the armor and speed are optimized. This optimization is to prepare for the manufacture of the Derfflinger-class battlecruiser, so the protection and speed of the two are not much different.

The Queen Mary also only hit one round, and at a distance of 156 kilometers, this round hit the turret ring of the Seydlitz.

The Queen Mary's shell fuse was not a problem this time, but the distance was too far, and there was a certain problem with the angle of incidence of the shell, so that the 356mm shell failed to penetrate the 305mm thick Krupp armor.

In the eyes of Beatty and the fleet staff, the fire from the turret of the Seydlitz proved that the Queen Mary hit it, but there was no more.

Because the German army was turning, the Seydlitz did not use its main gun to fight back, so Beatty did not know that this shell had temporarily disabled the front main gun of the Seydlitz.

The vibration caused by the explosion of the 356mm shells damaged the seat ring transmission system of the No. 1 turret of the Seydlitz. The turret could not move at present. After a full 40 minutes, the front main gun of the Seydlitz was put back into use.

Moreover, due to the damage to the rangefinder and aiming system of the turret, the turret lost the ability to fire independently and could only fire according to the parameters provided by the fire control system.

"Close the distance and order the fleet to concentrate on attacking the battlecruiser Moltke and damage one first." Seeing that the continuous hits failed to break the defense, Beatty gave up the idea of ​​damaging several ships first and wanted to sink one first.

As long as one ship is sunk, or just its speed is reduced, the British will win this battle.

"Enemy ships release torpedoes, change the route immediately to avoid." The chief of staff pointed to the German destroyer fleet and said.

"Allow avoidance." Beatty observed for a while and gave up the idea of ​​turning left.

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