Chapter 7: The Horror of Dogger Bank (8)

  A beautiful port turn, the Lion-class battlecruiser turned 180 degrees on the surface of the North Sea, opening a circle of fragmented white waves. David Beatty was determined to personally end his decade-long friendship with Wang Haitian, and the giant ship with the Z flag followed the direction of the Maukei's advance, chasing at a maximum speed of 27 knots.

  At 19:33, the unwillingly battered Wittmann Teiche made a desperate move. The smoke screen was released from the battleship Moltke, and its massive body disappeared into the moonlight and thick smoke, heading northeast. At the same time, about 500 meters to the right of the Moltke, Oberleutnant Hermann G?ring and his comrades, like the Nibelungen in ancient German epic poetry, lit up the lifeboats without hesitation. The burning oil drums and coal quickly produced bright orange flames and towering smoke columns, which pierced through the darkness of the North Sea and were imprinted on the eyes of the lookout on the battleship Lion.

  "Contact bearing 2-7, range 4,100 yards!"

  Lookout mistakenly thought that the large fire on the Mogami, which had been extinguished by hiding in the moon shadow, was rekindled, and hastily reported to the main gun command tower and the stern chart room to correct the shooting parameters.

  At 19:39, Lion's main armament unleashed a hail of shells, with the 13.5-inch guns creating a wall of flame near the lifeboats, the blast from which nearly shattered the wooden boats, and the splashing water smashed the oil drums' fire into fragments.

  While the British were distracted by the lifeboats, German damage control parties shored up watertight doors that had been loosened by water pressure and near-miss shock; wounded on deck were carried to the dressing station, then hastily covered with canvas and carried below into unused compartments; the remaining common and capped armor-piercing shells were sent up from the magazines by the ammunition hoists, and rammed into the main armament's breeches.

  Due to the destruction of the power system in Turret D, the gunners with earplugs and the sailors who came to help had to roll up their sleeves and laboriously operate the heavy manual winch to adjust the main gun's firing angle. The K turret was filled with thick smoke, and the gunners had to wear gas masks to receive data from the command tower, waiting for the firing order.

  Just as the USS Missouri was comforting the wounded and brewing a counterattack, the German U-boat crew had fallen into desperation. Although they stuck their sturdy bodies to the lifeboat's deck to avoid being hit by shrapnel and water columns, the 13.5-inch main gun was too powerful for the lifeboat. At 19:43, an armor-piercing shell exploded in the sea about 50 meters away from the lifeboat, and the huge waves it stirred still capsized the small boat.

  Three brave warriors fell into the sea, their bodies lost forever. The iron bucket filled with coke coal sank directly into the shallow muddy seabed, while the fuel oil in the oil drum leaked out, and the faint flames danced on the dark surface of the water like a soldier's determination, refusing to be extinguished.

  The flickering flames proved that the Lion had hit the German ship, but no dull explosion was heard from inside the hull. The lookout, overjoyed and ecstatic, came to his senses, carefully poking his head out of the violently shaking lookout tower, and found the Moltke in the moonlight 3600 yards off on the port bow.

  The lookout's cold sweat dripped down from his forehead, and in a panic, he grabbed the phone to report to the command tower, but it was too late. The main 305mm gun of the SMS Lützow fell silent for over an hour before firing its first shot, and with the first round of gunfire, one of the 305mm armor-piercing shells hit the Lion, and the German gunner, who had been suppressed by the British for a long time, told the Royal Navy their anger with clean and neat artillery!

  The Lion-class battlecruiser, although having a reputation as a "miniature King George V class", the King George V class also has a reputation for being mediocre. The combat effectiveness of the Lion class can be imagined. In comparison to the miserable King George V class, the Lion-class battlecruiser's shortcomings are far from just one twin 13.5-inch main gun turret. The lengthened hull reduced the Lion's wave resistance, and the excessive pursuit of speed at the expense of defense also made its main armor thinner than that of the King George V class by nearly half a circle.

  The soft cap of the armor-piercing shell hit the Lion's hardened waterline belt, quickly indenting it, and the armor-piercing section behind the cap followed closely, easily tearing open the 9-inch (229 mm) waterline belt armor. The 400 kg armor-piercing shell came crashing into the Lion's boiler room, continuously penetrating three operating boilers and triggering a series of explosions, each explosion causing this nearly 30,000-ton loaded displacement new battle cruiser to violently shake on the sea surface, with orange flames, black smoke, and white steam spraying out from the shattered portholes and damaged cracks.

  The boiler room on the port side of the Lion's boiler burst, and scalding water flowed freely in the cramped and sweltering compartment. The stokers were unable to react before being scalded to death by the boiling water. Stokers hiding in a distant location attempted to retreat to a safe place, but the scorching steam quickly burned their respiratory tract and lung tissue, causing them to suffocate to death.

  The Lion's speed dropped from 27 to 23 knots in an instant, tons of water poured into the holes made by the armor-piercing shells, more and more stokers covered with coal dust and blood stains were driven out of the boiler room by seawater and steam, retreating to the upper deck, and the Lion's speed was still falling, no one knew its bottom line.

  "Deputy Commander, we've hit the Lion!"

  In the direction indicated by Captain Magnus von Levetzow, the Lion could be seen enveloped in flames, smoke and steam. The sailors on Moltke removed their earplugs, and applause and cheers swept across every corner of the deck like thunder.

  "Continue to strike back and strive for greater victories!"

  It's not time to relax yet, and the counterattack of the Maukei only slowed down the speed of the Shizi war cruiser, but it couldn't change the unfavorable situation. Wang Haitie's cold water forced the excited sailors to calm down. Under Wang Haitie's supervision, the bare-chested gunners were like wound-up machines full of energy, quickly completing the preparation work for the second round of firing. The second gunner standing behind the A turret sight grabbed the phone and gave the firing order, 4 305mm armor-piercing shells were fired.

  The cannon fire that burst out illuminated Wang Haitian's ancient copper-colored face, revealing those resolute expressions. The otaku looked towards the direction where the lifeboat sank and said coldly: "If Dogger Bank is my burial ground, then at least I'll leave behind the most profound and dazzling memories for my old friends!"

  ****

  At 19:51, on the northwest edge of Dogger Bank, the first Battle Squadron consisted of the dreadnoughts HMS Neptune and HMS Iron Duke, the pre-dreadnoughts HMS Lord Nelson and HMS Agamemnon; the second Battle Squadron consisted of the King George V-class battleships HMS King George V, HMS Ajax, and HMS Centurion; the third Battle Squadron consisted of the Iron Duke-class battleships HMS Marlborough, HMS Hercules, and HMS Emperor of India; the fourth Battle Squadron consisted of the Bellerophon-class battleship HMS Bellerophon, HMS Temeraire, and HMS Superb, as well as the pre-dreadnoughts HMS Vanguard and HMS Dreadnought.

  Admiral John Jellicoe, Commander of the Grand Fleet, stood on the bridge of his temporary flagship Iron Duke, surveying his fleet by the faint moonlight, a sense of nameless foreboding gathering in his mind.

  At 18:22, David Beatty's battlecruiser squadron encountered the returning Westfalen squadron in the Dogger Bank area. The two sides fought indecisively on the vast North Sea, with the battle raging from the shallow waters of the bank to the eastern edge. Although Jellicoe was out of sight of the battlefield, the wireless telegrams brought the smell of gunpowder from the war.

  Jellicoe had reason to be optimistic about the outcome, despite the loss of the Invincible. German casualties were heavier; the Lützow was sunk, the Derfflinger badly damaged, and the Moltke under attack by Beatty's ships until she escaped into the darkness. The von der Tann was trapped between the British 1st Battlecruiser Squadron and the main body of the High Seas Fleet.

  According to the deciphered telegrams of the High Seas Fleet and reports from spies, Germany's most elite Third Battle Squadron and the main force of the First Scouting Group were transferred by Kaiser Wilhelm II to the Baltic Sea before the war. It is estimated that they have sailed to the north side of Horns Reef off the coast of Denmark; The First Battle Squadron composed of old dreadnoughts and the Second Battle Squadron composed of pre-dreadnoughts set sail at around 13:00 under the order of Admiral Henning von Holtzendorff, Chief of the German Admiralty Staff. It is estimated that they will not arrive in the combat area until around 22:20. Obviously, the First Scouting Group has enough time to annihilate this raiding fleet and let the "invincible Arius" Heidkamp's soul rest in peace at Dogger Bank!

  "It's all settled, there won't be any more surprises!" Jellico, with the advantage of intelligence, soothed his anxious heart and put on a relaxed tone to tease Marlborough: "After the Dogger Bank battle, the Grand Fleet has an advantage with three capital ships, enough for the Royal Navy to get through this weakest November..."

  ****

  At 19:51, a force not in the British Admiralty's or Admiral Jellicoe's plans was steaming west at full speed.

  At 12:00, after receiving a distress signal from the Von der Tann, Scheer and Hipper had no time to consider the possibility of a trap and led the Third Battle Squadron and the First Scouting Group out of the Jade Estuary. The three fastest battlecruisers, Seydlitz, Lützow, and Derfflinger, took the lead at 25 knots (46 km/h; 29 mph), followed by the six battleships of the Third Squadron: the K?nig-class dreadnoughts K?nig, Grosser Kurfürst, Markgraf, and Kronprinz, and the Kaiser-class dreadnoughts Kaiser, Prinzregent Luitpold, and Friedrich der Grosse.

  At around 13:00, the First and Second Squadrons of battleships in Jade Bay received a telegram from the Chief of the Admiralty Staff and immediately set sail. The first squadron consisted of the Helgoland-class dreadnoughts Ostfriesland, Thüringen, Helgoland, and Oldenburg, while the second squadron comprised the Nassau-class dreadnoughts Posen, Rheinland, Nassau, and Westfalen. The Second Squadron was made up of the third division of pre-dreadnoughts Prussia, Pommern, Hessen from the Braunschweig class, and the fourth division of pre-dreadnoughts Hannover, Schlesien, and Schleswig-Holstein. A total of eight dreadnoughts and six old battleships set sail, maintaining a distance of over an hour's steaming time from Admiral Scheer's Third Squadron.

  The darkness was vast, the first reconnaissance fleet of three war cruisers were speeding in search formation at 26 knots, making these three steel giants with a full load displacement of around 30,000 tons tremble and shake on the surface of the North Atlantic, so that the lookout on the main mast had to tie himself to the lookout tower with ropes, freeing his hands to hold binoculars and scan the battlefield.

  "Admiral Scheer's opponent, the First Battlecruiser Squadron, is receiving support from three Orion-class battleships!" The rumble of cannons could be faintly heard in the direction of Dogger Bank, and the suffocating sea breeze carried over the smoke, coal dust, and bloodstains, swirling around the command tower of Seydlitz. When newly appointed fleet chief of staff Captain Singer reported on the situation, his voice involuntarily trembled: "The decoy squadron is isolated and helpless, Blücher has sunk, Moltke has been heavily damaged, and Von der Tann is surrounded!"

  "How far are we from the battlefield?" General Franz von Hipper asked his chief of staff, pulling out his pocket watch.

  "After the fleet passed Heligoland, they sailed at a maximum speed of 26 knots. The Von der Tann was nearby, and as for the Moltke, it was on the eastern side of the Dogger Bank... Captain Singler shook his head bitterly, recalling the data from the chart room: 'We still have almost an hour to go...'"

  Scheer had tacitly expressed his concerns. Indeed, the lightly damaged von der Tann could still dodge and weave in a night action with her speed, but the heavily damaged Moltke would not last half an hour; David Beatty was no ordinary man and he would certainly seize the opportunity to weaken the High Seas Fleet.

  "Singlerail, don't give up lightly!" Hipper raised his head slightly and said confidently: "Seilum is a genius, he can hold on!"

  With one breath, I almost counted out the entire fleet and ocean fleet; I recommend two books, Tang Ren Yuye's "Stock God Revelation", which is quite bold and unrestrained! Another one is the ultimate side book "The New History of China in the Sino-Japanese War", it says that I tampered with the history of the Battle of the Atlantic, this guy tampered with the history of the Pacific War, double swords combined, haha.