Chapter 8: The Otaku's Fleet (Three)

  Revising the technical part, if you have any suggestions, please speak up and we will modify it together.

  Telegrams flew back and forth over Dogger Bank, a frantic Arthur Wilson sending out calls for help to the Grand Fleet, while a cautious John Jellicoe urged David Beatty to retreat from pursuing Derfflinger, but the dashing David Beatty ignored those increasingly urgent warnings.

  It was ironic that while the Royal Navy was in a state of high alert, the Mary Rose continued to steam eastward with great enthusiasm: David Beatty mistakenly believed that the Mary Rose had already taken care of the large armored cruiser Blücher and joined the formation surrounding the Von der Tann; Arthur Leveson thought that notifying David Beatty was equivalent to informing the Mary Rose; as for Jellicoe, he was being driven crazy by Leveson's incompetence and Beatty's recklessness.

  At 8:25, the battlecruiser Queen Mary spotted a light cruiser and torpedo boats approaching from about 2,000 yards off her port bow. The British were certain that these must be scouting forces attached to the Grand Fleet, so they flashed them a friendly challenge rather than a recognition signal.

  In response to the Mary Queen's war cruise, a swarm of torpedoes came rushing in. Just as General Lebrecht Maass was hesitating whether to launch a surprise attack under the cover of night, he was shocked by the British enthusiasm and immediately gave orders for the 2nd destroyer flotilla to set off with eight destroyers, while the 1st destroyer flotilla with eight destroyers formed the second attacking echelon.

  At 08:28, the new destroyer Kumikaze approached at a distance of about 1,700 yards with smoke billowing and engines roaring, hastily firing sixteen 45 cm torpedoes at the British.

  The destroyer's attacking motion and the faintly visible white lines made the confident Royal Navy personnel wake up, the searchlight on the mainmast of Queen Mary suddenly appeared, illuminating the surrounding sea area in a pale white light. The 4-inch secondary guns and the 47mm machine gun installed during wartime frantically swept towards the destroyer like a ghost and the white line under the water, trying to block the torpedo attack. The massive hull of 20,000 tons made a magnificent evasive maneuver.

  It has to be said that the British were quite lucky, a salvo of high-speed shells sank one destroyer on the spot, heavily damaged another and disrupted the second wave of destroyers' advance. Due to the hasty preparation, most torpedoes missed their targets, among the three most threatening torpedoes, one was narrowly avoided by Queen Mary with hard left rudder, another failed to explode after hitting the main armor belt of a battlecruiser due to a faulty fuse, and only one torpedo hit its target.

  However, just one torpedo would cripple the ￡2 million British battlecruiser. As the third Lion-class battlecruiser, Queen Mary's main armor was only 9 inches (229 mm), not as good as Moltke's, and even inferior to the first German Von der Tann's defensive armor.

  A 1907-type 455mm torpedo with over 100kg of explosive warhead blasted a hole several meters in diameter on the narrow waterline belt armor of Queen Mary's bow, destroying one 4-inch gun turret, the midship boiler room, coal bunker and four other watertight compartments. Seawater poured in, dense smoke and steam mixed with large fires spreading everywhere through leaked fuel.

  Due to financial constraints and excessive emphasis on speed, the evil consequences of weak armor were repeated on the scaled-down Lion-class battlecruiser HMS Queen Mary after the sinking of the King George V-class dreadnought HMS Audacious on November 1.

  The damage control parties on board the Queen Mary rushed to activate the water pumps and put out the fires, closing as many watertight compartments in the vicinity as possible to contain the blaze. The captain of the Queen Mary realized that the main body of the Grand Fleet might already be steaming to his assistance, so he sent a retirement report to Admiral David Beatty and Rear-Admiral Ralph Seymour, then turned west by north.

  The badly damaged Queen Mary attempted to flee, but Admiral Massey was relentless. The light cruiser Derfflinger led the First Destroyer Flotilla in continuing to reinforce Moltke, while he led four light cruisers and eight torpedo boats in pursuit of Queen Mary, closing in under cover of nightfall.

  At 08:55, Hipper's First Scouting Group of three battlecruisers appeared over the horizon, and Mary Queen was in for the most terrifying dream!

  ****

  The night grew darker, the tidal flats of Dongge were calm, the full moon hid behind a thin layer of clouds, and the sea fog that often appeared in November over the North Sea swirled above the surface of the shallow waters.

  Smoke was released, and the destroyer was sent to make a diversionary attack from the east, after which it hid in the moonlight to launch a counterattack. Wang Haitie's tactical skills were brought to an extreme, but unfortunately, the main gun ammunition of the Maukei was almost depleted. Unfortunately, David Beatty, the young commander of the Royal Navy who was closest to Nelson in 100 years, was not a vain name. The Lion-class battlecruiser reorganized its flags after a brief confusion and the four 13.5-inch main guns at the bow continuously bombarded the Maukei.

  At 20:11, the effects of saltwater contamination on Lion's boilers became apparent, and her speed was reduced to 20 knots. Moltke fared even worse, able to maintain a speed of only 13 knots due to increasing flooding. As the range closed again to 3,000 yards, Lion opened up with her searchlights at Beatty's order, illuminating Moltke starkly in the darkness; the light would provide an excellent aiming point for Moltke's gunners.

  "Commander, aren't we being too rash......" Vice Admiral Lamped pointed to the light on the main mast and said worriedly: "Although Xilaim is famous for his strategic vision, his tactical execution is not bad either."

  "He did think of counterattacking..." The klaxon let out a heart-rending wail, David-Betty tightened his earplugs and waited for the sound of the shell leaving the barrel.

  "I'd like to counterattack..."

  Under the aid of searchlights, the British gunners' accuracy began to improve as they overcame the effects of nightfall. The secondary armament poured a withering fire into the tangled upperworks of Moltke, the crash of shells and the rattle of splinters being incessant. At 20:21 Lion's main armament again found its target, one of her 343mm armour-piercing shells striking Moltke's stern. The shell penetrated the defensive armour and horizontal armour of D turret, exploding in the magazine.

  The British semi-armour-piercing shell was a dud this time, but the damage caused was almost negligible: four unimportant compartments, gunwells and magazines without propellant charges were penetrated, D turret was completely destroyed, and four sailors were killed.

  Wang Haitian looked at Magnus von Levetzow with a hint of sadness and helplessness, spreading his hands: "Unfortunately, Betty didn't give me the chance for a heroic death..."

  "Keep a distance and maintain course, don't let the aft K turret of the Musashi's smokestack have any angle to fire, and even less let the Musashi's 500mm underwater torpedo have any chance to launch!" David-Betty smiled faintly, quietly pushing his half-known friend into desperation.

  At the moment when victory was within reach, the wireless room of the Lion received Admiral Jellicoe's order to retreat, Betty's calmness solidified into an unreasonableness.

  "Retreat?! Has the Royal Navy fallen or is Ravenswood incompetent?! Just a few battlecruisers and they're fleeing in disarray!" David Beatty clutched the retreat order from Admiral John Jellicoe, furious: "How can we retreat? Even if I were willing to sacrifice the glory of sinking a German capital ship, the enemy that will decide the fate of the world's navies for decades to come is on the Moltke! Just the name Heideck von der Seelmann is worth risking everything and disobeying orders to strike!"

  Jellico's telegrams came one after another, each more severe in tone than the last. The Lion of Judah, like its master, was stubborn and unyielding, piercing through the darkness to pursue the Shirokuma.

  At 20:25, the persistence of the Lion's battle cruiser was rewarded. Accompanied by deafening explosions, a large hole was blown open on the horizontal armor deck less than 70 mm from the bow of the Mutsu battlecruiser, with thick smoke and steam alternating in the engine room, mechanical parts flying everywhere, and flames flickering in the smoke.

  At 20:25, the spotting tower reported that Moltke had been hit. In fact, there was no need for the spotter to remind us, as the sound of the explosion carried forward and could be clearly heard even three kilometers away from us. Due to the obstruction of the upper structure of Moltke, the spotting tower could not see the point of impact, but through the smoke column and the white mist that spread, they inferred that the landing point might be the engine room, or possibly one of the magazines and the engine room were destroyed together. The battlecruiser Moltke took on a lot of water and began to tilt violently to the left, from which the spotting tower concluded that Moltke had actually sunk. At this time, Admiral Jellicoe sent his eleventh sternly worded order to retreat, Queen Mary warned that German light forces were approaching, Rear-Admiral Evan-Thomas reported the sinking of Indomitable, and Commander-in-Chief David Beatty had to order a retreat.

  After the Battle of Dogger Bank, Rear Admiral Lanpad, Deputy Commander of the First Cruiser Squadron and Nobel laureate in literature, wrote in his private diary with elegant and simple words about Beatty's helplessness. At 20:27, after receiving a guarantee from the lookout tower, Beatty finally issued the order to retreat.

  What Betty didn't know was that the USS Missouri hadn't sunk. After the ship tilted violently to the left by ten degrees, Wang Haitian gave a nearly self-destructive order in the first possible moment - fill water into the right side of the ship!

  Wang Haitie gambled and won, after taking in 1,000 tons of water, the Mauke finally stopped its capsizing trend. Due to the Mauke being surrounded by thick smoke and steam, the Lion-class battlecruiser's lookout tower only saw the severe tilting situation, but did not notice the Mauke's clever self-rescue action.

  Two hours of fierce battle, the Moltke was hit by a total of 9 shells, with 26 near misses. The forward A turret, the amidships K turret, and the aft C and D turrets were all knocked out, leaving only one B turret barely operational. Due to the ship's listing, it had to take on balancing water, resulting in an influx of 4,900 tons of seawater, with the main deck less than half a meter above sea level, making it easy for waves to wash over and clean the blood-stained decks; numerous shell holes pockmarked the upper structures, which were almost twisted into knots, while thick smoke from large fires billowed everywhere, white steam escaping from damaged pipes enveloped the entire ship, leaving the crew of Moltke in a "sea of fire". Yet even so, the Moltke stubbornly remained afloat, "unsinkable"!

  "The British have retreated!" The wounded Mouchot cruiser, its crew cautiously emerging from the turrets and lower decks, gazed out at the sea shrouded in thick smoke and steam. After a long time, the survivors dared to confirm that the British had indeed withdrawn. Whether officers or sailors, nobles or commoners, all were cheering, grateful to have survived, perhaps still hoping for more glory!

  "Deputy commander, we've received a telegram from the Second Reconnaissance Fleet's light cruiser Magdeburg!" The communications officer, who had been wounded by shrapnel and was now pale due to excessive blood loss, walked over with an excited look on his face: "The High Seas Fleet is coming! Whatever the outcome of the Dogger Bank Sea Battle may be, the decoy fleet has at least fulfilled its duty!"

  "Not only did I fail to keep David-Betty, but I almost lost my life in Dogger Bank..." King Haitian leaned against the armor of the command tower, which was smoked black by thick smoke, and recalled the horror of Dogger Shallow Beach. He let out a long sigh and whispered:

  "The Royal Navy is old, bureaucratic and stagnant, but David Beatty is different. He has a natural air of courage and wisdom, and beneath his rough exterior lies a sharp mind and strategic thinking. At the Battle of Dogger Bank, his accurate prediction, timely interception, and extra three dreadnoughts showcased his bravery and tactics to perfection. Signal officer, I have a premonition that David Beatty, the pride of the Royal Navy and the most outstanding commander of the young generation, will be the strongest opponent of the High Seas Fleet!"

  "General, although David-Betti is a formidable opponent, I have no fear of this!" The communications officer, who was facing the worst nightmare of being forced into early retirement, slowly raised his lone arm, ignoring King Haeti's astonished gaze, and proudly declared: "Because the Oceanic Fleet has the undefeated Arles-Haeti-Syleim!"