(I feel this is the most domineering chapter since I wrote a book, sending away three battleships in one go!)
"("King of the North Atlantic" Section 6, mistakes and counterattacks[2])
¡®Command tower, direct hit on the starboard side! ¡¯
The hysterical warning sound of the lookout echoed in the command tower of the battleship Rhineland. The old captain with a Friedrich-style beard fired wildly at the observation window on the port side of the battleship while firing his high-brimmed navy cap that was pressing him down. He yelled at the stunned subordinates with a loud voice:
"Rhineland, damage control preparations!"
The officers who were looking at each other in the command tower finally reacted and grabbed anything nearby that could stabilize their bodies. In just a second or two, a ball of fire flashed through the narrow observation window on the starboard side of the Rhineland and sank under the battleship's captain's forecastle.
The senior officers of the battleship Rheinland stayed in the command tower with shock-absorbing facilities like an armored fortress. They just felt the hull of the battleship following the flagship of the first division at a speed of 12 knots tremble slightly. However, for the damage control team members who happened to be guarding the communication channel of the starboard waterline compartment where the Rhineland was hit, the impact of the impact of a large-caliber armor-piercing projectile weighing hundreds of kilograms was no different than a heavy stone. The impact struck hard in their hearts, causing these dedicated damage control team members to fall to the ground before they could even let out a painful groan.
The sailors held their breath, hoping that the British shell would explode early or close to it, but the explosion of the armored belt shattered the sailors' illusions - it penetrated the 200mm upper armored belt of the battleship Rhineland, dragging it with it. The red and white items left behind by the sailors hit by the shells, the peeling iron pieces from the upper armor belt, and the caps from the armor-piercing bullets. Drilling unscrupulously deeper into the battleship Rhineland at an oblique angle.
A huge hole was cut into the dome armor laid behind the upper armor belt of the battleship Rhineland, and a steam water pipe laid close to the dome armor was broken. The boiling water vapor immediately leaked out from the formidable breach, turning the relatively closed waterline communication channel into an ocean of steam in an instant.
With a ¡®bang¡¯ sound, that damn armor-piercing bomb once again penetrated the 50mm armored bulkhead of the Bruno turret underwater ammunition depot arranged on the back of the Rhineland, and exploded violently deep in the ammunition depot.
¡®Retreat, retreat, everyone get on the deck! ¡¯ During the commotion, a damage control officer shouted desperately, the next second. The underwater ammunition depot of the battleship Rhineland was destroyed.
Before the command tower of the Rhineland could figure out the location of the hit, hundreds of kilograms of TNT as the shell warhead charge and the RPC/12 solvent-free double-base propellant as the shell primer were ignited, and an unprecedented scale explosion occurred in the Rhineland. The attack occurred deep inside the ship's hull, with the Bruno turret's waterline ammunition depot as the center, and the powerful impact overwhelmingly destroyed the dome armor laid on the top of the ammunition depot, the 50mm armored bulkhead of the ammunition depot, and the 45mm underwater defense Any defense installation including torpedo compartments.
A few seconds later, the underwater ammunition depot of the Anton turret was also detonated. When the French Green Water Navy went bankrupt, big ships and big guns became the only effective way to dominate the ocean. The piggyback turret and the elevated turret save space on the hull for the fearless monsters. This allows bold naval designers to dare to pursue more firepower, but at the same time, the backpack layout also reduces the distance between underwater ammunition depots, which can easily lead to the successive destruction of adjacent ammunition depots.
The first round of shock waves had already riddled the internal structure of the Rhineland. When the underwater ammunition depot of the Anton turret exploded, the battleship's hull directly fractured.
The old captain covered his bleeding arm. He climbed up from the messy floor of the command tower and gave the order to abandon the ship with red eyes. However, in the face of the explosion of the ammunition depot, any self-rescue actions were pale.
The seawater surged in, and several damaged underwater compartments in the bow part of the main body of the battleship were completely unable to slow down the sinking. As for the main hull of the battleship, although the Rheinland was in combat mode, all main compartments had been closed. However, seawater still pours in from the cracks in the hull, using huge pressure to explode the explosion-proof door of the sealed cabin.
The battleship Rhineland sank, just like the battlecruiser New Zealand that the British Empire had previously sunk. In less than a minute, it completely disappeared on the surface of the North Sea that was about to be stained red with the blood of British and German naval officers.
The sinking of the British battleship Canada and the German battleship Rhineland made the battle even more intense.
The news of the sinking of the battleship Rhineland greatly boosted the morale of the Royal Navy. The eight battleships of the British Second Battle Fleet used more ferocious firepower to desperately tilt their ammunition at the poor German First Division.
After losing a battleship, the German First Division was in an even more difficult situation. Especially when the telegraph room behind the command tower of their flagship Posen was destroyed by a 12-inch armor-piercing bomb, the First Division directly lost its command and could only fight on its own.For war.
At this time, the brains of the German Navy, Admiral Heidi Seelem, was far at the forefront of the battle line. He could neither see the situation of the first detachment on the verge of collapse, nor could he sink the British and Canadian troops from the first reconnaissance group. The battleship "Bellerophon", which was gradually losing speed, and the second squadron "were unable to observe the first squadron of the British Second Battle Fleet hiding in the clouds" smelled of conspiracy in the telegram.
Under the rain of British bullets, the flagship of the first detachment, the Posen, soon became unable to hold up.
The Posen's superstructure and power cabin were seriously damaged after being hit by five consecutive bullets. A fire broke out in the middle of the ship's hull, and thick smoke covered the sky. All the starboard generator sets stopped working, causing the starboard stern, which was not a key point of protection, to be chiseled. The seawater poured into it cannot be drained out in time.
At 12:47, the battleship Posen had taken in nearly 1,600 tons of water, and the hull tilted backward so violently that the captain had to order the water to be filled into the bow sealed compartment to level it.
The continuous flooding of the hull caused the waterline of the battleship Posen to rise sharply. By this time, no one dared to expect that the battleship Posen would be as safe and sound as it was in the Battle of Jutland. It could only drag its scarred body and laboriously move toward Drive forward.
And in the northwest, the battleship King George V of the Royal Navy's Second Battle Fleet, which was firing, once again tilted a round of eight 15-inch shells at the battleship Pawson.
At 12:50, in the optical ranging instrument of Mars, the observation officer of the A turret of the British battleship Joe V, the target ship shrouded in thick smoke once again burst into dazzling smoke. The gunnery commander of No. 5 Qiao No. 5 in the ship's artillery command center located at the top of the command tower repeatedly asked each main gun observation sergeant to report ranging data. Sergeant Mars could only reply awkwardly:
¡®Sorry, Lieutenant Colonel, it is no longer at sea level¡¯
The same embarrassment happened to Norbert, the observation petty officer of the USS Orion battleship who was responsible for measuring the angle of the target ship.
Perhaps it was the blessing of her dead sister ship. The British Empire's first super-dreadnought ship, the last widow of the Orion class, the Sovereign, performed very well in the Battle of the Orkney Islands. The shell that ended the German battleship Rhineland came from the Sovereign. A big deal.
It is a pity that the achievements of the battleship Sovereign are rarely known. After the Orkney Islands Battle, the Royal Navy spared no effort to downplay the achievements of the battleship Sovereign. It's not because the Admiralty, which made its own mistake, attributed the victory to the USS Joe V and did not have the courage to admit the statistical error, but according to the captain's log of the battleship Sovereign, the battleship Sovereign 'never' attacked a non-target ship from beginning to end. The Rhineland fired one shot after another, but Royal Navy divers found traces of hits from 13.5-inch armor-piercing projectiles near the ammunition depot of the sunken shipwreck of the German Rhineland
When Norbert worked hard to fix the azimuth plate and reported the scale of the azimuth plate to the fire control tower conscientiously, the gunnery commander could only embarrassingly inform the observation that he was so nervous that he could not breathe because he was fighting with Sealem's fleet. Not so good news for the petty officer - the target ship has been sunk.
In less than ten minutes, the Ocean Fleet lost two battleships, with a total battle damage of more than 33,000 tons, and more than 1,500 officers and soldiers killed. More importantly, the commander of the first detachment, Rear Admiral W-englehardt, was killed in action. Ingehardt, who was posthumously awarded the title of Vice Admiral by the Empire, was also the highest-ranking commander of the German Navy killed in this protracted war. .
For the German navy, in the three-year naval confrontation before the Battle of Orkney Islands, it only lost two battlecruisers, Deutschland and Von der Tann, and the pseudo-battlecruiser Bl¨¹cher. It's not serious.
In addition, the remaining two Nassau-class battleships of the German First Division, Nassau and Westfalen, both suffered moderate damage. The Kaiser-class King Albert battleship was hit by the British 15-inch heavy gun group. The attack also suffered heavy losses.
The unfortunate experience of losing two battleships in a row and seriously damaging one battleship in the Ocean Fleet proved the strength of David Beatty as Heidi Sealem's lifelong rival. It was also the most exciting and brilliant performance of the British Royal Navy in the long World War I. Eye performance.
The second detachment finally became aware of the British conspiracy. Not only was the flagship of the First Division, the battleship Pawson, sunk, but the observation officers of the Second Division also saw traces of fire from the First Division of the British Second Battle Fleet, which emerged from the low sea clouds.
Cold sweat instantly wet the chest and back of Lieutenant General Mavey, commander of the First Battle Fleet, and he hurriedly reported the battle situation to the flagship of the Ocean Fleet, the Bavaria.
At this time, Heidi Silem was holding a battle report from Lieutenant General Bihanik, commander of the First Reconnaissance Group:
¡®At 12:53, the first team of the First Reconnaissance Group sank the British battleship Bellerophon! ¡¯