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Part One Twenty Years Chapter 11 The Moment That Changed History (11)

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    (The climax of this naval battle has arrived.)

    "("King of the North Atlantic" Section 7, The End of the Union Flag[3])

    At 13:20, the "battle in the rear of the battle line" came to an end for the time being. The Royal Navy, which had destroyed eight battleships in one go, finally had a fifteen-minute break.

    In fact, the wind and waves in the North Sea were not small at that time, because the smoke wall produced by the long-term bombardment of the battle line's main guns was not enough to cover the battlefield for a quarter of an hour, so David Beatty ordered two destroyer detachments to accompany the battle line.  A total of nineteen destroyers inserted into the battlefield at high speed, cooperated with the battleships to actively release smoke, and delayed the outbreak of the third round of fighting as much as possible to gain more reaction time for the large fleet that had suffered heavy losses.

    The next task is to prepare for war. As the country with the most experience in naval use on the planet, the British Navy appears to be unkind and arbitrary in many rules and regulations, but the damage control experience accumulated over the centuries is not without merit.

    In this short quarter of an hour, the British did a lot of fruitful work for the next round of firefights: the damage control team waded through the waist-deep water in the waterline communication channel, using leak-proof panels and scrapped canvas hulls to seal the craters.  ; The fire-fighting team wore gas masks and used fire hoses and sandbags to extinguish the fire on the ship's hull; the mechanics worked desperately to repair the boiler amidst the oil and soot in the power compartment, trying to maintain the speed of the battle line; the gunners drilled out holes full of poisonous gas  The turret carried hammers and welding guns to straighten the twisted deck and rescue the stuck turret steering mechanism; the telegraph operator got out of the safe telegraph room and climbed to the mast nearly a hundred feet high.  Repair radio antenna damaged by flying shrapnel.

    At the end of the British battle line, the battle cruiser Indomitable has lost nearly two-fifths of its crew.  Senior officers, including the captain and deputy captain, had to personally go into battle, and together with officers and soldiers transferred from other positions, they used primitive tools such as shovels and steel pipes to work hard to remove the 50-foot steel pipe that was lifted up by the shell and deeply embedded in the stern of the ship.  The steam-powered communications boat was pushed down into the sea.

    The Royal Navy's handling was effective, but it was far from enough for this high-intensity naval battle - the British Empire did not lack experience in using the navy correctly, but they lacked naval officers to use this experience correctly.

    In 1917, the decline of the Royal Navy was not only reflected in its always wandering between conservatism and radicalism, which evolved into a paranoid maritime strategy.  In a naval confrontation with the Germans.  The fighting will and the quality of officers and soldiers that the British were proud of were also at a disadvantage.

    The best example is the sinking of the battleship Magnificent before the final round of fighting broke out.  This battleship originally had the opportunity to participate in the third round of firefights, but poor damage control still caused it to be buried in the sea early.

    The battleship Magnificent capsized and sank. On the eve of the end of the second round of fighting, the battleship Magnificent encountered straddle fire from the Germans. The bow and stern of the ship were almost destroyed by the German 350mm main gun group.

    After the roaring gunfire in the North Sea temporarily stopped, the stern of the Magnificent ship was filled with flames and thick smoke billowing into the sky. The battleship officers, including lookout Roy, tried their best but could not stop the spread of the fire.

    What¡¯s more terrifying than the fire is the bullet hole at the waterline on the bow of the ship.  The Magnificent's bow had only a thin layer of armor.  As a result, a scene that the British sailors jokingly called "an egg and a turtle fighting with a hammer" occurred. Their non-key protective belt on the bow was easily riddled with holes by German 350mm capped armor-piercing projectiles.

    At 13:29, more than 2,500 tons of water had entered the port side of the battleship Magnificent. The hull tilted nearly ten degrees to the left. The tall main mast protruded diagonally from the hull, and the connection between the base and the deck made dull noises from time to time.  Boom.  Inside the ship.  All water pumps stopped working, and the raging seawater used huge pressure to continuously blast out the poorly watertight watertight compartments, almost overflowing the damaged bow deck.

    At this time, the Magnificent dropped two small sampans - Fleet Commander Sir Doverton Sturdy once again abandoned his flagship, just as he abandoned the battleship Royal Oak.  Moving the fleet headquarters from Magnificent to the battleship South Africa later proved not to be a good choice.  In other words, Sir Doverton Sturdy was simply a bumbling star in this naval battle - twelve minutes later, the battleship South Africa also sank and was fired by the Germans.

    At 13:32, the abandoned battleship Magnificent finally failed to hold on and rolled violently on the North Sea. The battleship South Africa, which was more than 400 meters behind the Magnificent, had to make an emergency maneuver to avoid collision.  Turn right.

    The "scandal" of the sinking of the South Africa had spread as early as in the first round of firefights in this large sea battle. At this time, the South Africa was still squandering their little good luck, standing stubbornly on the surface of the North Sea, and unexpectedly became the first ship to sink.  The flagship of the First Battle Fleet.

    At this moment, everything on the right-hand rudder of the battleship was tilting. The sailors in the cockpit were holding the armrests and grinning, and the boiler soldiers were holding on to their shovel feet.Staggering, the cooks in the kitchen ran after their tableware all over the floor, while Toynbee, the damage control officer who was cleaning the deck on the port side of the battleship, recorded the scene he saw like this:

    'The battleship (South Africa) was tilting. Unable to steady my body, I could only stick to the rivet-covered armor wall of the port side secondary deck, and watched dumbfoundedly as the battleship Magnificent moved from the rear mainmast to the stern of the ship.  Come to the remnants of Ft.

    God, who would have thought that it was an 18,000-ton fearless ship equipped with 10 12-inch main guns, a fearless ship that once dominated this sea.  God testifies, I still can¡¯t forget the seaweed-covered bottom of the Magnificent and its ferocious-looking propellers that were completely exposed to the air!  ¡¯

    Shortly after the sinking of the battleship Magnificent, a third round of fighting broke out.

    Sealem¡¯s Third Battle Fleet took the lead in firing the first shot. One Bavaria-class and four K?nigs-class battleships poured ammunition at the British. Five Caesar-class battleships were soon involved in the war.

    David Beatty, who had adjusted his formation, ordered to fire back. The 4th Battle Fleet's terrifying 15-inch main gun group fired at the Germans crazily with powerful green bombs.

    From the first round of semi-main gun firing, the battle entered a fierce stage.

    The first to achieve victory was the battleship Bayern. The German gunner with a gas mask hanging around his neck was naked.  Conquered God with his super fighting will and unparalleled artillery skills.  At a combat distance of 14,500 meters, the Germans scored a hit in the first round of artillery fire.  A 380mm capped armor-piercing round focused on a 6-inch single secondary battery on the port side secondary deck of the battleship Revenge, destroying the secondary battery and detonating its ammunition magazine.

    The battleship K?nig subsequently achieved brilliant results.

    At 13:39, the watchtower in front of the battleship USS Resolution reported that 'the USS Resolution encountered a near-missile missile at a distance of no more than five meters.'  The captain of the Determination stood in the conning tower that was tightly protected and equipped with shock-absorbing facilities. He grasped the armrest of the conning tower and stared at the boiling sea outside the ship's side with horrified eyes.

    The captain did not hear the explosion of the shell, but only after a few seconds did he see the column of water splashed into the sky by the explosion of the shell.

    With little need for reports from the damage control team, an experienced captain can derive the information he wants to know based on the violent rolling and rolling of the warship.

    Judging from the impact point of the cannonball and the time when the water column erupted.  What the USS Resolution encountered was an unusual near-missile, which can be defined as an indirect hit on the bottom and side of the ship using very awkward naval terminology. In layman's terms, it is a missile in the water that can kill a god, block a wave, or kill a Buddha.

    Judging from the unclear pitch of the battleship, the landing point of the underwater single should be the middle part of the ship.  When the armor-piercing warhead explodes underwater in the stern part of the battleship, the high-speed shock wave and pressure pulse wave generated will cause the battleship to bend and vibrate violently. Only when it explodes in the middle of the hull, the explosion will have the smallest impact on the pitching of the battleship.  .

    After rational analysis.  The captain was filled with unspeakable fear.

    Ten years before the appearance of dreadnoughts, naval designers underestimated the dangers of underwater bombs, so most dreadnoughts lacked underwater protection, and the bottoms of the ships were mostly made of shipbuilding steel with average strength.  This is especially evident on the capital ships of the so-called naval powers in the Mediterranean. This design that overly underestimates underwater protection has caused the so-called Mediterranean powers to repeatedly experience embarrassing scenes of expensive capital ships hitting rocks and sinking.

    In the Anglo-German naval arms race, the Germans first proposed and used tds (underwater torpedo defense system).  British designers are aware of this.  But their response measures are really unflattering - the British, who were worried about underwater bombs and more worried about the overweight of the battleship, took the initiative to extend their papery waterline and main assembly downward by a few centimeters, in the power compartment and underwater ammunition depot.  A layer of sheet-like, discontinuous, and deep underwater armor bulkheads is laid around important locations, and we are proud of this.

    ¡°Although our Revenge-class battleships are equipped with TDS, God knows why those damn designers of the British Empire designed the thickness of the underwater anti-torpedo compartment to a shabby 1 inch, and the length of the torpedo compartment to 30 meters!  ¡¯

    The captain of the battleship USS Resolution complained about the underwater protection system of the Revenge-class battleship.  The facts did not exceed his expectations: the huge impact of the explosion of the 350mm capped armor-piercing projectile destroyed the Determination's weak underwater defense system.  The explosion also produced many high-temperature bubbles.  The expansion of these bubbles several times creates more shock waves, aggravating the torsional stress and tremors produced by the first explosion.

    The rivets between the steel plates of the 1-inch torpedo-proof compartment of the USS Resolution battleship came loose and collapsed, and a steel plate of at least 30 feet long fell off the TDS as a whole.  The 30-meter-long torpedo compartment was immediately swallowed up by the navy, and the 'wet cabin' behind the torpedo compartment, which stored fresh water and served as part of the underwater defense system, was also completely destroyed.??Two adjacent watertight cabins were flooded one after another.

    Even more terrifying are the secondary damage caused by bubbles and the fragments produced by shell explosions. When a steel plate in the anti-torpedo compartment was completely destroyed, the battleship's riddled underwater shipbuilding steel and watertight compartment partitions could no longer prevent the penetration of seawater and  The giant ship sailing toward the southwest at a speed of 12 knots seemed to be fettered by some twisted force, shaking and losing its due speed.

    The only good thing is that the Revenge-class battleship uses coal-fired boilers, so there is no need to worry about the wet tank storing oil leaking, causing a fire and completely tearing the battleship apart.  But even so, this modern giant ship still suffered a lot of damage. For any warship, a large amount of water in the hull is an unbearable pain.

    The Determination suffered a fatal blow, and on the other side, the British battleship Collingwood and the German battleship K?nig Albert also sank one after another.

    ¡®Including the artillery range, the fleet only needs to hold on for another quarter of an hour, just a quarter of an hour!  ¡¯ The hand of the pocket watch in Betty¡¯s hand was fixed at 13:49. The commander-in-chief of the British Grand Fleet, who was forced into a dead end, muttered repeatedly in the command tower of the Revenge: ¡®Just a quarter of an hour!  ¡¯
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