As the Majestic belched thick smoke mingled with firelight, this close-range, bare-knuckle pounding match between battlecruisers and pre-dreadnoughts had been thoroughly decided.
Before coming, Rear Admiral Hipper had been well aware that the true difficulty of the operation lay in the covert surprise attack and in making contact smoothly. Once the shooting actually began, victory was all but inevitable; the only suspense was how great a price his side would have to pay.
Lelouch, watching the battle from beside Rear Admiral Hipper, still did not understand naval warfare very well, and could not help seizing a gap to ask a question:
“General, just now, without waiting for the ranging results from the previous shells’ fall of shot, you immediately ordered full-speed half-salvos and shortened the range setting by 300 yards each round. What tactic is that?”
Hipper had already done everything he needed to do; now he only had to wait for the result, so he did not begrudge offering a little guidance to his young friend. “It’s very simple. If this were a medium- or long-range engagement, you absolutely couldn’t fight like that. With plunging fire, precise rangefinding is very important.
“But now we’ve already pressed in so close that the trajectory is almost flat. Even if you aim long when sighting on the hull, there’s still a chance that the enemy ship’s superstructure will lie along the shell’s path, and you’ll hit by accident. So as long as you confirm you’re firing long, just shorten the range as quickly as possible. There’s no need to quibble over exactly how much too long it was.”
Lelouch was, after all, Lelouch. His mathematics marks were good enough that, even if he failed to enter the art department, he would still qualify to transfer to architecture. With his grounding in geometry, he grasped the essence of the tactic almost at once.
He felt he had benefited greatly, and at the same time gained an even deeper impression of General Hipper’s ability to adapt his command to changing circumstances.
All of the German battlecruisers had entered a state of rapid fire, madly pouring down a rain of shells.
The 305-millimeter shells exploded one after another within the area protected by the Majestic’s 228-millimeter nickel-chrome steel main armor belt. At an engagement range of less than five kilometers, the shells could easily tear through every defense this type of pre-dreadnought possessed.
The core sections of the warship were penetrated repeatedly. Several steam pipes in the power system were blasted apart, and all kinds of high-temperature, high-pressure steam at several hundred degrees rampaged through the ship, directly cooking countless engine-room sailors who were trying to make emergency repairs.
The casemate gun deck above the machinery level was even less spared. Those areas with relatively thin skins and plenty inside were blasted to pieces by 305-millimeter shells; several secondary guns and fragments of the casemate deck were flung straight into the air.
A small quantity of shells stored at several of the secondary gun positions detonated as well. The detonation of 152-millimeter shells was not enough to sink a warship, but it was more than enough to blow the upper fire-control positions and bridge completely to pieces.
Vice Admiral Hastings was also blown directly into the sky in the process. The commander of the Britannia Channel Fleet thus met his end.
The Majestic’s main turrets, by contrast, were protected sturdily enough. Even after being battered for several minutes, there was still no case of a main turret being penetrated or its main-gun ammunition detonating. But without fire control or power, the main turrets could neither receive aiming data nor use hydraulic power to drive their rotation. They could only fire futilely at fixed positions.
This ship had, in effect, become a floating dead fish; it was merely that the hull’s reserve buoyancy was still sufficient.
Shells in this era could rapidly destroy the upper works of a battleship and deprive it of combat capability. But as long as there was no magazine or boiler explosion, it was very difficult to directly break the hull apart and make it sink quickly.
If one hoped for flooding to make a ship sink rapidly, one still had to rely on torpedoes or mines.
…
At the same time, another enemy capital ship, the Revenge, was also fighting to the death against the two Blücher-class battlecruisers under Hipper’s command.
The state of the engagement between the two sides was very similar to that of the other group. After the Revenge had refitted her main guns, her turrets were of the same model as the Majestic’s; it was only that the fire-control system had not yet been properly upgraded and broken in, resulting in even lower gunnery accuracy and slower aiming for the Revenge.
The only two differences were that, on the German side, the Blücher-class ships still used 280-millimeter main guns, an inch smaller than those of the Derfflinger class.
And the Revenge’s main armor belt was actually much thicker than that of her later sister, the Majestic—the thickest part was a shocking 450 millimeters! It was just that the type and quality of the armor were much worse. As a Royal Sovereign-class ship, she was still using Harvey steel from the early 1890s, not even nickel-chrome steel, so her effective defensive level had to be reduced by roughly twenty to thirty percent.
Moreover, everything came at a price. Armor 450 millimeters thick at its thickest point meant that the coverage of the main armor was much smaller. Only a very narrow strip near the waterline had 450 millimeters; places just slightly higher than the waterline immediately dropped sharply to 356 millimeters.
The Blücher-class 280-millimeter guns indeed could not penetrate her waterline at all, but as long as they struck slightly higher, they could punch through at will.
Thus, at almost the same time, the Revenge too was blasted into a floating iron shell. Apart from not having sunk, she had completely lost combat capability.
And while thoroughly crippling the two pre-dreadnoughts, on Hipper’s side, only the Seydlitz was struck by one enemy 305-millimeter main-gun shell in the aft section of the broadside casemate,
blowing away two 150-millimeter secondary guns, tearing off a section of the casemate gun deck, and destroying the lifeboat crane and several lifeboats above the deck.
Aside from that, throughout the entire engagement, the German battlecruisers were hit by only five or six 150-millimeter shells from enemy secondary guns in total, and those shells could not possibly penetrate the main armor. They merely damaged a few peripheral facilities.
…
And just as Hipper, at an extremely small cost, had crippled two enemy capital ships and was preparing to turn toward the weakest of the enemy capital ships, the Hood,
he suddenly discovered that before his own battlecruisers had even personally taken action, the Hood had already lost more than half her combat strength. Just now, while the battlecruisers were locked in fierce combat, the two German Scharnhorst-class armored cruisers had not been assigned combat missions. Hipper had allowed them to fire at will and assist the capital ships in battle.
And it was precisely the sixteen 210-millimeter guns of those two Scharnhorsts, sweeping the decks, that in only a few rounds rendered the Hood’s main guns powerless.
As it turned out, the Hood was a ship of the same class as the Revenge, but she had not undergone modernization of her main guns. To this day, she was still using 343-millimeter open-mounted main guns from more than twenty years ago—that is, they had no enclosed turret, no roof, and were directly exposed to the air above.
For main guns protected like that, even top-attack fire from an armored cruiser’s 210-millimeter guns meant catastrophe.
The actual combat situation was indeed so. Not long after the fighting began, the Hood’s forward and rear main-gun positions were hit respectively by the Scharnhorst and the Gneisenau.
Because the gun crews at the gun positions had no protection at all, every one of them was blown dead, and the four 343-millimeter shells placed at the gun positions awaiting loading also detonated. Under such circumstances, even if the gun barrels had not been completely destroyed, there were no gunners left to operate them.
One could only say that such trash, far behind the times and originally destined only for shore bombardment missions, was bound to become a tragedy in a clash between capital ships.
At this point, Hipper could have chosen to slowly finish off and sink the enemy ships that had lost combat capability one by one, giving his crews some gunnery practice.
But he was pressed for time, so he ordered his ships to continue shelling while detaching three destroyers to charge at the enemy vessels that had lost their firepower and deliver the coup de grâce with torpedoes. It could be considered cutting through the tangled mess with a swift blade.
The three friendly destroyers received the order and immediately sprinted head-on at high speed. When they had closed to around three kilometers from the enemy ships, they each fired a spread of torpedoes in a fan pattern.
There was no need to get too close, lest a few remaining quick-firing guns on the enemy ships still pose a threat to the destroyers. In any case, the enemy ships’ speed had generally fallen very low, and they had lost their command system; they might not be able to evade torpedoes from three kilometers away.
A few minutes later, four torpedoes exploded, throwing up towering columns of water beside the enemy ships. The Revenge was hit by two, while the Majestic and Hood were each hit by one. They began taking on water and listing. The Revenge was the first to sink completely, and the other two went down as well.
…
“Three enemy pre-dreadnoughts, three light cruisers, and two destroyers sunk; three destroyers damaged. At least five thousand enemies killed. This is truly an enormous feat of arms! General, you are simply too valiant. Shall we continue to meet the squadron to the west, or take our winnings and stop? After all, we must also keep the time in mind.”
As the Revenge sank, several trusted officers around Rear Admiral Hipper, as well as the captain of the Derfflinger, immediately began praising and flattering him with heartfelt admiration.
These men were not necessarily being sycophantic. Many of them truly admired him. Others, out of concern for their own side’s safety, wanted to stop while they were ahead, and thus had no choice but to praise the merits of this battle as much as they could.
After all, if the merit were not great enough, the general might become greedy for more credit and linger in battle.
Although completely winning the battle before them and pursuing the remaining enemy was undoubtedly no problem.
But the longer they were delayed, what if David Beatty cut off their route home?
When considering a problem, one could not look only at what was before one’s eyes; one had to take the overall situation into account.
Amid the praise of the crowd, Hipper did not lose his cool. He was very clear about what everyone was thinking.
He asked himself honestly: if he had not previously discussed matters with Lelouch, and if Lelouch had not inspired him with the “third route of retreat,” then right now he most likely would indeed choose to quit while he was ahead.
From the moment his side opened fire, David Beatty had already known their coordinates, and was now on the way at full speed. The later they left, the more likely they were to be intercepted.
The remnants of the Channel Fleet before him were nothing, but Beatty’s six to seven new battlecruisers truly could cost lives!
But now that there was the never-before-imagined new road of “retreating back to Antwerp,” “eliminating evil to the last” had become somewhat possible.
Seeing that none of his subordinate commanders understood his deeper intent, Hipper swept his gaze around the circle. In the end, he still ordered all ships to first engage the other enemy squadron to the west, and to wait for an opportunity afterward rather than act hastily.
After sending away his other subordinates, he specifically kept behind the duke’s special envoy, Lieutenant Lelouch, and sought a little advice in a testing tone. “What do you think? Under the present circumstances, should we pursue and kill them to the end, or take our winnings and stop?”
Lelouch had been very low-key the entire time before, never meddling in operational decisions. Only when Hipper asked him so directly did he cease being polite, saying decisively:
“I recommend pursuing them to the end! The other generals seek stability because they do not know the situation in Antwerp, nor do they know how the army can cooperate with the navy. These matters I have told only you, so only you yourself can make a sufficiently comprehensive judgment.
“Second, when I previously reported to you the fallback plan of withdrawing to Antwerp, you also mentioned that what this plan feared most was ‘the warships being seriously damaged in battle, while Antwerp has only a good harbor but lacks a specialized large naval shipyard, so once we arrive there, they may only be able to berth and not receive proper repairs.’
“But now the result is already clear. In total, we were only hit by a few six-inch shells, and only the Seydlitz took one twelve-inch shell. None of it is of great consequence. Since there is no need for major repairs, the greatest hidden danger of retreating to Antwerp has been eliminated. What remains are only benefits, with no drawbacks.”
Hipper had originally been somewhat shaken by the unanimous remonstrations of his subordinate commanders. Encouraged like this by Lelouch, his thoughts cleared once more.
That’s right! The others could not make a comprehensive judgment because, for reasons of secrecy, he had not told them the whole situation! Especially the information Lelouch had provided regarding army-navy coordination—only he himself knew it.
Because after this battle, Hipper needed to continue the intelligence deception, needed to prevent the enemy from realizing that “the German army already knows its wireless codes have been compromised,” and needed to make everything today appear to be his own “disobedient independent action.”
And in order to ensure that this disobedient independent action was acted out convincingly enough, he naturally had to keep even his confidants in the dark. His confidants only needed to know what he was doing; there was no need for them to know what he was thinking.
The objective actions could be made public, but the subjective motives had to be concealed. Better to hide it from as many as possible.
“True. Only you and I can make a judgment on this matter from the overall perspective. The others don’t even understand all the conditions, so why should I listen to them? At times, history depends on one or two people to change it. I’ve decided. Pursue to the end! Kill as many as we can! Forget Beatty’s interception. When the time comes, we’ll withdraw directly to Antwerp!”
——
P.S. There will still be two updates today, about six or seven thousand words.
I promise I’ll finish writing the naval battle today. I’ve already learned my lesson and am doing my best to speed up. Today I’ll definitely bring things back to the land battle plot and the protagonist’s promotion and scheming, so everyone, please don’t stop following updates or commenting.
I’ve already cut and cut again, compressed and compressed again, just to ensure that Hastings’s main force is completely wiped out within this chapter. Only the necessary process of strategic thinking and decision-making really cannot be omitted; there’s nothing I can do about that.
I bow my head and confess my fault. Writing naval battles really does make the pacing slow. The main reason is that this is my first time writing one, so there are many things that need setup, and I also have to let readers who didn’t originally read much of this understand the current situation.