Chapter Sixteen: The Trump Card (12)

  "Deputy captain, the German's 350mm armor-piercing shell has penetrated our waterline belt main armor, opening a hole with a diameter of nearly three meters. The engine room behind turret P was hit, the engines have stopped running, and two adjacent compartments are flooding!"

  The electrical system in the engine room has been interrupted, and nearby water pumps have stopped working. The deputy captain who rushed to verify the situation had to grope his way through the water under the leadership of the damage control team leader to the upper passage not far from the engine room.

  To make up for the lack of horizontal armor, the Noten was fitted with a layer of vaulted armor over the engine rooms, boiler rooms and magazines, but this cost-cutting measure proved to be a complete failure when 350mm shells penetrated the engine rooms. As the deputy captain walked onto the narrow communication passage above the engine room, the passage was filled with leaking steam, coal smoke and the sound of seawater pouring in. Without the damage control officer adding anything, the deputy captain could see that the Noten was on its last legs.

  "The deputy captain, the explosion of the armor-piercing shell damaged the communication doors between several adjacent sealed cabins. Due to the large hole, the plugging work is not going smoothly, and there is a risk of flooding by seawater at any time... The deputy captain insisted on continuing to advance, and the damage control team leader couldn't stop him, so he could only continue to persuade in vain."

  "The captain sent me here to verify the situation, but it seems there's nothing left to verify. So I'll stand here and fight alongside you. If death is the inescapable fate of the British Navy, then I, Lieutenant Commander Edward Cameron, second-in-command of HMS Tireless, am willing to share that glory with you!"

  The deputy captain of the "Unyielding" took the waterproof flashlight from the damage control team leader and jumped into the icy sea water in the engine room without hesitation. The deputy captain's heroic actions moved many damage control team members who had been hesitant to move forward, and many Royal Navy sailors followed in his footsteps, grabbing the plugs and jumping into the swirling vortex of the engine room, gritting their teeth and enduring the biting cold, striving to swim towards the torn opening.

  The icy waters of the North Sea at the end of winter and beginning of spring, human grandeur and ambition are not enough to defy the ruthlessness of nature. Even if these lovely officers and sailors can complete the plugging work, most of them will lose their young lives, and those who remain will have to undergo amputations or spend the rest of their lives in bed due to severe frostbite.

  "But..." The damage control team leader jumped down after him, his loud and fierce voice echoing through the engine room: "Who the hell cares about these!"

  ****

  The joy of accurately hitting the British Indefatigable at a distance of over 10,000 meters had not yet fermented when the bad news of being hit by the German ship came pouring in. The shock caused by the armor-piercing shell hitting the hull seemed to be just the beginning, and the explosion continued for tens of seconds afterwards.

  His arm, which had struck the corner of the table, was slashed open with a long gash, and blood flowed out freely, filling the command tower of the Deutschland with its metallic smell. The badly bleeding captain of the Deutschland hastily bandaged himself with a handkerchief, struggled to his feet from the thick deck, stumbled forward, and made his way towards the telephone receiver that had fallen onto the steel plating.

  "Commander's tower, Emil's turret has been hit, the armor-piercing shell in the ammunition loader has detonated, and the damage control team is on its way!"

  The voice of the turret was filled with the sound of Dora's cannon, and the captain of the German battleship, who had been full of vigor just a few seconds ago, was stunned. The internal telephone receiver, which was painted black, was scraped out by him to reveal a bit of white powder.

  The New Zealand and the Indomitable, two Invincible-class battlecruisers, engaged in a fierce battle with the Deutschland. These ships could be considered as enhanced versions of armored cruisers, with 4 12-inch main guns that had relatively impressive firepower. However, they were no match for the massive Derfflinger-class battlecruisers. Nevertheless, the Deutschland was not one of the failures in German military history.

  At 7:04, a 305 mm armor-piercing shell hit the starboard upper belt armor below the aftmost turret on Deutschland. The British armor-piercing shell with its lyddite filling fortunately did not detonate prematurely; it penetrated both the 100 mm upper belt armor and the 100 mm turret barbette armor in succession, igniting the propellant charges in the hoist, consuming the armored hatch and the loading chamber crewmen. Successive explosions subjected the 50 mm armor roof over the magazines to its most severe test, for beneath it lay the magazines and handling rooms that could destroy any capital ship.

  Fortunately, the Germans did not pursue extreme firing speeds like the British, and good firefighting design and discipline saved this German warship.

  The Germans did not have the habit of preparing propellant charges in the ammunition loading room, and the two layers of armored hatches covering the magazine and propellant loading room were only opened when the ammunition hoist was working. The propellant storage room inside the ship also had the propellant stored in waterproof, fireproof and anti-static brass containers, so even if the propellant charge in the ammunition hoist was detonated, the last layer of armored hatch cover was slightly deformed due to shock waves, and the fire did not spread to the magazine.

  The 305mm armor-piercing shell and the explosive charge of the 350mm gun combined to devastating effect, instantly shredding the internal organs of the German gunners, ending dozens of young lives. The dense smoke and toxic fumes produced by the burning propellant of the 305mm shell spread through the ventilation system, causing the stunned sailors to inhale large amounts of hot and harmful gases, scorching their lungs and damaging their central nervous system. Wearing gas masks, damage control teams and medical personnel had to carry the injured and unconscious sailors from the passageway between the Dora turret and the Emil turret magazine, located beneath the aft superfiring turret structure, to safety. With the interlocking door between the two magazines closed and the sea valves opened, the possibility of a sympathetic detonation in the Emil magazine was eliminated.

  The Deutschland barely escaped with her life, but was badly damaged. The makeshift boiler repairs failed again due to the violent shaking, and water poured back into the forward compartments that had been patched up, while the magazine for the Emil gun turret was flooded by seawater, which could only be pumped out after the large fire nearby had been extinguished. To maintain stability, the captain of Deutschland ordered counter-flooding of two empty compartments on the port side, and at this point, nearly 1,000 tons of water had entered the ship, reducing her speed to 20 knots.

  ****

  At 7:04 on March 4, 1915, the first ray of dawn that pierced through the thick fog and scattered over the surface of the North Sea not only meant the collapse of the darkness that had troubled the navy for a whole night, but also revealed the hidden trump card of the opponent in the fog.

  To better observe the fall of the shells, and to quickly form a spread, the two most powerful steel fleets on this planet simultaneously employed the tactic of half-battery salvo fire. After the mournful buzzing of the warning siren, the air on the deck of the Lev Sofiev seemed to solidify, as 4 x 350mm capped AP shells burst forth from the thick barrels of the main turrets, and the astonishing recoil sent the entire crew of the battleship grunting in unison. The 31,054-ton steel giant's forward progress seemed to pause for a moment, and it jumped slightly on the icy sea surface.

  Choking gun smoke wafted from the scorching barrels of the two main turrets, Anton and Bruno, at the bow, lingering around the mainmast. A few seconds later, a column of water splashed up by the 343mm armor-piercing shell fired by the old opponent Shōkaku arrived on schedule, its height even with the observation tower of Lützow.

  The disheveled and dirty lookout soldier had no time to care about his wet uniform, holding onto the binoculars and muttering to himself as he checked the landing point of British 343, feeding back the information to the command tower.

  "Commander's tower, at 07:04 L?tzow opened fire on Leuthen, three long-range shells and one near miss shell. Shell splinters seem to have grazed the shield of an 88mm gun on the port side."

  "Connect the B segment damage control team, let them verify the intelligence of the observation tower!" Commander Wang Haitian of the First Reconnaissance Fleet sat on a shaky chair, holding a slightly damaged pocket watch in his hand, with a tranquilizer box visible from the left breast pocket of his dark military uniform. Captain Paul-Henri of the Levshof, who admired the naval general, stole a glance at him and tried to imitate the general's calm demeanor, nodding his head slightly as he instructed his deputy commander. At this time, the rangefinder tower reported the results of this round of shooting:

  "Commander's tower, 07:04, Ryuev fires at Lützow, three near-misses, one penetrating shell or near-miss, or direct hit on the hull, Lützow experiences obvious tremors and displacement, specific combat results cannot be confirmed!"

  As the flagship of two fast fleets, it was the fate of the two battlecruisers to fight to the death. Although it wasn't the first hit on the enemy, the news that the invincible Lion had been hit still brought relief to the crew of Lützow. The good news was reported in a timely manner, and the small command tower was filled with ease and confidence, but the lookout tower's noisy voice rang out again.

  The fear, excitement, confusion and stubbornness in the soldiers' voices were pounding on everyone's eardrums through the small telephone receiver.

  "God, tell me this isn't an illusion!"

  Along the eastern rising sun's rays, a super fleet of 20 Dreadnoughts appeared in the lookout's telescope, emitting thick smoke and flying the traditional Nelson's Z flag, transforming from six columns into a 10-kilometer-long battle line.

  The lookout's heart was filled with a sense of foreboding, and he unconsciously searched for his own reinforcements. Then, he saw another breathtaking scene. In the southwest, an iron fleet of seventeen main battleships cut through the waves, with the Iron Cross and black eagle flag fluttering high on the mainmast, shining brightly in the golden sunlight against a dark background.

  The icy hull, the stern gun barrels, the towering mainmast, the dense black smokestacks, and the long battle line, the newly born heart of the German nation at sea. The lookout was intoxicated, but when faced with the British 343 and 381 shells, the fearless face of the young lookout flashed a hint of terror, a confusion belonging to youth, which then transformed into joy, the stubbornness of the Germans!

  "Is this the trump card of the British Empire?"

  She was indeed tired of the British hiding their heads and showing their tails, the large fleet in the northwest did not have a new ship that was secretly shown to others, Wang Haitian finally breathed a sigh of relief, and with a sense of participating in history and rewriting history, he let out a disdainful voice.

  "Is this the trump card of the German Empire?!"

  Leading ten fast battleships into battle, he lost one Lion-class battlecruiser and one Queen Elizabeth-class battleship was out of action, while the German cruiser Derfflinger, which had been thought to have withdrawn from combat or sunk, appeared brazenly in front of him. Seventeen capital ships, although the Grand Fleet did not have any new secret ships, this number still made the "Sea Cavalier" who had commanded many sea battles feel oppressed. The fierce heart that had been honed on the Nile River and in the Far East China had not cooled down, Beatty put aside his unpleasant feeling, patted his hand and said with a playful face.

  "This is the trump card of a strong navy!"

  After the Battle of Tsushima, Japanese warship designer Fujimoto Katsujiro, who had infiltrated the Grand Fleet through the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, wrote in his diary: "Leaving aside the pre-dreadnoughts, armored cruisers, light cruisers and destroyers, an area of less than 1,000 square kilometers was home to fourteen super dreadnoughts, twenty-three dreadnoughts, and thirteen battlecruisers. This is almost twice the total naval power of the United States, Japan, Italy, and Austria-Hungary, which are vying for supremacy at sea!

  "On this planet, probably only these two nations have the strength to contend for the throne of the supreme ruler of the ocean, and the dust of ownership should be settled in this pinnacle battle of the steam age!"