1890 King of Southeast Asia

At 1:40-10:50, the Iron Duke entered the entrance of the strait.

At this time, the German fleet and the British interception fleet had penetrated ten kilometers into the strait. When the Iron Duke came up, it saw the British and German fleets in a mess.

The British battleship slowed down because the speed of the battleship Barham was reduced. In fact, if the British battleship went deeper, it would not be able to leave the strait.

Just like a wide-mouthed bottle, both sides can move at the mouth of the bottle, but after entering the strait, the space for movement becomes very small.

"General Jellicoe, for this situation, does the Royal Navy have a plan... or experience?" Xu Sunming took a breath of cold air as he looked at the fleet in a mess.

The German and British battleships have been squeezed into a group, with the farthest distance being 56 kilometers and the closest distance being only 32 kilometers. There are flames everywhere in the strait.

In this level of melee, large battleships can ensure that their main guns can penetrate the opponent's armor.

Small warships can also attack with torpedoes. At a distance of about 4 kilometers, the torpedoes of most countries can reach their maximum speed.

In such a chaotic situation, the formation is meaningless. The competition is about who has a faster firing rate and more numbers.

As for defense, at this distance, 305mm guns can also penetrate armor of more than 450mm. Those armor defenses with a thickness of 10 to 10 inches are meaningless.

Xu Sunming couldn't help but sigh that the trip was worthwhile. He had never seen such a scene.

"I have experience, but it's a bit old. It's probably only in the Battle of Trafalgar that there would be such a chaotic battle." Jellicoe didn't know how to describe his current state, and even made a joke.

"100 years ago? The artillery at that time was far inferior to that of today." Xu Sunming shook his head in shock.

What shocked him was not the Battle of Trafalgar, but a fireball rising in the distance, which meant that a warship exploded, and it should be the ammunition depot of a large warship.

"So, General, what are you and your army going to do now? Fire? Or charge?" Xu Sunming looked at Jellicoe.

Inside the strait, the number of British warships is absolutely at a disadvantage. Including the ship-borne torpedo boats, there are only about 23 ships in total. At present, they can only be said to be struggling.

"One ship is missing, the Barham is gone..." Jellicoe shook his head and put down the telescope.

In his field of vision, there are only 5 large warships of the British Navy, and the other one...

"General Jellicoe, the destroyer found two German destroyers, towing a German battleship approaching the southeast coast. Through the comparison of the ship type, it is a German King-class battleship." The fleet staff ran over.

"In the southeast direction? How far?" Jellicoe asked.

"About 12 miles."

"Let King George V and Conqueror deal with it." The two ships are currently on the right side of the loose formation. Although they are not battleships of the same level, they don't care about these at this time.

"The whole fleet should chase and fire at close range. Be careful not to cause accidental injuries. Send a message to the Queen to ask if the Barham has sunk." Jellicoe thought for a long time and did not fire directly.

Now the two sides are in constant motion. It is safe to fire at a long distance, but only God knows who the shells will hit.

After all, the time for a shell to fly in the air is tens of seconds, and it is better to receive it well than to fire it well.

So, more than 20 battleships of the British main battleship cluster joined the battle, and with a large number of auxiliary warships, the number of British warships participating in the battle exceeded 100, exceeding the number of German warships, and regained the advantage in number.

Jellicoe's joining directly changed the entire battlefield situation. The German fleet, under attack from both sides, began to attack the British warships without scruples, as if preparing to use ramming tactics.

This of course did not succeed, not because the German warships were slow, but because the German warships were not equipped with rams.

However, the destroyer did go crazy. After sending out the signal, it no longer cared about the friendly warships and directly launched a wave of scattering flowers at the Queen-class battleship.

The entire strait was filled with torpedoes heading in all directions. Both the Germans and the British were maneuvering cautiously, and even the close-range artillery battles stopped.

Unfortunately, the torpedoes were too dense and disorderly. The worst was the Queen-class No. 5 ship Malaya, which was hit by 9 torpedoes on both sides in 3 minutes. The underwater was hit like a sieve, with thousands of square holes.

With such a large amount of water inflow, the deck of the Malaya had already sunk into the water in less than ten minutes, and was sinking faster.

However, it was not without cost. The German Kaiser-class battleship Kaiser had been hit by 3 381 mm shells before, the bow was deformed, and a fire broke out inside the hull. There was no time to avoid it.

Two consecutive German torpedoes hit the Kaiser, one of which exploded at the location of the ammunition depot in the midship turret, and the exploded ammunition depot was physically isolated from the upper deck.

The damage control on the Kaiser focused on extinguishing the fire, but the fire had spread to the midship of the ship. Without the deck isolation, the fire spread into the ammunition depot, which then ignited the ammunition in the ammunition depot, causing a secondary explosion.

The secondary explosion exacerbated the fire, and then the secondary gun ammunition depot exploded continuously. If the other ammunition depots were not filled with water in time, the entire ship would have exploded directly.

Even so, the Kaiser was burned beyond recognition and lost its value, and the captain had no choice but to order the ship to be abandoned.

At 12:20, the chaos lasted for more than half an hour, and then the German fleet separated. Most of the German fleet passed the blockade of the Queen-class battleships and headed for the depths of the strait.

Jellicoe originally wanted to pursue, but the torpedoes on the German destroyers and cruisers had been threatening the waterway. In order to cover the retreat of the main force, he launched a suicide torpedo attack and blocked their pursuit.

Jellicoe could only organize artillery fire from a distance. Although he achieved some hits, he did not leave any new results.

In this battle, the British lost 4 cruisers, 7 destroyers, 4 armored cruisers, and 4 battleships-all Queen-class. Only the Warrior and Queen Elizabeth, which were injured at the beginning of the battle, survived.

Of the 4 ships that sank, the Barham ran ashore at the last moment and sank to the bottom of the sea, which is why Jellicoe did not find it. The remaining 3 sank into the cold sea water.

In addition, ten of the warships that came with Jellicoe to support were injured, and three were attacked by torpedoes and were seriously injured.

As for the Germans, they lost 19 destroyers, 8 cruisers, 1 armored cruiser, and sank 3 battleships.

Yes, only 3 were sunk, including the battleship Grosser Kurfürst, and the other two battleships were Kaiser-class battleships. The survivability of the German battleships was surprisingly good.

The Germans also lost 3 battlecruisers. Although the British no longer used battlecruisers as capital ships, the Germans still used them. This loss is undoubtedly distressing.

Moreover, most of the remaining German ships were also seriously injured, and many battleships had to enter the dock for repairs for half a year before they could leave the port again.

However, although the Germans took the lead in the number of losses, the tonnage of losses was similar between the two sides.

The British ships were large, and the armored cruisers were all more than 10,000 tons. Together with the losses of the Queen-class, the total tonnage sunk was around 200,000 tons.

Although the Germans sank a lot of ships, they were mainly small destroyers. The total weight of 19 ships was less than 20,000 tons, and the total weight was just over 200,000 tons.

Tactically speaking, this ancient melee tactic was very crude and had no technical content, but Reinhardt had no choice in the face of a huge gap in power.

Moreover, the chaotic battle did give the Germans a chance to escape. Even though they lost nearly one-third of the tonnage of the warships in the mission fleet, they were able to save the main force of the fleet and escape.

Although the ships that escaped were all broken.

Judging from the course of the battle, Reinhardt had done his best, and the result was not bad.

However, from any other perspective, the German fleet was a failure. Strategically, the German fleet's strength was damaged more than that of the British fleet, and it failed to achieve its original goal - to weaken the strength of the British Royal Navy.

It cannot be said that it was not weakened, but it was weakened more severely for Germany.

Tactically, Germany lost a large number of warships and withdrew from the battlefield first. The sailors on the sunken warships and those seriously injured warships that were not sunk became prisoners of the British.

Maybe the Germans still have steel to build warships, but they do not have enough resources to train enough mature sailors, which is also quite disadvantageous in strategy.

Britain won, but it was a bitter victory. This was not the kind of battle line duel that Britain imagined. In close combat, the British Navy focused on firepower and speed, and the shortcomings of neglecting defense were infinitely magnified.

It was not the armored defense capability, but the overall structural strength. In order to reduce the weight of the structure, the British made major changes to the watertight compartments and other structures, reducing the overall structural strength of the warships.

In battle, facing underwater damage, the warships were particularly vulnerable.

For example, the remaining Warrior and Queen Elizabeth, which were hit by two and three torpedoes respectively, are now in a semi-sunken state, and the entire bow of the Warrior has sunk into the water.

If they had not closed the watertight doors inside the hull in advance, making the qualified compartments an independent buoyancy reserve, they would have sunk long ago.

At the entrance of the strait, Jellicoe looked at a messy sea surface, with flames still burning in many places, and British warships were salvaging the drowning.

The British gave them a cup of hot coffee, a blanket and clean clothes and sent them to the hospital. The Germans were much more violent, but the British Royal Navy always regarded itself as a gentleman and retained the last bit of decency and did not kill anyone.

They only gave them a towel and were put in the back of the line when they went to the hospital.

Without dry clothes, they were blown by the cold wind on the deck. In fact, in the next two days, 70% of the Germans had a high fever. They had to waste the British money to treat them. Why?

"Really, I don't know how to write." Xu Sunming sat on the turret of the Iron Duke with a notebook, thinking about how to record this battle.

This record is to be reported. It's okay to show it to the people above, but it is likely to be put into the Naval Academy as material, or even in the textbook battle examples.

If it is not written well, it will be embarrassing.

But it is difficult to write well with the British and Germans' dismissal...

[Author's digression]: As the title says, the author has been betrayed for the third time. The reason is that he attended a classmate's wedding. The classmate betrayed him without knowing it, but now he knows.

I have had a headache and a cough these past few days. I am almost dying of coughing. My muscles ache. I have no strength and can't sleep. I can't think of anything. I'm sorry, brothers...

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