The "De Fringer" located in the second position of the German fleet and the Austro-Hungarian battlecruiser "Grand Duke of Frands" found that it was ignored by the enemy. The "Royal Princess" corresponding to the "Sedlitz" was attacking the German flagship "Luzzo", while the "Tiger", opposite the "Frands", found the wrong opponent and targeted the cruiser "Regensburg".~~~~~

Sa Shijun stood in the artillery command tower, holding a hand-held binoculars, staring at the British opponent on the distant sea through the observation window. In the 8x binoculars, the "Tiger" was just a vague gray shadow, and the outline was impossible to distinguish.

He saw several balls of fire shining on the British warship in his telescope. After about ten seconds, the shells fired from it were like several huge black beer bottles, passing high above the head of the "Grand Duke Franz" with a sharp whistling sound, and flew towards the cruiser "Regensburg" about 1,500 meters outside the "Grand Duke Franz". The German light cruiser hid in the sea, and the shells splashed several white water columns dozens of meters high, instantly obscuring its figure.

"Oh my God, poor Regensburg, it is under attack from battle cruisers!" Sergeant Lehman shouted, "No one attacks us, do the British regard us as friends?"

"Target 13200, position 97, all starboard fire preparation!" Major Simmich, the commander of the guns and cannons, had locked the target, he looked down at the cannon preparation signal light box, the four main turrets and eight starboard deputy cannons all had green lights. He reported to the captain in the command room below through the sound tube in front of him, "The artillery fire is ready, sir!"

The artillery fire bell rang, and the officers and soldiers quickly stuffed cotton balls into their ears, and some covered their ears with their hands, opened their mouths to hold their breath. The 10 330mm main gun opened fire at the target, and several orange-red fireballs rolled outward on the sea surface, illuminating the entire warship. With a loud "rumbling" sound, the giant ship with a displacement of 23,000 tons seemed to have suffered a heavy blow, sank downwards, and then shook violently.

Brown smoke spread across the sea and soon enveloped the entire warship.

Most of the officers on the bridge were holding glasses in their hands and staring at the sea. The British "Tiger" shot at the "Regensburg" for 10 minutes. They did not discover their mistakes after being hit several shots.

The two warship gunners who were not attacked quickly calmed down and began to shoot calmly like in artillery training, which greatly improved their hit rate. In the artillery command tower at the top of the bridge, the figure of the enemy ship on the 7.5-meter optical main rangefinder has been magnified 25 times. The fire rate and accuracy that the Germans have always emphasized have begun to work, and the British ships were surrounded by stormy water columns.

After just a few rounds of volleys, the Lion and the Royal Princess were hit twice, while the Tiger was hit by the Grand Duke of Franz and four shells were hit by the turrets in succession, and the turrets in the rear lost their combat capability. Fortunately, the Japanese made many useful suggestions for improvements to the British when building the King Kong-class battlecruiser, which made the Tiger, built in accordance with the Orion-class battleship structure, have excellent protective performance that other British battlecruisers do not have, so that they can avoid accidents.

After three rounds of artillery fire, the "Queen Mary" found the wrong target. Its gunman did not realize that there was a problem in the distribution of firepower and transferred the target to the "Sedlitz". The "Sedlitz" hit two shells in succession, and a 343mm shell penetrated its turret armor and detonated four packs of fire medicine inside. Fortunately, the Germans learned the lesson after the Battle of Dogersbane. The newly installed explosion-proof door in the turret played a role and separated the flames from the ammunition compartment. However, the No. 3 turret of the "Sedlitz" lost its function.

Now Lieutenant General Verenick on the "Radetsky" feels very strange. Did the British regard the warships flying the Austro-Hungarian Double Eagle battle flag as "a warship of a neutral country"?

The battle lasted only 10 minutes, and the distance between the two sides was closer to 11,000 meters. Betty ordered the fleet to turn right to widen the distance from the German fleet, and Hippel also ordered the fleet to turn slightly left to interfere with the British artillery distance measurement. Now the distance has begun to grow further again.

At 4 o'clock, the front of the bridge of the German flagship "Ludzor" was hit by a shell, but it did not cause much damage. The battle between the two sides continued to heat up and gradually entered the storm. Lieutenant General Wilenk ordered the "Radetzky" to turn the firepower to the British flagship. The "Lion" was hit twice within 2 minutes. Now there are water columns rising from the sky around the British flagship, and it completely falls within the firepower coverage of the "Ludzor" and "Radetzky".

The "Lion"-class battlecruiser launched by the British in 1912 conquered the eyes of the always picky British people with its smooth and elegant appearance and British gentlemanly temperament, so that the awesome British gave it the reputation of "Perfect Cat" without reservation. Even the Japanese ordered the "King Kong"-class battlecruiser ship based on it, mainly to learn the design of this warship.

However, this battle cruiser built simply to weaken protection for high speed is not accepted by rational naval technicians. In fact, except for the British and the German Navy that blindly compete with the British, no other country in the world has built battle cruisers. In order to pursue high speed, the Lion installed a record 48 boilers that were unprecedentedly high, which made its armor thickness only comparable to the previous armored cruisers. In the fierce naval battle, its survival is very doubtful.

The "Radetsky" built by the Austro-Hungarian Navy was an accident. It was actually the cruiser of battleships. This aspect was similar to the design of German battleships. It was only lengthened to obtain better speeds. The protection was not very weak. Of course, they were not able to reach a high speed of 28.5 knots like the "Lion" class.

Now the British are going to suffer the bitter fruits caused by Fisher's paranoia.

Relatively speaking, German and Austrian warships have now generally adopted a unified centralized shooting commander for all ships, while the British only equipped this new artillery command system on a few warships. In fact, the British Scott shooting commander with mechanical calculators has a slightly better performance, but they still ignore this. Another point is that the as-type optical rangefinder manufactured by Zeiss is less light than the British optical rangefinder, which makes the images it obtains when the light is dim than that of the British rangefinder.

Well, now a large-caliber armor-piercing projectile penetrated the armor of the turret of the "Lion", causing an explosion inside the turret. The explosion, and the medicine bags in the turret were instantly ignited. The entire warship almost turned half a circle on the sea surface, and the flames began to spread along the passage to the ammunition room. At this emergency moment, Major Harvey, the commander of the turret, dragged his broken legs, climbed to the next microphone, ordered the closing of the ammunition door, and began to pour water into the turret.

Major Harvey saved the Lion at the last moment, preventing it from the doom of dying.

The Lion was severely damaged. Now it was covered with black smoke and its entire hull was covered. This instead saved it from further blows. The thick smoke on the sea surface made the gun commanders of the "Luzzo" and "Radetsky" unable to capture its position for the time being.
Chapter completed!