Chapter 141: Fracture

Led by the Queen Elizabeth, the five British warships did not return to the battle line. Instead, they accelerated to twenty-five knots and locked onto Raeder, who was withdrawing from the engagement.

Witnessing this scene, Feng Chengqian felt a tinge of regret.

During the exchange of fire, Feng Chengqian had not given the order to lock onto the five British warships charging at the forefront; otherwise, Jellicoe certainly would not have had the opportunity to pursue Raeder.

At this moment, Feng Chengqian faced a similar dilemma.

Along the battle line, the High Seas Fleet had seized the initial advantage, yet it lacked numerical superiority in capital ships, engaging sixteen enemy battleships with fifteen of its own. Even though the fierce bombardment of the preceding fifteen minutes had made the British warships taste defeat and significantly reduced the Grand Fleet's firepower, not a single British ship had sunk, nor had any been completely incapacitated. Consequently, in the battleship duel, at least one German ship would inevitably find itself targeted by two British warships simultaneously. Under such circumstances, had Feng Chengqian gone to reinforce Raeder, it would only have further weakened the battle line.

The problem was that Raeder certainly could not defeat Jellicoe on his own.

Let us not forget that Jellicoe possessed two fast battleships whose combat capabilities far surpassed those of battlecruisers; these two fast battleships alone were capable of eliminating Raeder.

If Raeder were defeated, the consequences would be unimaginable.

To begin with, even if the High Seas Fleet triumphed in the battleship showdown and forced the Grand Fleet to retreat, Feng Chengqian did not have a sufficient number of fast capital ships at his disposal to pursue the fleeing British vessels. To make the victory truly meaningful, Feng Chengqian had to enable Raeder to hold out until the very end.

Having thought this through, Feng Chengqian handed over command of the fleet decisive battle to the commander of the First Battleship Division, who was the captain of the König, while ordering Raeder to swing around from the front of the battle line and rendezvous with the Bayern, which had broken away from the line and accelerated to twenty-four knots.

Under Feng Chengqian's command, the only vessel capable of rivaling the two Queen Elizabeth-class ships was his own flagship.

Consequently, two pairs of battle formations emerged on the battlefield.

At three-fifty, the Bayern rendezvoused with the five battlecruisers, and Feng Chengqian assumed command. Over ten kilometers away, the five fast capital ships led by Jellicoe were closing in.

Five minutes later, having arranged the order of engagement, the six German ships turned to head north and reduced their speed to twenty knots.

Jellicoe did not slow down, continuing his pursuit of the German fleet at twenty-four knots, though he too noticed that the lead ship was the battleship Bayern.

Although Jellicoe had long known that the Bayern-class battleships were designed specifically to counter the Queen Elizabeth-class, he felt no trepidation, for he possessed two fast battleships while Feng Chengqian had only one.

Shortly after four o'clock, when Jellicoe closed the distance to under fifteen kilometers, Feng Chengqian ordered the fleet to alter its course to the northeast.

Clearly, if Jellicoe wished to fight, he had to follow suit and turn; otherwise, Feng Chengqian would certainly continue turning to port and use his speed advantage to cut across the front of the Grand Fleet's main battle line.

Jellicoe had no choice and immediately executed the same turning maneuver.

During this period, Jellicoe also made arrangements for the engagement.

At seven minutes past four, as the Queen Elizabeth and the Warspite caught up, the six German ships fired the first salvo.

Although Feng Chengqian had already made arrangements—assigning the Bayern to engage the Queen Elizabeth, the Empress Augusta and Prince Heinrich to engage the Warspite, and the remaining three battlecruisers to take on the three British ships respectively—his tactical deployment was exceptionally flexible. The moment Jellicoe followed up with the turn, Feng Chengqian ordered the rear five German ships to concentrate their firepower first on the two leading fast battleships.

This tactical deployment played a pivotal role.

Although lasting less than three minutes, the six German ships each managed five to seven salvos, projecting a total of nearly three hundred large-caliber armor-piercing shells. According to the German combat logs, at least two British ships were directly hit seven times during that period, and it was highly likely that three additional near-misses were actually hits.

As a result, by the time the Queen Elizabeth and the Warspite entered the battle line, they were already scarred and battered.

At that time, the forward turret of the Queen Elizabeth was struck by a three-hundred-millimeter armor-piercing shell. Although the frontal armor of the turret was not penetrated, all the officers and men inside the turret were injured, and the turret captain's wounds were extremely severe, rendering that turret unable to fire for five minutes. The situation of the Warspite was slightly better, primarily because in the initial moments, all six German ships had targeted the Queen Elizabeth rushing at the front and did not focus their strikes on the Warspite. Nevertheless, she was hit three times, one of which destroyed the aft bridge.

In truth, these setbacks paled in comparison.

The greatest loss for the British was that the mainmast of the Queen Elizabeth was struck by a large-caliber shell, which precisely blew away the antenna of the fleet's communications radio. In other words, until the antenna could be repaired, the Queen Elizabeth had to rely on flaghoists to command the battle.

What did this signify?

Flag signals could only convey simple messages, making it extremely difficult for Jellicoe to make major adjustments to the tactical engagement.

The resulting consequence was that the five British ships could only enter the battle line and engage in combat strictly in accordance with the deployment Jellicoe had previously established.

Jellicoe's deployment was as follows: the Queen Elizabeth and the Warspite to engage the Bayern; the Lion to engage the Empress Augusta; the Australia to engage Prince Heinrich and the Crown Prince; while the New Zealand was to engage the Great Elector and the Hereditary Prince.

On the surface, Jellicoe's arrangement seemed flawless.

Naturally, this assumed that the Queen Elizabeth and the Warspite were exceptionally formidable and capable of eliminating the backbone Bayern within a short timeframe. Otherwise, the Australia and the New Zealand trailing in the rear were absolute no match for the four German ships, and the Lion positioned in the center would gain no advantage either. In short, as long as the Bayern could hold out a little longer, Jellicoe was destined to fail.

Clearly, Jellicoe had overestimated the combat effectiveness of his two fast battleships.

Relatively speaking, the condition of the Queen Elizabeth was somewhat better; after all, the ship had participated in the Battle of the Norwegian Sea, and its officers and crew possessed practical combat experience.

The situation aboard the Warspite, however, was dire.

Commissioned merely two months prior, this battleship bore a striking resemblance to the Queen Elizabeth at the time of the Battle of the Norwegian Sea—meaning the vast majority of her officers and men lacked actual combat experience and had not even completed their full training regimen. Her performance on the battlefield could hardly be expected to be favorable.

In truth, this very issue applied equally to the Bayern.

Although the Imperial Navy's training system was more comprehensive, the Bayern was also a brand-new vessel, and the vast majority of her crew had never participated in combat.

Fortunately, Feng Chengqian had anticipated this long in advance.

Precisely for this reason, in his engagement plan, he did not burden the Bayern with the heaviest load, instead entrusting the weighty responsibility of dealing with the Warspite to the Empress Augusta, personally commanded by Raeder, alongside the Prince Heinrich, which had demonstrated extraordinary valor in the preceding naval battle.

This deployment effectively established a core priority: the Bayern's primary mission was not to defeat the Queen Elizabeth, but to hold out for as long as possible, helping the fleet maintain its numerical superiority and drawing the British firepower, thereby granting Raeder sufficient time to secure victory.

Clearly, Feng Chengqian did not expect the Bayern, making its maiden combat appearance, and its crew of over a thousand to work miracles.

This deployment played a crucial decisive role.

During the battleship duel phase, the Bayern's gunnery hit rate was not high; one could even say it was the lowest among the eleven capital ships on both sides. According to the Bayern's combat records, out of nearly four hundred main gun shells fired, only two scored direct hits on enemy vessels, yielding a hit rate of a mere half of one percent.

However, what led to the Bayern's low hit rate was not entirely a matter of crew proficiency.

More importantly, throughout the entire engagement, the Bayern endured the concentrated gunfire of two British warships, making evasive maneuvers far more critical than hitting the enemy.

Naturally, the Bayern also succeeded in depressing the hit rates of the two British main batteries.

Throughout the engagement, the Queen Elizabeth and the Warspite fired three hundred eighty-six and two-hundred seventy-four fifteen-inch shells respectively at the Bayern, scoring four and three hits each. Their hit rates stood at a mere one percent, no better than that of the Bayern.

Consequently, the two backbone British warships wasted extremely precious firepower on the Bayern.

Engaging in so much futile effort meant that elsewhere, the British fleet was bound to come away empty-handed.

While the Queen Elizabeth and the Warspite concentrated their firepower on the Bayern, the Empress Augusta and the Prince Heinrich—particularly the Prince Heinrich—poured one hundred percent of their firepower onto the Warspite virtually unimpeded.

For the Grand Fleet, this was by no means auspicious.

One must remember that the Warspite had the least experienced crew among the five British ships. Despite her thick armor, she was hardly capable of withstanding the ferocious firepower of the German vessels.

As a result, the first to collapse was not any of the three battlecruisers, but the Warspite.

Before five o'clock, three of the Warspite's four turrets had been destroyed, and the sole surviving B turret—the one forward of the bridge—temporarily lost its ability to fire due to damage to the ammunition hoist passage.

Even more fatally, the hull of the Warspite took at least fourteen armor-piercing hits. Although only a few penetrated the belt armor, the resulting damage was catastrophic. Interestingly, much of this damage was aggravated by untimely and ineffective damage control.

By this point, confident though Jellicoe might be, the Warspite could no longer hold out.

For Jellicoe, this was an absolute disaster. One had to realize that if the Warspite withdrew from combat, the battle line so meticulously organized by Jellicoe would utterly collapse.

The inescapable reality was that the Warspite could simply endure no more.