Chapter 150: Novice and Veteran

On October 18, the High Seas Fleet crossed the midline of the North Atlantic.

On the same day, Feng Chengqian received reliable intelligence that the American troop transport fleet had rendezvoused with the Atlantic Fleet and had departed the Bermuda Islands the previous night. By that evening, Feng received news regarding the Grand Fleet, indicating that it was also sailing westward.

In the early hours of the 19th, after conferring with Raeder, Feng ordered the speed increased to sixteen knots.

Under normal circumstances, the cruising speed of the High Seas Fleet was twelve knots. In other words, when sailing at twelve knots, the fleet achieved its maximum endurance. Increasing the speed to sixteen knots would significantly shorten the operational range. However, at this juncture, endurance was not Feng's primary consideration.

On the 21st, the High Seas Fleet reduced its speed to ten knots at a distance of approximately 3,500 kilometers from the Bermuda Islands.

By this point, the High Seas Fleet had sailed nearly 4,500 nautical miles, and it was time for its first refueling.

Although imperial engineers, with Feng's assistance, had resolved the technical challenges of underway refueling for warships, the refueling efficiency remained low. A single oiler could refuel at most one warship at a time, and replenishing 4,000 tons of fuel oil required more than eight hours.

It took nearly twenty hours to complete the refueling operations.

Early on the morning of the 22nd, Feng dispatched a reconnaissance detachment led by twelve light cruisers.

At this time, light cruisers were the least of Feng's worries. The number of light cruisers that had departed Wilhelmshaven accompanying the eight capital ships was as high as sixteen, and another twelve light cruisers had set sail from Kiel along with the passenger liners. After entering the North Atlantic, an additional eight light cruisers arrived to join the force. In other words, Feng had a full thirty-six light cruisers at his disposal at the time, whereas the entire Imperial Navy possessed only forty-eight light cruisers in total.

Feng had brought along such a large number of light cruisers specifically to intercept the American troop transport fleet.

As the light cruisers set off, the U.S. Navy's Atlantic Fleet, along with a troop transport fleet consisting of twenty-two large merchant vessels, was located approximately 1,000 kilometers to the west.

The speed of the American fleet was not fast. Not only were the speeds of the American capital ships relatively slow, but the speeds of those transport ships were also sluggish.

During the night of the 23rd, the light cruiser Wiesbaden spotted the U.S. Atlantic Fleet, as well as the troop transport fleet following in its wake.

At this moment, the distance between the High Seas Fleet and the Atlantic Fleet was less than 200 kilometers.

Upon receiving the telegram from the Wiesbaden, Feng immediately returned to the command bridge of the Bayern, where Raeder was already waiting for him.

After a brief consultation, Raeder left the Bayern and returned to the battlecruiser Moltke.

Half an hour later, the High Seas Fleet increased its speed to eighteen knots.

At this speed, shortly after daybreak, the High Seas Fleet would encounter the Atlantic Fleet.

Feng was not in a rush to force a decisive battle with the Atlantic Fleet; indeed, he held little hope of fighting a decisive engagement with them at this stage. Rather, he was even more reluctant to make contact during the afternoon or evening. The reason was simple: if a naval battle were fought in the afternoon, by the time the outcome between the High Seas Fleet and the Atlantic Fleet was decided, it would already be nightfall. By then, even if the High Seas Fleet emerged victorious, it would be unable to pursue the scattered and fleeing transport ships in the darkness.

At this moment, the Atlantic Fleet also spotted the light cruiser Wiesbaden.

Rear Admiral King, commanding the Atlantic Fleet, did not order a reduction in speed; he merely instructed the troop transport fleet to lower its speed to eight knots, and then ordered the Atlantic Fleet to accelerate to fourteen knots.

Clearly, Rear Admiral King did not hold the High Seas Fleet in high regard.

It could be said that King was a very traditional commander, or rather, one cast in the mold of the British Royal Navy.

The reason was simple: he placed greater stock in paper statistics rather than the actual combat effectiveness of a fleet. In his eyes, the High Seas Fleet was simply no match for the Atlantic Fleet.

If one looked purely at paper statistics, King's judgment was indeed correct.

Although the Atlantic Fleet possessed only six capital ships, they carried a total of sixty-four 14-inch naval guns. Even with eight capital ships, the High Seas Fleet boasted only sixteen 380mm guns and fifty-four 300mm guns, giving it a shell-weight delivery volume of merely 80 percent of the Atlantic Fleet's. Furthermore, in terms of armor protection, the Atlantic Fleet held an absolute advantage. Aside from the two Bayern-class battleships, which possessed respectable protection, the defensive capabilities of the remaining six battlecruisers were negligible when faced with true battleships. As for the issue of speed, in King's view, the speed during a fleet engagement certainly could not exceed twenty knots and would likely have to be kept under twelve knots to improve gunnery hit rates; thus, any speed advantage held by the High Seas Fleet would be rendered completely useless.

If the impending clash were to be a standard fleet battle, King would undoubtedly win.

The problem was that Feng had never intended to fight a standard fleet battle with King.

The war had raged for so long, and large-scale naval battles had been fought on several occasions, granting the Imperial Navy a wealth of practical combat experience and leading to the development of various tactical doctrines for different types of warships. If Feng had eight fast battleships under his command, he would have engaged King in a fleet showdown without hesitation. However, with only two fast battleships and six other battlecruisers ill-suited for heavy line-of-battle duels, Feng had no intention of confronting King head-on under any circumstances. More importantly, his primary mission was not to destroy the U.S. Atlantic Fleet.

Throughout the night, the two fleets steamed toward each other on converging courses.

On the morning of the 24th, the Königsberg, which had relieved the Wiesbaden in monitoring the Atlantic Fleet, sent out the final telegram before engagement.

At this time, the distance between the High Seas Fleet and the Atlantic Fleet was less than sixty kilometers.

According to the report from the Königsberg, the Atlantic Fleet had fallen behind the troop transport fleet, though the distance was not too great, remaining under one hundred kilometers.

Without hesitation, Feng ordered the twelve light cruisers to detach from the main formation and maneuver southward, while directing another eight light cruisers to maneuver northward. Feng deduced that after the High Seas Fleet engaged the Atlantic Fleet, the transport fleet would very likely alter its course. In the central Atlantic, the only available anchorage for the convoy was the Azores, and since the Azores lay to the south, the transport fleet was most likely to turn south.

Before ten o'clock—about an hour and a half after the two cruiser detachments departed—the lookout on the Bayern sighted the smoke plumes rising from six capital ships. Almost simultaneously, the lookout on the Pennsylvania, the lead ship of the Atlantic Fleet, also spotted the High Seas Fleet.

Yet at this moment, the distance between the two fleets was still well over twenty-فا kilometers (over twenty-five kilometers).

At 10:20, once ranges could be measured using rangefinders, Feng ordered the fleet to turn to port and directed all main batteries to shift to the starboard side.

Clearly, this was the posture of a fleet preparing for a decisive battle.

Recognizing the move, King immediately ordered his fleet to turn to starboard, entering battleline formation for a decisive engagement.

Having completed his turn, Feng did not adjust his course, for he observed that the Atlantic Fleet was not steaming parallel to the High Seas Fleet; instead, there was an angle of convergence as it progressively closed the distance. Evidently, King was even more eager for a close-range fleet showdown, or he would not have been so aggressive.

This also aligned with Feng's earlier judgment that King had cast aside the troop transport fleet precisely because he wanted to fight a decisive battle with the High Seas Fleet.

At 10:45, the distance closed to 22,000 meters, and the artillery duel commenced.

During the initial five minutes, the High Seas Fleet used its precise gunfire to give the Yankees a taste of the Imperial Navy's prowess, though no substantial effects were achieved.

At this range, only the 380mm main guns on the Bayern-class could pose a threat to the heavily armored American battleships; the 300mm main guns on the other six battlecruisers could simply make no impression on the American vessels and thus yielded no tangible results. More importantly, the battleship Baden had recently been commissioned and had never seen combat; even though two-thirds of her officers had been transferred from other warships, the majority of her crew lacked experience. As a result, the accuracy of the Baden's gunfire was abysmal. Although the Bayern fared somewhat better—having participated in the Battle of the English Channel—her contribution was not particularly prominent.

During those first five minutes, the Bayern scored only a single hit on the Pennsylvania, and that armor-piercing shell failed to detonate.

Although the subsequent six battlecruisers scored multiple hits on the American ships, none posed a substantive threat; their greatest harvest was blowing away two lifeboats on the Oklahoma.

Nevertheless, the accuracy of the High Seas Fleet's gunfire genuinely alarmed the American officers and men.

One must bear in mind that during those five minutes, the six American ships had fired nearly 600 armor-piercing rounds without scoring a single hit, with the closest splashes falling hundreds of meters away from the German vessels.

Clearly, the professional caliber of the Imperial Navy's personnel was incomparable to that of the U.S. Navy.

For King, there was only one way out: to shorten the engagement distance as quickly as possible. While this would further increase the High Seas Fleet's gunnery hit rate, it would likewise elevate the hit rate of the American ships. More crucially, even if the battle range were reduced to 14,000 meters, only the main guns of the two Bayern-class ships could pose a fatal threat to the American vessels, whereas at any range, the American main guns could destroy the six battlecruisers, and within 14,000 meters, they could likewise pierce the armor of the two Bayern-class ships. Therefore, close-range gunnery combat heavily favored the American fleet.

At this juncture, the speed that King had previously discounted played a pivotal role.

In fact, once the engagement phase began, Feng had kept the fleet's speed restricted to around twelve knots. As the combat range gradually shortened and approached 20,000 meters, Feng ordered the fleet to accelerate to fourteen knots. For the High Seas Fleet, a speed of fourteen knots had minimal impact on gunnery accuracy. During the Battle of the English Channel, the fast division directly commanded by Feng had even engaged British ships at speeds exceeding sixteen knots without any noticeable drop in gunnery accuracy. For the American ships, however, if their speed exceeded twelve knots, their gunnery accuracy would plummet precipitously.

Now, a dilemma presented itself.

If they accelerated, the American ships could not hit the German ships at all. If they did not accelerate, the combat range would open up, and the American ships still could not hit the German ships.