Chapter 152 Direct Confrontation

The acceleration of the High Seas Fleet, combined with its aggressive posture to seize a favorable tactical position, left Admiral King with no alternative.

It could be said that the speed and performance, which King had previously looked down upon, now played a decisive role.

King faced three choices. The first was to turn away and break contact with the High Seas Fleet. However, doing so would not only leave the Atlantic Fleet's battle line disrupted and unable to return fire against the High Seas Fleet, but given that their speed was far inferior to that of the High Seas Fleet, there was also no guarantee of escape. The second choice was to accelerate in pursuit, preventing the High Seas Fleet from occupying a commanding position. The problem was that during a high-speed chase, the Atlantic Fleet's gunnery hit rate was significantly lower than that of the High Seas Fleet; even if they could close the combat distance, the Atlantic Fleet would gain no advantage whatsoever. Moreover, since the High Seas Fleet was faster, the Atlantic Fleet might not even be able to catch up. The third choice was to accelerate, make a turn at an appropriate moment, and re-engage the High Seas Fleet in a decisive battleline action. With the first two options being entirely impractical, this became the only viable choice.

Naturally, this third option offered one extremely prominent benefit.

That was, provided the turn was executed at the exact right moment, the Atlantic Fleet could position itself directly ahead of the troop transport convoy, shielding the transports as they retreated northward and out of the High Seas Fleet’s strike range.

At 11:15 AM, King ordered the fleet to accelerate.

In theory, the Atlantic Fleet's maximum speed could reach twenty knots. However, because the bow of the USS *Arizona* had been severely damaged, her top speed was capped at eighteen knots, limiting the entire Atlantic Fleet to a maximum speed of eighteen knots as well—and under no circumstances would King abandon that battleship.

For the High Seas Fleet, what was an eighteen-knot speed?

By the time King gave the order to accelerate, the High Seas Fleet was already steaming at over twenty knots, and Von Chenqian’s standing order was to press on to twenty-four knots.

Clearly, not only would the Atlantic Fleet fail to catch up to the High Seas Fleet, but the distance between them would continue to widen.

For King, this was unequivocally bad news.

Let us not forget that prior to this, the troop transport convoy had already turned southward. The current tactical situation forced King to consider a problem he had previously overlooked: the High Seas Fleet had never intended to fight a decisive battle with the Atlantic Fleet at all. Instead, their goal was to lure the Atlantic Fleet away, exploit their superior speed to shake off the Americans, and then double back to annihilate the troop transports. Consequently, as long as the Atlantic Fleet remained tethered to the tail of the High Seas Fleet, the Germans would sooner or later find their opening, and the isolated troop transports would have no way of escaping.

It was precisely at this moment that King received a dispatch from the light cruisers tasked with screening the transport convoy.

Detachments of the High Seas Fleet’s cruisers had arrived and were already pressing the attack against the troop transports.

This telegram immediately convinced King that his previous assessment had been correct: the primary objective of the High Seas Fleet was to intercept the troop convoy bound for Britain.

Yet, before he could issue new orders, the tactical situation shifted once more.

At 11:20 AM, the High Seas Fleet, positioned approximately twenty-five kilometers southeast of the Atlantic Fleet, turned hard to starboard, its speed now reaching twenty-four knots.

At this, King harbored not a shadow of a doubt.

Two minutes later, King likewise issued the order to turn starboard.

Even so, King’s troubles were far from over.

While the Atlantic Fleet was still executing its turn, lookouts reported that once the High Seas Fleet completed its starboard turn, the distance between the two fleets' courses would be no greater than sixteen thousand meters. For both sides, this was a perilously close range. Not only could the 380mm and 14-inch naval rifles bring their full destructive power to bear, but even armor-piercing shells from 300mm guns possessed roughly a fifty percent probability of piercing the main armor of the American capital ships. Immediately afterward, the lookouts reported that the High Seas Fleet was not decelerating upon completion of the turn!

For King, this was decidedly grim news.

The reason was simple: even at a desperate, all-out sprint, the Atlantic Fleet could only muster eighteen knots. At this speed, even with the combat range closed to sixteen thousand meters, the primary gun hit probability for the six American dreadnoughts would not exceed one percent. In preceding engagements, even at a combat range of twenty thousand meters, German capital ships had maintained a main battery hit rate of around two percent while steaming at speeds exceeding eighteen knots.

As a traditional naval commander, King was painfully aware that the Atlantic Fleet held not a shred of winning probability under these conditions.

The problem was that if he failed to press the chase, within an hour the High Seas Fleet would completely shake off the Atlantic Fleet, and the troop transports, with a maximum speed of a mere twelve knots, would be doomed regardless.

King had no choice; he could only order a full-speed pursuit.

Yet, King was equally cognizant that even if by some miracle he managed to defeat Von Chenqian, he lacked the capacity to continue shielding the troop transports. Therefore, while issuing the order for full pursuit, he instructed his communications officers to dispatch two telegrams.

One message was sent to the troop transport convoy, instructing them to veer northward and evade. The second telegram was directed to Admiral Hamilton, detailing the engagement and requesting that the Grand Fleet steam forth to rendezvous with and rescue the encircled troop transports.

Evidently, these two telegrams were entirely futile.

At this juncture, the threat to the transport convoy did not stem from the main body of the High Seas Fleet, but rather from two separate cruiser detachments. Furthermore, King was entirely unaware that yet another cruiser detachment lay directly north of the troop transports, having already deployed into battle formation and sweeping southward at a search speed of sixteen knots. As for Hamilton’s Grand Fleet, it remained over two thousand kilometers away to the east; even steaming at maximum velocity, it would take three full days to arrive.

Thus, it was plain to see that King had made the most catastrophic of errors.

At that moment, Von Chenqian only knew that after turning, the Atlantic Fleet had maintained a speed of eighteen knots—precisely the outcome he had hoped to secure.

Through prior engagements, Von Chenqian had observed that the Atlantic Fleet’s gunnery accuracy plummeted during high-speed maneuvers.

In short, as long as a high speed was maintained, the Atlantic Fleet could gain no advantage.

At the time, Von Chenqian had correctly surmised that King’s maneuver was intended to cover the troop transports trailing behind, though he had not anticipated that King would order the convoy to reverse course and head north.

It was not until 11:35 AM that Von Chenqian received a dispatch from his light cruisers, confirming that the transport convoy had altered its course.

The tactical board was now entirely transparent—at least to Von Chenqian.

Upon finishing the dispatch, Von Chenqian ordered his fleet to reduce speed to eighteen knots for a head-on, decisive showdown with the Atlantic Fleet. He explicitly instructed the officers and men of his flagship, while commanding the captains of all other warships to inform their crews, that the High Seas Fleet would no longer evade combat and would fight the Atlantic Fleet to the finish.

Immediately afterward, Von Chenqian transmitted orders to his two cruiser detachments.

The twelve light cruisers that had first encountered the transport convoy were ordered to break off their pursuit; their primary mission was now to destroy or entangle the American light cruisers screening the transports. Meanwhile, the eight light cruisers sweeping the northern sector were ordered to accelerate southward, striving to annihilate the troop transports with the utmost dispatch.

Von Chenqian was acutely aware that he needed to bring this engagement to a swift conclusion.

To put it bluntly, whether or not to fight a decisive duel with the Atlantic Fleet was not the truly critical issue.

What Von Chenqian ultimately desired was the utter annihilation of the troop transports, and his immediate task was to secure the opportunity for those light cruisers by preventing the Atlantic Fleet from sparing any attention elsewhere.

Clearly, the situation favored Von Chenqian.

Yet, he could not claim a hundred percent certainty of victory.

In naval warfare, the element of luck was unavoidable, and upon occasion, fortune alone dictated the ultimate outcome of evenly matched fleet engagements.

More importantly, Von Chenqian knew very well that apart from the two *Bayern*-class dreadnoughts, the remaining six battlecruisers were ill-suited for a slugging match in a formal fleet line of battle. If the Atlantic Fleet enjoyed even a modicum of good fortune, those six battlecruisers would pay a devastating price in this encounter.

Obviously, this offered zero benefit to the High Seas Fleet.

Consequently, the duration of the combat had to be compressed to the absolute minimum. In other words, the moment Von Chenqian’s detached light cruisers accomplished their mission, the battle would effectively be over. All Von Chenqian needed to do prior to that moment was ensure that every capital ship avoided catastrophic damage, and above all, preserved its mobility.

As the engagement commenced, a signal flag broke out from the masthead of the SMS *Bayern*.

Upon sighting this flag, the captains of the other seven warships instantly grasped the fleet commander’s intent.

That flag was the "Battle-at-Will" ensign, signifying that within the fleet engagement, individual ship captains possessed total tactical autonomy.

Naturally, to seasoned commanders, the flag carried a deeper secondary implication.

That was, when necessary, individual captains were authorized to determine whether to break out of the battle line based on localized conditions.

One had to concede that the Imperial Navy, forged and matured through continuous combat, far surpassed the United States Navy in personnel quality, particularly the caliber of its officer corps. The captains of all eight warships were veterans of extensive experience, with even the least seasoned having participated in at least three major naval battles; every single one of them thoroughly understood the commander's strategic vision.

For Von Chenqian, this meant he only needed to issue the simplest of directives.

At 11:42 AM, once the battle lines had essentially drawn parallel, the artillery duel commenced.

Although the combat range had closed to sixteen thousand meters, the gunnery accuracy of the American warships still left much to be desired.

During the opening five minutes, the USS *Pennsylvania* fired eight full salvos at the *Bayern*, failing to bracket her even once. Conversely, upon its third salvo, the *Bayern* straddled the *Pennsylvania* and scored a direct hit with its fourth salvo. The performance of the SMS *Baden* was slightly less stellar, yet she managed to straddle the USS *Arizona* on her seventh salvo and struck the target by the ninth. The six battlecruisers trailing behind performed even more brilliantly: the SMS *Moltke* scored a lucky hit on the USS *Nevada* during its second salvo, straddled her on the third, and registered hits across the subsequent three consecutive salvos. The stellar performers were the three older battlecruisers that had participated in every major engagement of the High Seas Fleet—led by the SMS *Empress Augusta*—which racked up upwards of five direct hits within a span of five minutes.

For the Atlantic Fleet, could this battle possibly be won?