Chapter 162: The Ultimate Showdown

Strictly speaking, the Derfflinger class was no longer classified as battlecruisers by the British Royal Navy.

In the Royal Navy, battlecruisers possessed a very distinct characteristic: in order to achieve the required speed, their armament was typically slightly inferior to that of contemporary battleships. For instance, the Lion class carried one less gun turret than the contemporary Iron Duke class, while the Renown class had one fewer turret than the Queen Elizabeth and Revenge classes. This clearly demonstrates that the Royal Navy's battlecruisers made sacrifices in firepower.

Initially, the Imperial Navy adopted a similar approach, sacrificing firepower to gain speed.

By the time of the Derfflinger class, however, this changed entirely. In terms of firepower, the Derfflinger class was indistinguishable from its contemporary battleships, the Bayern class, both featuring four twin 380-millimeter main gun turrets. The Derfflinger class achieved its high speed simply by increasing displacement.

Upon completion, the full-load displacement of the Derfflinger reached a staggering 38,500 tons—3,500 tons more than the Imperial Navy had ultimately approved, and nearly 5,000 tons greater than the Bayern class, whereas the contemporary Renown-class battlecruisers displaced only 33,000 tons.

It can be said that the Derfflinger class was the first battlecruiser whose displacement surpassed that of contemporary battleships.

Furthermore, the defensive capabilities of the Derfflinger class were significantly superior to those of the Renown class. Its main armor belt could even withstand twelve-inch armor-piercing shells under certain conditions. Prior to this, no battlecruiser had ever been able to cope with battleship-caliber armor-piercing shells.

What did this signify?

To put it bluntly, the Derfflinger class surpassed all existing battlecruisers in every performance metric, representing a capital ship that bridged the gap between battlecruisers and battleships.

Using capital ships of this caliber to fight battlecruisers was naturally a foregone conclusion.

In comparison, the three Royal Navy battlecruisers appeared rather meager.

Little need be said about the Tiger; although its number of main guns matched that of the Derfflinger, its gun caliber was a tier lower. Consequently, in effective range, destructive power, and all other performance metrics, it fell far short of the Derfflinger, and its gunnery accuracy in long-range engagements was vastly inferior.

The Renown class offered somewhat more of a comparison, as it was the Royal Navy's first battlecruiser equipped with fifteen-inch naval guns. The problem, however, was that the Renown class was the counterpart to the Revenge class. When designing the Renown class, the Royal Navy adopted the simplest method: reducing the number of main gun turrets by one, and using the freed-up space and saved displacement to add several boilers and turbines. As a result, the Renown class possessed only three twin fifteen-inch gun turrets, totaling six barrels—two fewer than the Derfflinger. Six main guns constituted the absolute minimum standard for a capital ship; any fewer, and calibration firing became virtually impossible. The reason was simple: calibration firing required splash data from three shells, and calibration was typically conducted using only half of the armament.

Without the favor of fortune, the three British battlecruisers stood no chance against the three German ships.

This precisely explained why Hamilton was full of hesitation.

Although the speeds of the battleships on both sides were not maxed out—the Queen Elizabeth class could make 25 knots while the Bayern class could achieve 26, roughly on par with the battlecruisers of the early war—this speed was no longer considered fast when compared to battlecruisers completed later in the conflict.

The top speed of the Tiger was 28 knots, the Renown class reached 31 knots, and the Derfflinger class was equally capable of 31 knots.

From this arose a distinct problem.

Faced with the new generation of battlecruisers, the previous generation of fast battleships was not fast at all.

What worried Hamilton was that once his three battlecruisers were crushed, the three German ships would exploit their speed advantage to flank and pursue his three battleships. Should that happen, he would have no chance of escape and might even be forced to fight seven German ships with only three battleships.

If it came to that, Hamilton's best option would be surrender.

Therefore, the first priority for Hamilton was to preserve the three battlecruisers trailing at the rear of the line, while ensuring they did not suffer defeat first.

Consequently, maintaining an appropriate engagement distance was imperative.

Hamilton's judgment was sound, and his assessment of the three trailing German ships was remarkably accurate. Among those three vessels, aside from the Derfflinger which entered service in 1916, the other two were commissioned in 1917, and none of the three battlecruisers had previously seen combat. By maintaining a proper engagement distance, even if the three British battlecruisers could not perform brilliantly, they could at least hold out considerably longer.

The problem, however, was that Hamilton overlooked one vital detail.

How long could the three leading Queen Elizabeth-class battleships hold out, and particularly, how long could his flagship, the Barham, endure?

As the engagement range closed, the performance of the British ships finally improved.

Yet, the hit rate of the German gunfire also began to rise. Furthermore, once the range closed to 18,000 meters—rather than the 16,000 meters previously assumed by the Royal Navy—the 380-millimeter main guns of the four Bayern-class ships posed a lethal threat to the Queen Elizabeth class.

Many might view the Bayern and Queen Elizabeth classes as evenly matched battleships.

The reason was straightforward: the Bayern class had been designed specifically to counter the Queen Elizabeth class. In the number and caliber of main guns, armor thickness, speed, and even overall hull layout, the two types of warships were remarkably similar, practically mirror images of each other.

Practical combat, however, proved that the differences between these two classes of warships were vast.

Regarding firepower, although the fifteen-inch and 380-millimeter naval guns were close in caliber and utilized main ammunition of similar mass, the barrel of the 380-millimeter gun was longer than that of the fifteen-inch gun, resulting in a higher initial muzzle velocity. More importantly, the Imperial Navy had pioneered the distinction between heavy and light shells, whereas the Royal Navy had still failed to do so by this stage. The inevitable consequence was that whether in long-range or close-range artillery duels, the Queen Elizabeth class struggled to gain any advantage. If anything could be said for the British approach, it was that using a single type of armor-piercing shell simplified the aiming procedure and eased the burden on the gunners, particularly the gunnery officers and captain. Yet these problems could easily be overcome through rigorous training and the adoption of superior fire-control optics.

In terms of protection, the advantages of the Bayern class were even more pronounced. Although imperial engineers had not adopted Feng Chengqian's "concentrated protection concept" when designing the Bayern class—meaning the main armor belt still ran continuously from bow to stern—they had selectively maximized the thickness at critical locations while thinning it at secondary areas. This yielded a distinct benefit: without increasing displacement, it effectively enhanced protection at vital points, thereby dramatically boosting the ship's survivability in fierce combat. Conversely, the Queen Elizabeth class lacked a similar design; inadequate protection at critical areas combined with over-engineered protection at secondary locations made them highly vulnerable to fatal blows in battle. In addition, another crucial factor was that the Empire had been the first to develop and produce surface-cemented armor steel, applying it to capital ships and vastly augmenting their defensive strength. To put it bluntly, British production technology for armor steel lagged far behind the Empire. Consequently, even if the nominal armor thickness of British ships matched that of the German vessels, a clear gap remained in actual protective capability, as paper specifications did not equate to real performance.

As for speed, the Queen Elizabeth class was also slightly slower than the Bayern class.

During the Battle of the English Channel, these two types of warships had already clashed, and the outcome had been decided.

In a sense, disregarding other factors, even in a one-on-one duel, the British ships stood not the slightest chance of gaining an advantage. Moreover, the current situation pitted three British ships against four German ones, with two of the German vessels having prior combat experience, giving their officers and crews superior proficiency over the British.

When the range closed to 18,000 meters, the disparity between the two sides became fully evident.

During the seventeenth salvo, the Bayern achieved a 25 percent hit rate, with two armor-piercing shells striking the face of the A turret and the left side of the bridge on the Barham. Almost simultaneously, the Baden scored a hit on the Barham's turret during its fifteenth salvo.

In an instant, the Barham lost half of its main armament.

Although a mere minute later the Barham performed a minor miracle—scoring a remarkably lucky hit on the Bayern while firing only four main guns, with the impact near the rear superstructure destroying one of the Bayern's main rangefinders and forcing the final two main turrets to rely on backup optics—this shot held no decisive significance. The engagement range was rapidly shrinking toward 17,000 meters, and at 16,000 meters, the data measured by the Bayern's backup rangefinder was no worse than that of the primary unit. Furthermore, the Bayern possessed two main rangefinders; as long as one functioned normally, it could centrally direct all main batteries.

This, nonetheless, marked the Barham's final recorded hit.

At 8:37 PM, the Bayern and the Baden jointly delivered a decisive blow.

First, an armor-piercing shell fired by the Baden struck the Barham's turret directly, punching through the front armor plate of the turret, detonating inside, and igniting two unspent propellant powder bags. This instantly killed every gunner inside the turret and blew off the turret's roof armor. Because the British ships had learned lessons from past naval engagements and instituted stricter combat regulations—such as ensuring that fire- and blast-proof doors in the ammunition hoist shafts were kept constantly closed during action, and even adding an extra fire- and blast-proof door within the hoist trunk of the main gun turrets—the internal explosion was contained. The first two doors were ruined, but the third and final fire-proof door blocked the high-temperature gases generated by the blast, shielding the main powder magazines below and preventing a catastrophic secondary explosion.

However, this respite was merely temporary.

Scarcely ten seconds later, another armor-piercing shell from the Bayern struck the turret once again!

Crucially, this time it was a heavy shell!