Chapter 147: The Demise Of The Black Sea Fleet, Part 2
The Germanic auxiliary ships also knew that the Lusha main force ships’ secondary gun firepower was still fierce and dense.
So although they wanted to launch a torpedo charge, they didn’t dare get too close, just hastily dropping several ranks of torpedoes distributed in a fan-shaped arc at a distance of 7~8 kilometers, then quickly pulling away again.
All the torpedoes were also preset to “low-speed long-range” mode, only hoping for a long-distance lottery hit.
If the “Maria-class” battleships could still maintain a relatively high speed of 21 knots at this moment, they wouldn’t need to fear this kind of long-range low-speed torpedo.
But the problem was that now these two Lusha main force ships not only had low speed, but crucially, even turning was very difficult, almost only able to go straight.
This kind of movement pattern was very easy for the enemy to predict the lead, simply a target for torpedoes!
Seeing the enemy ships’ torpedo charge, Admiral Eberhardt felt a chill in his heart, all hope lost.
“Bad! The enemy has released torpedoes on a large scale, quickly have the destroyers move forward to strafe and explode the torpedoes!”
At this point, Admiral Eberhardt had no choice but to order his subordinates via flags and lights, forcibly ordering the destroyers to come up for escort, using small caliber guns to fire at the seawater to intercept the torpedoes in transit.
And in fact, he was actually hoping the destroyers could help block torpedoes for the battleships.
After a flurry of chaotic operations, several destroyers came up and fiercely fired at the surface wakes, managing to explode a few individual torpedoes.
More torpedoes smoothly rushed to the front of the Lusha battleships, among which 2 torpedoes indeed hit the Lusha destroyers that had come up to sweep mines, and those 2 destroyers were killed on the spot, counting as taking bullets for the battleships.
But still, 1 torpedo broke through the blockade and finally hit the “Imperatritsa Ekaterina Velikaya,” causing a large hole several meters wide underwater on her port side.
Another two thousand tons of seawater surged in, making the ship list to port and down by the bow, while the entire starboard quarter rose high. Even the propeller blade on the rearmost starboard shaft was partially exposed above the water.
（Note: Lusha’s warships, like Britain’s, are four-shaft propulsion, only Germanic are three-shaft.）
After being hit by 1 torpedo, the “Imperatritsa Ekaterina Velikaya” had her speed further reduced to 11 knots, making escape even more impossible.
The distant “Moltke” and “Goben” had closed the distance to 16 kilometers, then turned to enter the battle line, firing while continuing to slowly close at about a 30-degree angle.
20 new 280mm 50-caliber guns joined the fray, actually suppressing the Lushans’ total of 19 305mm guns—
The reason it was 19 guns now instead of 22 earlier was of course because the “Imperatritsa Ekaterina Velikaya,” after being torpedoed, had her No. 1 turret’s 3 barrels at the bow unusable, as the bow had sunk too much, and that turret had lost its firing arc.
Admiral Eberhardt looked at the battered warships, his mood desolate, and finally, he made a decision: continue firing on the “Zähringen” that was being focused! Pour all 305mm shells onto it! Just like when they focused the “Weidling” before.
Because Admiral Eberhardt had already seen clearly: those two pre-dreadnoughts were only 10 kilometers away, while those two “Moltke-class” were still 16 kilometers out.
A 6-kilometer difference meant a huge accuracy gap. Although the distant targets were more valuable, shooting at 16-kilometer targets while leaving the nearby 10-kilometer 8 240mm guns to directly aim and hit them would likely yield no results today.
Admiral Spee could simply withdraw the “Moltke” the moment it was focused, dropping both sides’ accuracy to zero, purely wasting shells and time, while their nearby 10-kilometer 8 240mm guns kept firing to wear them down.
This was easy arithmetic.
If fighting, fight the targets where their own accuracy was much higher, even if relatively less valuable.
……
“I didn’t expect the enemy general to stay so calm; he wants to take one down with him before dying, sink the ‘Zähringen’! Then we’ll have ‘Moltke,’ ‘Goben’ close in, gradually to… 12 kilometers. Maintain salvoes during the process, maximize firepower output.
At the same time, have General Sun Shun with ‘Schwaben’ and ‘Zähringen’ quickly pull away! Reduce the enemy’s accuracy!”
Admiral Spee also saw through the opponent’s intentions from their response, countering accordingly.
Amid flying shells, fully a dozen 280mm shells successively landed on the “Svyatoy Evstafiy,” riddling the strongest pre-dreadnought with holes everywhere, finally taken out by an unknown explosion.
The reason Spee chose to kill this one first was that although it was a pre-dreadnought, its propulsion system was undamaged, with the highest speed; better to kill it first to prevent escape.
And with the “Svyatoy Evstafiy” sunk, the engagement distance dropped all the way from 16 kilometers to 12 kilometers.
Germanic 280mm shells began successively focusing on the “Imperatritsa Ekaterina Velikaya,” while the two Lusha ships finally bombed the “Zähringen” into a floating iron shell, propulsion fully destroyed, massive flooding, clearly done for.
Eberhardt wanted to put a few more into the “Zähringen,” but the distance between them had opened farther than to the “Moltke,” so obviously switching fire to “Moltke” would yield higher accuracy.
Finally, Eberhardt calmly weighed it and felt the “Zähringen” ruined like this was definitely unsalvageable, at best towed back as scrap.
With that, decisively switch fire to “Moltke.”
However, when the two Lusha ships switched fire onto “Moltke,” the “Imperatritsa Ekaterina Velikaya” was already nearly done for.
Already torpedoed, with the bow randomly penetrated, the hull was already overburdened.
More importantly, Lusha’s battleships all had a typical “high offense low defense” tendency.
For warships of about 22,000 tons, other countries could only fit 4 twin 305mm mounts, but Lushans crammed in 4 triple mounts.
Switching twins to triples required massive extra tonnage. Just looking at Lushan warship design accounts made it clear: the tonnage for extra barrels was mostly deducted from armor.
The “Maria-class” main belt was only 252mm, the “Gangut-class” even 227mm. These armors couldn’t stop Germanic 280mm guns.
As 280mm shells kept punching big holes in the “Imperatritsa Ekaterina Velikaya,” explosions shredding the armor belt and internal facilities, her list grew, finally capsizing to port.
As seawater surged into the funnels, flooding boilers, the “Imperatritsa Ekaterina Velikaya” suffered a earth-shattering boiler steam explosion, directly blasting the entire warship into fragments.
The scene immediately became 2 “Moltke-class” and 1 still-fighting “Vichersbach-class,” three-on-one ganging up on the “Maria.”
15 minutes later, the focused “Maria” slowly sank to the seabed.
Admiral Eberhardt abandoned ship and escaped to a lifeboat, but after the battle, was captured by Germanic destroyers cleaning the battlefield.
The Lusha Black Sea Fleet still had 2 “Bogatyri-class” protected cruisers and 6 destroyers participating today.
These ships tried to scatter like birds and beasts, but suffered Germanic divided pursuit.
The “Bogatyri-class” protected cruisers without speed advantage and 2 “Umirr-class” destroyers were all hunted down on the way back.
But in the final melee, the Lusha Fleet wasn’t completely without results; their dying counterattack sank the Germanic destroyer “Yarhissar” and 2 torpedo boats.
（Note: “Yarhissar” is the name the Ottomans gave after buying Germanic destroyers）
Only 4 latest, high-speed “Novik-class” destroyers escaped the Germanic pursuit, temporarily returning to Sevastopol, then shuttling to Kerch, Rostov, Sochi, like lost dogs.
These 4 destroyers, “Novik,” “Zvino,” “Zharkiy,” “Gnevny,” were also the last nominal evidence of the Black Sea Fleet’s existence, though this force could do nothing.
The final battle results of this Black Sea naval battle are as follows:
Germanic side, total losses: 2 pre-dreadnoughts（Weidling, Zähringen）, 1 armored cruiser（Meddiye）, 2 destroyers, 4 torpedo boats（including warships sunk by mines in the prior mine-sweeping phase）
Lusha side, total losses: 2 battleships（Maria, Imperatritsa Ekaterina Velikaya）, 2 pre-dreadnoughts（Svyatoy Evstafiy, Potemkin）, 1 armored cruiser, 4 protected cruisers, 9 destroyers（excluding 3 previously sunk by airship air raids）
Personnel losses: because “Zähringen” and “Meddiye” were bombed into dead fish then towed back and beached for scrapping, over half the crews were saved.
Ultimately only the “Weidling” crew suffered over half fatalities, only a small portion rescued, plus most officers on those two destroyers and torpedo boats perished.
Germanic side total killed, drowned, missing: 875, wounded 354（”Vichersbach-class” pre-dreadnought rated only 700 crew, so personnel losses relatively light）.
Lusha side total killed, drowned, missing: 5688, wounded 179.
Additionally, in the prior days’ air raids, many destroyed Lusha ships were bombed and settled in port, some even blasted on shipyard slips, so those personnel casualties weren’t prominent, sailors mostly escaped.
Finally, when the Black Sea Fleet was annihilated, in the four seaports of Odessa, Mykolaiv, Yevpatoria, Sevastopol, about 20,000 original navy members, with no warships left, were subsequently converted by Lusha authorities to naval infantry, immediately taking up rifles to help the Romanian Front Army defend the city.
These 20,000 included sailors who lost ships, plus original ground crew, civilian staff, and port fortress operators. Anyway, all originally navy personnel were temporarily pulled into the army, somewhat replenishing army manpower.
The entire sea campaign thoroughly ended before midnight on the last day of July.
When the wheel of history turned to the first dawn of August 1915, Lushans’ sea control in the Black Sea had vanished.
……
With the sunrise of August 1, rising from the starboard of “Goben.”
Lelouch standing on the lookout tower, his upper body bathed in holy light.
Looking at the inky black sea surging below, while the fleet advanced toward the northwest enemy-occupied area, Lelouch’s mind was full of thoughts.
Yesterday’s fierce battle ultimately cost the two Germanic battlecruisers a price.
After all, the two Lusha battleships were completely sunk; in their sustained death throes, enemy counterfire cumulatively hit “Moltke” with 5 305mm armor-piercing shells, and “Goben” with 2.
The biggest difference between battlecruisers and battleships is that battlecruisers emphasize firepower and speed, battleships firepower and defense, so battlecruiser armor is generally weaker than battleships.
When battlecruisers dueled Lushans’ “high offense low defense” battleships, theoretically it should be mutual penetration, both heavily wounding each other.
But luckily, the “Moltke-class” protective layout piled limited defense armor onto the side main belt, and yesterday’s engagement distance was relatively close, both trajectories flat, little chance of plunging fire onto decks.
The “Moltke-class” side main belt thickest at 270mm, thicker than the enemy’s “Maria-class” 252mm.
Plus Germanic steel quality far superior to the industrially weak Lusha, the 3 305mm armor-piercing shells hitting “Moltke”‘s main belt area, and 2 hitting “Goben”‘s, were surprisingly withstood.
Only the 2 non-vital area armor-piercing shells hitting “Moltke”‘s bow and stern truly penetrated, causing hundreds of tons flooding fore and aft, cumulative over a thousand tons, speed down to 22 knots, needing dockyard repair.
While “Goben”‘s minor damage didn’t need drydock, just pier repairs.
The “Moltke-class” true defense weakness compared to enemy ships was deck horizontal armor too thin—this a universal battlecruiser ailment worldwide; to save armor tonnage, can’t skimp on side main belt, so must cut deck horizontal armor hard.
Opposite “Maria-class” battleships had 76~100mm horizontal, or 3 to 4 inches. “Moltke-class” only 25~50, 1~2 inches. Everywhere 2 inches thinner, and with huge deck area, saving 2 inches freed over a thousand tons for propulsion.
If yesterday’s battle had been like Jutland, always lobbing fire over 15 kilometers, “Moltke-class” might have been hit much worse.
But Lusha warships’ fire control level far inferior to British Royal Navy, their ships newly commissioned without full training break-in, accuracy couldn’t support long-range.
Ultimately unable to exploit Germanic battlecruiser weaknesses, instead fighting in Germanic comfort zone, no regrets over the result.
But regardless, “Moltke” was penetrated fore and aft in the hard fight, flooding, needing repair. Now all shipyards in Ottoman and Romania lacked large docks for “Moltke-class,” so returning to base pointless; Admiral Spee thus had the fleet continue northwest wounded, toward Odessa.
He was counting on the army to deliver, take Odessa soon as planned in these days.
That way, with Odessa or Mykolaiv shipyard/dock facilities, “Moltke” could dock for repair.
The entire Black Sea Theater had no 30,000-ton large docks on our territory? Then seize from the enemy!
Lelouch watched the sunrise from the lookout tower a while, then Admiral Spee climbed the ladder up, standing beside him to watch, pulling a flat stainless steel flask from his pocket to hand him.
Bottles inconvenient when climbing, flat stainless steel pot handy, just tuck in clothes.
Lelouch took it without ceremony, gulping a big mouthful, finding it gin with herbal taste: “You really trust the army brothers, daring to steam a battered flooding warship straight to Odessa—never considered their progress might delay, Odessa possibly not taken temporarily?”
Admiral Spee confidently smiled faintly: “It’s not trust in them, trust in you. This plan is your overall sea-land-air coordination; how could Lushans not lose.
Anyway back in Istanbul no repair facilities, so continue to Odessa, bolster the army. Have old cruisers intensify mine sweeping, we’ll close to shore, then bombard Odessa city to assist army. ‘Moltke’ just slower, firepower undamaged.”
“That’s truly an honor, you trusting my plan so much.” Lelouch couldn’t help feeling smug.
Though still just a colonel, several admirals even marshals followed his staff plans without worry.
The fleet thus proceeded, arriving back in Dniester Estuary area at 9 a.m. that day.
At Dniester Estuary, 2 “Vichersbach-class” pre-dreadnoughts awaited them; these 2 had been left yesterday for shore bombardment.
Plus several destroyers that entered the estuary lagoon, and 2 old protected cruisers continuing mine sweeping.
While the main fleet turned to annihilate Black Sea Fleet that day, these ships weren’t idle, especially protected cruisers steadily executing mine sweeping per doctrine and plan, advancing the cleared lane nearly 20 nautical miles, fully clearing a safe channel to Odessa Port.
With that, Admiral Spee wasn’t polite, deciding to help army again, directly dispatching warships to bombard Odessa Port barracks.
As for warehouses, dock facilities, shipyards, no bombardment, as Spee felt those would soon be theirs, pity to damage.
Only need to bombard enemy troop concentrations and army artillery positions.
When two cutting-edge battlecruisers arrived near Odessa Port, Lusha defenders in the city fell into huge panic.
Odessa’s coastal defense batteries had been priority-destroyed by Germanic airships’ first air raid 3 days prior.
So now the city had no heavy guns over 203mm caliber to counter main warships.
“Boom boom boom~”
20 280mm 50-caliber heavy cannons unleashed high-explosive shells unused in prior sea battles, fiercely salvoing Odessa barracks.
In moments, vast swathes of buildings leveled, soldiers caught unprepared in barracks directly killed or buried alive in ruins.
