Chapter 24: Even A Lion Hunting A Rabbit Never Forgets To Divide And Conquer
Major General Hipper made full use of the advantage of the enemy being in the light while we were in the dark, rapidly closing the distance between both sides.
The captains under his command were still somewhat afraid— in the darkness, if noticed early by the enemy’s destroyers sneaking up to launch torpedoes, it would pose no small threat to the German Army battlecruisers.
Torpedoes were too hard to warn against in the black night, and too hard to dodge in advance.
However, on October 29, 1914, which converts to the 12th day of the 9th lunar month, the moonlight was still relatively bright, so it was impossible to close to an extremely close distance without being discovered.
Both sides were getting closer, and when they were about 15 kilometers apart, Hipper spotted more enemy details.
“Commander, from observing the muzzle flashes of the enemy fleet, preliminary judgment is that the enemy ships are divided into two clusters. The eastern cluster likely has three capital ships and a few auxiliary ships, bombarding Ostend!
Ten kilometers west of the main fleet, there is another capital ship and a large number of auxiliary ships! They are bombarding Nieuwpoort and the Coastal Highway positions!”
Hipper’s spirits lifted again: the enemy had actually split their forces? If he acted fast enough, he might be able to defeat them in detail and prevent the enemy from all rushing to the battlefield at once!
But he was still a bit puzzled and couldn’t help muttering to himself: “Why did the enemy split their forces? Are they so eager to bombard both Ostend and Nieuwpoort at the same time?”
Fortunately, Lelouch nearby happened to know the army situation well and immediately judged the possible reason:
“General, I think I know what’s going on! It must be Colonel Lister’s elastic defense that’s harassing the enemy unbearably, so the enemy wants to use their numerical advantage to crush our army across the entire line.
And look, there are two big fires on the sea surface outside Ostend! Those must be damaged enemy ships! The Britannians probably don’t know that during our capture of Ostend, the Belgian Army surrendered too quickly and didn’t destroy the coastal defenses!
When I and Colonel Lister broke in, the colonel even took over a coastal defense fortress there, which has 8 210mm coastal defense guns! The Britannians must have underestimated at first and wanted light warships to close in for cheap shots, only to be heavily damaged by the colonel’s coastal defense guns!
After taking losses, the enemy definitely withdrew the light ships farther from Ostend and redirected them to Nieuwpoort in the west to target our forces that couldn’t fight back.”
Coastal defense guns are very accurate against warships because they are fixed firing, with ballistic tables pre-calibrated in peacetime. In combat, just report coordinates and fire per the table. The anti-ship effect of one 210mm coastal defense gun might even be fiercer than a 4-gun 210mm armored cruiser.
Ostend just isn’t big enough, so it’s only equipped with 210mm coastal defense guns. If facing a big city like Antwerp today, 280 or even 305mm fortress guns might come into play.
With 210mm coastal defense guns present, the enemy’s small ships didn’t dare approach and could only use battleships for distant lobbing fire to neutralize the coastal guns first.
After hearing Lelouch’s analysis, Hipper’s last doubts and hesitations were swept away, and his mind was completely clear.
The reason no longer mattered; the situation had formed anyway, and what he needed to do was seize this heaven-sent opportunity to strike thoroughly!
“Since the enemy’s auxiliary ships have mostly avoided Ostend, we no longer need to worry about the main force being sneaked torpedoed when closing in. All battlecruisers and armored cruisers, target the three enemy battleships at Ostend, full speed approach. Attention! Change from column to line abreast approach!
Armored cruisers handle the enemy’s few auxiliary ships on the east side to prevent them from entering torpedo positions. Battlecruisers group-target enemy capital ships!
All light cruisers and destroyers, intercept the enemy’s secondary fleet on the west side, free to fire. Just create chaos in the darkness and delay the enemy western detached force’s approach speed!”
Each ship immediately began turning per Hipper’s orders, and the formation quickly changed from column to line abreast, proceeding parallel.
By the time the formation was adjusted, the distance between both sides was already less than ten kilometers.
After grinding forward another two-plus kilometers, when both sides were about 6~7 kilometers apart, the Derfflinger lookout reported another important message:
“Enemy ship A main guns have stopped firing! It’s been a minute since the last salvo!”
Hipper had been fully focused waiting for news. His original plan was to close to five kilometers; if not discovered, that would be best, allowing a leisurely turn and fire.
Hearing this suddenly, he decisively ordered: “The enemy has definitely spotted us! All capital ships, hard left rudder! Course due east into battle line! Reduce to cruising speed! Derfflinger-class two ships target the enemy’s easternmost capital ship! Blücher-class two ships target enemy number two capital ship! Fire at will!”
……
Lieutenant General Hastings, seven kilometers south of Hipper, why did he suddenly cease fire?
Of course, because as he was bombarding, the lookouts in his fleet finally spotted a bunch of shadows to the north.
“General! Unidentified warships appeared in the North! Number unknown!”
Lieutenant General Hastings, on the bridge of the pre-dreadnought “Majestic,” was slightly startled upon hearing this.
Ships appearing now couldn’t possibly be friendly forces, as he received no notification.
So he immediately ordered the main guns to cease fire. All three pre-dreadnoughts bombarding Ostend’s coastal fortress cranked their hydraulic systems to maximum, frantically rotating turrets.
Ostend was on the southern coast, Hastings’ fleet in the middle, and the mysterious visitors to the north. To switch targets, the warships’ main turrets needed a 180° turn, enough for the old hydraulic mechanisms to take two minutes.
This ceasefire interval was thus very obvious.
Two minutes later, Formidable-class “Majestic” and King George V-class “Revenge” finally turned their 305mm main guns northward.
Among these three ships, the oldest King George V-class “Hood,” without fully enclosed turrets for its 305mm main guns and still using late 19th-century 343mm old main guns, needed five minutes for a 180° turn.
Seeing it was too late, Hastings, while the battleships’ main guns were turning, ordered the few nearby auxiliary ships to intercept at all costs, trying to block and delay.
Lin Xian Class Light Cruiser “Bold,” Bristol-class light cruisers “Glasgow” and “Gloucester,” and 5 destroyers immediately rushed from the main force’s east, west, and north sides toward the shadows.
But soon, the opposing German ships fired two salvos of star shells from secondary guns over those light cruisers and destroyers.
With 1914 technology, star shells were typically fired by auxiliary ships; large-caliber main guns weren’t used for them. But battlecruiser and armored cruiser secondary guns met the need, so these star shells were from the German “Scharnhorst” and “Gneisenau” secondary guns.
Scharnhorst-class armored cruisers had 8 twin 210mm main guns in 4 turrets, 6 single 150mm secondary guns three per side in casemates, and 16 88mm rapid-fire guns.
Star shells from three 150mm secondary guns firing together could illuminate the target sea area for about a minute.
The British auxiliary ships were quickly lit up, but they couldn’t launch torpedoes immediately and had to charge ahead—1914 torpedoes had short ranges too: German and British 533mm torpedoes had 4km range at 30+ knot high speed, while French and Russian 450mm ones had only 2~3km.
To ensure accuracy, they had to close to within 2km to fire torpedoes.
With at least 5~6km still between them, torpedoes out of range, the “Scharnhorst-class” 210mm guns with 12-second salvos poured full speed onto the British light cruisers, while 88mm rapid-fire guns freely swept the destroyers.
The “Bold,” which had just earned great merit days ago by rescuing Belgian King Albert I, was first concentrated by the 16 210mm guns from Scharnhorst and Gneisenau at 5km, with the first salvo straddling around her.
Just 12 seconds later, “Bold” was damaged by a near miss exploding nearby, ripping off some upper structures.
Another 12 seconds, two 210mm shells directly hit the hull, igniting a ship-wide fire and blasting two large holes in the hull. Though not near the waterline and not causing major flooding, the upper firepower was completely wrecked.
The German armored cruisers relentlessly poured another half-minute, with 3 more 210mm hits, and “Bold” finally broke in two in a massive explosion. The captain who had been chatting amiably with the Belgian King three days ago was torn to pieces. Fewer than 400 crew survived.
However, “Bold’s” fate wasn’t enough to warn the other British ships; they kept charging heads down.
Actually, they had no choice—the surviving “Bristol-class” light cruisers also had only 2 150mm guns. Such weak main firepower meant only 1 gun could fire head-on, 2 broadside; did that difference matter?
Might as well ignore the stern 150mm’s extra output and focus solely on closing fast to launch torpedoes.
Unfortunately, natural laws can’t be overcome by courage alone.
Charging under 16 guns firing 210mm salvos every 12 seconds—what does that mean? Especially with distance so close they could fire flat without elevation; once Scharnhorst-class nailed the bearing, it was almost certain hits.
“Glasgow” and “Gloucester” similarly exploded in this desperate charge.
The former never reached torpedo range; the latter did, but while turning for torpedo angle and exposing her broadside, she was lit up by the opposing 210mm guns.
Those 5 destroyers didn’t even need direct targeting by German captains; the onboard 88mm rapid-fire guns’ free fire was enough to trouble them plenty.
Each Scharnhorst-class had 16 rapid-fire guns, 8 per side, firing every 3 seconds. 88mm shells couldn’t sink destroyer hulls but could heavily damage, slow, disable command and firepower. Several destroyers had decks catch fire or superstructures blown apart, losing output capability, then turned tail to flee.
Even if they continued charging, they had no torpedo capability left; combat command and firepower systems were destroyed.
Fleeing might let them sink slower, attracting enemy fire from the main force a bit longer.
“If the Britannians had two to three times the close escort forces, a torpedo death charge tonight might have broken through.
But very unfortunately, heaven helps our army; most of their auxiliary ships, threatened by Ostend’s coastal defense guns, had nothing to do on the east and were redirected west!”
On “Derfflinger,” Hipper watched the vanguard Scharnhorst-class pair, plus this class’s 6 150mm secondary per side and 6 88mm secondary, reap the few enemy auxiliary ships in their mad torpedo charge. He admired their courage but knew it was futile.
Torpedo charges need mass to win; piecemeal tactics are just sending heads.
And the result of sending heads was merely buying their own capital ships a cumulative dozen minutes, to turn turrets, adjust positions, and initially sight enemy ships.
But the problem was, in night conditions, before German battlecruisers’ main guns fired, the Britannians could only manage bearing, not rangefinding—just roughly set left-right angles, but not how far to set range.
Night rangefinding mainly relied on spotting enemy fore-aft main turret muzzle flash spacing via rangefinders to estimate ship size and distance.
Distant enemy main guns not firing, no flashes, couldn’t measure fore-aft turret spacing.
In contrast, Britannian battleships had fired many salvos earlier; German spotters had repeatedly ranged them long ago.
The German Scharnhorst-class armored cruisers’ 210mm main guns had fired continuously earlier, so in theory Britannian main ships could range and concentrate on them—but who would waste firepower on secondary targets posing no threat to their own capitals in a decisive battle?
Just like in a Hood vs. Bismarck duel, with Eugen known as lead ship, would they waste main gun fire on Eugen?
Thus, when Hipper cleared enemy auxiliaries and refocused on the capital ship gunnery duel, the Britannians still hadn’t gained first shot and had to start from the same line.
“Boom~boom~boom~”
12-inch and 11-inch German shells alternately rose, igniting four clusters of dense muzzle flashes on the sea surface.
Seeing the muzzle flashes, just over ten seconds later, a salvo flew over “Majestic”!
Lieutenant General Hastings heard the whistling overhead and broke into a cold sweat.
“What? How is the enemy’s gunnery so accurate? How long have they been observing us in the dark?”
As a navy veteran, Lieutenant General Hastings knew well that in naval battle, nailing bearing is relatively easy; accurate rangefinding is the real challenge.
But the enemy’s first salvo overflew their heads, meaning they had bearing right from the start, just ranged long.
“Return fire quick! Then fine-tune range!”
Hastings was frantic; the three pre-dreadnoughts’ 12 main guns boomed back at the enemy.
Bearing was decent too, but range even longer than the enemy’s; they urgently needed to fine-tune based on enemy main gun flash spacing.
Worse, Hastings’ three ships had only 3*4=12 main guns. Opposite Hipper had 4*8=32 main guns.
Hipper didn’t even wait for precise range feedback, just estimated by experience the first was long, and immediately ordered: “Don’t wait for calibration! Each salvo shorten 300 yards range, half-salvo! Until we bracket!”
Some more rigid officers didn’t yet grasp Hipper’s intent, but that didn’t stop strict execution.
German ships quickly complied; half-salvos shortened intervals by half, from three per minute to five.
Just one minute later, with pre-aim shortened over a thousand yards, a 12-inch shell finally hit “Majestic’s” superstructure, booming the funnel clean off.
Black smoke mixed with fire surged from the hull, turning “Majestic” into a glaringly obvious live target in the night, no illumination needed.
——
PS: New book period, but today it’s nearly nine thousand words…
Think with your conscience: is this the update speed for a book less than two weeks old? I just want to get this battle over quickly too.
And for such a niche topic, if I don’t write it, no one else on the site will.
Begging for comments! Begging for follows! Begging for bookmarks! Begging for votes!
