Chapter 83: Hipper Bravely Sinks Warspite, David Betty Severs The Tail To Survive
February 19th, 6:50 in the morning, just as dawn broke on the North Sea surface.
In the bridge conning tower of HMS Queen Elizabeth, David Betty, who had been exhausted all day and had just dozed off for a bit, was suddenly startled awake by the warning shout of his subordinate.
“Commander! Bearing 75, range 24 kilometers, enemy fleet sighted! 4 battlecruisers, 2 armored cruisers, several light cruisers and destroyers, suspected to be Hipper’s fleet!”
David Betty’s eyes were dazed and his mind blank for less than ten seconds before he rubbed his face hard to force himself awake:
“What? That’s impossible! Weren’t Hipper’s warships all severely damaged three months ago and waiting for repairs in Antwerp?”
“Even if the Germania Navy Ministry threw resources at repairing large shipyards in Belgian territory, it couldn’t be fixed that fast! Could it be that madman Hipper is bringing damaged ships into battle?”
David Betty rapidly sorted through various possible surprises in his mind, and in the end, that was the only possibility he could think of.
More than three months ago, all four of Hipper’s ships had been hit by warships under his command and fled wreathed in thick smoke. He had done it all himself and seen it with his own eyes; he had absolute confidence in his battle results.
Moreover, after the battle, Hipper had indeed sent a secret radio to the Germania Navy Ministry requesting aid and shipyard expansion for repairs.
Within Britannia, there was widespread propaganda turning defeat into victory, hyping Betty’s heavy damage to Hipper’s four battlecruisers, beating them all to critical condition, as the truth.
A lie repeated a thousand times becomes the truth. Although Betty hadn’t observed the ships’ damage up close, after hearing it so many times, he started believing it himself.
His subconscious gradually altered his memory; every time he recalled it, the damage he thought those few salvos had inflicted on Hipper seemed to increase by several degrees.
It must have been critical hits every shot to leave them in such a miserable state.
But none of that mattered now. How to deal with the pursuit by Hipper’s four heavily damaged battlecruisers was the pressing issue that had to be resolved.
Betty surveyed the combat power under his command. He had 13 warships; how could he possibly lose to Hipper’s mere 4 battlecruisers and 2 armored cruisers?
Even if several of his own were heavily damaged, with 2 having completely lost their firepower, that still wasn’t something Hipper could match!
Betty immediately ordered all ships to turn to 345, that is, 15 degrees west of due north, to cruising speed, forming a T-cross to meet the head-on charge from Hipper!
Of course, Betty didn’t forget to send a radio report at the same time, requesting that his battleships on alert in nearby northern home ports rush to reinforce this sea area as much as possible.
The battle had dragged on so long with so many surprises that even the British Army’s main battleships deployed in Scapa Flow and Edinburgh had sortied southward.
Similarly, within Germania, since the fierce naval battle erupted last night, the High Seas Fleet at Wilhelmshaven had additionally dispatched two battleship squadrons on temporary orders, each with 6 battleships, one after the other to provide support.
If Betty and Hipper kept maneuvering long enough to drag the battle through a full day, both sides’ follow-up reinforcements might arrive on the battlefield.
……
“Betty still seems very confident in his condition; he actually wants to fight me head-on instead of trying to escape and return to port quickly.”
Inside the bridge of Derfflinger, Hipper saw Betty form up for a proper battle while the distance between them had shortened to within 20 kilometers, so he decisively ordered the fleet to turn to 190.
That is, forming a fairly parallel line to Betty’s battle line but with a 25-degree closing angle. At the same time, their courses were exactly opposed and crossing.
This way, Hipper could continue closing the distance with Betty and gradually enter engagement range, while biting the tail of Betty’s slower fleet and pulling farther ahead from Betty’s fleet head.
Hipper dared to do this because he had already spotted Betty’s anomaly and gathered intelligence—Betty’s fleet had several slow pre-dreadnoughts and several heavily damaged warships with major speed losses; those ships couldn’t keep up and would definitely lag at the tail.
Meanwhile, Hipper’s entire fleet was in good condition, with all battlecruisers able to maintain over 26 knots and the armored cruisers 24 knots.
As long as Hipper targeted the enemy’s slow and straggling ships for the kill, Betty would have to change formation! Either turn his fast warships back to chase Hipper, or watch helplessly as the slow ships got finished off!
“Damn, he’s planning to avoid my fast main force and target my slow ships first! Change formation! All warships turn in place! Pre-dreadnoughts to the front, battlecruisers to the rear, close in! Shorten distances between ships, switch to the tightest column formation! Don’t give the enemy a chance to pick us off!
The 4 pre-dreadnoughts form a separate battle line, pull back from the enemy as much as possible, wait for the battlecruiser squadron to catch up!”
Seeing this, Betty decisively executed a series of formation changes. Originally, the British ships used a fairly standard spaced formation with over 3 kilometers between each. After changing, it compressed to 2 kilometers between each.
This distance was already quite dangerous at sea, increasing collision risk, and made further formation changes prone to chaos in emergencies. But to avoid being picked off piecemeal, he had no choice.
Especially in February, with the North Sea’s harsh winter winds and waves. This battlefield was no longer off Dunkirk but dozens of kilometers northward in the outer sea, where conditions were even worse; a tight formation greatly reduced margin for error.
Betty’s choice was the best among all his options, but formation changes took time—impossible without 20-30 minutes of adjustment.
With both sides already within 20 kilometers, Hipper exploited the enemy’s formation change time difference to close further, slicing toward Betty’s tail—that was unavoidable for Betty, as his fleet had overall speed shortcomings; pre-dreadnoughts couldn’t form an effective battle line with battlecruisers anyway.
Before Betty’s battlecruisers arrived, Hipper first closed to within 15 kilometers of Betty’s tail ships, then with a favorable closing angle, concentrated the guns of his 4 battlecruisers, firing at Betty’s tail pre-dreadnought HMS Hibernia from 13-15 kilometers.
HMS Hibernia also elevated her guns to maximum, firing with all her might regardless of whether her fire control could support such long-range accuracy. The HMS Africa and Dominion following her also fired desperately, but their shells reaching that range seemed extremely reluctant and at the limit.
At around 15 kilometers engagement distance, plus air resistance slowing the shells, the fall angle was already about 30 degrees.
The protection design of old pre-dreadnoughts was for intra-10-kilometer battles of the old era, without high-angle trajectories, so side main armor belts were thick but horizontal armor thin—for example, these King Edward VII-class had 228 mm side main armor but only 50 mm horizontal armor.
Before Betty brought his fast battlecruisers into the gunnery duel, Hipper had already, in the 20 minutes of time difference he gained, hit HMS Hibernia with one 280 mm AP shell and one 305 mm AP shell.
The 305 mm AP from Seydlitz easily penetrated the horizontal armor, then two layers of structural steel, exploding in an internal compartment.
Fortunately, pre-dreadnoughts used triple-expansion reciprocating steam engines, not yet steam turbines, so the engine rooms weren’t as long as later turbine rooms, and the machinery was tougher.
This hit had struck the engine room junction but didn’t destroy the steam engines, only rupturing several lower-left boilers, causing the warship to lose nearly half her boiler steam output, with speed plummeting from 19 knots to 13 knots.
When Betty brought his fast flotilla into range, seeing HMS Hibernia beaten to half-crippled, he was furious and engaged Hipper in a fierce, close-quarters gunnery duel.
“Boom boom boom~”
In that moment, dozens of Royal Navy 305 mm heavy guns, 12 343 mm heavy guns, Lion-class 13.5-inch, and 6 380 mm heavy guns entered range one after another over half an hour, firing in rotation, their roar shaking sea and sky.
Towering water columns rose majestically like monuments on the sea surface, making steel hundreds of meters away tremble naturally.
Hipper gave no quarter in return, with 16 305 mm guns and 16 280 mm guns firing in turn at the lead HMS New Zealand and Indefatigable of Betty’s fleet after it turned.
Because of Betty’s in-place turn, his original formation had damaged and slow ships at the rear; now the damaged warships were leading. Especially those damaged but not in propulsion, they involuntarily rushed to the front.
At 15-18 kilometers, both sides frequently exchanged shells. Neither had locked targets yet, still calibrating, with turrets firing in salvo trials rather than full broadsides.
This ranging process lasting 20 minutes or even half an hour was normal. In bad weather and sea conditions, it took even longer.
In the winter North Sea, mornings often had lingering fog, further hindering spotting. With both sides maintaining high speed, firing stability dropped further, and they bombarded each other for half an hour without hits.
Betty would have liked to slow to cruising speed for a stable firing platform. But Hipper wouldn’t let him, keeping all ships at 24 knots.
Hipper knew well: a significant portion of Betty’s fleet couldn’t make 24 knots. By maintaining fleet high speed, Betty either gave up or his formation fragmented.
After some chasing, Betty spotted the issue. He decisively ordered all pre-dreadnoughts to disengage; they could only handle shore bombardment, and staying was a burden as they couldn’t catch the enemy.
The British Army’s last 3 undamaged pre-dreadnoughts, King Edward VII-class Dominion, Africa, and Hindustan, thus detached from the formation, returning toward their own Dover Port. HMS Hibernia, with damaged boilers limited to 13 knots, also lumbered back slowly.
After some maneuvering between Hipper and Betty, Hipper deliberately lured southward to keep distance, and time gradually reached past 8:30 a.m.
As the sun rose higher, fog dissipated somewhat, and snowfall lightened.
From southeast Dunkirk Port, Germania air force reconnaissance groups finally flew toward the area. Soon after, from west Dover Port and southwest Calais, British Army and even French Army reconnaissance aircraft arrived to assist.
A fairly intense air battle erupted in the nearby airspace. The arriving British and French aircraft were all equipped with heavy machine guns, clearly having learned from recent losses to Germania air battles—no heavy machine guns, no showing up.
But mounting heavy machine guns meant twin-seat large aircraft, far fewer in number than Germania’s.
Germania forces even equipped light “pigeon-type” reconnaissance aircraft with an MG15 air-cooled light machine gun and belt feed.
Numerical superiority plus tactics training from Immelmann and others let Germania reconnaissance aircraft maintain clear air superiority.
With spotter calibration from reconnaissance aircraft, Betty soon realized that relying on just his few fast battlecruisers to duel Hipper still didn’t give him the upper hand.
His formation was disrupted; HMS Queen Elizabeth had no firepower output, and HMS Warspite, with too much flooding and slow speed, had badly lagged. He could only fair-fight Hipper with 13.5-inch and 12-inch guns.
Hipper’s gunnery, aided by aerial spotting, had aiming speed several times faster than Betty’s.
By around 9 a.m. in the fierce battle, Hipper’s two Derfflinger-class achieved 3 hits each on HMS New Zealand and Indefatigable.
Indefatigable had already been repeatedly damaged in prior duels with shore batteries and Brunswick-class pre-dreadnoughts, with firepower nearly destroyed. She came forward reluctantly this time, relying on intact propulsion to share damage and buy time for friendly forces.
But misfortune piled on; she took 3 more hits, suffering extreme damage with fires across the ship. The main armor belt was breached in two places, one near the waterline causing flooding.
Betty knew letting Indefatigable keep drawing fire risked disaster, so he urgently ordered her, wreathed in flames, to withdraw first.
Meanwhile, as New Zealand took new damage and Indefatigable withdrew ablaze, Betty’s main fleet had only achieved 2 hits on Seydlitz. The hit ratio was 3 to 1 in Hipper’s favor.
Betty’s follow-up ships, unable to find firing positions on Germania battlecruisers and unwilling to waste time, desperately turned guns to waste firepower on Hipper’s tail Scharnhorst and Gneisenau armored cruisers—that was exactly what Hipper wanted.
Hipper brought these two armored cruisers first to use their 240 mm guns to “deck-wash” enemy ships multiple times, smashing upper structures to degrade combat performance.
Second, to use their rapid-fire main guns to block enemy light cruisers and destroyers’ torpedo charges.
Third, because Hipper had few large warships and needed cheap auxiliaries to draw fire from main ships.
Just like in Earth history, Bismarck bringing Prinz Eugen to draw fire.
The Scharnhorst-class armored cruisers’ top speed was only 24 knots. After wasting half an hour of fire from Betty’s tail-end HMS Warspite and two other battlecruisers, Scharnhorst was unfortunately hit by a 380 mm heavy AP shell and soon crippled.
Gneisenau was also hit by two 305 mm shells in succession: one penetrated the stern causing significant flooding, the other hit the main amidships, disabling both rear 240 mm main turrets.
Learning the situation, Hipper decisively ordered Scharnhorst abandoned, with crew lowering lifeboats to evacuate quickly for recovery by his own large torpedo boat flotilla.
Gneisenau was permitted discretionary abandonment if conditions worsened.
In the time gained by Scharnhorst crippled and Gneisenau damaged at the battle line’s end, Hipper’s 4 main warships gained clear superiority in the front half.
Britannia’s HMS New Zealand finally couldn’t withstand sustained fire from 4 main ships; after cumulative hits from over a dozen large-caliber shells, multiple small explosions occurred, plus prior extensive flooding and breached compartments, she finally sank struggling into the sea.
This was the first battlecruiser sunk from the Britannia Royal Navy since the World War began.
This ship had been damaged in fierce fighting with Hipper’s fleet over three months ago during the final stage of the Ostend campaign, when trying to intercept Hipper’s return to Wilhelmshaven.
Then, Australia was hit 7 times, heavily damaged back to shipyard for major overhaul—at least half a year. New Zealand took only 2 hits, minor enough for three months’ repair before returning. But in last night’s Nieuwpoort fierce battle, she was heavily damaged again, and now beaten continuously, she finally sank.
If the battle ended here, Hipper’s results were already quite good. He traded one good-condition armored cruiser for one half-crippled British battlecruiser.
Abandoning a warship after heavy damage and loss of combat power was a big difference from outright sinking. Germania ships often had good watertight structure; even fully wrecked, abandonment saved most crew. British warships sunk outright, even slowly from flooding, still had over half casualties.
Moreover, today’s battle was far from stopping here.
The brutal close-quarters hammering continued, with Hipper maintaining over twice the hit rate thanks to aircraft spotting.
Hipper stuck to the principle of “kicking the cripple’s last good leg hard,” prioritizing damaged ships in Betty’s force.
Soon, he set British battlecruiser Indomitable ablaze; she cumulatively took 5 hits from 305 and 280 mm AP shells, main armor belt torn open in two gashes, inner heavy fuel tanks ruptured, spilling fuel to form a sea of fire. Thick smoke billowed, with noticeable list.
In this process, British gains were just further crippling the already half-dead Gneisenau, while jointly heavily damaging Hipper’s battlecruiser Blücher—the two Lion-class battlecruisers under Betty had their 13.5-inch guns focused on Blücher almost throughout.
As the oldest first-generation Germania battlecruiser of the Von der Tann-class, Blücher had some protection shortcomings. Her armor thickness wasn’t enough against 13.5-inch. Multiple main armor vitals torn, power reduced, flooding gradually over a thousand tons and still incoming.
But Blücher’s firepower output and fire control remained decent; her damage was mainly flooding and propulsion.
Seeing Germania fleet firepower nearly intact while his own lost 1 battlecruiser heavily damaged and 1 sunk, Betty couldn’t help but feel fear.
Watching the aircraft overhead, he knew he’d chosen the wrong battlefield; continuing meant paying several times the price even in victory, with victory hopes slim.
His warships were in terrible shape, all soldiers’ stamina and energy at limits, tactics level declined, fire control and spotting atrociously low.
Realizing his rashness and impotence, Betty first felt the urge to concede.
He could only wait for the Empire’s air force to close the gap and regain aerial reconnaissance superiority, and his soldiers to recover, to avenge today’s blood debt and wash away the shame.
Looking at his damaged warships, he decisively ordered: “All warships with intact propulsion, withdraw immediately! No more fighting!”
He’d insisted on fighting to the end earlier because too many low-speed damaged ships couldn’t escape. Now Germanians had helped eliminate one already heavily damaged ship, another on its last legs; he could ruthlessly cut losses.
After the order, the remaining 4 battlecruisers and battleship Queen Elizabeth all pulled away; Royal Princess had minor damage but no withdrawal issues.
Only battleship Warspite, with excessive flooding, probably couldn’t escape like Indomitable. Her captain, Colonel Howard, signaled by radio that she would continue counterattacking to buy distance time for the main fleet, together with Indomitable.
Heavily damaged low-speed HMS Hibernia made a similar choice.
Warspite, Indomitable, and Hibernia sailed toward the also-damaged Germania battlecruiser Blücher and armored cruiser Gneisenau, in desperate last-stand posture.
Blücher knew her speed was also down and escape unlikely, so she turned broadside to the enemy, all 8 main guns firing madly at the head-on-charging Warspite.
Warspite’s aft firepower was already mostly gone; now bow-on, her forward 4 main guns could all fire, so not at a disadvantage.
Both sides fiercely exchanged shells; Hipper had his other three battlecruisers first concentrate on weaker Indomitable, then on Warspite.
In under-10-kilometer close combat, after half an hour of gunnery, Indomitable finally exploded and sank. Before sinking, she hit Blücher with at least 5 305 mm shells and Von der Tann with 2. Blücher was thoroughly crippled, firepower, fire control, propulsion all severely damaged.
Then, all 4 Germania ships shifted to Warspite, quickly adding injury atop injury, upper works nearly destroyed.
“A new battleship with 15-inch main guns is really tough. Is her armor designed to withstand 15-inch too? Our 11-inch shells barely penetrate anywhere; 12-inch can only pierce very secondary spots.”
Hipper, seeing Warspite’s core armored box section holding firm, was deeply shocked; it was an iron turtle.
Fighting such a monster with 11-12-inch guns was too arrogant.
Blücher had prior multiple 13.5-inch hits, then mutual mauling with Indomitable; now with Warspite closing and pounding continuously with 15-inch at close range, Blücher’s main armor belt finally blew open several massive holes, seawater surging in, starboard list reaching 30 degrees, on the brink.
Blücher’s main turrets even lost firing angle; even at maximum elevation, shells couldn’t reach Warspite, splashing into the sea from too low a trajectory.
Without Hipper’s other 3 battlecruisers continuously outputting to completely wreck Warspite’s fire systems, turning her into a firepower- and propulsion-less, thousands-of-tons-flooded dead fish, the situation would have been worse.
“Commander, send large torpedo boats to finish her? The fight with Hibernia is over; Seydlitz sank her, but Hibernia took Gneisenau down with her before dying—our already heavily damaged armored cruiser Gneisenau is fully wrecked, captain ordered abandonment.”
Hipper glanced blankly at the half-dead distant Warspite, nodded silently, signaling destroyers to finish her.
However, the order wasn’t executed—in preparing torpedo finishers, Hipper noticed Warspite’s side toward him lifting—the other side had flooded excessively, list nearing 30 degrees.
From the violent list, Warspite’s starboard bottom lifted exposing a section.
British battleship main armor belts were notorious “belt armor”; Queen-class was better, but the belt’s underwater extension remained very shallow.
With bottom exposed, Hipper keenly spotted it and directed Derfflinger to flatten guns as much as possible for execution practice.
Several 305 mm AP shells hit Warspite’s originally submerged, unarmored-covered spots, blasting several huge gashes.
Seawater surged in from that side, quickly easing Warspite’s list, sinking the raised side back—and relieving her of further need for treatment.
Over-flooded Warspite soon sank to the seabed.
Due to Warspite’s delay, other British ships had fled far; Hipper couldn’t pursue.
In that battle, his surviving 3 battlecruisers were all damaged, in poor shape; hard pursuit would be fearing both ends.
Withdrawing, Hipper chose first south along Belgian coast, then east to home port.
Blücher was ultimately towed by teammates to near Zeebrugge but still flooded too much to save, settling sunk in shallow water outside port; all survivors safely transferred.
Fortunately, Blücher’s fate wasn’t unique. During Betty’s retreat, fires, waves, and more flooding caused heavily damaged near-sinking Indefatigable to fail too, grounding and settling near Dover; personnel transferred.
This chase battle ended with Hipper’s fleet losing 1 battlecruiser Blücher sunk, 2 armored cruisers, 5 large torpedo boats/destroyers.
In victory: sinking Royal Navy 1 Queen-class battleship Warspite, 3 battlecruisers Indefatigable, New Zealand, Indomitable, heavily damaging 1 battlecruiser Royal Princess, sinking 1 pre-dreadnought Hibernia, 2 light cruisers Lin Xian-class Unconstant and Fearless, 6 destroyers.
The 2 lost British light cruisers were sunk by Hipper’s armored cruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau. The Scharns not only drew much fire but used 12-second salvo 240 mm guns to repel some British auxiliary torpedo assaults—dying with purpose.
David Betty finally returned to port in the early hours of February 20th with firepower-destroyed HMS Queen Elizabeth, and 4 battlecruisers (3 intact, 1 minor damage), 3 pre-dreadnoughts.
Dover Port and other Royal Navy main bases were shrouded in gloom. Such rapid changes in days left everyone unable to adapt or imagine.
After initial dockside check, Queen Elizabeth needed at least a year-plus repair to refight.
This repair time was over half that of building a new one; not until second half of 1916 could she refight.
On the British Army side, only Warspite, Indomitable, and Hibernia crews were fully killed or captured in the last battle. Other sunk British ships salvaged some crew, especially rear-area “died untreated” Indefatigable, nearly all crew saved.
Ultimately, Hipper’s fleet lost 1020 killed/drowned, 735 wounded.
Betty’s fleet: 4560 killed/drowned/captured, 954 wounded. Betty fled, so Hipper won battlefield cleanup rights. Betty had crew fished up and captured by enemy; Hipper had no subordinates captured.
Post-campaign, Germania Navy had 3 battlecruisers left in North Sea, all damaged, needing 2-6 months repair to refight.
Derfflinger lightest damaged, assessed return by early May; Von der Tann by June; Seydlitz by autumn.
Britannians: though Betty only escaped with 4 battlecruisers, Tiger was on other task patrolling blockade of north Faroe Islands route, didn’t come. Lion and Australia damaged in prior campaigns, under repair.
British Navy ordered all shipyards prioritize repairing old ships; assessed Lion and newly damaged Royal Princess return by summer. Australia by autumn.
So after both sides’ battlecruisers repaired, North Sea battlecruiser count remained 7 to 3, advantage Britannia. Originally 10 to 4.
But Britannians currently had no near-completion building battlecruisers. Their two Renown-class started January this year would take at least 18 months to commission.
Germanias had 2 follow-on Derfflinger-class, built nearly 2 years; #3 commissions this quarter, #4 next quarter.
By second half this year, North Sea battlecruiser ratio becomes 7 to 5; barring surprises, holds for a year.
Due to Navy’s excellent performance since war start, this world’s Emperor and War Department might invest more resources in the Navy going forward.
