Chapter 125: Quality Above All

Aboard the SMS Kaiser, Feng Chengqian stood steadfastly beside the gunnery officer.

At ten minutes past six, the Kaiser fired its first salvo—or, more precisely, a half-salvo—with one main gun from each of the four turrets. This allowed the gunnery officer to calculate the deviation between the aiming point and the fall of shot based on the impact of these four shells, enabling him to adjust the aim accordingly.

At this moment, the engagement range was approximately 21,000 meters.

Clearly, for the twelve 300mm main guns of the Kaiser, this distance was slightly too great; even if they managed to strike a British ship, it was unlikely they would penetrate its armor. Furthermore, excessive range increased the dispersion of the shells, thereby reducing accuracy.

At 6:12 PM, the Kaiser fired its first full salvo.

By this time, the SMS Friedrich der Grosse, which was engaging the fourth enemy ship—the HMS Delhi (known in historical records familiar to Feng Chengqian as the "Emperor of India")—had also completed its ranging and followed the Kaiser with its first full salvo.

It had to be admitted that the accuracy of the German ships was far superior to that of the British.

Although not one of the twenty-four shells fired by the two battleships in their first full salvos found its mark, at least two shells landed within two hundred meters of the British ships. Moreover, observers noted that the Kaiser's first salvo had straddled the target, meaning the shells had landed both ahead of and behind the British vessel. This meant that by keeping the aiming point constant, a bit of luck would suffice to score a hit. Unfortunately, during the second salvo, the observers revised their assessment.

The Kaiser had failed to straddle the target again, with its shells falling short, while the shells from the Friedrich der Grosse fell long. In other words, both ships had shifted their aim away from the target.

At 6:14 PM, after adjusting the aiming point, the Kaiser successfully straddled its target on the third salvo.

For a naval engagement at a range exceeding 20,000 meters, this was a remarkable achievement. One must understand that if the gunners were less skilled, it might have taken over ten salvos to achieve a straddle. This once again proved that the quality of the Imperial Navy's officers and men was superior to that of the British Royal Navy.

Once a straddle was achieved, all that remained was a matter of luck.

In fact, during the third salvo, the Kaiser did strike the Delhi. According to the British ship's combat logs, at least one near-miss struck the underwater portion of the Delhi's hull after entering the water; however, the shell failed to penetrate the main armor belt and did not explode immediately because the impact angle was too shallow, causing the fuse to malfunction.

At 6:17 PM, on the seventh salvo, the Kaiser finally achieved its first confirmed success.

According to reports from the observers, the shell struck the Delhi between the rear bridge and the central turret. Based on the flash of the explosion, it was preliminarily determined that the 300mm armor-piercing shell had failed to penetrate the Delhi's horizontal armor, but it had certainly impacted the central turret.

For the next ten minutes or so, the Delhi's central turret was unable to fire a single shell.

After the Kaiser scored the first success, the Friedrich der Grosse was not to be outdone. At 6:18 PM, it silenced the Delhi's rear main turret with a precise salvo, which also damaged the barbette of the forward turret and caused a failure in the training mechanism of another turret.

With just two shells, the Delhi lost sixty percent of its main battery firepower.

At 6:22 PM, as the engagement range closed to 18,000 meters, the hit rate of the Kaiser and the Friedrich der Grosse began to rise. More importantly, at 18,000 meters, the 300mm armor-piercing shells had an over eighty percent chance of penetrating the British ships' horizontal armor.

Relatively speaking, the performance of the British ships was not nearly as impressive.

By this time, the Erin, which was shelling the Kaiser, and the Queen Elizabeth, which was shelling the Friedrich der Grosse, had yet to score a single hit, and they had not even come close with many near-misses.

It must be admitted that the Kaiser and the Friedrich der Grosse were very fortunate, as they were facing the two least capable capital ships in the Grand Fleet.

The Erin, originally named the Reşadiye, had been built for the Ottoman Empire.

When the Great War broke out, the ship was nearing delivery. However, British First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill requisitioned the ship in the name of the war effort, incorporated it into the Royal Navy, and renamed it the Erin.

The design of the Erin was based on the King George V class, though it was inferior in protection and speed. Even more critically, at the outbreak of the war, the Royal Navy had no crew prepared for the vessel. This meant that the Royal Navy had to recruit and train personnel for the ship only after it had been requisitioned.

Although the crew of the Erin had undergone intensive training over the past six months, they were far from reaching a level of proficiency or elite status. It is well known that it takes at least five years to cultivate an excellent naval officer, and even a common sailor is considered a veteran only after more than three years of service.

Compared to the Erin, the crew of the Queen Elizabeth was even more appalling.

Although the Queen Elizabeth had officially entered service at the end of March, many procedures in the Royal Navy were simplified during wartime. For instance, in the past, any ship would undergo months of sea trials before entering service to test its performance and allow the crew to conduct navigational training. After commissioning, it would typically require more than half a year of training to achieve full combat readiness.

Unfortunately, during wartime, these requirements were streamlined.

Before commissioning, the Queen Elizabeth had only conducted less than a month of sea trials before returning to Portsmouth to be incorporated into the Royal Navy. After officially entering service, the ship had only trained in the English Channel for a little over a month before being sent to Scapa Flow and assigned to the Grand Fleet.

In other words, before heading to the battlefield, much of the Queen Elizabeth's necessary training had not been completed.

It cannot be denied that the Queen Elizabeth was the most advanced, most powerful, and perhaps even the fastest battleship among the belligerents at the time. In terms of hardware, it surpassed all German ships, but in terms of software, this powerful vessel was the most poorly prepared.

In over ten minutes, the Queen Elizabeth fired nearly twenty salvos without a single hit!

That is to say, the hit rate for approximately 150 shells was zero.

What kind of concept is that?

If the Kaiser had fired those 150 shells, at least three would have struck the target.

The British ships' excessively low hit rate was, in effect, handing the opportunity to the German ships.

At 6:25 PM, a massive explosion occurred on the Delhi.

According to the observers, the explosion took place in the center of the Delhi, to the left of the bridge. It was a surface explosion rather than an internal one. It was highly likely that secondary battery shells stacked on deck were ignited, which is why the underwater section of the Delhi's hull did not sustain severe damage.

However, this violent explosion rendered the Delhi incapable of returning fire.

The Delhi had been silenced, though it did not withdraw from the line of battle. Feng Chengqian did not continue to focus on this ship, instead ordering the gunnery officer to target the Benbow ahead of the Delhi. At the same time, the Friedrich der Grosse turned its guns toward the Erin behind the Delhi.

This adjustment made the situation even more favorable for the Kaiser.

Previously, the Erin had been shelling the Kaiser, while the Queen and the Kaiserin were engaging the Erin. Although these two battleships had hit the Erin multiple times and silenced two of its rear turrets, the shells coming from the Erin still significantly impacted the Kaiser’s gunnery.

With the Friedrich der Grosse shifting its fire, a total of three German ships were now pounding the Erin.

The result was that the Erin, in its attempt to evade incoming shells, suffered a further decline in firing accuracy, and the threat it posed to the Kaiser was greatly reduced.

By engaging the Delhi, the gunners on the Kaiser had found their rhythm.

After two salvos against the Benbow, the Kaiser achieved a result on its third salvo, destroying the Benbow’s stern. In the next five salvos, the Kaiser struck the Benbow three more times, one of which accurately hit the Benbow's command bridge.

As a result, the Benbow spent the next ten minutes firing blank shots.

By 6:40 PM, the advantage of the High Seas Fleet was already very clear.

In addition to the Delhi and the Benbow being heavily damaged, the Erin had also taken several hits and was left with only one main turret. The Queen Elizabeth had been struck four times; although none of the hits resulted in penetration, its two forward turrets were rendered unusable. The fierce fire from the König and the Grosser Kurfürst caused the flagship of Beatty, the Iron Duke, to suffer greatly; it was struck by at least seven large-caliber armor-piercing shells, four of which penetrated the hull, causing severe damage. The Marlborough, following the Iron Duke, fought only against the Kaiserin; although it landed several armor-piercing shells, the Kaiserin retaliated, destroying two of the Marlborough’s forward turrets and blowing its rear bridge to pieces.

The only area where the Grand Fleet held an advantage was in its Second Battle Squadron.

The Agincourt and the Neptune achieved the most significant results, hitting the Prinzregent Luitpold more than ten times, destroying three of its turrets, and blowing up its command tower and rear bridge. However, there was no fatal blow, and the Prinzregent Luitpold remained tenaciously in the line of battle.

At this point, the battle had entered its most critical stage.

Both sides' battle lines were in disarray; whoever made the adjustment first would lose the initiative!