As HMS Majestic belched thick smoke mixed with fire, this brutal point-blank duel between battlecruisers and Pre-dreadnoughts finally had a clear victor.
Before this operation even began, Rear Admiral Hipper knew perfectly well that the true challenge lay in maintaining stealth and successfully engaging the enemy. Once the shooting actually started, victory was all but guaranteed. The only real suspense was how steep a price they would have to pay for it.
Observing the battle beside Rear Admiral Hipper, Lelouch still knew little about naval warfare. Catching a brief lull, he couldn't resist asking a question.
"Admiral, just now you ordered full-speed half-salvos without waiting to measure the splash distance of the previous shells, dropping the range scale by 300 yards every round. What kind of tactic is that?"
Hipper had already issued all necessary orders. With nothing left to do but wait for the results, he happily enlightened his young friend. "It's quite simple. If we were exchanging fire at medium or long range, we certainly couldn't fight like this. Accurate rangefinding is vital when relying on plunging fire.
"But we've pushed in so close now that the shell trajectories are practically flat. Even if we aim a little long while targeting the hull, the enemy ship's superstructure is likely to intersect that flat trajectory and take a hit anyway. So, as long as we confirm a shot went long, we simply walk the range inward as fast as possible. There is no need to fuss over the exact distance of the miss."
Lelouch was still Lelouch. His math grades were exceptional enough that, despite failing the art department's entrance exam, he had effortlessly qualified for the architecture department. Relying on his strong foundation in geometry, he instantly grasped the essence of this tactic.
He found the insight invaluable, and his respect for Admiral Hipper's adaptability and battlefield command deepened.
The German battlecruisers transitioned to rapid-fire, unleashing an unrelenting storm of shells.
One 305mm shell after another slammed into HMS Majestic's 228mm nickel-chrome armor steel main belt. At an engagement range of under five kilometers, these rounds effortlessly tore through every layer of defense this Pre-dreadnought possessed.The warship's citadel suffered multiple penetrations. Several high-pressure steam pipes in the propulsion system shattered, venting superheated steam at hundreds of degrees throughout the interior. Countless engineers frantically attempting repairs were boiled alive in seconds.
The casemate deck sitting just above the engine rooms fared no better. These relatively lightly armored sections were blown to pieces by the 305mm shells. Several secondary guns, along with jagged chunks of the deck itself, were blasted high into the air.
A small stockpile of ammunition stored in a few of the secondary batteries sympathetically detonated. While the explosion of these 152mm shells wasn't enough to sink the ship outright, it was more than enough to obliterate the upper fire control systems and the bridge.
Vice Admiral Hastings was caught in the blast and blown sky-high. Just like that, the commander of the Britannia Channel Fleet perished.
HMS Majestic's main turrets, however, proved incredibly stubborn. Despite minutes of relentless pounding, the heavy armor held, sparing the primary magazines from detonation. But stripped of both fire control and power, the turrets could neither receive targeting data nor use their hydraulic drives to traverse. They were reduced to firing blindly at fixed angles.
The warship was functionally a dead fish floating in the water, kept afloat only by the remaining reserve buoyancy of her battered hull.
Naval artillery of this era could rapidly obliterate a battleship's superstructure and completely neutralize its combat effectiveness. However, without a catastrophic magazine or boiler detonation, snapping a hull in half for a quick kill remained incredibly difficult.
To quickly sink a warship by flooding, one still had to rely on torpedoes or naval mines.
...
At the same time, the other enemy capital ship, HMS Revenge, was locked in a brutal death match with two Blücher-class battlecruisers under Hipper's command.
The dynamic here mirrored the other duel. Having recently refitted its main armament, HMS Revenge sported the same type of turrets as HMS Majestic. However, its fire control systems had not been fully upgraded or calibrated, leaving its gunnery sluggish and wildly inaccurate.
The only two differences lay in their armaments and armor. The German Blücher-class ships still utilized 280mm main guns—a full inch smaller than those on the Derfflinger-class.
In return, HMS Revenge boasted a significantly thicker main armor belt than its successor, HMS Majestic, reaching a staggering 450mm at its thickest point! But this advantage was deceptive. The quality and type of that armor were woefully outdated. As an aging Royal Sovereign-class vessel, it still relied on 1890s-era harvey armor steel rather than modern nickel-chrome armor steel, reducing its actual defensive equivalent by twenty to thirty percent.
Furthermore, that extreme thickness came at a steep cost in coverage. The 450mm plating only guarded a narrow strip right along the waterline; just slightly above that mark, the armor abruptly thinned to 356mm.
The 280mm guns of the Blücher-class couldn't penetrate the waterline belt, but they could effortlessly punch through anything above it.
Consequently, in roughly the same amount of time, HMS Revenge was also reduced to a floating, battered iron husk. Though she remained above water, she had completely lost all combat capability.
While thoroughly crippling two Pre-dreadnoughts, Hipper's fleet emerged virtually unscathed. Only Seydlitz took a hit, catching a 305mm main battery shell from an enemy ship in her mid-aft casemate.
The impact blew away two 150mm secondary guns, ripped up a section of the casemate deck, and destroyed the davits and several lifeboats stored above.
Aside from that single strike, the German battlecruisers had only suffered a combined five or six hits from 150mm secondary shells throughout the entire engagement. These smaller rounds possessed no chance of penetrating the main armor; they simply chewed up some superficial exterior fixtures.
...
Just as Hipper prepared to shift his fire to Hood—the weakest of the enemy capital ships—after crushing the other two at virtually zero cost, he made a surprising discovery.
His battlecruisers hadn't even engaged her yet, but Hood had already lost more than half of her combat effectiveness. During the fierce gunnery duel, the two German Scharnhorst-class armored cruisers, possessing no specific combat assignments, had been granted permission to open fire freely in support of the capital ships.
The sixteen 210mm guns on these two armored cruisers relentlessly washed Hood's decks with high explosives. Within just a few salvos, they had completely knocked out Hood's main batteries.
It turned out that Hood, despite being a sister ship to HMS Revenge, had never received a modernized main battery. She was still fielding the same 343mm open-barbette mounts from over twenty years ago. They had no enclosed turrets and no armored roofs, leaving the gun crews completely exposed to the open air.
With such appalling protection, plunging fire from even a 210mm armored cruiser gun spelled absolute disaster.
That was exactly what had happened. Shortly after the engagement began, Hood's forward and aft main battery positions took direct hits from Scharnhorst and Gneisenau.
Without any overhead armor to protect them, the gunners manning the emplacements were slaughtered to a man. Four 343mm shells waiting to be loaded were caught in the blast and detonated in sympathy. Even if the gun barrels themselves had survived the explosions, there was no one left alive to fire them.
Outdated relics like these were only ever fit for coastal bombardment. Dragging such garbage into a capital ship duel was just a tragedy waiting to happen.
At this point, Hipper had the luxury of taking his time, finishing off the crippled enemy warships one by one for gunnery practice.
However, he was pressed for time. He ordered his main guns to maintain their fire while detaching three destroyers to launch torpedo runs against the defenseless hulks, choosing a swift and decisive end.
Receiving their orders, the three German destroyers surged head-on at maximum speed. Closing to within three kilometers of their targets, they each unleashed a fan of torpedoes.
There was no need to push in any closer and risk whatever rapid-fire guns the enemy might still have functioning. The battered ships were already crawling at a dead creep and had completely lost their command structures; evading a torpedo spread from three kilometers away was virtually impossible for them.
Minutes later, four heavy detonations echoed across the water, kicking up massive columns of sea spray against the enemy hulls. HMS Revenge took two hits, while Majestic and Hood caught one apiece. All three vessels immediately began to list as the sea poured in. HMS Revenge went under first, plunging beneath the waves, while the fates of the other two were sealed.
...
"Three enemy Pre-dreadnoughts, three light cruisers, and two destroyers sunk. Three more destroyers crippled. At least 5,000 enemy casualties. This is a monumental victory! Admiral, your command was brilliant. Shall we move to engage the western detachment next, or should we quit while we're ahead? We do need to watch the clock, after all."
As HMS Revenge slipped beneath the surface, several of Rear Admiral Hipper's trusted officers, along with the captain of Derfflinger, eagerly crowded around him to shower him with praise.
It wasn't purely sycophancy; much of their admiration was genuine. But some were also motivated by self-preservation, deliberately exaggerating the scale of the triumph in hopes of convincing the Admiral to take his winnings and withdraw.
After all, if Hipper didn't feel the victory was grand enough, he might grow greedy for more glory and drag them into a prolonged engagement.
Crushing the detachment in front of them and wiping out the stragglers would be easy enough.
But the longer they lingered, the greater the risk that David Beatty would cut off their escape route.
A commander had to look past the immediate skirmish and consider the broader strategic picture.
Hipper, however, did not lose his cool amidst the chorus of flattery. He saw right through their intentions.
He asked himself honestly: if not for his earlier discussion with Lelouch, and the brilliant "third withdrawal route" the young man had proposed, he most likely would have chosen to quit while he was ahead.
The moment the German guns opened fire, David Beatty knew their exact coordinates. The British admiral was undoubtedly rushing toward them at maximum speed. Every minute they delayed increased the odds of being intercepted.
The battered remnants of the Channel Fleet were nothing to fear, but Beatty's six or seven cutting-edge battlecruisers were a genuinely lethal threat!
However, with the previously inconceivable option of falling back to Antwerp now on the table, eradicating the enemy completely became a very real possibility.
Seeing that none of his subordinates grasped his true intent, Hipper swept his gaze across the room. Ultimately, he ordered the fleet to engage the remaining western detachment, intending to assess the situation as it developed. There was no need to rush.
Once the other officers had dispersed, he held back the Duke's special envoy, Lieutenant Lelouch. Adopting a testing tone, he asked, "What do you think? Should we hunt them down to the very end, or quit while we're ahead?"
Lelouch had maintained a low profile up to this point, never once interfering with battlefield command. But now that Hipper was asking him directly, he didn't hold back.
"I recommend wiping them out completely! The other officers are playing it safe because they don't know the situation in Antwerp, nor do they understand how the army can coordinate with the navy. I only shared those details with you. You are the only one here with the full picture required to make this decision.
"Secondly, when I first presented the backup plan of withdrawing to Antwerp, you noted a critical risk: 'the warships might sustain severe damage, and since Antwerp only possesses a good port but lacks large-scale naval shipyards, the fleet could end up stranded there without the means for proper repairs.'
"But the results are clear. We've only taken a handful of six-inch shells, and a single twelve-inch hit on Seydlitz. None of it is critical. With no need for major shipyard repairs, the biggest flaw in the Antwerp plan is entirely moot. Now, it offers nothing but advantages."
Hipper had been wavering slightly under the concerted pressure of his officers, but Lelouch's analysis cleared the fog from his mind.
Exactly! The others couldn't make a proper strategic judgment because he had intentionally withheld the full picture for operational security! He was the only one in the fleet privy to the army-navy coordination plan Lelouch had laid out.
In order to maintain their intelligence deception after this battle, he had to ensure the enemy never realized that the Germans knew their radio ciphers were compromised. To pull that off, he had to frame this entire operation as a rogue act of insubordination on his part.
To make that insubordination look convincing, he had to keep his own staff in the dark. His aides only needed to follow his orders; they didn't need to know his underlying motives.
The actions could be public, but the motives had to remain an absolute secret.
"You're right. Only the two of us possess the full context required to make this call. The others don't even know the parameters of the operation, so why should I let them sway me? Sometimes, the course of history falls on the shoulders of just one or two men. It's decided, then! We run them down to the very end! We'll sink every ship we can catch! Ignore Beatty's interception—when the time comes, we'll fall back straight to Antwerp!"