Chapter 265: Completely Annihilating the Royal Navy Mediterranean Fleet |
Before participating in this naval battle in the waters off Sicily, the battleship Bellerophon had already sustained multiple shell hits. Early yesterday morning, during Operation Catapult's sneak attack on the Italy fleet at the Port of Taranto, the Bellerophon and the Agincourt had engaged in a close-range firefight with three Italy dreadnoughts inside the harbor.
Ultimately, the Agincourt exploded and sank, as did the Italian Cavour and HMS Caesar. In its dying moments, however, HMS Caesar managed to hit the Bellerophon with seven 305mm armor-piercing shells (as written in Chapter 261).
Those exchanges occurred within a range of five kilometers, meaning every shell pierced the main armor. Fortunately, none were "underwater hits"; the penetrations were entirely above the waterline and did not cause flooding. The impacts simply obliterated the starboard main battery and all starboard secondary guns, along with a massive amount of the superstructure. Fire control, observation, and damage control suffered heavy losses. Even several steam pipes leading to the upper turret hydraulic presses were ruptured, causing a sudden plunge in the turrets' rotation and elevation power. A battleship's turbines and boilers are located below the waterline, so flat-trajectory shells striking above the water would not damage those vital areas even if they pierced the main armor belt. However, some of the steam generated by the boilers was channeled through pipes to the upper decks to power the turrets' rotation and elevation. These pipes were extremely vulnerable to armor-piercing shells.
Fortunately, the ship had not taken any more significant damage while escaping the harbor and fighting off the Italy destroyer and torpedo boat squadrons, allowing it to barely maintain its speed.
In the end, it arrived to duel the Moltke while bearing the wounds of seven armor-piercing hits.
As the Moltke's shells continuously slammed into the Bellerophon, Vice Admiral Arbuthnot, Deputy Commander of the Royal Navy Mediterranean Fleet, figured he had little chance of making it back alive today.
He was a fading, second-line old general who had reached the age of seventy. Having retired before the war broke out, his old-school mindset was not particularly popular with the younger generation. He had only been hastily called back into service due to a manpower shortage after the war began the year before last.
For an old man who had already collected a few years of pension, lived a full life, and only wanted to prove his honor, Vice Admiral Arbuthnot naturally erupted with astonishing decisiveness in the face of this situation.
He felt that slowly dragging things out would only result in death anyway. Admiral Robeck's previous decisions had already proven the folly of stalling tactics!
Since the enemy ship had already closed the distance, flattening both sides' trajectories and rendering high-angle plunging fire against the enemy battlecruiser's weak horizontal armor impossible...
...then he might as well close the gap completely, bringing them close enough to easily punch through each other's vertical main armor.
"All combat-capable warships, concentrate your fire on the enemy lead ship, the Moltke!"
Vice Admiral Arbuthnot did not know that Spee was on the Goeben, as Spee had cautiously opted not to fly the flagship pennant. Based purely on the situation of the two enemy battlecruisers, Arbuthnot decided to prioritize the Moltke because it was squaring off against him and had sustained heavier damage.
The efficiency of their exchange rapidly increased. Both the Bellerophon and the Moltke suffered visibly worsening damage, with shells continuously slamming into their main armor belts and tearing open massive, gaping rents.
In the distance, the battlecruiser Tiger finally returned to the battlefield. Although it was still sixteen to eighteen kilometers away from the Moltke, it had already begun firing at the ship with everything it had, though its accuracy was still appallingly low for the time being.
As the evening drew on and the light faded, the distance between the two sides continued to shrink, but their accuracy ironically dropped.
The battle was on the verge of turning into two eggs swinging sledgehammers at each other. A night battle had to be fought at five kilometers to guarantee hits, but at that range, any hit would absolutely pierce the armor.
In the final half hour before night completely swallowed the sea, Admiral Spee of the Demania fleet suddenly realized a grim possibility.
"The enemy fleet exhausted their torpedoes long ago! We still have light cruisers and destroyers armed with them! Once it's pitch-dark, it'll be perfect for small, fast ships to close in and launch torpedoes! In this last half hour, hoping for the battleships to decide the outcome and sink the enemy through gunnery alone is impossible.
"We might as well take this chance to severely cripple their anti-small-ship capabilities! We'll create better conditions for a night torpedo strike!"
At that moment, the Goeben was still exchanging fire with the pre-dreadnought HMS Africa. It had practically blasted the ship to scrap, but utterly sinking it would probably take another dozen or so 280mm shells.
Having realized this, Spee ignored the old adage that "injuring all ten fingers isn't as good as chopping one off." He abandoned the execution of HMS Africa, instead turning his 280mm main guns toward the two armored cruisers that were closer to him, which he had not had the time to deal with earlier.
After nightfall, the secondary batteries of intact armored cruisers posed the greatest threat to torpedo ships. As for the enemy's capital ships, their secondary batteries had largely been wiped out in the heavy gunnery duels.
Thus, the Goeben turned its guns on the armored cruiser Devonshire.
The crew of the Devonshire must have been completely bewildered. They had just been safely picking off damage from the sidelines, letting their capital ships duel the enemy's. Why had the enemy's capital ship suddenly turned its guns on them?
They had even deliberately stayed out of the enemy's 150mm secondary gun range to snipe, denying those 150mm guns a chance to act, yet the enemy was now using its 280mm main guns against them.
Naturally, there was no suspense in this overwhelming, unmatched firepower. Before the sky went completely black, the Goeben easily executed the Drake and blasted the Brit Nation's last armored cruiser, the Devonshire, into critical condition, destroying more than half of its superstructure and firepower.
As the distance closed further, the Demania 150mm secondary guns also began lashing the Britannia destroyers positioned behind their capital ships. After the Brit Nation lost another one or two destroyers to sinking or severe damage, the rest had no choice but to retreat further out of range. They were out of torpedoes; getting closer would not help and would only mean dying for nothing.
The time reached 8:30 PM, and night finally fell in complete darkness.
On the Britannia side, what remained were the heavily damaged Bellerophon and the moderately damaged Tiger, plus the dying HMS Africa and Devonshire, along with their last six destroyers.
On the Demania side, they had the moderately damaged Moltke and the lightly damaged Goeben, plus two pristine light cruisers and twelve destroyers.
More importantly, the remaining Demania destroyers still had torpedoes.
At 9:30 PM, under the cover of night, the Demania destroyer fleet finally launched a torpedo charge against the heavily damaged and sluggish Brit Nation fleet!
To further improve their safety, they did not forget to lay down smokescreens in the dark, and they refrained from firing their guns the entire time to avoid revealing their positions early with muzzle flashes.
Meanwhile, both sides' battleships and armored cruisers kept up a continuous exchange of fire, their constant muzzle flashes making them easy to pinpoint.
The Demania destroyers could generally charge up to about three kilometers before being spotted by the enemy in the darkness, at which point they would attract a fierce hail of shellfire and counter-battery fire from the enemy destroyers.
The Demanians were undeniably lagging behind in destroyer development during World War I. The vast majority of their destroyers carried at most 88mm guns, and even 105mm guns were rare.
The smallest main guns on Britannia destroyers were 102mm, going up to 120mm—much larger than the German-style armaments.
Because of this, Demania forces were at a severe disadvantage in destroyer-on-destroyer gunnery duels. This was exactly why Spee had not let his destroyers join the screening ship skirmish that morning, preferring to let the light cruisers hold the line.
He knew perfectly well that sending German-style destroyers into a gun duel was practically feeding kills to the enemy.
But now that they had finally made it to absolute pitch-black, reaching the hour of the torpedo, the situation was entirely different.
As the first two Demania destroyers closed in on their designated targets in the dark—closing to within three kilometers—they quickly drew concentrated fire. They instantly lost speed, teetering on the edge of sinking with just a few more hits.
Knowing they likely would not make it back, the two heroic destroyers made a final course adjustment, charged forward another few hundred meters, and steadily unleashed their entire payloads of torpedoes.
A few minutes later, the two destroyers were indeed sunk, but muffled booms soon echoed from the enemy lines. The armored cruiser Devonshire was thus executed, and one torpedo even managed a lucky strike on a Brit Nation destroyer sailing alongside it.
The Brit Nation's close-in defensive firepower was rapidly weakening. The third and fourth Demania destroyers noticed muzzle flashes erupting from previously silent corners of the darkness ahead—enemy destroyers suddenly opening fire to intercept them. Indifferent to whether the targets were destroyers or battleships, the Demania ships simply launched their torpedoes wherever they saw muzzle flashes.
This time, the two Demania destroyers retreated in one piece. Although their results were modest—merely torpedoing another small enemy destroyer—they had escaped unscathed. If they just kept up the war of attrition, the Britannia forces would all be wiped out eventually.
At the same time, the Demanians' final two light cruisers valiantly charged into the darkness. They started off without firing, maintaining silence, but the moment they saw their own destroyers spotted and fired upon by enemy destroyers, they opened fire to suppress the enemy ships.
This chaotic chain of interlocking counters, much like a game of Jungle, quickly caused the Brit Nation's destroyer defense line to crumble.
The second wave of four Demania destroyers executed the pre-dreadnought HMS Africa and a Brit Nation destroyer with torpedoes while only losing one destroyer of their own. Taking advantage of the situation, the Demania cruisers blew apart yet another Britannia destroyer.
The final four Demania destroyers took their turns entering the fray. This time, they finally slammed two torpedoes into the heavily damaged Bellerophon. The violent explosions slashed the battleship's speed to a mere six knots, causing thousands of tons of flooding and tilting its deck so severely that all its main guns completely lost their firing angles.
Furthermore, the Bellerophon had suffered too many armor-piercing hits earlier. Its steam pipes and hydraulic systems had completely collapsed, leaving the turret rotation and elevation mechanisms entirely dead. After the hull tilted several dozen degrees, the gun barrels drooped sideways straight into the sea, immovable even if the crew tried to rotate them back.
The ship had not sunk yet, but it could already be declared dead.
The Moltke, which had battled the enemy to a state of heavy damage itself, struggled to close the gap further, reducing the distance to a mere three kilometers. Even the battlecruiser's perpetually unused torpedo tubes finally got a chance to shine. The Moltke-class battlecruisers had two 500mm torpedo tubes on both the bow and the stern. It was safe to say these things had never served a purpose in the history of human naval warfare; no battleship or battlecruiser had ever fought at a range close enough to use torpedoes.
But against all odds, they could be used today, albeit during the final execution phase.
The Moltke fired both of its bow torpedoes at the Bellerophon. Then, angling its hull, it used its center and aft main turrets to unleash five continuous, furious volleys at a point-blank range of three kilometers. The Bellerophon finally went under completely.
As for the last remaining ship, the Tiger, it could neither win a fight nor escape. Its only option was to inflict a little more damage on the Moltke before its own demise.
At 3:00 AM, deep in the night, the battle completely ended.
Aside from a few destroyers that had relied on their speed to escape, the entire Royal Navy Mediterranean Fleet had been annihilated.
On the Demania side, only two light cruisers and six destroyers had sunk. Another two light cruisers were heavily damaged and several destroyers sustained injuries, though all were still seaworthy. The two battlecruisers had also taken significant beatings.
The Moltke had been struck by a total of nineteen 305mm and 343mm enemy shells. Three of its five main turrets were destroyed, it took on over three thousand tons of water, and its speed dropped to seventeen knots.
It was practically an old tradition for German warships to take that many hits and still not sink, ending up only heavily damaged. During the Battle of Jutland in the Earth timeline, the Seydlitz ultimately took twenty-two large-caliber armor-piercing shells—including multiple 381mm Gun rounds from Queen-class ships—plus one torpedo. Despite taking on five thousand tons of water, it still limped back to port.
The Lützow was hit by twenty-four armor-piercing shells, with an even higher proportion of 381mm Gun rounds, and took on seventy-five hundred tons of water. It was only scuttled because its draft became too deep to pass through the Kiel Canal.
Taking a total of eighteen hits today, without a single 381mm among them—the largest being only 343mm—it was hardly surprising that the Moltke could grit its teeth and keep sailing.
Because the Demania forces had constantly fought at close range and pressed the attack, the total destruction of the Moltke's main guns had primarily occurred at the bow, in addition to the central turret facing the enemy.
The central turret angled toward the unengaged side and the aft turret, however, were still operational.
The nearby Goeben had not been focused by the enemy, taking a total of eight 343mm shells. Its elevated forward No. 2 main turret was destroyed, and its funnels and superstructure suffered some damage. The secondary battery deck on the engaged side was completely wiped out, destroying six 150mm guns on the right side, and its main armor was pierced multiple times. Its speed had also fallen from 28.5 to 24 knots.
After the battle ended, the Demania forces briefly reorganized and fished out the sailors who had fallen overboard. After spending over an hour on this, they prepared to leave the battlefield and head northeast for home.
At this moment, the battlefield was located roughly east of Sicily. Heading west-southwest for about a hundred nautical miles would lead to Malta.
If the Demania fleet wanted to dock as quickly as possible, they really should have gone northwest to certain ports in Sicily. However, because Sicily lacked shipyards and large berths, they would have had to sail to the Port of Messina to dock. Thus, Spee opted against it, preferring to sail a bit further to seek emergency repairs at a port on the Italy mainland.
Considering that the Moltke could still barely sail and would not suddenly sink en route, and that the Mediterranean's sea conditions were relatively calm compared to the open ocean's rough waves, this was a completely sound decision.
But after the fleet had sailed for another hour and the morning light broke once more, Admiral Spee's smile quickly vanished.
"A Francia reinforcement fleet is pursuing us off the port quarter! They're coming through the strait between Sicily and Malta! Four Courbet-class battleships! Several auxiliary vessels!"
Admiral Spee's expression was grim. "Damn it! To think the Britannia reinforcements arrived before ours! What on earth is Austria's Horthy doing?! Why isn't he here yet!
"Telegraph Horthy again! Send it in the clear! Tell him to drop radio silence and reply in plain text immediately with his ETA!"
Spee was furious. He directly ordered them to skip the ciphers altogether; since everyone's positions were already exposed, it was time to put their cards on the table.
Furthermore, replying in the clear had an added benefit: if Horthy's stated distance and time were close enough, it could scare the Franks off.
In truth, even if Horthy wanted to lie or use ciphers, it would not matter, because the Franks could use radio direction-finding and ranging to calculate exactly how far away he was. The coordinates of a radio transmission source could not be faked.
After Spee angrily dispatched the message, Horthy finally did not dare dawdle. He replied within ten minutes, stating he could reach the battlefield in three and a half hours, or two hours if Spee sailed to meet him halfway.
Only then did Spee breathe a sigh of relief.
Two hours to link up if they sailed toward each other. The Franks' Courbet-class ships could only spot them visually right now but had not yet entered firing range. Two hours would be just enough time for the Moltke and the two damaged light cruisers to join up with friendly forces.
Even if they did not manage to link up right away, they would at most have to hold out alone for half an hour before reinforcements arrived.
Considering this situation, Admiral Spee's mind raced, and he quickly thought of another idea.
To be precise, this idea was actually connected to Lelouch. Early last year, during the Battle of Dunkirk, Lelouch had conducted an airborne drop, seized the Franks' coastal defense gun batteries at Dunkirk, and then turned the guns to bombard the Brit Nation's Royal Navy within the harbor.
After that battle, Lelouch had shared a technical secret regarding a weakness in the Francia battleships with General Hipper, which was later passed on to Spee:
The Franks' Courbet-class and other battleships were called dreadnoughts, but they actually had a massive technical flaw. To achieve the goal of "making the turrets thinner to save tonnage and frontal armor, and making them easier to stack to lower the center of gravity, they limited the maximum elevation of the Courbet-class's main guns to twelve degrees."
This led to a terrifying consequence: the absolute maximum range of the Courbet-class battleships' main guns was only a little over fifteen thousand meters.
When the Franks designed their dreadnoughts in 1906, there was nothing wrong with doing this. The fire control precision of the era dictated that "any exchange of fire beyond fifteen kilometers is a waste of shells; the hit rate is practically zero."
That being the case, it made perfect sense for the Franks, who loved to "min-max their stats," to sacrifice maximum elevation and range in exchange for thinner, easily stacked, better-protected main turrets and warships with much more stable centers of gravity.
The on-paper stats of the Courbet-class battleships were as beautiful as those of a Rafale fighter jet.
It was just a pity that times had changed.
A decade later, battleship fire control technology had developed by leaps and bounds. Today, gunnery duels beyond fifteen kilometers were no longer a "waste of shells with a hit rate of practically zero."
At the thought of the enemy's unannounced, hidden weakness, a scheme immediately sprang to Spee's mind.
