"Swish!" A shell flew past the mast of the V-187 torpedo boat, and suddenly hit the blue waves dozens of meters away from the port side. The waves exploded, and the explosion was like spring thunder.

On the low rear deck on the freeboard, the German sailors were fighting back with two 88mm cannons with heights at the stern of the ship; every few seconds, a yellow-orange shell would fly out from behind the artillery gate. However, compared to the British destroyers' bombardment in rain, the resistance of the German torpedo boats was negligible. Sim counted a little, and there were as many as 16 British destroyers following him, and in addition to these destroyers, there were even a better ship in the British fleet. If you look closely, it was undoubtedly an "active" class light cruiser with a standard displacement of 3,100 tons!

In the bridge of V-187, the German correspondent with headphones was sweating all over his head, sending an alarm to the Gulf of Helgoland and Wilhelmshaven 35 nautical miles away at an unprecedented speed. In the telegram, the correspondent truthfully reported the British fleet lineup he had seen, namely an active-class light cruiser and 16 destroyers. However, in fact, this was just an appetizer sent by the British to tease the German patrol troops in the Helgoland Islands, including five battleships.

The British troops, including cruisers, are still waiting in the rear. Out of caution, General Jericho, the commander of the British Fleet, made full use of his power and asked Lieutenant General David Betty to lead three battle patrols as the final support before the operation was about to begin. This has caused the number of British battle patrols in this operation to surge from two far away to five. At present, Betty has joined the K fleet where Invincible New Zealand is located and is ready to enter the Bay of Helgoland.

The artillery fire roared and flew around German torpedo boats. Then it roared and exploded, and the water waves flew. Unlike the German light ships' design concept that focused on lightning strikes, British designers prefer to install more cannons on their frigates to gain an advantage in the conventional confrontation with enemy torpedo boats. The two-class British destroyers currently appearing in front of the German patrol forces are all new ships launched after 1910 according to this concept: their standard displacement

It is close to 780 tons and has a maximum speed of 27-28 knots. The ship is equipped with 2 102mm main guns and 2 76mm rapid-fire guns, and has 2 533mm torpedo tubes. Compared with the 580-ton torpedo boat with only 3 88mm guns in Germany, the conventional artillery combat capabilities of these British destroyers undoubtedly have absolute advantages. The light cruiser is even equipped with 10 102mm main guns, and its firepower is not on the same order of magnitude as the German torpedo boats!

For a moment, several German torpedo boats seemed to be sailing in boiling water: surrounded by water columns that were constantly flying high, explosions were coming one after another, shrapnel flew everywhere. Seeing this, Sim's heart was in his throat; the V-187 torpedo boat he was located in would not have even one ton of armor on his body, if it was hit by artillery fire, then...

Before his thoughts were over, a loud noise that was even more violent than thunder suddenly penetrated into his ears. Simon's brain immediately fell into a brief dizziness. The hull shook violently, and a gust of heat suddenly swept through him, and his entire neck and back were burned by the hot air wave. Sim's heart was so terrified that he suddenly turned around and looked. A large area had been cut off on the left side of the bridge, and two sailors fell on the deck and struggled and howled.

The picrylic explosives loaded in the HEAT shells have begun to burn, and the yellow-green toxic smoke is sweeping backwards as the torpedo boats move forward at high speed; since Japanese engineer Masayoshi Shimose made the first explosive with picrylic acid as the main component in 1891, the explosives with this substance as the main formula are not inferior to those of the younger generations even in the maritime war more than 20 years later!

"Extinguish the fire!" With Sim's anxious roar, several German sailors holding rubber hoses flew over; the silver-white water dragon gushed. The high-temperature flames that were running wildly immediately shrank. However, before he could recover, two thunders burst in his ears one after another; Simon looked in horror and saw that the tail of the ship and the corpse were already rushing into a sea of ​​fire, and the colorful fragments were like rainstorms. In an instant, nearly ten people were swept into a pool of blood!

"Chichi!" Seeing the flames licking, the torpedo tubes that were about to spread to the hull, the German torpedo soldiers were shocked and quickly shot out two 500mm torpedoes from one of the tubes. If this torpedo loaded with 195 kilograms of Hexanite strong explosives was detonated on the deck, the torpedo boat would have to be broken from the block and then doomed to death!

The undecided German damage control troops quickly divided into three strands. In the thick yellow-green smoke, the sea water pumped by the pump was pressed to press the three bullet points. After a while, a sailor rushed to the bow of the ship and reported the losses to Sim loudly: the residence of the soldiers at the tail of the ship and the chart room of the headquarters were all destroyed, and the scene was in a mess. Fortunately, the power compartment was not damaged, and the entire torpedo boat could still escape at full speed with extreme horsepower.

The fire snake ran high, and the water dragon covered it. Sim on the flybridge took the time to look around and saw that the nearby friendly ship was also hit by British artillery fire. V-182 was blown away with a cannon, and the entire ship stern was no longer in shape; two large holes were penetrated on the side of G-194, and the rolling smoke was constantly gushing out from it; the smallest V-1 lightning strike ship completely disappeared, and I don’t know whether the poor captain was dead or alive. However, thankfully, the four German torpedo boats were all raised.

There is no sign of stall, their speed is rapidly increasing with a visible trend. At present, on V-187, except for the damage troops and necessary command personnel, all sailors have poured into the boiler cabin to help the furnace drivers carry out hard work of shoveling coal. Although it is narrow and crowded, the heat waves are pressing, and the coal powder is flying, it is actually the most unbearable environment in the entire high seas fleet; however, compared to saving one's own life, suffering this little bit of sin is nothing!

The machinery roared and the artillery fire was like crazy. After intense furnace lifting operations, the four naval kerosene mixed boilers of the V-187 torpedo boat had reached full load: the blazing high-temperature and high-pressure steam through the steel casting pipelines slammed into the blades of the two AEG-Vulcan steam turbines, driving the two propellers to rotate rapidly. The small torpedo boat was driven by a strong power of 18,000 horsepower, galloped on the sea at a speed of more than 34 knots; its momentum was like a swordfish flying, which was no less than the British torpedo that had sneaked into it before!

In the plane where Qing Ying was in his previous life, the small water pipe boiler with superior performance was undoubtedly one of the most commendable technologies of the German Navy in World War I. Compared with the products of its British counterparts, the German ship boiler was lighter in weight and had higher thermal efficiency, and its output power per unit weight was much better than that of cousins ​​opposite the strait. The reason why German warships in history did not show their speed advantage over British ships was entirely because of their pit arrangement with too short spindle wet length, which caused serious inefficiency of propellers. In this plane, this disadvantage of German ships has been solved under the influence of Qing Ying; and their technical advantages in small water pipe boilers were fully reflected.

Since the "Sea Dragon" class built by the Volkeng Shipyard in 1898, the German Navy's torpedo boats have entered the club of 32 knots. None of the light ships developed by the German Navy that advocated high-speed lightning strikes on this basis have a speed lower than this number. As the technology of steam turbines continues to mature, the speed of the torpedo boats built by the German Navy in the past five years has reached 34 knots, and it is as fast as lightning. The speed of British destroyers is generally between 27 and 28 knots, and even the latest "Acasta" class destroyers is only 29 knots. When the German torpedo boats started to exert full speed, their speed immediately made it difficult for the British destroyers to catch up with them.

In a flying shell, the German torpedo boat was moving forward rapidly; its speed advantage of 5 to 6 knots was enough to ensure that it could quickly distance the British destroyers behind at a speed of more than 150 meters per minute. After a short while, the distance between the German torpedo boats from the British destroyers was quickly widened to four thousand meters. Under the cover of the mist, the position of the German torpedo boats was difficult to accurately determine; a large number of shells roared and knocked down, and the water columns stirred up were hundreds of meters away from the Germans, and they could not pose any threat to them.

The sea breeze roared and the waves surged. Perhaps because he realized that the artillery fire at this distance was a rhythm that could only be heard, the artillery fire on the British destroyer gradually became sparse and finally became silent. Sim, who escaped from the sky, sat on the deck of the bow of the ship, his heart thundered, and his face was as white as paper, was already wet with cold sweat. How lucky he was: if it weren't for this sudden fog, the warship where he was located would never have been hit by a few unfatal shells, and he could have escaped safely under the siege of the enemy several times his own!

The four German torpedo boats that survived the disaster slowed down slightly and began to gradually gather in the middle. After a communicating flag language, they all suffered heavy losses and decided to return to the innermost defense line of Helgolan Bay to seek support from the island's heavy shore artillery. What surprised Sim and other German sailors was that the British fleet showed no sign of giving up and was still hanging behind several torpedo boats. Seeing this, Sim's mind flashed: As the current fog continued to aggravate, the shore artillery on his island would be very likely to not choose to fire because it was difficult to distinguish between the enemy and us!

Just as Sim was nervous and anxious, a ship gradually emerged from the mist in the southeast.

PS: Thank you book friends for rewarding the book on February 30th~~
Chapter completed!