Chapter 24: Even when a lion hunts a rabbit, it remembers to divide and conquer.

Rear Admiral Hipper fully exploited the advantage of the enemy being exposed while he remained hidden, rapidly closing the distance between the two forces.

His captains were still somewhat apprehensive—in the darkness, if they were detected by enemy destroyers, a stealthy torpedo attack could pose a significant threat to the German battlecruisers. Torpedoes are notoriously difficult to detect or evade in the dead of night. However, October 29, 1914, corresponded to the twelfth day of the ninth lunar month; the moonlight was relatively bright, making it impossible for the enemy to approach to point-blank range undetected.

As the distance closed to approximately 15 kilometers, Hipper discovered further details regarding the enemy's disposition.

"Admiral, based on the distribution of muzzle flashes, the enemy fleet is divided into two groups. The eastern group appears to consist of three capital ships and a few auxiliary vessels, currently shelling the city of Ostend! Ten kilometers west of the main fleet, there is another capital ship with a large number of auxiliary vessels, currently shelling the town of Nieuwpoort and the coastal highway positions!"

Hipper was invigorated. The enemy had divided their forces? If he acted quickly enough, he might be able to defeat them in detail before they could consolidate their strength. Yet, he remained puzzled and muttered to himself, "Why would they split their forces? Are they so desperate to bombard both Ostend and Nieuwpoort simultaneously?"

Fortunately, Lelouch, who stood nearby and possessed a keen understanding of the army's situation, immediately deduced the likely cause.

"Admiral, I believe I understand. Colonel List’s elastic defense must have been so vexing that the enemy, relying on their numerical superiority, is attempting to crush our army along the entire line. Also, look—there are two large fires off the coast of Ostend! Those must be damaged enemy ships. The Britannians likely did not realize that during our capture of Ostend, the Belgian army surrendered so quickly that they failed to sabotage the coastal defense facilities. When Colonel List and I pushed in, he took control of the coastal fortress, which houses eight 210mm coastal guns! The Britannians surely underestimated us initially, attempting to bring their light warships in for easy shots, only to be heavily damaged by the Colonel's counter-battery fire. Having suffered, they must have withdrawn their light vessels further from Ostend, redeploying them to the west at Nieuwpoort to prey upon our forces there, who lack the means to strike back."

Coastal defense guns are highly accurate against warships because they fire from fixed positions and have pre-calculated ballistic tables. In combat, one simply reports the coordinates and fires according to the charts. The anti-ship effectiveness of a single 210mm coastal gun can be even more devastating than that of an armored cruiser armed with four 210mm main guns. Ostend simply wasn't large enough to warrant anything heavier than 210mm guns; had they been facing a major city like Antwerp, 280mm or even 305mm fortress guns would have been in play. With the 210mm guns, the enemy’s small ships dared not approach, forcing them to rely on battleships for long-range plunging fire to neutralize the shore batteries.

Having heard Lelouch’s analysis, Hipper’s remaining doubts vanished. The reasoning no longer mattered; the current situation presented a heaven-sent opportunity he had to seize.

"Since most of the enemy’s auxiliary vessels have avoided Ostend, we need not fear a stealthy torpedo attack on our capital ships. All battlecruisers and armored cruisers, target the three enemy battleships at Ostend. Close at full speed! Attention: shift from column to line formation! Armored cruisers will drive off the few auxiliary vessels on the eastern side to prevent them from reaching torpedo-launching positions, while the battlecruisers will focus their fire on the enemy capital ships. All light cruisers and destroyers, engage the secondary enemy fleet to the west. You are free to engage at will. Just create chaos in the darkness and delay the western group from closing in!"

The ships immediately turned, shifting from column to line formation and advancing abreast. By the time the formation was set, the distance between the two forces had dropped to less than ten kilometers.

After advancing another two kilometers, when the distance was roughly six to seven kilometers, the lookouts on the *Derfflinger* reported a critical update:

"Enemy ship A has ceased main battery fire! It has been one minute since the last volley!"

Hipper had been waiting for this moment. His original plan was to close to five kilometers, hoping to remain undetected until he could turn and open fire at his leisure. Hearing this news, he gave the order decisively: "The enemy has discovered us! All capital ships, hard-a-port! Course due east, enter the line of battle! Reduce to cruising speed! The two *Derfflinger*-class ships are to target the easternmost enemy capital ship! The two *Blücher*-class ships are to target the second enemy capital ship! Fire at will!"

...

Why did Vice Admiral Hastings, positioned seven kilometers to the south of Hipper, suddenly cease fire?

Because, while bombarding the shore, his lookouts had finally spotted a mass of dark silhouettes to the north.

"Admiral! Unidentified warships appearing to the north! Number unknown!"

Vice Admiral Hastings, standing on the bridge of the pre-dreadnought *Majestic*, was startled. This could not be friendly fire, as he had received no such notification. He immediately ordered his main guns to cease fire. All three pre-dreadnoughts currently shelling the Ostend coastal fortress cranked their hydraulic systems to maximum, frantically rotating their turrets.

Ostend lay on the southern coast; Hastings' fleet was in the middle, and the mysterious intruders were to the north. To switch targets, the battleships' main turrets had to rotate 180 degrees, a process that took the aging hydraulic mechanisms nearly two minutes. This gap in fire was unmistakable.

Two minutes later, the *Majestic* (a *Majestic*-class) and the *Revenge* (a *Royal Sovereign*-class) finally brought their 305mm main guns to bear on the north. The oldest of the three, the *Hood* (also a *Royal Sovereign*-class), still used late-19th-century 343mm guns in non-enclosed turrets, requiring five minutes to complete the turn.

Realizing he was running out of time, Hastings ordered the few auxiliary vessels nearby to intercept and delay the enemy at any cost. The *Arethusa*-class light cruiser *Bold*, the *Bristol*-class light cruisers *Glasgow* and *Gloucester*, and five destroyers immediately charged toward the black shadows from the east, west, and north of the main fleet.

But soon, the Germans fired two volleys of star shells from their secondary batteries over the heads of the light cruisers and destroyers. With 1914 technology, star shells were typically fired by auxiliary vessels, as large-caliber main guns were not suited for the task. However, the secondary batteries of battlecruisers and armored cruisers were perfectly capable. These shells were fired by the secondary guns of the *Scharnhorst* and *Gneisenau*.

The *Scharnhorst*-class armored cruisers possessed eight 210mm main guns, six 150mm secondary guns, and sixteen 88mm quick-firing guns. A volley of star shells from the three 150mm secondary guns could illuminate the target area for about a minute.

The British auxiliary ships were quickly illuminated, but they could not immediately fire their torpedoes. They had no choice but to press the charge—the range of 1914-era torpedoes was abysmal; the 533mm torpedoes of Germany and Britain had a range of only four kilometers (at high speed), while French and Russian 450mm torpedoes had a range of only two to three kilometers. To ensure a hit, they had to close to within two kilometers.

With the distance still at five to six kilometers, the torpedoes were out of range. The *Scharnhorst*-class ships, firing their 210mm guns every 12 seconds, poured fire onto the British light cruisers. Meanwhile, the 88mm quick-firing guns began sweeping the destroyers.

The cruiser *Bold*, which had just distinguished itself days earlier by rescuing King Albert I of Belgium, was the first to be targeted by the 16 210mm guns of the *Scharnhorst* and *Gneisenau* at a range of five kilometers. The first volley landed around the *Bold*, straddling her. Only 12 seconds later, a near-miss detonated in the water alongside, stripping away parts of the upper structure. Another 12 seconds passed, and two 210mm shells struck the hull, setting the *Arethusa*-class ship ablaze and blowing two large holes in her side. Although the hits were above the waterline and didn't cause immediate flooding, her upper-deck fire-control systems were destroyed. The German cruisers relentlessly hammered her for another half-minute; three more 210mm shells struck, and the *Bold* broke in two amid a massive explosion. The captain, who had been conversing with the King of Belgium three days prior, was torn to pieces, and few of the nearly 400 crew members survived.

Yet, the fate of the *Bold* did not deter the other British ships; they continued their desperate charge. In truth, they had no choice. The surviving *Bristol*-class cruisers also only had two 150mm guns. Whether firing one gun while charging head-on or two while broadside, the difference was negligible. They abandoned the hope of extra output and focused solely on closing the distance to launch their torpedoes.

Alas, the laws of nature cannot be overcome by courage alone. What does it mean to charge into 16 210mm guns firing every 12 seconds? Especially when the distance is so close that one doesn't need to consider elevation? Once the *Scharnhorst*-class ships found the range, a hit was almost certain.

The *Glasgow* and *Gloucester* were blown apart in the same desperate charge. The former failed to reach torpedo range, while the latter managed to enter it, but as it turned to find a firing angle, it exposed its beam and was immediately lit up by the 210mm guns.

As for the five destroyers, they didn't even require the direct focus of the German captains; the free-firing 88mm quick-firing guns were enough to deal with them. Each *Scharnhorst*-class ship carried 16 such guns, with eight on each broadside, capable of firing every three seconds. While 88mm shells could not sink a destroyer outright, they caused heavy damage, loss of speed, and the destruction of command and fire-control systems. Several destroyers, their decks ablaze or superstructures shredded, lost their combat effectiveness and turned to flee.

Even if they continued the charge, they had no torpedoes left to fire. Choosing to retreat was their only hope of delaying the inevitable and drawing enemy fire away from the capital ships for a few moments longer.

"If the Britannians had two or three times the escort force, a suicide torpedo charge might have had a chance tonight. But unfortunately, fate favors us; most of their auxiliary vessels remained on the eastern side, threatened by the Ostend shore batteries, and were subsequently redeployed to the west."

On the *Derfflinger*, Hipper watched as the *Scharnhorst*-class ships and his own ship’s secondary batteries decimated the enemy's small force. He marveled at their courage, but knew it was in vain. Torpedo charges require scale to succeed; piecemeal tactics are merely throwing lives away. The only result of this sacrifice was to buy their capital ships a mere dozen minutes to rotate their turrets, adjust their positions, and acquire the range.

However, in the dark, until the German battlecruisers opened fire, the Britannians could align their ships but could not measure the distance. Measuring distance at night relies on tracking the interval between the muzzle flashes of an enemy's forward and aft turrets to calculate the ship's size and distance. If the enemy's main guns remain silent, there is no flash, and the distance cannot be measured. By contrast, the British battleships had already fired many volleys, allowing the German observers to repeatedly measure the distance long in advance.

The Britannians *could* have theoretically measured the distance to the *Scharnhorst*-class ships, which had been firing their 210mm guns, but everyone knew those guns posed no threat to a pre-dreadnought battleship. In a decisive battle, who would waste firepower on a secondary target that posed no threat?

Consequently, when Hipper finished off the auxiliary ships and turned his full attention back to the capital ship duel, the Britannians had failed to seize the initiative and were forced to start from the same baseline.

"Boom! Boom! Boom!"

12-inch and 11-inch shells alternated, erupting in four dense clusters of muzzle flashes on the sea. Barely ten seconds after the flashes were seen, a barrage of shells whistled over the *Majestic*. Vice Admiral Hastings felt a cold sweat break out as he heard the shrieking shells.

"What? How is their gunnery so accurate? How long have they been observing us in the dark?"

As a naval veteran, Hastings knew that finding the lateral direction in a sea battle was relatively easy; the true difficulty lay in precise range-finding. The fact that the enemy's first volley flew right over his head meant they had found the lateral alignment perfectly from the start—they had simply overestimated the range.

"Return fire! And adjust the range immediately!"

Hastings was frantic. The 12 main guns of the three pre-dreadnoughts roared back at the enemy. Their lateral alignment was decent, but their range estimation was far off. They had to scramble to adjust based on the interval of the German muzzle flashes.

More critically, Hastings had only 12 main guns across his three ships. Hipper, however, had 32. Hipper didn't even wait for the range-finding feedback; he simply estimated that the first volley was long and ordered: "Do not wait for corrections! Reduce range by 300 yards with every wave, semi-salvos! Keep firing until you hit!"

Some of the more rigid officers didn't immediately grasp Hipper's intent, but they executed the orders strictly. Semi-salvos allowed for a higher rate of fire, increasing from three volleys per minute to five.

A minute later, as the estimated range was reduced by another thousand yards, a 12-inch shell finally found the superstructure of the *Majestic*, severing her funnel at the base. Thick black smoke, mixed with fire, billowed from the hull, turning the *Majestic* into a glaring target in the night—no more star shells would be needed to mark her.