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The enemy vessels were Hipper's cruisers, and they also turned south to fall back on their battle-fleet, at whose proximity Beatty can only have guessed. At 3.48 the action began with Hipper's battle-cruisers, Derfflinger, Lutzow, Moltke, Seydlitz, and Van der Thann; none of them carried heavier than 12-in. guns, while Beatty's "Cats" had 13.5-inch and his Queen Elizabeths 15-inch guns.
Thus the running fight was resumed, with the difference that both forces were now heading at full speed toward the point from which Beatty knew Jellicoe to be approaching. Von Hipper's delay in turning had permitted Beatty to draw ahead, and the relative positions of the engaged squadrons were now those shown in Plate III.
He could make 29 knots with all six of his cruisers and 32 knots with his four best, Queen Mary, Tiger, Lion, and Princess Royal. Hipper's squadron could make but 28 knots, though the Lützow and Derfflinger were probably capable of 30. At 3.48 British and German battle cruisers opened fire. According to Beatty's report the range at this moment was 18,500 yards.
Beatty was drawing slowly ahead, though with little prospect of being able to throw his force across the enemy's van, as he had hoped to do, his plan being not only to cut the Germans off from their base, but to "cap" their column and concentrate the fire of his whole force on Von Hipper's leading ships.
Beatty was there to fight if there was a chance to fight, and there is no question that in heading south, whether he was following Von Hipper's lead or taking the lead himself, he took the one course which made the existing chance a certainty. From this point of view he was right.
The suddenness and completeness of the disaster to these two splendid ships has not yet been explained and perhaps never will be. For the next half hour or thereabouts, Von Hipper's five battle cruisers were pitted against four battle cruisers and four dreadnoughts, and Beatty reports that their fire fell off materially, as would naturally be the case.
Von Scheer, who, as Von Hipper's senior, was in command of the German forces as a whole, turned from east to west, each ship swinging independently, and sent his whole force of destroyers at top speed against the enemy. It would be difficult to imagine conditions more favorable for such an attack.
It was about this time that the Lützow, Von Hipper's flagship and the leader of the German column, dropped out of the formation, having been so badly damaged that she could no longer maintain her position in the formation. Von Hipper, calling a destroyer alongside, boarded her and proceeded, through a storm of shell, to the Moltke, on which he resumed his place at the head of the fleet.
Almost at the same instant the German battle cruiser Lützow, Hipper's flagship, was so badly disabled by shells and torpedo that she fell out of line helpless. Hipper managed, however, to board a destroyer and two hours later succeeded in shifting his flag to the Moltke. From Jane, Fighting Ships, 1919 Normal displacement, 25,800 tons. Beam, 96-3/4 feet. Mean draught, 27-1/4 feet.
Beatty's constant effort to secure a "cap" contained no element of novelty, and Von Hipper's reply, refusing the cap by turning his head away and swinging slowly on a parallel interior curve, was the conventional, as it was the proper, reply.
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