 Shortly before 16: 00, Hipper's force encountered the six ships of Vice Admiral Beatty's 1st and 2nd battlecruiser squadrons. The German ships were the first to open fire, at a range of approximately 15,000 yards (14,000 m). When the British ships began returning fire, confusion amongst the British battlecruisers resulted in Moltke being engaged by both New Zealand and Tiger. The British rangefinders had misread the range to their German targets, and so the first salvos fired by the British ships fell a mile past the German battlecruisers. Due to errors in British communication, Derfflinger was unengaged during the first 10 minutes of the battle. Derfflinger's gunnery officer, Korvettenkapitän Georg von Hase later remarked "By some mistake we were being left out. I laughed grimly and now I began to engage our enemy with complete calm, as at gun practice, and with continually increasing accuracy." At 17: 03, the British battlecruiser HMS Indefatigable exploded after 15 minutes of gunfire from Von der Tann. Shortly thereafter the second half of Beatty's force, the four Queen Elizabeth-class battleships of the 5th Battle Squadron, came into range and began firing at Von der Tann and Moltke.
