 Beatty ordered his battlecruisers to make all practicable speed to catch the Germans before they could escape . New Zealand and Indomitable were the slowest of Beatty 's ships and gradually fell behind the newer and faster battlecruisers , but New Zealand was able to open fire on Blücher by 9 : 35 . She continued to engage Blücher after the other , faster , battlecruisers had switched targets to the German battlecruisers . After about an hour New Zealand had knocked out Blücher 's forward turret and Indomitable began to fire on her as well at 10 : 31 . Two 12 @-@ inch shells pierced her armoured deck and exploded in an ammunition room at 10 : 35 . This started a fire amidships that destroyed her two port 21 cm ( 8 @.@ 3 in ) turrets and the concussion damaged her engines so that her speed had dropped to 17 knots ( 31 km / h ; 20 mph ) and her steering gear jammed . At 10 : 48 Beatty ordered Indomitable to attack her . But due to a combination of a mistake by Beatty 's flag lieutenant in signalling and heavy damage to Beatty 's flagship Lion , which had knocked out her radio and caused enough smoke to obscure her signal halyards so that Beatty could not communicate with his ships that caused the rest of the battlecruisers , temporarily under the command of Rear @-@ Admiral Sir Gordon Moore in New Zealand , to believe that that signal applied to them . So they turned away from Hipper 's main body and engaged Blücher . New Zealand fired 147 shells at Blücher before she capsized and sank at 12 : 07 PM after being torpedoed . 
