Background on Battle of Jutland, August 1914

BlondieBC

Banned
Pre-war ammo tended to work though, at Dogger Bank and the Battle of Heogiland Blight the British ammo worked pritty well but gunnery was nothing to write home about.

Also I dunno why you're ignoring the whole thing about Beatty ordering the removal of flash protection systems. These were implimented after Dogger bank when he felt a higher rate of fire afforded by the removal of the systems and the storage of cordite in the turret itself to pump out more rounds would have given the Brits the decisive edge they needed.
This was done AFTER Dogger Bank, its mentioned in Castles of Steel and other books.

But in all honesty, knowing you, you'll settle for ALL RN ships doing improtu fireworks displays.

You said it was a verbal order, with no record. It is different if there are sources from the time that recorded the orders such as the ships logs.

I have gone through three naval messaging boards on these topics. And went back on the sources they list. A small minority do support the flash protection, but there are lot of other issues.

1) UK Cordite tended to go boom, German burned due to different additives.

2) UK stored had issues with the black powder bags at the base of the first charge. They also seemed to have cleanliness issues related to policing black powder from leaking bags.

3) In Dodger bank and Jutland, A Cat class BC had a turret breached. Neither was a catastrophic loss. If the order you believed happened did occur, we would expect to see the Cat lost at Jutland.

4) Test on the HMS Vengence in 1917 showed that even a full functional flash system in good condition did not contain a cordite flash.

5) At the start of the war, the Admiralty went from 80 to 100 rounds per gun. Since there was not enough space on the BC, the extra 20 cordite rounds were stored outside of the designed storage space. So they only possible question is where the extra ammo was stored in the turret, not if, after the war started. Right now, my understanding is this order went into effect on day 1 of the war.

6) Much of the cordite was past the expiration date.

So I have to weight the evidence. I have a theory that says Beatty waived safety protocols after Dogger. But I have no written order to back up when this happened, and I have other explanations with evidence on why it was just poor quality ammo pasts it expiration date with poorly thoughout flash protection with extra ammo on the ships. And even the assume Beatty flash removal does not appear to be the most important safety breach. It is the combination of the extra rounds order by the Admiralty and poor cleanliness related to black powder. At least during the battles, the RN appears to have ignored the leaking blackpowder from poorly designed bags. The combination of black powder on the floor from gun breech to cordite chamber combined with at least 60 bags (20 rounds) of cordite stored in the space between the storage spaces and magazine appear to be more responsible.
 

BlondieBC

Banned
But what Blondie is doing is ignoring the fact that the main cause of BC losses for the RN was the alterations to their cordite handling, mainly the storage of cordite charges in the turrets to speed up the rate of fire. This came in after Dogger Bank because Beatty in his foolishness (how that man got command of the BCF I'll never understand..) thought that rate of fire was the key. At Jutland itself its highly unlikely that any of the British BCs were hit in the magazine apart from maybe the Invincible which was struck low amidships and which seems to have ignited her two amidships magazines. T

he Queen Mary had a turret fire which escalated thanks to the Cordite stored in it, thats what killed her. The Indifatigable's Q turret had a major fire that was again made worse by the cordite stored in it.

These ships could have been saved if they had their flash protection on them which was removed at Beatty's insistance. The Tiger's Captain never removed her flash protection and in reality she was little better protected than the Queen Mary yet took a substantial pounding and had one turret fire but survived.


Re the situation I dunno about the Scarborough raid. The weather that day was extremely foggy and visibility was bloody terrible also if the Germans did bring the RN's squadron to battle they still had a 3 knot speed advantage over the German fleet thanks to the Germans having to keep to the speed of the Pre-dreadnoughts with them and the Germans would not just go 'CHAAAAAAAAARGE!' and leave the Pre-dreads in their wakes as they'd have to leave the Nassau's too as their engines could barely push them to 20 knots with some nasty forcing, it would throw the whole fleet out of formation and that would result in a right mess.

You seem to be unaware that the extra storage was mandated indirectly by an order from the admiralty. When there is only room for 80 rounds, but 100 are stored, the extra 20 have to go somewhere. Fewer BB are lost and there are several possible reason, only one of which is ship modifications to flash protection.

1) Beatty ships were the only to remove the protection.

2) BB have more armor and fewer turret penetrations.

3) The BB spent less time in battle at Jutland.

4) The BB had big enough magazine to handle 100 rounds.

5) Some other characteristic of the turret/magazine resulted in them being less vulnerable. This is also a possible reason the cats did not cook off the main cordite. In Jutland, one of the cats had 8 cordite rounds in the gun turret that caught fire but the main cordite supply did not explode. Some people believe that simply the top of the turret failing vented the pressure and save the ship. Perhaps if the other BC lost had weaker tops to the turrets they also live.

A lot of the issues is the ships went to the bottom of the ocean and the massive explosion destroyed a lot of the evidence. Plus the intervening decades have destroyed evidence.
 

BlondieBC

Banned
It requires the Germans to be willing to fight though. It requires the German commander to not just bolt at first sign of contact. They have to be willing to see what they are faced with. Is it the entire GF or is this what they have been waiting for? A detached unit they can pound.

And this will be the weakest portion of the TL. I am working on the premise that if the Kaiser reads a bit more Mahan and insist on an aggressive War Plan for the Navy that the Navy actually does it. One can certainly argue with the Admirals involved would find a way to have an aggressive looking plan and then find a way to be timid.

I am really working on this TL to figure out if an aggressive posture by the German Navy at the start would have a chance of working. I don't care if the Germans or UK win. Germany will avoid bad luck such as would cause the fleets not to meet and they will have an aggressive admiral.

It's been a while since I read Castles of Steel but the time when Jellicoe was most concerned about a German breakout was the winter of 1914, just after the Audacious had been sunk and Invincible, Inflexible and Princess Royal had been sent to deal with Von Spee. The British margin of superiority was perilously slim and Jutland scale losses may have tipped the overall balance in Germany's favour. It would certainly make for an interesting TL, but please just don't get me started on B*****!!! :mad: :mad: :mad: ;)

I plan to use about August 8-10 for the battle since this makes the TL easier to write. Jellicoe is at sea and I have several days of his deployment to show his mindset. While a winter 1914 would also be interesting, it would mean I would have to write both sides of the battle. This way it will only be one side. I can basically take the first wave of 12 U-boats as a guide to how they would be used to scout. Then send out another 12 U-boats right before the cruiser/BC screen looking for the RN. Then basically use Jutland like strategy to setup the German fleet deployment. Something will bump into something else, and then both sides will race to the decisive battle.

Strangely enough, it looks like a indecisive battle right now. The accuracy rate at Dogger was not very good, and even with both sides pressing for a win, they could easily run out of ammo first. With 800 rounds per ship (ballpark) and a 1-2% accuracy rate, we are only talking 8-16 hits per ship, and many ships will survive this kind of pounding barring cordite issues or other lucky hits. And if I look at some of the numbers, the correct early war accuracy may be a low as 0.5% at longer ranges.
 

BlondieBC

Banned
re light cruisers and destroyers, the Germans could never have more the Royal navy had deployed in the north sea in excess over 150 destroyers compared to the Germans 70 odd. With the Grand Fleet & Battlecruisers there was some 80 destroyers deployed with 21 light cruisers as well. This Excludes the bulk of the 40 Destroyers and 8 light cruisers of the Harwich force which was what Sheer chased after during the august high seas fleet deployment thinking they were a battle squadron.

Also do not forget the some score of Destroyers that were attached with the 3rd Battle Squadron of the Wobbley eight.

While your numbers are likely correct, they are not what is at see initially for the RN. The RN is halfway between Aberdeen and Norway with a basis toward killing the Germany fleet. When detected, the RN will sail to attack, and the rest of the ships listed will not be in the battle. I don't know what they were doing at this time, but Jellicoe list the forces he expected to be able to use, so I will take him at his word.

You also have to remember that the commanders of the High Seas Fleet were different aside from Hipper, the Germans couldn't win a straight up fight with the Grand Fleet everyone in Germany knew this, the objective of the German strategy was to fight a decisive battle against isolated squadrons of the Grand Fleet in order to achieve parity and force the UK to the table, but even then it would be likely that the Brits would have sent an equal number of ships down with them kind of defeating the point of an isolated engagement.

The Germans had several difference. First the Kaiser is insisting, so the Navy will comply. Second, the Germans had 3 Zeppelins at the start of the war, so 2 will be with this fleet. This will give the Germans the belief that they will not be surprised by a vastly superior fleet. And since I know the actual fleet sizes, the ratio is actually within the numbers where the Germans think they can win. The Channel pre-dreads will not be there, so it will be roughly an even fight, much near to German bases than the UK, where the Germans have a substantial edge in smaller ships. The RN fights because of the proud tradition of the RN and they believe that they win even fights.

U-Boats were also potentially disregarded, as Jellicoe's plan regarding them as a trap was formed early in the war and that he would turn on a course not directly following the retreating high seas fleet but aiming to loop around and re-engage using his ships greater speed and range to his advantage, something any submerged u-boats could not keep up with. He effectively did this after the first stage of the fleet battle at Jutland by begining to loop around in pursuit of the HSF but this was not an order.

Too early in the war for that. This is 1914, where he took the Grand Fleet out without enough escorts and ignored reports of U-boats at sea. It is also early in the war, so U-boats are not accompanying the fleet, but will be scouting lines and setup to ambush ships coming too and from the battle.

If in effect a carbon copy of Jutland was played out in 1914, the result would have been the German Battlecruisers all being sunk during the run south with the British also losing ships, when the HSF pursuing they would suffer due to extreme range and greater speed of the fleeing british battlecruisers, is all german BC's lost at this point though i would let them go as you cannot catch them.

In short i would expect the HSF to lose at least 30-50% of its capital ships with the British losing 20-30% of its capital ships. not due to better quality, simply because they would outnumber the Germans 2-1 at least and the sheer amount of firepower discrepancy would tell.

From earlier post
Yes, the Germans would be outnumbered, but it may not be as bad as you think. It looks like 17 Dreadnoughts, 4 BC, 11 Predreads versus 14 Dreads, 3 BC, 10 predreads. The Germans biggest problem would be the 9 dreads with 13.5" guns versus one German. The German advantage would be closer to its ports so its gets more cruisers, torpedo boats, and submarines along with a shorter distance to retreat to port.

It is about an even fight as one can get. Just based on capital ships at the battle, the UK should win but probably closer to a 1.2-to-1.0 ratio. Add in the Germans have more smaller ships and the UK ships will need to go 3-5 times farther to find a safe port, and it is basically a pick'em battle for a betting man.

Now even if say the Germans win 6 lost ships to 10, the RN still has an advantage. The RN have a lot more capital ships in various ports and other patrol assignments for various reasons.
 

sharlin

Banned
The removal of the flash protection does date to Dogger Bank. Beatty mistook the German 'ladder' firing solutions for a higher rate of fire and after the battle felt that the BCF needed to increase its rate of fire, thus going against EVERY safety procedure in the RN and overlooking it, 'suggested' that the Battlecruiser captains remove their flash protection.

You keep saying it wasnt a written order thus no proof exists. If there was a written order you can bet that its one that was hidden rather well, but it was probably a vocal order, one to increase RoF regardless of risk.

Under Jellico who was a micro-manager and a chap to who the word 'delegation' was blasphemy the RN dreadnoughts never undertook such measures and RN Dreadnoughts were much safer.

If you are going to do this you'll need to put the wobbly 8 with the Grand Fleet, along with their escorts and you will need to put the Harwitch force with them too. Every time the Grand Fleet sailed, so too did the Harwitch force.

I'm already guessing we're going to see lots of fireworks but with luck it won't be a complete massacre.
 
Turret fires tended to burn themselves out very quickly if the ship didn't explode, mainly because the fire would consume absolutely anything flammable in a bloody quick time.

TEND to but not always. Also RN flash protection had room for improvement. As you noted above the RN cordite cooks off more than burns, the flash could travel down the ammo hoists even with the doors closed correctly. Again without Beatty's silliness things are improved the threat is still there.

Michael
 

sharlin

Banned
Aye, no flash protection was perfect and the RNs definately needed work but if it had been there it could have helped save several thousand lives.
 
And this will be the weakest portion of the TL. I am working on the premise that if the Kaiser reads a bit more Mahan and insist on an aggressive War Plan for the Navy that the Navy actually does it. One can certainly argue with the Admirals involved would find a way to have an aggressive looking plan and then find a way to be timid.

I am really working on this TL to figure out if an aggressive posture by the German Navy at the start would have a chance of working. I don't care if the Germans or UK win. Germany will avoid bad luck such as would cause the fleets not to meet and they will have an aggressive admiral.

Simplest POD is the Scarborough raid, have Ingenohl come down with something right before the fleet is to sail. With too little time for someone on the outside to be brought in; like the even more cautious Pohl. A replacement has to come from one of the squadron commanders, Lans or Scheer are the two most senior.

That or just have Ingenohl hold his never a bit longer. He was already violating orders bringing out the fleet this far into the North Sea. Waiting to see what he faced isn't an impossible stretch. He did advocate a more active stance after all.

Either would get you a battle on German terms and avoids dealing with the butterflies.

Michael
 

sharlin

Banned
A battle off scarborough isn't a jutland scale engagement which the OP is after. Also I still maintain that any action off scarborough would be either a very confused short range brawl due to visibility, or a few shots and light forces clash whilst the RN Dreadnoughts run. Yes this was just after Troutbridge was disciplined for not engaging the Goben but once the scale of the opposition becomes evident the RN would withdraw. They would not risk the best battlesquadron (at that time) of RN dreadnoughts in a futile middle finger to the germans.

One major difference between the British battle-cruisers and the battleships was that the later in Scapa Flow could do proper gunnery practise with live rounds and spotting fall of shot, while the battle-cruisers could only do drill . So to get around the lack of proper gunnery (like spotting the fall of shot), the higher rate of fire and throwing the Book of Regulations out of the nearest port-hole was established.

The survivors from HMS Invincible came from the director bridge on top of the forward tripod, and included the senior gunnery officer who was able to confirm the state of magazine handling.
 
A battle off scarborough isn't a jutland scale engagement which the OP is after.

Perhaps but the impression I had is BlondieBC is looking for a German victory. If I am in error then I am sorry.

That Also I still maintain that any action off scarborough would be either a very confused short range brawl due to visibility, or a few shots and light forces clash whilst the RN Dreadnoughts run.

RN screen is weak to put it kindly, , 4 CL, 4 AC and 7 DD, I don't believe it can exercise the roll of speed bump to hold off the Germans to allow a successful disengagement. HSF has 50 or so GTB.

Short range brawl favors the Germans.

Yes this was just after Troutbridge was disciplined for not engaging the Goben but once the scale of the opposition becomes evident the RN would withdraw.


Why? Jellicoe would break off the action but he isn't here, Warrender and Beatty are; Beatty is a known hot head. Breaking off and running goes against a great deal of tradition. The court martial was enough to force Cradock into taking on a superior force.


They would not risk the best battlesquadron (at that time) of RN dreadnoughts in a futile middle finger to the germans.

See above. Beatty was took risks a number of times. I see no reason for him not to do something foolish here. I also see no reason once he does get in trouble to anything useful like giving Warrender detailed info. With incomplete data I do not see a senior RN office leaving another unsupported.

The only way for the the two to figure out what is they are facing is for Beatty to use his BC's to push through the German screen to get a good look at what they are protecting. This puts Beatty for the moment at least in reach of part of the HSF. Maybe Beatty extracts himself with his superior speed or maybe he gets crippled; his force is no gunnery threat to the HSF and there would be a lot of shooters.

Once sucked into a fight its hard to break off, not impossible but its not easy either.

Fog of war and the human element I believe really do not favor the British here. A Court Martial for lack of aggression is intended to send a message, I see no reason why the message wouldn't be received.

One major difference between the British battle-cruisers and the battleships was that the later in Scapa Flow could do proper gunnery practise with live rounds and spotting fall of shot, while the battle-cruisers could only do drill . So to get around the lack of proper gunnery (like spotting the fall of shot), the higher rate of fire and throwing the Book of Regulations out of the nearest port-hole was established.
The survivors from HMS Invincible came from the director bridge on top of the forward tripod, and included the senior gunnery officer who was able to confirm the state of magazine handling.

Issue is moot if Warrender and Beatty get sucked into a general engagement they are going to be grossly out gunned and damage just piling will set to it, N^2 will be unforgiving.

Michael
 

BlondieBC

Banned
Either would get you a battle on German terms and avoids dealing with the butterflies.

I think I will be ok on the butterflies. I am not making the fleet larger or better. I have no changes to ship construction. I sort of see a basic TL such as:

1) POD: Kaiser wants a "Mahan" war plan for a war against France, UK or Russia in 1913. He often changed his mind, and he used to hand out copies of Mahan book. This part is easy.

2) Under orders and in response, the Navy develops two North Sea Plans. One is France only attacking towards Calais to draw out the French fleet. The second is an attack against Scarbourgh. Basically two variation of the same plan. It is not an automatic plan such as the German Army plan, but it is take seriously. Again butterflies seem quite moderate. I could also easily write a TL with major butterflies where the UK gets a copy of the plan or where Germany makes major training adjustments, but it also could have almost no butterflies.

The picture in my mind is that the High Seas Fleet Admiral or one of his main aids has written a plan, and it has been war gamed a few times. On paper, it works well.

3) The war starts. If it was an automatic plan, then the Germans would attack France before UK is in the war. This is why I have it as an optional plan. The fleet will be based in such a way to make a major sortie possible, but the decisions will not be made. This gives me a few days of indecision before the plan is implement which will help in having the first wave of scouting U-boats leave on about August 5, same as OTL.

I also don't care if the Germans win or lose, I just don't plan to force bad luck upon them. It is more a TL about something I am curious about from the research of my TL. Looking at the war, the first few weeks of the war look like the best time to achieve a German win. If they can't win a battle near Germany on a prepared war plan before Jellicoe has made his adjustments to the fleet, I don't know when they have a chance.

The UK completed a lot of capital ships the first few years of the war. The UK greatly improved the communication ability. They broke the German codes. The improved the escort function. And Jellicoe is just a few days into the job, and is using another admirals staff. He is also dealing with a lot of issue relating to setting up his new base.
 
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BTW, do you post under the same name on naval boards?

Looking for similiar users I take it.

I noticed this thread at warships one.

http://warships1discussionboards.yuku.com/topic/20736/RE-The-BCS-and-Beatty-s-ammo-order-question


I see that sharlin at this forum and HMS Troutbridge at warships1 used this identical phrase in a pair of posts.


One major difference between the British battle-cruisers and the battleships was that the later in Scapa Flow could do proper gunnery practise with live rounds and spotting fall of shot, while the battle-cruisers could only do drill . So to get around the lack of proper gunnery (like spotting the fall of shot), the higher rate of fire and throwing the Book of Regulations out of the nearest port-hole was established.

Looking for other cross users?

Michael
 
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