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.