Of course if she had been saved albeit heavily damaged the RN still would have learned said lessons(and probably even better with the ship in question to thoroughly inspect) and not have been short a Super Dreadnought.
Dread Nought but the Fury of the Seas
- Thread starter sts-200
- Start date
Well yes but someone had to go first....
OTL they thought they had been torpedoed so the other BBs buggered off leaving only the escorts and Crusiers
Had they realised that it was a mine - she might have been towed to safety in time - it took 12 hours to sink and she was only 25 miles from Lough Swilly where it was hoped to run her aground and only 10 miles away when she lost power
Had battleships from her Squadron been on hand it would have been easier to have executed a tow.
But there you go!
It might make for a interesting albeit short timeline. Its such a shame that one of the best named and indeed one of the most powerful ships the Royal Navy had at the time died to a single mine of all things
The Wiki article is curious:
So a non-contact explosion. But how? No magnetic fuses. Is the wash of a large ship sufficient to trigger a contact fuse? You hear stories about torpedoes exploding in ships' wakes, but the turbulence of propeller outflows sounds like a different beast from the more placid environment underneath the hull.
So a non-contact explosion. But how? No magnetic fuses. Is the wash of a large ship sufficient to trigger a contact fuse? You hear stories about torpedoes exploding in ships' wakes, but the turbulence of propeller outflows sounds like a different beast from the more placid environment underneath the hull.
Possibly a misprint for below the waterline not below the hull. I am not sure how you would measure the distance of an explosion from a hull so accurately.
Ah, I misunderstood.
A bit of both - we're following the short term effects of the Blucher being in the Pacific in reasonable detail, however, for example, the Canadian PoD will be more a case of 'this has changed (with an explanation as to why), here's what happens as a result'.
Long term (as far as I'm concerned we're still in the introduction to the story), events will go on beyond any of these immediate effects, looking at some of the 'consequences of the consequences'. In those areas, I will be rather more explicit about the train of decisions/events than I have with the original setup.
I have the book Wikipedia references, so I'll have a look see. Unfortunately I won't be home for a few days.
All mines were contact or remote detonated at this point - and obviously it wasn't the latter.
At a guess, it's a poor description of a contact explosion that occurred at depth (presumably about 16'). She was turning at the time, which would have reinforced the suction effect of the props drawing the mine towards the hull.
At that point around the engine room aft bulkhead, the hull profile was very curved, and so contacting the hull 16' down would be well underneath the ship, not directly down from the waterline.
Not so sure about that one myself (and yes I agree it would make an interesting story).
If she'd been saved, even beached, they'd still be worried about the underwater threat, but there would also be pats on the back all round and three hearty cheers for RN seamanship and tradition. No doubt some lessons would have been learned, but changes might not have pushed through - after all existing levels of watertightness and damage control would have been shown to work.
Nothing like loosing a ship to focus the mind.
Unfortunately it had to be re-learned too; I'm not as well versed in Second World War naval operations, but I believe similar lessons were re-learned following the loss of Ark Royal, and for the USN following Pearl Harbour.
Caught
Caught
Despite his months of escort duties with only occasional search operations, Admiral Patey had realised von Spee’s strategy was to stick to the German and ex-German colonies in the Pacific, succeeding in tying up Allied squadrons while they occupied them. However, with the exception of Ponape, they were now all in Allied hands. He suspected von Spee’s fleet had been in the vicinity of the Hawaiian Islands when he heard about Seydlitz’s visit to Honolulu. Unlike the Americans, he was certain she was a German auxiliary.
He hypothesised that if von Spee continued his pattern, the German Admiral might make a final visit to Ponape, before accepting that he had to leave the Pacific. He might do that via South America, or he might attempt to run through the Dutch East Indies.
Patey therefore acted to cover the route into the Java sea, and on the afternoon of 16th November, his guesses paid off as a large two-funnel ship and a four-funnel ship were sighted to the West as he cruised off the northern coast of New Guinea.
His squadron consisted of the battlecruiser HMAS Australia, the armoured cruiser HMS Minotaur, the light cruiser HMAS Sydney and the French armoured cruiser Dupleix. The slow Dupleix had been a problem in recent days, but as he assumed von Spee would have all four of his ships with him, Patey wanted to maximise his force. Besides, telling Britain's valued ally to ‘go away’ would have hardly made for good politics.
Aware that he would probably be facing a superior force, von Spee’s squadron had practiced tactics for engaging a battlecruiser. He couldn’t hope to defeat even one of these powerful cruiser-killers, but with tactics and luck, one of his ships might be able to escape.
Once the enemy was sighted and it was confirmed that they were facing a major force, the faster Blucher increased speed and turned away, steering Southwest, while the Scharnhorst (now capable of barely 21 knots) headed North. The aim was to split the enemy's fire, perhaps drawing him into crossfire between the two, or at least allowing one to escape while the enemy dealt with the other.
By 1700, it was confirmed that the enemy had been found and Patey’s ships increased speed. He ordered his cruisers to the Northeast, towards the four-funnel cruiser, while Australia steered East-Southeast to engage the Blucher. Both flagships opened fire at over 18,000yds, but salvoes were sporadic as Blucher soon hauled around through 180 degrees to prevent the faster Australia from cutting her off. Scharnhorst had also turned about, as Minotaur and Sydney attempted to work around ahead of her. Dupleix was also pursuing, but at just 19 knots, she was some way behind and played no role in the battle.
The older German cruiser was now able to engage HMAS Australia from ahead, while Blucher continued to engage her to starboard, meaning that the battlecruiser was under fire from a total of fourteen 8.2" guns.
Within minutes, Australia was hit eight or nine times, wrecking her middle funnel, boats on her deck and punching an ugly hole forward above the waterline. In return, she hit Blucher just twice, both times for'ard, destroying 12-pdr gun positions and springing rivets with a shell that burst after striking the water just short of the ship. Blucher’s 8.2" guns couldn’t hurt her vitals at any plausible battle range, but unarmoured structures were sprayed with splinters, and a small cordite fire started in the secondary battery abaft the bridge. The most serious hit was on Q turret, where the armour stopped the shell, but splinters entered the sighting ports, killing six of the crew and wrecking the sights of both guns.
Australia continued to concentrate the fire of her remaining six 13.5” guns on Blucher, still delivering a broadside weight nearly four times that of the German cruiser. Her next hit finally did some real damage, when it opened a 6' hole at the waterline near the bow. As Blucher and Australia maintained nearly parallel courses, the Scharnhorst swung to starboard to keep her arcs open on the battlecruiser and to head back towards the flagship. Forced to turn by Minotaur’s determined fire, her bid to escape to the north had failed, and now the two would fight together.
Just before her line of sight was blocked by the Scharnhorst, a 13.5" shell from Australia hit the barbette under Blucher's rear wing turret. The armour broke up the shell, but splinters entered the hoist and working space, igniting charges and blowing the roof of the turret off with a jet of flame that shot up higher than the masts. Fire spread down the ammunition passage to the fore wing turret, killing the crew in the working space and igniting more charges. Fortunately for the rest of the crew, there was no magazine explosion, as the ready-use ammunition had long since been used up, while magazine flooding was initiated by an enterprising officer soon after the hit.
From on board the Australia, it appeared that the whole side of the German ship was on fire.
Blucher’s fighting ability was fading, but her gunnery had been excellent. She had temporarily put Australia’s aft turret out of action and left the secondary battery amidships almost completely burnt out.
The two German ships now masked each other, and Australia switched the fire of her two remaining turrets to the Scharnhorst, as both German ships turned away. At just over 9,000 yards, the battlecruiser's heavy shells soon tore into the armoured cruiser, blowing open an 11' hole in her bow. Another shell exploded on her belt, but splinters made it into the ship and wreaked havoc in the secondary battery. A third shell penetrated and exploded inside the armour, in between the two 8.2" casemate guns. Both were instantly knocked out, while fires spread along the battery. Below, splinters entered the damaged secondary battery, igniting yet more charges. Within seconds, Australia’s crew were cheered by the sight of another German ship ablaze over half her length.
The German reply to all this was relatively weak while Blucher turned south, and she checked fire altogether while masked by the Scharnhorst and the smoke of her own fires. As the battle turned south, German fire was concentrated on the Minotaur, knocking out one of her secondary 7.5" turrets. She suffered splinter damage to a funnel and her boats, but otherwise, she was lucky, as several shells were stopped by her armoured sides.
Having emerged from her own smoke and with the German ships visible again, a shell from Australia wrecked Scharnhorst's aft turret, while fires effectively cut off the bow from the stern of the ship. Her engines were still at full power, but she was out of command and swung away to the east, pursued by HMAS Sydney. Smoke from Australia's own fires again obscured the view and the standard of her gunnery dropped off before she made a sharp turn to starboard, both to close the German ships and enter clear air once again.
For the first time in the battle, Minotaur made her presence felt; at just over 10,000 yards she hit Blucher amidships, opening up another hole in her bow and re-igniting fires around the wrecked turrets and superstructure. However, the German cruiser wasn’t done, as she could engage using ready ammunition in her undamaged starboard turrets, giving her a full 8-gun broadside for a few salvoes. Her fire wrecked Minotaur's upper deck for’ard and disabled her forward turret.
At 1750 aboard the Blucher, Admiral von Spee saw that he had only one option; to fight it out with HMS Minotaur and hopefully escape into the night. The Scharnhorst had swung away astern and was clearly in trouble; in fact, at that moment Captain Schultz gave the order to signal the flagship, ‘Port engine disabled, will fight to the last. Long live the Fatherland’, but the signal was never sent, as Scharnhorst’s radio and electrics were shot to pieces. At ranges down to 6,000 yards, Australia's heavy guns hit Scharnhorst repeatedly, opening up her stern, wrecking what was left of her main armament and springing leaks in coal bunkers and boiler rooms. As the Sydney prepared to finish her with a torpedo, at 1821 she rolled over, the German ensign still flying.
Blucher herself was down to just 16 knots and only her fore and aft turrets were capable of firing. However, she was by no means finished, and Minotaur was hit several times over the next five minutes by her fire. Once again, the German shells could not penetrate her armour belt, but splinters jammed several of her 7.5” turrets and wrecked communications with the bridge. She turned away, but even in the gathering gloom, the light of her fires illuminated her clearly as a target. Her aft 9.2" turret and two remaining port secondary guns continued to return fire, but to no effect.
Masked by her own smoke, Blucher disappeared to the south into the rapidly darkening tropical night. Overnight, her crew worked furiously to shore up bulkheads around her bow, which continued to be badly strained as she charged along at full power. She briefly worked her way back up to 18 knots, but around midnight was obliged to slow as her fire bars clinkered and leaks continued to spread. She had only four main and three secondary guns left operational, with just 81 rounds of 8.2” ammunition remaining. She was in no condition to fight a light cruiser, never mind the Australia. Nevertheless, her engines had done their job, and she reached the neutral coast of Dutch New Guinea in the early hours of the 17th.
It was not difficult for Patey to guess where Blucher had gone. At dawn, he found her lying just a few hundred yards off the coast, but with no Dutch forces in the area to enforce neutrality, the Admiral wanted to finish her for good. He signalled, ‘Abandon your ship and we will transport you to a neutral Dutch port, or we will take action. You have until 1000.’
Boats were observed leaving the Blucher, but no reply was received, and the German ensign still flew from her stern, and so at 1005, Australia entered Dutch waters and opened fire once she had closed to five miles, while Sydney headed in closer. There was no reply from Blucher. By 1032, she was already heavily on fire when she was hit by a torpedo from Sydney. In shallow water, she couldn’t roll over (according to the German logs, she had grounded in the night), but she soon settled until only her upperworks were visible.
For Admiral Patey and his crews, it wasn’t quite as satisfying as seeing her sink; but it was close…
Despite his months of escort duties with only occasional search operations, Admiral Patey had realised von Spee’s strategy was to stick to the German and ex-German colonies in the Pacific, succeeding in tying up Allied squadrons while they occupied them. However, with the exception of Ponape, they were now all in Allied hands. He suspected von Spee’s fleet had been in the vicinity of the Hawaiian Islands when he heard about Seydlitz’s visit to Honolulu. Unlike the Americans, he was certain she was a German auxiliary.
He hypothesised that if von Spee continued his pattern, the German Admiral might make a final visit to Ponape, before accepting that he had to leave the Pacific. He might do that via South America, or he might attempt to run through the Dutch East Indies.
Patey therefore acted to cover the route into the Java sea, and on the afternoon of 16th November, his guesses paid off as a large two-funnel ship and a four-funnel ship were sighted to the West as he cruised off the northern coast of New Guinea.
His squadron consisted of the battlecruiser HMAS Australia, the armoured cruiser HMS Minotaur, the light cruiser HMAS Sydney and the French armoured cruiser Dupleix. The slow Dupleix had been a problem in recent days, but as he assumed von Spee would have all four of his ships with him, Patey wanted to maximise his force. Besides, telling Britain's valued ally to ‘go away’ would have hardly made for good politics.
Aware that he would probably be facing a superior force, von Spee’s squadron had practiced tactics for engaging a battlecruiser. He couldn’t hope to defeat even one of these powerful cruiser-killers, but with tactics and luck, one of his ships might be able to escape.
Once the enemy was sighted and it was confirmed that they were facing a major force, the faster Blucher increased speed and turned away, steering Southwest, while the Scharnhorst (now capable of barely 21 knots) headed North. The aim was to split the enemy's fire, perhaps drawing him into crossfire between the two, or at least allowing one to escape while the enemy dealt with the other.
By 1700, it was confirmed that the enemy had been found and Patey’s ships increased speed. He ordered his cruisers to the Northeast, towards the four-funnel cruiser, while Australia steered East-Southeast to engage the Blucher. Both flagships opened fire at over 18,000yds, but salvoes were sporadic as Blucher soon hauled around through 180 degrees to prevent the faster Australia from cutting her off. Scharnhorst had also turned about, as Minotaur and Sydney attempted to work around ahead of her. Dupleix was also pursuing, but at just 19 knots, she was some way behind and played no role in the battle.
The older German cruiser was now able to engage HMAS Australia from ahead, while Blucher continued to engage her to starboard, meaning that the battlecruiser was under fire from a total of fourteen 8.2" guns.
Within minutes, Australia was hit eight or nine times, wrecking her middle funnel, boats on her deck and punching an ugly hole forward above the waterline. In return, she hit Blucher just twice, both times for'ard, destroying 12-pdr gun positions and springing rivets with a shell that burst after striking the water just short of the ship. Blucher’s 8.2" guns couldn’t hurt her vitals at any plausible battle range, but unarmoured structures were sprayed with splinters, and a small cordite fire started in the secondary battery abaft the bridge. The most serious hit was on Q turret, where the armour stopped the shell, but splinters entered the sighting ports, killing six of the crew and wrecking the sights of both guns.
Australia continued to concentrate the fire of her remaining six 13.5” guns on Blucher, still delivering a broadside weight nearly four times that of the German cruiser. Her next hit finally did some real damage, when it opened a 6' hole at the waterline near the bow. As Blucher and Australia maintained nearly parallel courses, the Scharnhorst swung to starboard to keep her arcs open on the battlecruiser and to head back towards the flagship. Forced to turn by Minotaur’s determined fire, her bid to escape to the north had failed, and now the two would fight together.
Just before her line of sight was blocked by the Scharnhorst, a 13.5" shell from Australia hit the barbette under Blucher's rear wing turret. The armour broke up the shell, but splinters entered the hoist and working space, igniting charges and blowing the roof of the turret off with a jet of flame that shot up higher than the masts. Fire spread down the ammunition passage to the fore wing turret, killing the crew in the working space and igniting more charges. Fortunately for the rest of the crew, there was no magazine explosion, as the ready-use ammunition had long since been used up, while magazine flooding was initiated by an enterprising officer soon after the hit.
From on board the Australia, it appeared that the whole side of the German ship was on fire.
Blucher’s fighting ability was fading, but her gunnery had been excellent. She had temporarily put Australia’s aft turret out of action and left the secondary battery amidships almost completely burnt out.
The two German ships now masked each other, and Australia switched the fire of her two remaining turrets to the Scharnhorst, as both German ships turned away. At just over 9,000 yards, the battlecruiser's heavy shells soon tore into the armoured cruiser, blowing open an 11' hole in her bow. Another shell exploded on her belt, but splinters made it into the ship and wreaked havoc in the secondary battery. A third shell penetrated and exploded inside the armour, in between the two 8.2" casemate guns. Both were instantly knocked out, while fires spread along the battery. Below, splinters entered the damaged secondary battery, igniting yet more charges. Within seconds, Australia’s crew were cheered by the sight of another German ship ablaze over half her length.
The German reply to all this was relatively weak while Blucher turned south, and she checked fire altogether while masked by the Scharnhorst and the smoke of her own fires. As the battle turned south, German fire was concentrated on the Minotaur, knocking out one of her secondary 7.5" turrets. She suffered splinter damage to a funnel and her boats, but otherwise, she was lucky, as several shells were stopped by her armoured sides.
Having emerged from her own smoke and with the German ships visible again, a shell from Australia wrecked Scharnhorst's aft turret, while fires effectively cut off the bow from the stern of the ship. Her engines were still at full power, but she was out of command and swung away to the east, pursued by HMAS Sydney. Smoke from Australia's own fires again obscured the view and the standard of her gunnery dropped off before she made a sharp turn to starboard, both to close the German ships and enter clear air once again.
For the first time in the battle, Minotaur made her presence felt; at just over 10,000 yards she hit Blucher amidships, opening up another hole in her bow and re-igniting fires around the wrecked turrets and superstructure. However, the German cruiser wasn’t done, as she could engage using ready ammunition in her undamaged starboard turrets, giving her a full 8-gun broadside for a few salvoes. Her fire wrecked Minotaur's upper deck for’ard and disabled her forward turret.
At 1750 aboard the Blucher, Admiral von Spee saw that he had only one option; to fight it out with HMS Minotaur and hopefully escape into the night. The Scharnhorst had swung away astern and was clearly in trouble; in fact, at that moment Captain Schultz gave the order to signal the flagship, ‘Port engine disabled, will fight to the last. Long live the Fatherland’, but the signal was never sent, as Scharnhorst’s radio and electrics were shot to pieces. At ranges down to 6,000 yards, Australia's heavy guns hit Scharnhorst repeatedly, opening up her stern, wrecking what was left of her main armament and springing leaks in coal bunkers and boiler rooms. As the Sydney prepared to finish her with a torpedo, at 1821 she rolled over, the German ensign still flying.
Blucher herself was down to just 16 knots and only her fore and aft turrets were capable of firing. However, she was by no means finished, and Minotaur was hit several times over the next five minutes by her fire. Once again, the German shells could not penetrate her armour belt, but splinters jammed several of her 7.5” turrets and wrecked communications with the bridge. She turned away, but even in the gathering gloom, the light of her fires illuminated her clearly as a target. Her aft 9.2" turret and two remaining port secondary guns continued to return fire, but to no effect.
Masked by her own smoke, Blucher disappeared to the south into the rapidly darkening tropical night. Overnight, her crew worked furiously to shore up bulkheads around her bow, which continued to be badly strained as she charged along at full power. She briefly worked her way back up to 18 knots, but around midnight was obliged to slow as her fire bars clinkered and leaks continued to spread. She had only four main and three secondary guns left operational, with just 81 rounds of 8.2” ammunition remaining. She was in no condition to fight a light cruiser, never mind the Australia. Nevertheless, her engines had done their job, and she reached the neutral coast of Dutch New Guinea in the early hours of the 17th.
It was not difficult for Patey to guess where Blucher had gone. At dawn, he found her lying just a few hundred yards off the coast, but with no Dutch forces in the area to enforce neutrality, the Admiral wanted to finish her for good. He signalled, ‘Abandon your ship and we will transport you to a neutral Dutch port, or we will take action. You have until 1000.’
Boats were observed leaving the Blucher, but no reply was received, and the German ensign still flew from her stern, and so at 1005, Australia entered Dutch waters and opened fire once she had closed to five miles, while Sydney headed in closer. There was no reply from Blucher. By 1032, she was already heavily on fire when she was hit by a torpedo from Sydney. In shallow water, she couldn’t roll over (according to the German logs, she had grounded in the night), but she soon settled until only her upperworks were visible.
For Admiral Patey and his crews, it wasn’t quite as satisfying as seeing her sink; but it was close…
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She's a quantum cruiser. Her position remained indeterminate until observed.
I meant Scharnhorst of course. Fixed, thank you.
In fairness to the USN they had excellent damage control doctrine but there's only so much you can train for damage control in times of peace especially as related to threats previously non existent just a couple decade earlier. Also if the Audacious was clearly doomed and only saved by grounding I really doubt either Jellico or Fisher would ignore the obvious conclusions and the resulting concerns.
SsgtC
Banned
That was more because the RN drew the wrong conclusions from Dogger Bank, not because they didn't learn from it. They just learned the wrong things.
Scharnhorst and Blucher did surprisingly well for the fact that both ships were badly outclassed by their opponents. In fact, I almost want to say they did too well.
Don't worry, I'll say it for you. "They did too well." (
). Certainly Germany is well overdue some inept crews, unlucky commanders, miscommunications, mistakes and generally cocking things up.And someone decided that despite the battlecruiser fleet being based in Rysoth it would be too hard to ride herd on Beatty and make sure he didn't break/ allow to be broken dozens of safety regulations
While I’m enjoying the story somewhat so far, it’s a bit too lenient on the Germans as a whole. Blucher and Scharnhorst standing in and laying the hurt on two much more modern fleet units is a bit much for me.
Don't worry, I'll say it for you. "They did too well." (
And the result after extra time...
Patey: 1 fleet
von Spee: 1 rowing boat
No, seriously; Blucher would outclass Minotaur on her own, while Patey shouldn't have allowed Australia's focus to be drawn by Scharnhorst in the later stages.
A tactical error, but perhaps an understandable one given that Blucher was seen to be heavily on fire, and they wanted to make sure the other ship didn't escape.