1605, 22 June 1916, North Sea, 230 miles from Rosyth
Beatty's head whipped around to the signalman and then toward the stricken ship. "Princess Royal blown up, sir" had been the laconic report. It was all to true. With the range steady at 11,700 to 11,950 meters, hits were being obtained all to readily. He would have thought, that with his own ships outnumbering those of the Germans, he would be obtaining more hits on the five enemy heavy ships, yet this was not the case. Yet, for all that, his own formation had some ships that were not damaged at all. The Germans could no longer say that. Lion had been hit six more times. Two had not exploded, doing little damage. A third had deflected off Q turret, not penetrating. A fourth had pitched short, ducking under the armour, penetrating a compartment and letting 500 tons of water into the ship, dropping her speed by 1.5 knots. A fifth shell that exploded on the mess deck in the canteen flat, eviscerating many of the men gathered there. Finally, a sixth shell had struck the port 4 inch battery, which the crew extinguished rapidly, thankfully. Australia had been hit twice more, Indefatigable four times, Invincible three times. The damage toll on his ships was rising. He was not sure what had happened to Princess Royal.
In fact, Princess Royal had suffered a fate Lion avoided. A hit on the 4 inch magazine had shaken the ship. The after 4-inch battery was smashed out of all recognition. The handling room had spare propellant and this was ignited by the shell burst. The venting plates likely admitted flame into the magazine. This explosion detonated Q turret. Immediately, the ship displayed a huge explosive cloud above her, taking a large list to port. One of the survivors asked whether the order to evacuate the magazine and shell room had been given, but was told it was no use, as the water was right up the truck leading from the shell room, so the bottom of the ship must have been out of her. The explosion was followed by clouds of dense and dark smoke, a distinctive byproduct of burning cordite shell propellant
Yet it was not only the British ships that were now taking damage. The two British ships who proved most accurate were HMS Invincible and Queen Mary, the latter free to shoot, not being engaged at all. Queen Mary, however, fired at the wrong target, bringing herself, as well as Lion and Tiger, to bear on the German flagship Lutzow. By 1605, Tiger had still not scored, but Lion had hit the German ship twice, once on the forecastle, the second a hit near the conning tower that did not explode. Sadly, this was a problem the British would face through the battle, shells breaking up on impact. It was not the only problem with the shells, however. The Royal Navy used lyddite as the explosive burster. This, unlike some other explosive compounds, generally exploded on impact, not after a penetration was made. The problems and shortcomings of lyddite were known, but due to shortages of a more effective explosive, such as trinitrotoluene, lyddite continued to be used. Queen Mary had been active. A heavy shell penetrated the main armored deck of Lutzow toward the bow, where there was little armour. Another shell hit a bulkhead even further forward and shoved it back over two meters, both hits letting water into the ship. Shell splinters from another hit penetrated several of the case-mates that held the secondary guns, three of which were disabled. The ammunition stores for these guns were set on fire and the magazines had to be flooded to prevent an explosion.
Derfflinger, the famous "iron dog", was hit twice by
Princess Royal before her demise, but both shells broke up on impact.
Seydlitz was hit three times, but seemed to shrug these off.
Moltke was not so lucky. Hit five times, a shell from
New Zealand had hit her port wing turret, jamming the turret traverse completely from the shock. A second had pitched short, flooding the ship with almost 650 tons of seawater.
Von Der Tann had been hurt the most. Hit four times by
Invincible and twice by
Indomitable, a shell from
Invincible penetrated the bow turret barbette. Flames flashed into the turret and down into the ammunition chamber. The entire gun crew were killed and flames rose above the turret as high as a house, yet she did not explode, as the magazine was flooded quickly. It was not the only damaging blow. A shell landed near the stern, penetrating the weak armour there and bursting in the port feed tank, breaking the bulkhead and causing flooding and seawater contamination in the port engine room, dropping her speed by over two knots, with flooding unable to be stopped immediately.
It was at 1606 that Beatty received a report that
HMS Rivriera had finally launched a Short seaplane and the aircraft was able to communicate with it's mother ship via wireless. This was infinitely more efficient than the last practice exercise, where the wireless had malfunctioned the aircraft had to send it's messages via the seaplane carriers onboard pigeon loft, of all things. Maybe it would help to establish where the Germans actually were.
