Jutland rematch 1918

Oh, here's a thought. Seydlitz had 9" barbettes penetrated at Dogger Bank and Jutland, both causing propellant fires. Is this indicative of insufficient armour?
Battlecruiser amour in general was insufficient for fighting other BBs and BCs German or British, As that was not what they were designed to do. While Both Seydlitz and Ivincible took turret penetrations
The reason Invincible blew up was because the flash doors were not closed to speed up fire rate etc, and also the British cordite had a tendency to explode, while the German cordite just burned. Seydlitz was ruined after Jutland, but still managed to make it home.
Tiger took a turret penatration, and didn't explode..
 

Thomas1195

Banned
Well, in 1918, German also had 15 inch gun Bayern and Baden and strong armour scheme. How would they fare against QEs and Rs? How would QE and Rs armour fare against Bayern guns, note that German shell quality was high?
 
Regarding BCs - British BCs were initially designed to hunt down armoured cruisers and the earlier 6 ships were highly effective in this role - but had no place in a battleship fight - just compare the tonnage of those early British BCs and their armour to the German ships - relative the the German BCs and the Glorious Cats the 6 Invincibles and Indefatigables where little more than large armoured Cruisers.

Germany was obliged to react to Britain's BCs but did not have the luxury of having 'capital ships' that could not stand in the line of battle hence their heavier better armoured and generally poorer armed vessels

They say the best lessons are learned by the survivors and in a 1918 Jutland analogy the British ships having addressed many of the issues they experienced in the Summer of 1916 would be far better in the summer of 1918

For example Malaya might potentially have suffered a secondary magazine explosion after one of the 6" Casements was penetrated and a fire threatened to flash back through the shell hatch - the 'wooden hatches' responsible were replaced in all such secondary gun mountings with sprung shutting metal ones

The 'relearning' of using anti flash interlocks and 'relearning' ammo handling techniques post Jutland is well documented

Also CnC for the British fleet was more robust with a relative greater freedom to maneuver for Squadrons allowing for greater independence of actions from their commanders


Well, in 1918, German also had 15 inch gun Bayern and Baden and strong armour scheme. How would they fare against QEs and Rs? How would QE and Rs armour fare against Bayern guns, note that German shell quality was high?

The issue with British shell quality was know before the war but the assumption was that everyone had the same issues - Jutland and intel subsequently gleaned from German POWs focused minds and the shells while still not perfect were subjected to a higher QC and ultimately Greenboy shells replaced the legacy stocks - although I have no data as to what was replaced and when.

One of the issues preventing an earlier fix was the shell crisis for the army that was not fully addressed until 1916 - by 1918 shell production and QC for the Army and Navy had increased exponentially so this was no longer an issue.

Post war studies (basically 15" Greenboy verses Bayden) and subsequent Japanese studies of their copy of the Greenboy type shells found that they were good at penetrating near calibre Armour thickness but the fuse delay was inconsistent but similar in this respect to German shells and better than what was experienced at Jutland.

So not much between them other than Britain has 10 such vessels

So given the number of 13.5", 14" and 15" armed ships in the Combined fleet at the time seriously outgunning the German fleet and the better quality shells and crews I suspect any rematch in 1918 would go far worse for Germany

The other aspect to consider is the high crew morale - British and USN ships had almost unheard of low levels of men in the sick books as individuals sought to be their for the big final clash (that never happened OTL)

Note at the same time - German Morale quality was extremely low!
 

Thomas1195

Banned
Regarding BCs - British BCs were initially designed to hunt down armoured cruisers and the earlier 6 ships were highly effective in this role - but had no place in a battleship fight - just compare the tonnage of those early British BCs and their armour to the German ships - relative the the German BCs and the Glorious Cats the 6 Invincibles and Indefatigables where little more than large armoured Cruisers.

Germany was obliged to react to Britain's BCs but did not have the luxury of having 'capital ships' that could not stand in the line of battle hence their heavier better armoured and generally poorer armed vessels

They say the best lessons are learned by the survivors and in a 1918 Jutland analogy the British ships having addressed many of the issues they experienced in the Summer of 1916 would be far better in the summer of 1918

For example Malaya might potentially have suffered a secondary magazine explosion after one of the 6" Casements was penetrated and a fire threatened to flash back through the shell hatch - the 'wooden hatches' responsible were replaced in all such secondary gun mountings with sprung shutting metal ones

The 'relearning' of using anti flash interlocks and 'relearning' ammo handling techniques post Jutland is well documented

Also CnC for the British fleet was more robust with a relative greater freedom to maneuver for Squadrons allowing for greater independence of actions from their commanders




The issue with British shell quality was know before the war but the assumption was that everyone had the same issues - Jutland and intel subsequently gleaned from German POWs focused minds and the shells while still not perfect were subjected to a higher QC and ultimately Greenboy shells replaced the legacy stocks - although I have no data as to what was replaced and when.

One of the issues preventing an earlier fix was the shell crisis for the army that was not fully addressed until 1916 - by 1918 shell production and QC for the Army and Navy had increased exponentially so this was no longer an issue.

Post war studies (basically 15" Greenboy verses Bayden) and subsequent Japanese studies of their copy of the Greenboy type shells found that they were good at penetrating near calibre Armour thickness but the fuse delay was inconsistent but similar in this respect to German shells and better than what was experienced at Jutland.

So not much between them other than Britain has 10 such vessels

So given the number of 13.5", 14" and 15" armed ships in the Combined fleet at the time seriously outgunning the German fleet and the better quality shells and crews I suspect any rematch in 1918 would go far worse for Germany

The other aspect to consider is the high crew morale - British and USN ships had almost unheard of low levels of men in the sick books as individuals sought to be their for the big final clash (that never happened OTL)

Note at the same time - German Morale quality was extremely low!
Agree. But it is likely that a Bayern might sink a QE in the midst of the battle?
 

Saphroneth

Banned
Would the QEs and Rs concentrate their fire on Bayern and Baden?
If so, they are in serious trouble.
No, they'd use concentration fire where ships engage their opposite numbers and those at the ends lap around. (This is a simplification but it works.)
As the HSF is so much smaller, this means the lapping-around fire creates terrible problems for the German ships on either end of the line.
 
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