More destructive Battle of Jutland

The real culprit in the loss of the British battlecruisers was the volatile & unstable nature of British cordite propellant combined with unsafe ammo handling practices. In the BCF, doctrine incorrectly insisted on a high rate of fire as the most important aspect of gunnery, and although the anti-flash protection that was supposed to be in British ships was marginal, battlecruiser crews had a bad habit of removing & disabling it in order to increase the rate of fire by removing a bottleneck in the system. As a result, flash & blast effects from penetrating turret & barbette hits not only ignited charges in the hoists, but went into the magazines, with catastophic results (confirmed by examination of the wrecks of Queen Mary & Invincible as well as the armored cruiser Defence by Bill Jurens. Had even the designed flash protection been present, at least those 2 battlecruisers may have survived. Campbell speculates that German-type charges (more stable propellant in brass cases) would also have likely saved one or two. (Indefatigable may have taken a direct hit to one of her magazines, as 2 salvos from Von der Tann hit in rapid succession, causing explosions in both the forward & aft magazines, and waterspouts very close aboard aft were seen from New Zealand, thought to be torpedos at the time, but may have been a fluke underwater hit; however Indefatigable's wreck was destroyed by 'salvagers' in the late 1950s making analysis impossible)

BTW, Invincible's sinking is generally credited to either Lutzow or Derfflinger).

The German battlecruisers, more heavily armored, did slug it out with the British battleline twice as well as the BCF reinforced by the QEs of the 5th BS, and only Lutzow was lost , being abandoned and scuttled after uncontrollable progressive flooding caused by 24-30 penetrating heavy shell hits & a torpedo or two left her a floundering, slowly sinking hulk dead in the water. The German post-mortem blamed inadequate compartmentalization forward, defective watertight doors, & insufficient pumps & damage control equipment for allowing things to get out of hand like that. (although Seydlitz was nearly lost, Derfflinger & Von der Tann badly damaged & mission-killed, and Moltke suffered significant damage)
 
The real culprit in the loss of the British battlecruisers was the volatile & unstable nature of British cordite propellant combined with unsafe ammo handling practices.

Glad to see someone else has read the same articles or books that I have.
 
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