Something for the naval buffs

Thanks!

This improves my impression of Beatty - despite his other faults, he at least seems serious about improving his ships' chances of survival.

While d'Eyncourt is essentially going "Bah, there's nothing wrong with our ships!". And there is something wrong with your bloody ships, if they blow up killing practically everyone aboard ...

HMS Queen Mary: 18 survivors, 1266 dead

HMS Indefatigable: 2 survivors, 1017 dead

edit: btw, the Ship Plans on dreadnoughtproject are the best I've ever seen online!
 

sharlin

Banned
By saying there's nothing wrong with them meant that they were not structually suspect or faulty by design (although no ships perfect and the RN's BCs were by no means great ships). Their main faults was in ammo storage and handling which was a crew and officer done thing which lead to the explosions. The RN ships were not sunk by a direct hit on the magazine, and if it was, then there would be something wrong with them.
 
The fundamental maxim of British Warship design has been that the best defence is superior power of offence and it is considered that this action shows this maxim to be essentially sound, as although British Battle Cruisers were in action with enemy Battle-ships they were not then put out of action, whereas the more heavily protected and less heavily armed German ships received very severe punishment.

I might be wrong, but weren't the British battlecruisers only ever engaged by their German counterparts? During the Run to the North, the 5. BS took the fire of the HSF.

While later on, during the fleet action, the German battlecruisers did receive severe punishment, yes - but mostly at the hands of the Grand Fleet's battleships.

IMO, he is deliberately ignoring the fact that only the intervention of the 5. BS saved Beatty and his battlecruisers.
 

sharlin

Banned
Of course he's not going to mention that, Beatty was a rather bad officer who really should not have been in command IMO of such a force as the BCF. His connections, flaire and boldness as well as big public appeal made him un-touchable though.

The 5th BS certinally helped pull the BCFs arse out of the fire though.
 

BlondieBC

Banned
By saying there's nothing wrong with them meant that they were not structually suspect or faulty by design (although no ships perfect and the RN's BCs were by no means great ships). Their main faults was in ammo storage and handling which was a crew and officer done thing which lead to the explosions. The RN ships were not sunk by a direct hit on the magazine, and if it was, then there would be something wrong with them.

There were structural failures of the design, but these would have been hard to prevent in the build phase because you would need advance computers to fix the issues. And a lot of the issues were related to powder. And some related to handling. IMO, this is order of responsible items, high to low.

1) Cordite went boom, not whoosh like German. It has largely to do with some of the additives used. It is possible to find through heavy test, but it is also easy to understand how it could be missed. The tests needed to be done in a full scale, full quality turret to get the pressures and conditions right. AFAIK, building full BB turrets on test ranges to blow up for safety test of ammo was never done.

2) Post war, it was learned that the flash protection would not stop the flash even if in perfect condition and perfectly used on at least some class of ship. Again, to point 1. In retrospect it would have been wise to test a full turret for each class, but it was not a known issue at the time. A lot is the difference between more modern "full system testing" and "test the components, assume it works right as a system". And to be fair we can see many examples of this in modern time, where something is missed that is only discovered after it is built. (F-22 O2 system, Osprey issues).

3) The first two set the stage. The next item relates to the black powder bag that start the cordite explosion. The silk leaked black powder. Evidently, it was manageable when firing on test ranges under non-realistic conditions. The problem became that at the high rate of fire in battle, the powder started accumulating on doors and the floor forming a black powder explosion chain.

4) BC were not intended to be in main battle line when designed. If the Admirals had used say the QE as scouts, we likely are not having this discussion.

5) Yes, the pressure to raise firing rates and keep extra bags high in turret hurt. But it is not the main cause. It is key to understand that even if the textbook amount of powder was high in the turret, and one of them was ignited by a hit, in most cases the fire still gets to the main powder magazine. In combat, there will always be fresh bags on their way up. After all, if the gun fires every 15 to 30 seconds, we have fresh bags arriving in the upper turret every 20 seconds or so. One would have to look at the time from main powder magazine to closed breach to see how many would be in transit at any given time.

It is really an story of inferior powder combined with two structural issues (light armor on BC and too weak a flash protection) combined with an aggressive take chance attitude and an emphasis on rate of fire over safety protocols. Italian and German admirals are rightly criticized for being to cautious. But being highly aggressive also carries downside risks.
 
Interesting info thanks for sharing!

Italian and German admirals are rightly criticized for being to cautious. But being highly aggressive also carries downside risks.

I've always found it ironic that commanders like Haig are castigated for being too callous and prepared to run up huge casualties for little gain while Jellicoe gets criticised for not being aggressive enough. It's a difficult balance to strike for any commander and the chances are you'll be damned if you do and damned if you don't.
 
I've always found it ironic that commanders like Haig are castigated for being too callous and prepared to run up huge casualties for little gain while Jellicoe gets criticised for not being aggressive enough. It's a difficult balance to strike for any commander and the chances are you'll be damned if you do and damned if you don't.

I think a good portion has to do that the war on land impacted so many more lives than the war at sea. Too many histories consider the naval conflict to be a sideline.
 
Of course he's not going to mention that, Beatty was a rather bad officer who really should not have been in command IMO of such a force as the BCF. His connections, flaire and boldness as well as big public appeal made him un-touchable though.

The 5th BS certinally helped pull the BCFs arse out of the fire though.

Quoted for truth. Robert K. Massie seems to agree with the above completely in 'castles of steel'. According to him much of Beatty's posturing was due to his personal situation. Maybe Ethel ought to have been awarded a medal by the Germans. :D

In the days prior to Jutland when Beatty had control of the 5th BS he communicated exactly zilch times with the commander of the 5th BS and they didn't train together at all.
Considering that his style of commanding was exactly opposite of Jellicoe's, that created miscommunications during Jutland which lead to Beatty suffering a defeat with his BC and the fast battleships of 5th BS against an outnumbered First Scouting Group.

Apart from suffering a defeat and getting rescued by Jellicoe, Beatty didn't succeed in doing what his battlecruisers were meant for in the first place; scouting and reporting to the Grand Fleet.

To make matters worse, after Jellicoe was dismissed and Beatty was in a position of power, he did everything he could to discredit Jellicoe and abused his position to have the reports of Jutland falsely modified.
 
Beatty's big advantage was he was was the sort of dashing, Nelsonian type admiral who the British public had spent the previous century idealising. Massie mentions in his book how Nelson never had to contend with torpedoes and mines nor have to worry about fuel consumption and his kind of "Engage the enemy more closely" style would probably would got him sunk against a modern fleet, though I think Nelson would have been smart enough to adapt accordingly.

The two things that I most dislike him for are the fact that as Sharlin mentions, when he got command of the most powerful naval unit in the World at that time he then made no attempt to brief Evan-Thomas about how he planned to use his fleet in battle and also, and this may be another reflection on his personality, he allowed an obviously incompetent oaf and flatterer like Ralph Seymour to remain in a key position despite all the reports of botched signalling. Jellicoe was a humane man who cared deeply about the men under his command but I doubt he would have tolerated Flags for very long.
 

BlondieBC

Banned
I've always found it ironic that commanders like Haig are castigated for being too callous and prepared to run up huge casualties for little gain while Jellicoe gets criticised for not being aggressive enough. It's a difficult balance to strike for any commander and the chances are you'll be damned if you do and damned if you don't.

It is an area where my opinion has moved a lot in the last couple of years. If the UK is cautious on land in either 1915 or 1916, the Entente lose the war. If the losses are too high to take in 1915 or 1916, then the UK needs to make an EXTREMELY generous peace offer to Germany. While I believe a few million lives are worth a lot more than a few hundred thousand square miles of African swamp or desert, once you decide to fight a war, you should fight to win. Not to drag out the war.

It is clear to me that the UK not attacking on land in 1915 means the CP maim Russia in 1915. And the cost of not attacking in 1916 is the Germans inflict even more losses on France, and likely break France's ability to attack after 1916.

On the other hand, Jellicoe was in side show of the war. With his advantage in ships and geography, it did not matter much what he did with the dreadnoughts. At Jutland, if the UK lose 5 more capital ships, it changes nothing in the big picture. If German loses 5 more capital ships, little changes beside potentially odd butterflies related to the U-boat war. Quite frankly, if I was giving advice to the RN, I would not even take the field for the battle of Jutland. There was nothing to be gained that day.
 
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