WI German navy destroys British navy in Jutland.

JAG88

Banned
Just for kicks and in the spirit of the OP, this is a worst case scenario for the RN with just minimum changes to the actual Battle of Jutland, the quotes are from Campbell:

"Tiger: hit on 'X' barbette at 1554.

"X turret was hit on the 9in barbette armour near its junction with the 3in armour and the lin upper deck. A piece of 9in armour 27in x 16in was broken off, the 3in armour dented in about 3in and the upper deck holed, while the 4in armour plate adjoining the 3in was also dented at the top corner. The shell entered the turret through the revolving structure about 3ft below the lower edge of the turret shield, but did not explode properly, though the bursting charge ignited with a partial burst and partial rocket effect just inside the turn-table, and the body of the shell without the point, remained in the lower floor of the gun-house between the guns in the centre of the turret, together with large fragments of armour."


Lets have the shell fully detonate and take Tiger down making it the first casualty of the battle, before Indefatigable at 1602 and Queen Mary at 1621.

New Zealand: hit at 1626.

"This struck the 7in armour of `X' barbette about 1 ft or 1'/2ft above the upper deck and burst outside the barbette. A cone-shaped piece of armour 11 in diameter on the face and 30in at the rear, was displaced, and the revolving structure slightly bulged in, while fragments on the roller path jammed the turret for a short time, and the tilt of the roller path was slightly altered. A hole of about 3ft x 3ft was blown in the upper deck and a small fire started on the 1 in main deck, which was also holed by fragments."

In this case hot fragments ignite a charge a set off a chain reaction blowing the ship up, leaving Beatty with only 2 BCs left.

Before anyone asks, cant do the obvious and kill Lion, Beatty is indispensable in order for the QEs to get massacred, besides, hes far more dangerous to the RN alive...

Barham: hit at 1658.

"The hit at about 1658 was one of the most destructive in the battle. The shell struck the 1 1/4in upper deck, where this formed the glacis near No 2 starboard 6in gun, in line with the aftermost part of `B' barbette and about 7ft from the ship's side. The angle of descent was estimated at 30-35° which indicates that the shell was deflected downwards by c5-10°. It pierced the upper deck (hole 2 1/2ft x 1 1/2ft) and burst 15ft from impact at the 3/8in main deck over the medical store, which was completely wrecked, as was the auxiliary wireless office on the main deck. Very severe damage was caused to light structure and the shell had a very marked incendiary effect. The starboard 6in hand-ups and dredger hoist, as well as the port dredger hoist were badly holed by fragments between the main and upper deck, and the starboard hoists were also holed between the main and middle deck. The flash of the burst passed via the hand-ups to No 2 starboard 6in casemate, causing a serious cordite fire and putting the gun's crew out of action. The flash of the shell-burst also passed down a trunk to the dynamo room on the platform deck and burned all the men there.

The explosion blew a hole 7ft x 7ft in the main deck, and part of the shell head went through the 1 in middle deck and was found in the lower conning tower. The 3/8in lower deck, forming the roof of the forward 6in magazine directly below the lower CT, was holed and this magazine and the 6in shell room filled with smoke. Other fragments also pierced the middle deck, and the starboard forward hydraulic pump was put out of action by fracture of the pressure pipe to the hydraulic governor, though the remaining three pumps kept all four turrets going. The largest hole in the middle deck measured 18in x 15in and that in the lower deck over the 6in magazine 15in x 12in."

Magazine penetrations are bad...

Malaya: hit at 1730.

"This SAP shell which had an angle of descent of 20-25° pierced the I in forecastle deck, 6ft from the ship's side, near No 3 starboard 6in gun, making a hole Sit x 4ft, and burst 7ft from impact, seriously damaging the gun, which had to be replaced, and wrecking the mounting. The tin upper deck was forced down several inches by the explosion and fragments wrecked the galley and canteen inboard of the battery. A large part of the head of the shell was deflected off the upper deck, went through the 1/41n battery rear bulkhead and stopped against the tin C/L bulkhead about 30ft from the burst. It was usual at this time to have 12 charges per 6in gun stowed in the battery in rectangular `W' cases (each containing four charges) for which small racks were provided, and shell fragments penetrated some of these cases and ignited the charges. The resultant cordite fire involved other 6in cartridges in the battery, including those still in their cases which were made of soft-soldered sheet brass and were not fireproof. The whole starboard battery was put out of action for a time with 102 casualties, and all electric cables in the battery were destroyed. Two of the six guns were in action again by 1925.

The flash from the cordite passed down the 6in ammunition hoist into the 6in shell room and was only prevented from igniting a group of 10-6in cartridges, hooked on ready for hoisting, by the prompt action of PO Day and L/S Watson in removing smouldering debris. If these cartridges had ignited, there is little doubt that the forward 6m magazine, above the shell-room, and with two handing scuttles open to the latter, would have exploded, and as this magazine was adjacent to the forward 151n magazines, the loss of the ship must have followed."


Just as Barham...

Warspite: rudder jammed at 1817.

Simple one, rudder remains jammed, the ship is pounded into a wreck and finished off by a destroyer attack.

Princess Royal: hit at 1822.

"On the 9in armour of `X' barbette obliquely on the forward side about 2ft above the upper deck, glanced downwards through the 1 in plating of the latter and burst just below it, about 8ft from impact. A large fragment of the 9in armour measuring 6ft x 20in, was broken off with concentric cracks in the plate, and the fragment was driven through the turntable into the gun-house at the left side of the left gun, coming to rest on the platform at the rear, after hitting an unfused shrapnel shell in the shell-bin. All the crew of the left gun were killed, the breech mechanism damaged and pressure pipes destroyed on the left side, but the gun could still be worked. The turret, however, was out of action, as it was jammed in training by the displacement and distortion of the 9in barbette armour."

Lets have that shell explode, set off a chain reaction and blow up the ship, shall we?

Marlborough: torpedo hit on June 1st, 1052.

U-46's torpedo does not miss and is enough to send the cripple under.

There you go, the RN losses 4 of their most modern BBs and 6 of their BCs, including almost all of the larger ones, a disaster barely changing anything of what actually happened. Now if you want to truly think on terms of a major disaster just have the HSF DD flotillas sent to attack the GF actually find the RN BBs deployed in its night time formation, three neat columns a mile or so apart, giving each launched German torpedo 2 or 3 chances to hit...

Lets keep going:

“Both the 2nd Flotilla and 12th Half-Flotilla encountered British forces earlier than intended and at 2052 the 2nd LCS opened fire on the latter at 3500-5500yds. The destroyers turned away, and the S50 was hit by a 6in shell which did not explode but put one boiler out of action amongst other damage, so that she had to reduce to 25kts and return to the German Fleet. The destroyers made smoke and artificial fog, and the V69 and V46 resumed their course at 2110. In addition to the 2nd LCS, the Benbow fired one salvo of 6in, and a round from `B' turret, while the Valiant believed that the 2nd LCS were firing at a submarine on her starboard bow, for which she altered course”

The 12th HF was down to 3 DDs and 15TTs, but the 2nd Flotilla was the strongest DD formation of the KM, ten 1.400t DDs with 57 usable TTs, oil fired and capable of 37kts. It was literally the worst KM unit a RN BS could face at night, but somehow they missed Benbow’s shot. However, since we are talking about disasters what if they didn’t and recognize it for what it was? What if they try and circle around 2nd LCS and then attack?

Lets say that in bypassing the RN cruisers the 2nd Flotilla loses 2 DDs and with them 11 TTs, plus 3 damaged on other DDs and 5 TTs fired at 2nd LCS, that still leaves 8 DDs with 38 TTs, now they face the 2nd BS, eight 4in-armed Orions and KGVs, no more DDs are lost, but they do take damage and lose 4 torpedoes prior to launching the remaining 34 from 2.000m in high speed setting (37kts, 4 Km max range). At that range each torpedo, minus 2 that malfunction, will get a chance against their intended target and a second one against the 7 BBs of 4th BS which neatly formed the second column barely 1.800m away from 2nd BS.

And now I leave the question open, how many hits do you think the German DDs would get? I am guessing 8 hit on the first column plus 3 on the second, with 3 hits to sink a RN BB outright, 2 hits to doom it and 1 leave it with a 50/50 chance of surviving.

Of course, if you want a true disaster you could load the dice and have 2nd Flotilla attack directly with little or no warning since later on 2nd LCS fell behind uncovering the BBs flank... plus locating the GF opened the door to further attacks by the 21 DDs of the nearby 5th and 7th Flotillas and their 80 torpedoes.

Or a BB night melee, all those secondaries, torpedoes and specially the faster German RoF would make the difference.

DDattackonRNnightformation_zpsb7ee3762.jpg
 
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Saphroneth

Banned
Wait, hold on...
...does this mean that the RN's still slugging it out over an hour after seeing some of their modern BBs go ka-boom the same way the BCs did?
 

JAG88

Banned
Wait, hold on...
...does this mean that the RN's still slugging it out over an hour after seeing some of their modern BBs go ka-boom the same way the BCs did?

Save for Princess Royal this all would have happened before the GF showed up, do you think Jellicoe would have just packed and left?

Did he even know that Beatty had lost 2 ships?

Scheer didnt know Hipper had sank 2... didnt know the GF was at sea until after his 3rd battle turn.
 
Pommern... at Jutland, at night, DDs and their torpedoes are REALLY hard to spot at night which is the scenario postulated.

At Jutland, at night the speed of their targets is really hard to guess if the targets can be seen at all which is not always a given. The target merely needs to be not where it was supposed to be when the torpedoes pass through that point.
 

JAG88

Banned
At Jutland, at night the speed of their targets is really hard to guess if the targets can be seen at all which is not always a given. The target merely needs to be not where it was supposed to be when the torpedoes pass through that point.

...and the GF was neatly staked on 3 paralell lines, one mile apart, so most of those 57 torpedoes will likely get at least a second chance.
 

JAG88

Banned
Ah. One.

You're suggesting... what, four? Five?

Yes, one very appropriate for this discussion, it should have been a massacre, but the RN screwed up the attack, they tried to get in too close instead of launching out of sight of the Germans, they got spotted and the KM let loose with the 15cm sinking several and turning even before the DDs launched. That was something the Germans had trained to avoid.

Lets turn this around, how many times in history did a DD formation fire torpedoes at night against a BB formation that lacked even star shells?
 
Yes, one very appropriate for this discussion, it should have been a massacre, but the RN screwed up the attack, they tried to get in too close instead of launching out of sight of the Germans, they got spotted and the KM let loose with the 15cm sinking several and turning even before the DDs launched. That was something the Germans had trained to avoid.

Lets turn this around, how many times in history did a DD formation fire torpedoes at night against a BB formation that lacked even star shells?


What you mean like the battle we are discussing where the British found it extremely difficult in the dark to actually hit anything with torpedoes....though to be fair they did at least find the Germans which is more than the German destroyer groups did.

The confused and chaotic nature of that night fighting should give you some idea of how hard it was. The Germans for all their supposedly awesome night fighting training not inconsistently only pinpointed British destroyers by literally bumping into them.

Not I don't claim the British did any better, they did not need to though as the night action that did occur clearly show the...what I shall tactfully refer to as the extreme difficulties of mounting a co-ordinated destroyer torpedo attack in the dark.

So your argument is that thwarted by day the German light forces would rise above themselves by night.
 

Saphroneth

Banned
Yes, one very appropriate for this discussion, it should have been a massacre, but the RN screwed up the attack, they tried to get in too close instead of launching out of sight of the Germans, they got spotted and the KM let loose with the 15cm sinking several and turning even before the DDs launched. That was something the Germans had trained to avoid.

Lets turn this around, how many times in history did a DD formation fire torpedoes at night against a BB formation that lacked even star shells?
We have examples from WW2 of Japanese night attacks with torpedoes far more capable than the WW1 German ones. (The famed Long Lance.)

Java Sea. 68 launches, three hits. 2 CL, 1 DD sunk.
Sunda Strait. 37 launches, 5 hits, 5 friendly fire hits. 1 CA lost, one CL sunk.
Savo Island: 45 launches, 7 hits, 1 dud. 2 CA lost, one CA sunk.
Surigao Strait. 20 launches, 0 hits.


So in night launches of torpedoes (fast ones!) a total of 170 launches scored 15 hits.
These hits did not always sink the ships they hit, which were in no cases larger than cruisers, despite the much larger warheads involved.
 

Tyr Anazasi

Banned
We have examples from WW2 of Japanese night attacks with torpedoes far more capable than the WW1 German ones. (The famed Long Lance.)

Java Sea. 68 launches, three hits. 2 CL, 1 DD sunk.
Sunda Strait. 37 launches, 5 hits, 5 friendly fire hits. 1 CA lost, one CL sunk.
Savo Island: 45 launches, 7 hits, 1 dud. 2 CA lost, one CA sunk.
Surigao Strait. 20 launches, 0 hits.


So in night launches of torpedoes (fast ones!) a total of 170 launches scored 15 hits.
These hits did not always sink the ships they hit, which were in no cases larger than cruisers, despite the much larger warheads involved.

Japanese torpedoes were fired on realtive long ranges, ranges no German torpedo of this time had. Also none of these targets were overlapping.
 

JAG88

Banned
What you mean like the battle we are discussing where the British found it extremely difficult in the dark to actually hit anything with torpedoes....though to be fair they did at least find the Germans which is more than the German destroyer groups did.

The confused and chaotic nature of that night fighting should give you some idea of how hard it was. The Germans for all their supposedly awesome night fighting training not inconsistently only pinpointed British destroyers by literally bumping into them.

Not I don't claim the British did any better, they did not need to though as the night action that did occur clearly show the...what I shall tactfully refer to as the extreme difficulties of mounting a co-ordinated destroyer torpedo attack in the dark.

So your argument is that thwarted by day the German light forces would rise above themselves by night.

AS I said, they got so close it became counterproductive, that was the German assessment of their attack.

Night fighting is hard, but the HSF should have been massacred that night, the RN utterly failed in mounting attacks in spite of the HSF sailing literally through them.

The night favors the prepared, the Germans were better prepared for it, and of course it is hard, at the time every position report was off by miles, night made it worse, the GF got away because the DD flotilla assigned to that sector got disorganized when crossing the HSF battleline at night twice so they delayed their deployment, history might have been different...
 

JAG88

Banned
We have examples from WW2 of Japanese night attacks with torpedoes far more capable than the WW1 German ones. (The famed Long Lance.)

Java Sea. 68 launches, three hits. 2 CL, 1 DD sunk.
Sunda Strait. 37 launches, 5 hits, 5 friendly fire hits. 1 CA lost, one CL sunk.
Savo Island: 45 launches, 7 hits, 1 dud. 2 CA lost, one CA sunk.
Surigao Strait. 20 launches, 0 hits.


So in night launches of torpedoes (fast ones!) a total of 170 launches scored 15 hits.
These hits did not always sink the ships they hit, which were in no cases larger than cruisers, despite the much larger warheads involved.

At long and very long ranges... apples to oranges. WW1 RN were FAR more susceptible to underwater damage as Audacious and Marlborough and others proved.
 

Saphroneth

Banned
At long and very long ranges... apples to oranges. WW1 RN were FAR more susceptible to underwater damage as Audacious and Marlborough and others proved.
You mean a WW1 BB is more susceptible to being sunk by one torpedo than a CA half the size being hit by a much heavier warhead?
I'm not sure I agree with that.
(Apart from anything else, Marlborough survived a torpedo hit with her torpedo bulkheads functioning as intended... and Audacious went down to a mine.)
 
AS I said, they got so close it became counterproductive, that was the German assessment of their attack.

Night fighting is hard, but the HSF should have been massacred that night, the RN utterly failed in mounting attacks in spite of the HSF sailing literally through them.

The night favors the prepared, the Germans were better prepared for it, and of course it is hard, at the time every position report was off by miles, night made it worse, the GF got away because the DD flotilla assigned to that sector got disorganized when crossing the HSF battleline at night twice so they delayed their deployment, history might have been different...



So given the technology of the time the Germans found it hard to even avoid their own people, let alone find the enemy, let alone line them up for a torpedo attack...history is unlikely to have been very different in this case... given that Marlborough not only did not sink but kept on fighting you really can at most hope for 1 RN dreadnought being sunk by massed destroyer night attack if that.

At long and very long ranges... apples to oranges. WW1 RN were FAR more susceptible to underwater damage as Audacious and Marlborough and others proved.

Or in this case reality versus unreality, the long lance was an oxygen torpedo that left no wake and so was far less visible than the ones the Germans used in World War One which left a nice shiny white wake clearly visible at night. This means you face targets being able to manoeuvre with intent as well as the normal problem of guessing their direction and speed of movement and angling the torpedoes accordingly.

Plus that three lines of battleships does not mean they will be arranged neatly to give each torpedo salvo two bites of the cherry let alone three means that most of the time you will quite literally be shooting into the dark.
 

JAG88

Banned
You mean a WW1 BB is more susceptible to being sunk by one torpedo than a CA half the size being hit by a much heavier warhead?
I'm not sure I agree with that.
(Apart from anything else, Marlborough survived a torpedo hit with her torpedo bulkheads functioning as intended... and Audacious went down to a mine.)

Yes, a mine is underwater damage, and in this case a quite small mine...

The USN CAs proved to be quite sturdy, Marlborough on the other hand had to withdraw and when some rough weather caught with her and affected a pump and bracings the captain had the escort get ready to take the crew off since the ship was in severe danger of flooding and even capsizing if the engine room gave way.

Seydlitz took a torpedo and spent the day steaming at 20kts+.
 

JAG88

Banned
So given the technology of the time the Germans found it hard to even avoid their own people, let alone find the enemy, let alone line them up for a torpedo attack...history is unlikely to have been very different in this case... given that Marlborough not only did not sink but kept on fighting you really can at most hope for 1 RN dreadnought being sunk by massed destroyer night attack if that.
For MArlborough see above.

The DD flotillas were able to keep together, with exceptions of course.

The KM emphasized surprise, take advantage of the night, not charge in to launch at point blank, a non-maneuvering target is a better target.

Or in this case reality versus unreality, the long lance was an oxygen torpedo that left no wake and so was far less visible than the ones the Germans used in World War One which left a nice shiny white wake clearly visible at night. This means you face targets being able to manoeuvre with intent as well as the normal problem of guessing their direction and speed of movement and angling the torpedoes accordingly.

At night you wont see them soon enough to dodge.

Plus that three lines of battleships does not mean they will be arranged neatly to give each torpedo salvo two bites of the cherry let alone three means that most of the time you will quite literally be shooting into the dark.

A neatly arrangement is not required, some torpedoes will get a second chance, how many depends on the position of the initial target within the line.
 
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