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Post by oldpop2000 on Aug 28, 2019 18:44:12 GMT -6
Andrew Gordon's Rules of the Game: Jutland and British Naval Command discusses the decisions made at Jutland in a good bit of detail. He surmised that 5th Battle Squadron's positioning at the beginning of the battle was indicative of Beatty not expecting to actually find the Germans (there had been many previous sorties with no contact because the Germans had returned to port) and so they were positioned to simplify the transfer of 5BS back to the Grand Fleet when Jellicoe and the Grand Fleet arrived at the rendezvous point with 3rd Battlecruiser Squadron returning to the Battlecruiser force following their gunnery practice at Scapa Flow. And of course, Evan-Thomas had no idea of Beatty's expectations of initiative because they didn't bother to speak to each other after 5BS arrived at Rosyth. It's a fascinating book, I highly recommend it. Getting back to the battlecruisers, D. K. Brown provides some criticism for the early dreadnought armored cruiser designs (prior to November 1911 when the term battlecruiser came into use), particularly Indefatigable. Indefatigable was only slightly more capable than the preceding Invincible-class. I think that is the fundamental flaw of the Anglo dreadnought armored cruiser concept pre -Lion. There was zero consideration for what happens when Germany (or the USA) builds their own large, battleship-caliber armored cruisers. That's not to say that he thinks the German built better ships, on the contrary. If you remove the three battlecruisers that were lost due to abysmal powder handling practices and the removal of flash tight safety doors, and you take into account how badly flawed the British armor piercing shells were, the British ships generally held up better under fire than the German ones did. Of course the Germans can always point to the final tally of ships and men lost. I also don't think that the flawed thinking behind the Invincible and Indefatigable-classes is restricted to just the British Admiralty. You could make the very same accusation about the Alaska-class large cruisers which are very similar in concept to Invincible and Indefatigable. I agree that those two books are great especially Andrew Gordon's, I have both of them. There is no doubt that the tactics used at Jutland were not the tactics that the early battle cruisers were designed to use in a fight. I will say that Beatty was aware that Scheer was at sea, so he had to be prepared for an encounter. The failure to communicate with each other another mistake that can be added to the growing list. It doesn't eliminate the fact that once that Scheer was identified that Beatty had to get the 5th BS into a position to help him, no turn and run away which is what he did. Aggressiveness is a good trait but it must tempered with careful thought. Beatty's mistake..... was the failure to concentrate his forces. In military science its "Surprise , speed and CONCENTRATION". Beatty failed to do the last one. BTW, Evan-Thomas according to his report rang up 24.5 then 25 knots, but the ships would not or could not perform that speed. So they got farther and farther behind.
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Post by rimbecano on Aug 28, 2019 18:50:35 GMT -6
I also don't think that the flawed thinking behind the Invincible and Indefatigable-classes is restricted to just the British Admiralty. You could make the very same accusation about the Alaska-class large cruisers which are very similar in concept to Invincible and Indefatigable. I wouldn't really say that they were, though. 12" guns were simply not capital-grade weapons in 1940. A 1940s equivalent to the Invincible and company would have been a ~60,000 ton ship with 16" or 18" guns and 8" or 9" belt armor. If any capital ship of the 1940s really counted as a battlecruiser, it was the Iowas, which can be seen as broadly similar to the Lions. The closest WWI equivalent to the Alaskas (or their expected opponents, Panzerschiffe, Scharnhorsts, etc.) was probably Blücher.
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Post by bcoopactual on Aug 28, 2019 19:20:54 GMT -6
oldpop2000 , I'm not trying to make excuses for Beatty in the slightest. I agree completely that he should have operated under the assumption that he would see action when it seems he did the opposite. I'm not of fan of Beatty as a commander or a person at all. rimbecano , I'm going to respectfully disagree with you there. I agree that Alaska didn't carry what was considered capital ship armament for its day but it was larger than their intended targets' armament and it was still overgunned for the protection it carried. Its defense was centered around protection only from 8 inch shells. So it would not have stood up well against a peer opponent armed with similar guns like the B-65 or the German P-class cruiser or O-class battlecruisers if they had been built (Yeah, the O-class would have carried full sized battleship caliber guns so that is a little unfair). I'll acknowledge that none of those ships would have handled the 12 inch/50's of the Alaska's either. SMS Blücher was armed with a uniform battery of armored cruiser sized guns (21cm or 8.3 inches) and protected from the same since they had expected Invincible carry a uniform battery of the standard British armored cruiser main armament, the 9.2 in/50 Mark X and XI. Blücher would have been in good shape defensively against HMS Minotaur or even HMS Invincible if it had only been armed with 9.2 inch guns. So in both Invincible/ Indefatigable and Alaska you have ships that were armed in excess of the ships they were designed to destroy (armored cruisers and heavy cruisers respectively) and both were armored only against the armament of their targets instead of their own guns. That means that they would have poor defense against a ship armed with similar weaponry. That's why I say they they had the same underlying philosophy of design and fundamental flaw.
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Post by oldpop2000 on Aug 28, 2019 20:01:32 GMT -6
oldpop2000 , I'm not trying to make excuses for Beatty in the slightest. I agree completely that he should have operated under the assumption that he would see action when it seems he did the opposite. I'm not of fan of Beatty as a commander or a person at all. .... I am fully aware of what you were saying and I can't say that you are entirely wrong. I still subscribe to the concept of the idea of the cardinal sin of historical analysis and that is reductionism---- reducing causes or motives or even effects to a single one. It is an attempt to hide the truth or to simplify the historical events. In this case, the first phase of the Battle of Jutland. The ships in question should never have been in the position they were placed, and I suspect that even the C-in-C probably knew that. But I believe that Beatty knew that, but when he saw a chance for real action, he took it and expanded on it. He failed to concentrate his forces and that was one cause of the loss of the two battlecruisers. There were other causes, and we have expounded on them. I welcome different positions because it force me to get my research information out and reread them. I have the original Jutland messages in complete along with many other original Royal Navy internal documents. I had to reread them to ensure that I was correct in my ideas. Thanks for not just accepting everything I say, make me research and think about them. I appreciate it.
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Post by oldpop2000 on Aug 29, 2019 0:00:30 GMT -6
Here is another event or cause for what happened in the first phase of the Jutland battle. The British light forces had seen smoke to the east at 1439 hrs. About this same time, Galatea had reported the smoke. The British forces were superior to the German forces and should have driven them in. However, it was one hour before Beatty knew the character of the forces which were making the smoke. The real problem was the positioning of the light forces. Scheer's forces were withdrawing to the NW and Beatty through lack of information turned to the NE to get behind them but instead met them head on. Why? Because his light cruisers had started running toward Galatea instead of performing their duty has screens. The screening force is supposed to stay between the main force and the enemy force to provide accurate information as lat-long, range, course, speed and size of the opposing force. They violated the principle of the objective and security. They were the eyes of the BC fleet but they left their station to reinforce the Galatea. This was a mistake and Beatty's lack of information was important. However, he knew by 1432 that his screen was in action so he was aware of some enemy force. A large one at that. Galatea's report had said "large amount of smoke as though from a fleet". Beatty turned at 1432 which was 22 minutes too late and 12 minutes after he was absolutely certain as to the enemies presence. However, as we have seen, the battleships did not turn until 8 minutes later. Beatty as soon as he was certain that a large force was in front of him, should have concentrated his forces. He could have done this on the first report, which was at 1410. This failure of the light forces and Beatty's had direct bearing on the result of the BC engagement.
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Post by oldpop2000 on Aug 29, 2019 11:07:30 GMT -6
We have presented some great sources. I have a few that are unique. The first is a copy of a lecture By Admiral Reeves about Jutland in May 1925. It is excellent. It was available at the Naval War College and is still free for all. Reeves was the father of US Naval Aviation and was killed in the crash of an airship. There is another by LC Frost which is a diagrammatic study of the Battle. This one was dated 1921. The next one is great. It is the Official Dispatches with Appendices on the Battle of Jutland from 30th May to 1st June 1916. The last is Jutland Messages. This document has both German and British arranged by TOR or time of Receipt and TOD or time of Dispatch. The former is the German messages and the latter is British dispatches. They alternate one then the other. This is a compilation from The Department of Operations, US Naval War College dated 1932. The last is a free book from Google books titled "The Battle of Jutland Bank May 31-June 1, 1916 The dispatches of Admiral Sir John Jellicoe and Vice-Admiral Sir David Beatty. This book is dated 1916 from the Oxford University Press.
I Just wanted to give you some of the sources that I've used besides the ones already presented. They are all excellent sources.
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Post by oldpop2000 on Aug 30, 2019 12:17:13 GMT -6
Now here is something I hadn't considered. The Hood was the only battle cruiser sunk by a battleship but Hood was also the only battle cruiser to sink a battleship. Bretagne at Mers el Kabir where Hood hit the French ship and she blew up.
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Post by bobert on Aug 30, 2019 12:50:59 GMT -6
I thought it was Prinz Eugen that landed the killing blow v Hood? I live in Victoria BC and there's some cool pics of Hood and Renown tied up in our harbour in the twenties. Majestic looking ships anyway. Rule Britannia!
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Post by oldpop2000 on Aug 30, 2019 13:27:11 GMT -6
I thought it was Prinz Eugen that landed the killing blow v Hood? I live in Victoria BC and there's some cool pics of Hood and Renown tied up in our harbour in the twenties. Majestic looking ships anyway. Rule Britannia! Most experts haven't agreed on whether the golden BB was from Eugen or Bismarck.
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Post by rimbecano on Aug 30, 2019 13:56:05 GMT -6
I thought it was Prinz Eugen that landed the killing blow v Hood? I live in Victoria BC and there's some cool pics of Hood and Renown tied up in our harbour in the twenties. Majestic looking ships anyway. Rule Britannia! If a direct 15" magazine penetration was the cause, it had to be from Bismark, as Prinz Eugen was no longer firing. If the cause was something that took longer to develop, Prinz Eugen may have done the fatal damage. It is generally, but by no means universally, agreed that a direct penetration of a 15" magazine occurred.
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Post by oldpop2000 on Aug 30, 2019 14:25:58 GMT -6
I thought it was Prinz Eugen that landed the killing blow v Hood? I live in Victoria BC and there's some cool pics of Hood and Renown tied up in our harbour in the twenties. Majestic looking ships anyway. Rule Britannia! If a direct 15" magazine penetration was the cause, it had to be from Bismark, as Prinz Eugen was no longer firing. If the cause was something that took longer to develop, Prinz Eugen may have done the fatal damage. It is generally, but by no means universally, agreed that a direct penetration of a 15" magazine occurred. In the summer of 2001, the wreckage was found and the hopes were that this would lead to the determination of what caused the explosive hit. It hasn't, all it has done is create more controversy. The witnesses stated that the explosion seemed to occur near the mainmast aft, which would be forward of the after magazines. But witnesses, in heat of combat, could have been mistaken. Jurens states that, barring more evidence, the final blast probably was a hit by a 380mm projectile from Bismarck which penetrated the engine room and then the magazine and slowly the fire broke the ship apart until the main explosion. But even Jurens is not entirely certain and new evidence has not change anything, just cluttered it up. Bismarck is gone, as we know. Prinz Eugen was a target ship at Bikini and she survived two bomb blasts. She was decommissioned in 1946 but she eventually sank in Kwajalein Harbor. My father told me she actually wasn't that damageD that he could see but she was very radioactive so they could not get too close to her.
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Post by rimbecano on Aug 30, 2019 16:32:31 GMT -6
Bismarck is gone, as we know. Prinz Eugen was a target ship at Bikini and she survived two bomb blasts. She was decommissioned in 1946 but she eventually sank in Kwajalein Harbor. My father told me she actually wasn't that damageD that he could see but she was very radioactive so they could not get too close to her. Crossroads Able was July 1st, Crossroads Baker was July 25th, the ship was decommissioned in August and sank on December 22. So yeah, apart from radiation, and the fact that the Navy had gotten her to keep her out of Soviet hands and wasn't keen on actually keeping her, she would have been very well salvageable. Arkansas on the other hand... EDIT: In fact, one thing I'm reading suggests that Prinz Eugen was not leaking any more quickly than is normal for a completely undamaged ship and that she sank because nobody was brought aboard to run the bilge pumps.
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Post by oldpop2000 on Aug 30, 2019 17:00:07 GMT -6
Bismarck is gone, as we know. Prinz Eugen was a target ship at Bikini and she survived two bomb blasts. She was decommissioned in 1946 but she eventually sank in Kwajalein Harbor. My father told me she actually wasn't that damageD that he could see but she was very radioactive so they could not get too close to her. Crossroads Able was July 1st, Crossroads Baker was July 25th, the ship was decommissioned in August and sank on December 22. So yeah, apart from radiation, and the fact that the Navy had gotten her to keep her out of Soviet hands and wasn't keen on actually keeping her, she would have been very well salvageable. Arkansas on the other hand... Test Able was a bomb that was exploded above the USS Nevada at an altitude of 520 FT., Test Baker was suspended below an LST. I have a picture in my Dad's Operation Crossroads book of Test Baker with the Arkansas as a dark spot on the right side. The caption on the photo is a "tree grows in Bikini". He had interesting stories to tell about the Operation. He barely made it home for my birth in December. The ship that he was assigned to was the USS Badoeng Strait which was carrying one of the bombs.
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