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Post by ulzgoroth on Aug 25, 2019 18:53:06 GMT -6
And you are using hindsight glasses; shortly before WW1 Fisher, IIRC, helped get rid of pike drills. The last naval fights had been at close range with flat trajectory guns. Fisher, in 1904, not realizing combat was going to be at ranges that were unheard of when he was a cadet are forgivable in my eyes. I never said anything about range, and, in fact it was vertical protection where the British battlecruisers were lacking, which would mean they would have been most vulnerable at the ranges where previous engagements had taken place. And Fisher's problem wasn't failing to anticipate the ranges at which future combat would take place; that trend was a large part of the rationale behind his ideas. His problem was that he worked out what the effect of his designs on existing fleets would be, but not what would happen when the rest of the world started building similar ships. Doesn't the threat of other people building battlecruisers only make it more imperative to build your own?
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Post by oldpop2000 on Aug 25, 2019 19:02:06 GMT -6
And you are using hindsight glasses; shortly before WW1 Fisher, IIRC, helped get rid of pike drills. The last naval fights had been at close range with flat trajectory guns. Fisher, in 1904, not realizing combat was going to be at ranges that were unheard of when he was a cadet are forgivable in my eyes. There's a fair bit of evidence that Fisher was thinking of trade protection when he pushed the BC. My main impression of this is from Friedman's Network-Centric Warfare, which talks about Fisher's concept of using BCs as the core of a BC and scouting cruiser line to protect trade. Interestingly, by 1905 almost all navies realized that the battleship and the armored cruiser were closing in on each other. In 1902 the board at the Royal Naval College compared a fast battleship with reduced armor and armament to a more conventional battleship. According to Royal Navy records they used the USS Tennessee class with four 10 inch guns and 22 knots as a model. Fisher told the Committee on Designs that he wanted ships armed with 12in guns, armored like the current armored cruisers and capable of 25 knots. He saw that this ship could have a battlefleet function. He believed that the new armored cruiser design was far more qualified to stay in the line of battle if needed. As to the idea of protecting trade, he believed that they would be able to improve on this naval mission with their better speed and gun power than the standard armored cruiser. This was proven in WW1 with the Falkland Island campaign and destruction of the German East Asian fleet. The battle cruiser was to have three functions: A super-fast scout cruiser; fast enough to hunt down the fastest armed merchant raiders which included the 23 knot German transatlantic lines; operate on the wings of the fleet reinforcing the van or the rear of the fleet. www.dreadnoughtproject.org/tfs/index.php/The_Battle_Cruiser_in_the_Royal_Navy
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Post by rimbecano on Aug 25, 2019 19:32:21 GMT -6
Doesn't the threat of other people building battlecruisers only make it more imperative to build your own? Very much so. But it also makes it imperative that you build a battlecruiser that's built for fighting other battlecruisers, not for fighting CLs and legacy CAs. The Germans did that (though they left room for refinement). The British didn't.
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Post by oldpop2000 on Aug 25, 2019 20:15:43 GMT -6
Doesn't the threat of other people building battlecruisers only make it more imperative to build your own? Very much so. But it also makes it imperative that you build a battlecruiser that's built for fighting other battlecruisers, not for fighting CLs and legacy CAs. The Germans did that (though they left room for refinement). The British didn't. I understand your reasoning that the British did not build battle cruisers to fight other battle cruisers but that is not entirely true. Ship specifications are developed by requirements and those requirements are a function of your doctrine and needs. The British failures at Jutland were a function of poor ordnance handling and a little too much aggressive attitude on the part of Beatty. He should have ensured that the 5th Battleship squadron was in position to add to his strength. He did not due to poor signaling and some other reasons. German battle cruisers were better armored, had better ordnance handling after Dogger Bank and better fire control but more importantly better handling by their commander. We know that other British battle cruisers like Lion suffered the same hits and survived. The loss of the battle cruisers was the early, first generation ships. The later ships were much better and of course the QE class were far in away better than many of the German warships. So, I honestly would not say that the Germans built their battle cruisers to fight the British, they both did. There were other extenuating factors that caused the losses.
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Post by rimbecano on Aug 26, 2019 6:37:59 GMT -6
The British failures at Jutland were a function of poor ordnance handling and a little too much aggressive attitude on the part of Beatty. He should have ensured that the 5th Battleship squadron was in position to add to his strength. He did not due to poor signaling and some other reasons. German battle cruisers were better armored, had better ordnance handling after Dogger Bank and better fire control but more importantly better handling by their commander. We know that other British battle cruisers like Lion suffered the same hits and survived. The loss of the battle cruisers was the early, first generation ships. The later ships were much better and of course the QE class were far in away better than many of the German warships. So, I honestly would not say that the Germans built their battle cruisers to fight the British, they both did. There were other extenuating factors that caused the losses. Ordinance handling was certainly a factor in the losses (as was just plain bad powder), and Beatty's mishandling of 5th Battle Squadron certainly contributed to the first two losses (the third happened during the main fleet engagement), but all of the British BCs completed prior to Jutland could still have suffered direct magazine penetrations that no amount of good ordnance handling or stable powder would have helped. Yes, the later ships were better armored, but not enough to eliminate direct magazine penetration as a serious risk (except of course for the QEs, which weren't BCs). I'm not saying that the British losses at Jutland were the result of the BCs being poorly designed. I'm saying that the British BCs were exposed to additional risk of propellant fires by poor design choices. Just because no hits that made that vulnerability relevant occurred at Dogger Bank or Jutland doesn't mean that the vulnerability wasn't there. Jutland woke the RN up enough that the Admiral class was significantly better designed, but then the march of time meant that by WWII Hood was no longer adequately protected, and the naval treaties meant that she had not yet been replaced. EDIT: And I think this post really answers what decourcy2 said to me upthread: And you are using hindsight glasses; When it comes down to it, it's not what happened at Jutland that makes me feel that British BCs were poorly designed. If you play the Dogger Bank scenario in SAI, it's fairly easy to press the attack as the Germans and win. It's much more difficult to do so as the British, and it's not even really so much about propellant fires either. Machinery casualties mount up quickly, and it can soon be a matter of retreating / allowing the Germans to retreat, or having your remaining ships in good condition defeated in detail. Even in the real Dogger Bank, Lion got mauled fairly badly machinery-wise ("salt water enters feed tanks!", among other issues), and was dead in the water at one point after the battle. I'd say that Dogger Bank, as it happened, was in the 80th or 90th percentile in terms of good outcomes for the British for that scenario. There were more ways it could have gone wrong than gone right. Jutland probably would have gone much worse for Beatty if the meetup of the battlecruiser forces were the same but neither fleet had its main body present, such that the run to the south continued indefinitely. Hipper would most likely have mauled him, even without any propellant fires.
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Post by oldpop2000 on Aug 26, 2019 11:21:38 GMT -6
If we examine the first two battle cruiser actions, the ships performed well, doing the job they were designed to do. At Dogger Bank, the battle cruisers did sink one German armored cruiser but the battle cruisers got away. It probably gave the British a good feeling that their designs were more than up to the task, but as we know, Jutland would disprove that. The German's learned from this action about the ordnance handing problems and fixed those problems.
At Jutland, the battle cruisers were performing their function as scouts ahead of the main battle fleet. The real failure in the designs was that the horizontal plates were not all 2.5 in. This was a problem because the increased range of the guns meant that the engagements would be at greater ranges which meant the ships would be more likely to be struck by plunging fire. The only way around this was to close the range as fast as possible and eliminate this problem. The British doctrine was to fire quickly, and close the range but in the time between the first sighting and the point where the range had now flattened out of the trajectory of the shells, the ships were vulnerable to plunging fire and the poor handling of ordnance due to the need for high volumes of fire, were contributing factors to the destruction of the ships. Another issue is that Beatty just did not understand the construction of the ships very well, he was noted for not being a hands on admiral. So, his battle tactics were faulty in that they increased the risk for the ships. The addition of the 5th Battleship Squadron should have given him an advantage had they been used properly and put into a position in the formation where they could open up on the German battle cruisers early, possibly causing Hipper to turn away, thereby giving the advantage of position to Beatty.
The point is that we can't assume that there was one or two problems that contributed to the loss of ships. There were many problems and these all contributed to the loss of the ships. The thin deck armor was a contributing factor, the poor ordnance handling, the highly sensitive cordite and the poor storage of it, faulty tactics and an enemy with stronger ships and better fire control. These are all the factors that contributed. Without any one of these, and those ships might have survived.
But as usual, 20/20 hindsight is the best vision in the world however, the British did have a battle at Dogger Bank with which to judge the protection of the ships and the best tactics. Also, did the Royal Naval War College game out this scenario? Our war college did game out many scenarios and our fleet problems did change how we viewed fleet actions to help us design better ships and use better tactics. You fight like your train.
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Post by blackvoid on Aug 27, 2019 16:30:47 GMT -6
The point is that we can't assume that there was one or two problems that contributed to the loss of ships. There were many problems and these all contributed to the loss of the ships. The thin deck armor was a contributing factor, the poor ordnance handling, the highly sensitive cordite and the poor storage of it, faulty tactics and an enemy with stronger ships and better fire control. These are all the factors that contributed. Without any one of these, and those ships might have survived. Considering that Adm. Tudor's report specifically blamed Jellicoe and Beatty for unsafe cordite handling practices and Tudor was sent to China station as a "promotion", I think both Jellicoe and Beatty knew exactly what was main contributing factor to BC disaster. Here is the quotation with bold to emphasise the deck armor issue. "I am in full agreement with D.N.C. as to the cause of the explosions in our Battle and Armoured Cruisers. There is no evidence to show that any enemy shell penetrated to the magazines of our ships, on the contrary the immunity of engine and boiler rooms generally, points to exactly the opposite conclusion. On the other hand there can be no doubt that the amount of exposed cordite about the ships was enormous and that as regards turrets, if bare charges were permitted to remain in the handing rooms, as there is every reason to believe was the case, these must have furnished trains of explosives to the magazines. The very narrow escape of "LION" from blowing up affords an immediate explanation of the disasters which occurred to the other ships. Even with the precautions which have been taken since the action, I do not feel that we are safe without more efficient control of the ammunition parties, who are, in most ships, I have little doubt, in isolated positions without Officers. This is due not only to the unavoidable stringency in Officers, but also because such an abnormal number are required for control of fire. The question of Officering the ammunition supply parties is one which has caused me grave concern for over 25 years, but the difficulty seems to be almost insuperable. One of the most unfortunate results of this Battle has possible [sic] been to give a false idea as to the necessity and value of armour protection; we should all like to have as much armour as possible, but for every ton we add some other feature of the design has to be sacrificed.
The "RENOWN" and "REPULSE" for example, for which such exertions and sacrifices have been made, will now be demobilised for many weeks and then speed and draught will never be what they were designed for.
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Post by oldpop2000 on Aug 27, 2019 16:51:34 GMT -6
The point is that we can't assume that there was one or two problems that contributed to the loss of ships. There were many problems and these all contributed to the loss of the ships. The thin deck armor was a contributing factor, the poor ordnance handling, the highly sensitive cordite and the poor storage of it, faulty tactics and an enemy with stronger ships and better fire control. These are all the factors that contributed. Without any one of these, and those ships might have survived. Considering that Adm. Tudor's report specifically blamed Jellicoe and Beatty for unsafe cordite handling practices and Tudor was sent to China station as a "promotion", I think both Jellicoe and Beatty knew exactly what was main contributing factor to BC disaster. Here is the quotation with bold to emphasise the deck armor issue. "I am in full agreement with D.N.C. as to the cause of the explosions in our Battle and Armoured Cruisers. There is no evidence to show that any enemy shell penetrated to the magazines of our ships, on the contrary the immunity of engine and boiler rooms generally, points to exactly the opposite conclusion. On the other hand there can be no doubt that the amount of exposed cordite about the ships was enormous and that as regards turrets, if bare charges were permitted to remain in the handing rooms, as there is every reason to believe was the case, these must have furnished trains of explosives to the magazines. The very narrow escape of "LION" from blowing up affords an immediate explanation of the disasters which occurred to the other ships. Even with the precautions which have been taken since the action, I do not feel that we are safe without more efficient control of the ammunition parties, who are, in most ships, I have little doubt, in isolated positions without Officers. This is due not only to the unavoidable stringency in Officers, but also because such an abnormal number are required for control of fire. The question of Officering the ammunition supply parties is one which has caused me grave concern for over 25 years, but the difficulty seems to be almost insuperable. One of the most unfortunate results of this Battle has possible [sic] been to give a false idea as to the necessity and value of armour protection; we should all like to have as much armour as possible, but for every ton we add some other feature of the design has to be sacrificed.
The "RENOWN" and "REPULSE" for example, for which such exertions and sacrifices have been made, will now be demobilised for many weeks and then speed and draught will never be what they were designed for. The letter that Admiral Frederick Tudor, who at the time was the Third Sea Lord, was originally written and submitted By Sir David Beatty to the Permanent Secretary to the Board of Admiralty on July 14,1916. The letter also went to the D.N.O. and D.N.C. before being sent to Admiral Tudor. Just to same space, here is a link with the letter and different comments by other British Royal Navy personnel- www.dreadnoughtproject.org/tfs/index.php/A_Direct_Train_of_CorditeI think what is at work is a cover-up to protect the officers in command of the ships, and the doctrine of the British Royal Navy. There is a book titled "The Jutland Scandal" by Vice-Admiral John Harper and Admiral Reginald Bacon. Excellent book.
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Post by oldpop2000 on Aug 27, 2019 20:51:52 GMT -6
I did some research on the 5th Battle Squadron that had been assigned to Beatty to replace the Invincible, Indomitable and Inflexible who were absent. The ships in that squadron, while they mounted 15-inch guns and were very heavily armored, were also 3 knots slower than the battle cruisers that Beatty was used to having and had developed tactics for. For Beatty, this could have been a problem. You have trained with battle cruisers that will do about 27 knots but now, you have a squadron of ships that can only manage 24 knots approximately. How does that change your tactics? Could that added variable have affected is battle tactics and strategy causing some of the issues that resulted in the loss of two of his battle cruisers. Possibly.
Another issue is that the battle cruisers did not engage one of the German battle cruisers and left it alone. I believe that it was Von Der Tann. It was the fire from her that sank HMS Indefatigable. Amazingly enough, the same mistake occurred between Hood and Bismarck as Hood engaged Prinz Eugen and not Bismarck. Interesting.
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Post by blackvoid on Aug 28, 2019 14:44:51 GMT -6
"There is a book titled "The Jutland Scandal" by Vice-Admiral John Harper and Admiral Reginald Bacon. Excellent book."
Thanks, i'll check it out. I have a book about dives on Jutland wrecks. There is a photo of cordite cases in the BC turret.
I also remember reading about Hood, can't recall where, one of the theories, that 8" round from Prince Oigen hit ready AA ammo, which ignited the ammo train for AA, which ignited the main caliber gunpowder bags stacked near rear turret in the passageways. Guy did a timestamp combatants' plot and firing trajectories. And at the time Hood brewed up, it was PO in position to hit where Hood was hit.
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Post by oldpop2000 on Aug 28, 2019 15:06:09 GMT -6
"There is a book titled "The Jutland Scandal" by Vice-Admiral John Harper and Admiral Reginald Bacon. Excellent book." Thanks, i'll check it out. I have a book about dives on Jutland wrecks. There is a photo of cordite cases in the BC turret. I also remember reading about Hood, can't recall where, one of the theories, that 8" round from Prince Oigen hit ready AA ammo, which ignited the ammo train for AA, which ignited the main caliber gunpowder bags stacked near rear turret in the passageways. Guy did a timestamp combatants' plot and firing trajectories. And at the time Hood brewed up, it was PO in position to hit where Hood was hit. Here is a link to an examination by William Jurens about the loss of the Hood - www.navweaps.com/index_inro/INRO_Hood.php4A quote - The best guess is that the shot that ignited the powder was from Bismarck but I don't think we will ever really know. www.hmshood.com/history/denmarkstrait/resource.htm
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Post by aardvark on Aug 28, 2019 15:24:43 GMT -6
I did some research on the 5th Battle Squadron that had been assigned to Beatty to replace the Invincible, Indomitable and Inflexible who were absent. The ships in that squadron, while they mounted 15-inch guns and were very heavily armored, were also 3 knots slower than the battle cruisers that Beatty was used to having and had developed tactics for. For Beatty, this could have been a problem. You have trained with battle cruisers that will do about 27 knots but now, you have a squadron of ships that can only manage 24 knots approximately. How does that change your tactics? Could that added variable have affected is battle tactics and strategy causing some of the issues that resulted in the loss of two of his battle cruisers. Possibly. It wasn't the 3 knot difference that posed the problem. It was the failure of communications between Beatty and Evan-Thomas that led to poor coordination. Beatty didn't inform Evan-Thomas what he was up to, and Evan-Thomas didn't show the initiative that Beatty expected from his sub-commanders (probably because he hadn't been training with the BC fleet.)
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Post by oldpop2000 on Aug 28, 2019 16:44:42 GMT -6
I did some research on the 5th Battle Squadron that had been assigned to Beatty to replace the Invincible, Indomitable and Inflexible who were absent. The ships in that squadron, while they mounted 15-inch guns and were very heavily armored, were also 3 knots slower than the battle cruisers that Beatty was used to having and had developed tactics for. For Beatty, this could have been a problem. You have trained with battle cruisers that will do about 27 knots but now, you have a squadron of ships that can only manage 24 knots approximately. How does that change your tactics? Could that added variable have affected is battle tactics and strategy causing some of the issues that resulted in the loss of two of his battle cruisers. Possibly. It wasn't the 3 knot difference that posed the problem. It was the failure of communications between Beatty and Evan-Thomas that led to poor coordination. Beatty didn't inform Evan-Thomas what he was up to, and Evan-Thomas didn't show the initiative that Beatty expected from his sub-commanders (probably because he hadn't been training with the BC fleet.) Well, Beatty's report states that after the first news of the enemy ships at 15:30 hrs. he increased the speed to 25 knots. The 5th Battle Squadron could only do 24 knots and they were still 10,000 yards away when he made that move so there was no way for them to catch up unless he slowed down to allow that to happen.
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Post by oldpop2000 on Aug 28, 2019 17:11:26 GMT -6
The Design RIII which was the final approved design of the QE class, the speed estimate was 25 knots. That was an estimate. Without an overload on her engines, she did 22 knots, but overload was 25 knots. Overload was not good on the engines and was generally resisted unless an emergency was called. QE speed was not recorded in her trials but they were for Barham and the speed was 23.91 Knots. So, the maximum speed was about 23.91 but the best speed with normal power was 22 knots. The battle cruisers could do at least 25 knots easy and were at at that speed when Admiral Beatty signaled his turn.
another interesting bit news, After QE and Warspite had returned from the Dardanelles to the Scapa Flow base, the C-in-C had enough information to informed Beatty that "Warspite is only good for about 23.5 knots - No use to you " This is from the Jellicoe Papers. The 5th Battle Squadron was never supposed to actually support Beatty but be their own force. Jellicoe(C-in-C) stated "the ruling principle is that the fleet as a whole keeps together; attempted attacks by a division or a squadron on a portion of the enemy's line being avoided as liable to lead to the isolation of the ships which attempt the movement". In other words, what ever the difference in speed, the 5th Battle Squadron had to stay with the Beatty. Beatty requested the 5th Battle Squadron be stationed at Rosyth by Jellicoe disagreed because he felt "Beatty was laboring under a misapprehension of the speed of the Fifth Battle Squadron. The squadron had not carried out any measured mile trials and Jellicoe had been informed by the builders that their speed would not exceed 23.5 knots. Jellicoe states clearly" Under these conditions, I am very doubtful whether the Fifth Battle Squadron would, as suggested by you, afford any material support to the battlecruisers in an offensive operation". Beatty contended that if they reduced their fuel load by 1000 tons, they could get to 25 knots. This however was only true if the Fifth was close to the 3rd Battle Cruiser squadron. The answer was simply that at a range of 10,000 yards or 10 miles, those battleships would never be able to catch up to or stay with the Battle Cruiser when they went to high speed which the did at around 1530 hrs.
So, in the end, what actually was the problem. Well, initially the 5th BS was six miles to the NW and when Beatty decided to turn to the SE, the signal was sent by flag to the fleet but at six miles, Barham could not see the flags. This was Beatty's mistake because he never waited until the 5th closed on him and in fact, I don't believe he sent the message to close. By this time, radio silence was out the door, because the light cruisers had already engaged Scheer, so they knew Beatty was out there. Beatty should have radioed and got a verification from Evan-Thomas that he was increasing speed and closing. At this time, Beatty should have waited until the 5th BS was within sight and closing, then increased speed and turned. The way he did it, only caused the 5th BS to get even farther behind, specifically 10 miles before Evan-Thomas realized that Beatty had turned. Another issue is that the 5th BS had not trained or even practiced with the 3rd BC squadron at all.
So, was speed important? Well, the C-in-C obviously felt it was and event proved him correct. If Beatty had done it correct, the 5th could have engaged Scheer and possibly done some real damage to his ships, the Beatty could have closed and possible the events might have gone a different way. But speed did play and important part in the destruction of those ships.
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Post by bcoopactual on Aug 28, 2019 18:20:55 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.
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