Post by exltcmts on Jul 22, 2022 8:08:56 GMT -6
It is high time to stop perpetuating the myth that three British battlecruisers blew up at Jutland due to failures in the protective scheme, especially among those interested in naval warfare. Since 1979, when the "Fifty Year Rule" expired for British government files on the design of British battlecruisers and their performance at Jutland were declassified, it has become known that the three battlecruisers blew up not because their magazines were penetrated, but because of (as Norman Friedman puts it) "suicidal ammunition handling procedures. Procedures unofficially permitted by Beatty as Commander, Battlecruiser Squadron, though not confined to the battlecruisers.
Beatty came out of Dogger Bank convinced that a few more hits would have slowed the German Scouting Squadron sufficiently for him to encompass its destruction. He believed that a higher rate of fire was necessary to get those hits in the next battle. It should be noted that if the armor schemes of the British battlecruisers was deficient, why didn't ANY of them blow up at Dogger Bank?
The result was an unofficial level of ignoring safe ammunition handling procedures, the level varying from ship to ship. It went from having some powder bags out of their protective metal Clarkson storage cans for quicker access to stacking shells and powder bags out of the cans from the turret to the magazine throughout the barbette structure to wiring flashtight flaps open and removing magazine doors. When divers reached the HMS Queen Mary in 1989, they found powder bags strewn across the wreck around and within the undamaged turrets. AS the DNC pointed out, not a single battlecruiser had its machinery damaged or destroyed through a penetrating hit through the even weaker deck armor over the engineering spaces. Any study of the range and bearing and the performance of German guns and shells (which was almost as abysmal as the performance of the British shells, though the problem was the fuse and not the filler) at the time these battlecruisers blew up do not support the contention that it was their armor schemes at fault.
The result of these ammunition handling procedures was that any non-penetrating hit on a turret or barbette which created incandescent fragments on the inner side of the plate would likely hit an unprotected bag of Cordite. Later studies and experiments showed that the Cordite produced in WW1 up to 1917, both tended to produce free glycerine and gas if not correctly stored, especially in magazines near the engineering spaces and in large quantities if out of the protective cans would blow up instead of burn. The line of unprotected powder bags and the removal of flash devices would go right down to the magazine, a powder train that the fragments would ignite.
Jellicoe recognized this immediately after the battle and issued a directive to all ships to follow standard ammunition handling procedures. An Admiralty inquiry into the situation found both Jellicoe and Beatty negligent and recommended they receive letters of admonishment for their actions. This and the DNC's report were all buried when Jellicoe became First Sea Lord and Beatty stepped up to command the Grand Fleet. The chairman of the inquiry was sent off to the China Station until his retirement at the end of the war. It even went as far as Beatty, as First Lord, having the official history rewritten. Thanks to the "Fifty Year" Rule this was all covered up until 1977 and the party line was that "there seemed to be something wrong with our ships".
This leads us to the "white elephants", both the British "Renown" and "Courageous" classes and the USN's "Lexington" class. The "Courageous" class were NOT battlecruisers. They were exactly what they were designated, "large light cruisers" (remember that "heavy cruiser" as a designation was at least a decade away). They were designed purposely to support the British light forces in the plan to force the Skaggerak and push British naval forces and a British Army landing force into the Baltic. Even with the abandonment of the scheme, if used correctly, they could have enhanced the Grand Fleet's scouting forces or the light forces operating into the Channel. Given what we know now about Jutland, one has to ask, if the German 28cm and 30.5cm guns were not a threat to the magazines of the earlier British battlecruisers at the ranges these ships were designed to engage at, then the only Imperial German capital ships with guns dangerous to them at 20,000 yds would have been the two "Baden" class BBs with their 38cm guns. They could have operated on the flank of the Battlecruiser Squadron (Fleet) as a "fast" force, operating toward the front of the German Scouting Force, crossing the "T", where they would be even less vulnerable.
As far as the USN's "Lexington" class goes, always remember that their mission was operational level scouting for the US Fleet's battle line, NOT engaging IJN battleships. That is why they were classified as CC, large scouting cruisers. The RN gave the COMPLETE, unadulterated info package on the Battle of Jutland. Despite the design probably being able to handle another 8,000 tons, the USN, keeping in mind the operational mission of these ships made little change to these ships beyond giving them the best guns and fire control available. They would have had the fully mature, nearly automated AC powered fire control system with guns able to reach out to 40K yds with aerial spotting, with plenty of space on the quarterdeck under the No.3 turret for hangers and catapults for VO aircraft. They would have been faster than any known IJN capital ship in service or building. Their only competition as far as the USN knew in 1920-22, was the "Kongo" class. The Kongo class carried a "pre-Jutland" protective scheme in thicknesses less than that of the "Lexington" class (for the most part), had 14" guns with a maximum engagement range of the visual horizon (24-25K yds) and a speed of 26 knots. Six "Lexington" class ships against four "Kongo" class. Ammunition handling and compartmentation would have also been superior to the "Kongo" class. The "Lexington" class was designed for completion with the "Omaha" class scouting cruisers, again superior to anything in the IJN at the time, and a class of 8" gun armed scouting cruisers, which is why the USN so readily agreed to the 10,000 ton, 8" gun limits "auxiliary" warships under the Washington Treaty. They're job was to fight their way through the Japanese screen, find the IJN battle line and get out and report. If opportunity presented itself, they could add their fire to the battle line. If there was an issue, it was the rise of the fast aircraft carrier as a competitor and replacement for the large scouting cruiser as an daylight OPERATIONAL recon asset. In bad weather or at night, before radar, the USN would still have needed something like the "Lexington" class to scout for the battle line.
As far as HMS Hood, NO one has come up with a definitive answer to her loss.
HMS Hood's protective scheme was a slightly improved version of the "Revenge" class battleship, which was a variation of the scheme used by the Queen Elizabeth class, an evolutionary line of development going back past the Iron Duke class. when she was completed in 1920, she was as well protected as any British battleship and only the USN's "Big Five" had better horizonal protection. The "Queen Elizabeth" class in its unmodified form took a pounding at Jutland, especially HMS Warspite, at "Windy Corner". None of them blew up. The loss of the HMS Hood was definitely not due to the suicidal ammunition handling procedures of the Battlecruiser Squadron at Jutland and her powder was more stable than the WW1 cordite. Analysis of the range and bearing of KMS Bismarck and the known performance of her 38cm SKC/34 guns preclude a direct penetration of the protective scheme to the magazine. There have been many postulated scenarios including exploding torpedo warheads, for her explosion. Yet none exactly fit what we do know of the incident. As far as simulation, I have played through the Battle of Denmark Straights with minatures rules, hex maps and counters and on computers thousands of times, including the two best, NWS mod of "Fighting Steel" and Alan Zimm's "Action Stations" without getting the historical result. During the Vietnam War, the US pilots talked about the "Golden BB". This was a hit from a weapon which by all measures should not have inflicted damage on an aircraft, yet somehow caused a cascading series of failures leading to loss of hydraulics and/or engines and thus of the aircraft. This may have been HMS Hood's "Golden BB".
Beatty came out of Dogger Bank convinced that a few more hits would have slowed the German Scouting Squadron sufficiently for him to encompass its destruction. He believed that a higher rate of fire was necessary to get those hits in the next battle. It should be noted that if the armor schemes of the British battlecruisers was deficient, why didn't ANY of them blow up at Dogger Bank?
The result was an unofficial level of ignoring safe ammunition handling procedures, the level varying from ship to ship. It went from having some powder bags out of their protective metal Clarkson storage cans for quicker access to stacking shells and powder bags out of the cans from the turret to the magazine throughout the barbette structure to wiring flashtight flaps open and removing magazine doors. When divers reached the HMS Queen Mary in 1989, they found powder bags strewn across the wreck around and within the undamaged turrets. AS the DNC pointed out, not a single battlecruiser had its machinery damaged or destroyed through a penetrating hit through the even weaker deck armor over the engineering spaces. Any study of the range and bearing and the performance of German guns and shells (which was almost as abysmal as the performance of the British shells, though the problem was the fuse and not the filler) at the time these battlecruisers blew up do not support the contention that it was their armor schemes at fault.
The result of these ammunition handling procedures was that any non-penetrating hit on a turret or barbette which created incandescent fragments on the inner side of the plate would likely hit an unprotected bag of Cordite. Later studies and experiments showed that the Cordite produced in WW1 up to 1917, both tended to produce free glycerine and gas if not correctly stored, especially in magazines near the engineering spaces and in large quantities if out of the protective cans would blow up instead of burn. The line of unprotected powder bags and the removal of flash devices would go right down to the magazine, a powder train that the fragments would ignite.
Jellicoe recognized this immediately after the battle and issued a directive to all ships to follow standard ammunition handling procedures. An Admiralty inquiry into the situation found both Jellicoe and Beatty negligent and recommended they receive letters of admonishment for their actions. This and the DNC's report were all buried when Jellicoe became First Sea Lord and Beatty stepped up to command the Grand Fleet. The chairman of the inquiry was sent off to the China Station until his retirement at the end of the war. It even went as far as Beatty, as First Lord, having the official history rewritten. Thanks to the "Fifty Year" Rule this was all covered up until 1977 and the party line was that "there seemed to be something wrong with our ships".
This leads us to the "white elephants", both the British "Renown" and "Courageous" classes and the USN's "Lexington" class. The "Courageous" class were NOT battlecruisers. They were exactly what they were designated, "large light cruisers" (remember that "heavy cruiser" as a designation was at least a decade away). They were designed purposely to support the British light forces in the plan to force the Skaggerak and push British naval forces and a British Army landing force into the Baltic. Even with the abandonment of the scheme, if used correctly, they could have enhanced the Grand Fleet's scouting forces or the light forces operating into the Channel. Given what we know now about Jutland, one has to ask, if the German 28cm and 30.5cm guns were not a threat to the magazines of the earlier British battlecruisers at the ranges these ships were designed to engage at, then the only Imperial German capital ships with guns dangerous to them at 20,000 yds would have been the two "Baden" class BBs with their 38cm guns. They could have operated on the flank of the Battlecruiser Squadron (Fleet) as a "fast" force, operating toward the front of the German Scouting Force, crossing the "T", where they would be even less vulnerable.
As far as the USN's "Lexington" class goes, always remember that their mission was operational level scouting for the US Fleet's battle line, NOT engaging IJN battleships. That is why they were classified as CC, large scouting cruisers. The RN gave the COMPLETE, unadulterated info package on the Battle of Jutland. Despite the design probably being able to handle another 8,000 tons, the USN, keeping in mind the operational mission of these ships made little change to these ships beyond giving them the best guns and fire control available. They would have had the fully mature, nearly automated AC powered fire control system with guns able to reach out to 40K yds with aerial spotting, with plenty of space on the quarterdeck under the No.3 turret for hangers and catapults for VO aircraft. They would have been faster than any known IJN capital ship in service or building. Their only competition as far as the USN knew in 1920-22, was the "Kongo" class. The Kongo class carried a "pre-Jutland" protective scheme in thicknesses less than that of the "Lexington" class (for the most part), had 14" guns with a maximum engagement range of the visual horizon (24-25K yds) and a speed of 26 knots. Six "Lexington" class ships against four "Kongo" class. Ammunition handling and compartmentation would have also been superior to the "Kongo" class. The "Lexington" class was designed for completion with the "Omaha" class scouting cruisers, again superior to anything in the IJN at the time, and a class of 8" gun armed scouting cruisers, which is why the USN so readily agreed to the 10,000 ton, 8" gun limits "auxiliary" warships under the Washington Treaty. They're job was to fight their way through the Japanese screen, find the IJN battle line and get out and report. If opportunity presented itself, they could add their fire to the battle line. If there was an issue, it was the rise of the fast aircraft carrier as a competitor and replacement for the large scouting cruiser as an daylight OPERATIONAL recon asset. In bad weather or at night, before radar, the USN would still have needed something like the "Lexington" class to scout for the battle line.
As far as HMS Hood, NO one has come up with a definitive answer to her loss.
HMS Hood's protective scheme was a slightly improved version of the "Revenge" class battleship, which was a variation of the scheme used by the Queen Elizabeth class, an evolutionary line of development going back past the Iron Duke class. when she was completed in 1920, she was as well protected as any British battleship and only the USN's "Big Five" had better horizonal protection. The "Queen Elizabeth" class in its unmodified form took a pounding at Jutland, especially HMS Warspite, at "Windy Corner". None of them blew up. The loss of the HMS Hood was definitely not due to the suicidal ammunition handling procedures of the Battlecruiser Squadron at Jutland and her powder was more stable than the WW1 cordite. Analysis of the range and bearing of KMS Bismarck and the known performance of her 38cm SKC/34 guns preclude a direct penetration of the protective scheme to the magazine. There have been many postulated scenarios including exploding torpedo warheads, for her explosion. Yet none exactly fit what we do know of the incident. As far as simulation, I have played through the Battle of Denmark Straights with minatures rules, hex maps and counters and on computers thousands of times, including the two best, NWS mod of "Fighting Steel" and Alan Zimm's "Action Stations" without getting the historical result. During the Vietnam War, the US pilots talked about the "Golden BB". This was a hit from a weapon which by all measures should not have inflicted damage on an aircraft, yet somehow caused a cascading series of failures leading to loss of hydraulics and/or engines and thus of the aircraft. This may have been HMS Hood's "Golden BB".