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Re: Books on British Battlecruisers?

Posted: Fri Sep 18, 2020 6:40 pm
by wadinga
Hi HMSVF and all,

Thanks for a very thought-provoking post, which hopefully will garner more responses. Come on guys!

On a few points:
The caveat however was that British ammunition was poor.


Well inconsistent in quality maybe. Seydlitz' wonderful German armour was penetrated and her two after turrets wiped out at both Dogger Bank and Jutland, but propellant charge characteristic and protection saved her from destruction. Von der Tann had her turrets knocked out one by one by gunfire at Jutland and Lutzow suffered badly too. However, as you say better shells arrived later (too late for 31st May 1916).
They are one of those designs that seem great on paper but poor in practice!
As John Roberts points out in his book "Battlecruisers" when confronted with the nonsense of battlecruiser armour on turrets and barbettes and light cruiser armour everywhere else:
This author, at least, can think of no logic in this arrangement......
They originally had 3 inch belts, far worse than the Invincibles!

Speaking of "worse than the Invincibles" we come to Renown and Repulse with the same maximum belt thickness as those vessels but long and shallow, and without the benefit of bunkered coal as additional protection enjoyed by the original battle-cruisers.
Repulse and Renown remained useful warships post WW1..........Would I have put them up against a battleship squadron? No.
You are 100% right in principle but apart the Falkland Islands battle, British battlecruisers always ended up fighting battleships or battleship guns. To imagine they would always fight inferior vessels as Fisher postulated was naïve. Their speed advantage always meant they would be "first in" and aggressive tactics on both sides meant they would always be required to stand their ground. Imaginary theories might have suggested Beatty and Hipper would retire behind fleet lines once their scouting job was complete, but the reality in both navies was they would use their speed advantage over the general battlefleet to double the "head" of the enemy's line and deploy their firepower there. The shattered state of Hipper's "Scouting Group" staggering home from Skagerrak, was because they had been the spearhead (and rearguard) of the High Seas Fleet throughout and seen much more fighting than anybody else.
Its not that people are lying, its just that they are being asked to recall an event that may have occurred months/years earlier that lasted only seconds/minutes.
Again we agree. I have never suggested that inconsistency about remembered facts and timing was not to be expected. As you say, multiple accounts, compared and correlated give us the best chance of identifying reality. I don't think there is any reason why we cannot have an opinion about various commander's actions and express it. The problem here in the past has been distorting and repressing information in order to serve an agenda to provide "startling and revelatory" new accounts, and I'm afraid I believe Mr Staff has employed the same practices in the books I referenced. Those who read his works are free to make their own evaluations, but I hope they will find my observations thought-provoking. I am currently comparing his accounts of the sinking of Nurnberg and Leipzig at the Falklands, where his allegations continue of a callous attitude by the RN over the need to pick up survivors, is at odds with other detailed, albeit British, descriptions. These allegations are apparently unchallenged repetitions from the German Official History Krieg zur See written by one Erich Raeder in 1925. Mr Staff describes this account as an "excellent document " and "very exacting" whereas the British Official History "Naval Operations " is tritely dismissed thus, "At times it lapses into parochialism and jingoism."

Mr Staff credits Raeder for the Official History but Raeder's biographer Keith Bird says Vice-Admiral (Retd) Eberhard von Mantey Head of Navy Archives was in charge. Bird says
The authors intended to paint a heroic picture of the naval war and enshrine the positive accomplishments of the navy for posterity as well as to justify its continued existence.
The existence of a losing Navy precluded from having ships unless permitted by Versailles. To support this, he quotes Mantey, speaking privately:
History should not be written for the purpose of tearing down but for building up. Therefore with marked failures, much must be done to cover them with love, because history must be constructive................
That's as neat a description of spinning to deceive as I've ever heard. :D



All the best

wadinga

Re: Books on British Battlecruisers?

Posted: Mon Dec 07, 2020 1:24 am
by Byron Angel
Another very useful book on the RN battle cruiser experience is -
“The Battlecruisers at the Falklands” by Rudolf Verner
A superb book IMO.

Verner was the Gunnery Officer on Inflexible at the Falklands; he was killed less than a year later at the Dardanelles.

Byron

Re: Books on British Battlecruisers?

Posted: Mon Dec 07, 2020 1:41 am
by Byron Angel
Some more books not, strictly speaking, related exclusively to British battlecruiser but that nevertheless devote considerable attention to the BCF -

“The Fighting at Jutland” by Fawcett and Hooper
(first printed around 1921, but reprinted a number of times)
Very good collection of personal accounts, with the BCF well represented.

“Jutland Despatches” HMSO from 1921 or so.
Freely downloadable from archive.org as a searchable PDF document, which is a godsend when researching a particular topic.
This is a MUST HAVE document, especially considering the price (free). You will not get the numerous original fold-out track charts with the PDF version, but an original copy of this book is hard to find nowadays (check addall used books on the web).

“Warship Special 1 -Battlecruisers” by NJM Campbell.
Softcover about the size of an Osprey booklet, but contains a good deal of useful and easily accessible info.

Byron

Re: Books on British Battlecruisers?

Posted: Mon Dec 07, 2020 5:19 am
by Byron Angel
Hi HMSVF and all,
Thanks for a very thought-provoking post, which hopefully will garner more responses. Come on guys!

>>>>> Hello to everyone. I’m back for a visit.

- - -

On a few points:
The caveat however was that British ammunition was poor.

Well inconsistent in quality maybe.

>>>>> The APC Lyddite was bad. Jellicoe had raised the issue during his time as DNO, but nothing was done after his departure. It was not until after Jutland that an investigation was convened (The Projectile Committee). Their report of findings, filed a year later in June 1917, identified several issues with the APC Lyddite projectiles: [ 1 ] The Lyddite filler would tend to spontaneously detonate when the projectile struck armor of 1/3rd calibre thickness or more; [ 2 ] The projectile body would break up at any striking obliquity greater than 20 degrees. As a consequence, CPC (powder –filled) was stipulated as the projectile of choice when engaging opposing armored capital ships; use of APC Lyddite was confined to broadside to broadside engagements at ranges not to exceed 8,000 yards (IIRC – might have been 10,000 yards). This is what spurred development of the “Greenboys”.

- - -

Seydlitz' wonderful German armour was penetrated and her two after turrets wiped out at both Dogger Bank and Jutland, but propellant charge characteristic and protection saved her from destruction.

>>>>> The hit upon Seydlitz that resulted in the burning out of her two after turrets at Dogger Bank was not actually a “penetration” in the strict sense. The 13.5in projectile from Lion (~17,000 yards) struck a glancing blow on a 9in barbette plate of the aftermost turret, bursting and breaking up in the process. According to Campbell, the armor kept the projectile out and it was hot fragments of broken armor entering the interior of the barbette that initiated the propellant fire. The adjacent turret was consumed when panicked crew seeking escape from the stricken turret opened the door to a below-decks passageway connecting the two turrets. Ironically, despite the terrific hit aft, Seydlitz was credited with 8 of the 22 hits scored by 1AG upon the British battlecruisers in that battle.

At Jutland, Seydlitz endured at least 22 heavy caliber hits at ranges from 19,000 yards down to <10,000 yards, yet made it home. Tough ship, no matter how one looks at it.


- - -

You are 100% right in principle but apart the Falkland Islands battle, British battlecruisers always ended up fighting battleships or battleship guns.

>>>>> Don’t forget the 1st Battle of Heligoland Bight.

- - -

To imagine they would always fight inferior vessels as Fisher postulated was naïve. Their speed advantage always meant they would be "first in" and aggressive tactics on both sides meant they would always be required to stand their ground. Imaginary theories might have suggested Beatty and Hipper would retire behind fleet lines once their scouting job was complete, but the reality in both navies was they would use their speed advantage over the general battlefleet to double the "head" of the enemy's line and deploy their firepower there. The shattered state of Hipper's "Scouting Group" staggering home from Skagerrak, was because they had been the spearhead (and rearguard) of the High Seas Fleet throughout and seen much more fighting than anybody else.

>>>>> I think you do Fisher a great disservice, Sean. The Invincibles were conceived for the explicit purpose of running down and eradicating high speed armed merchant cruisers from the imperial sea lanes. Germany had a number of very fast trans-Atlantic passenger liners subject to being armed and employed as raiders in case of war. Prior to the Invincible, the RN had no ships with sufficient speed and high speed cruising endurance to catch them. The decision to arm Invincible with a 12in main battery came about when, in the course of the design process, it was realized that the size of the ship necessary to accomplish its primary mission (speed, radius of action, endurance sea-keeping, etc) would allow for the mounting 12in guns. Use of the battlecruiser as a fast wing adjunct to the battle fleet was always a second order role.

As it was, DK Brown IMO made a telling point when he noted that all three of the battlecruisers lost at Jutland succumbed to violent magazine explosions, while no similar German ships sunk by British gunfire in the war (Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, Bluecher, for example) did so. His conclusion was that the extremely volatile nature of cordite was to blame for the loss of the British battlecruisers (and armored cruisers) at Jutland rather than a lack of armor.


- - -

Mr Staff credits Raeder for the Official History but Raeder's biographer Keith Bird says Vice-Admiral (Retd) Eberhard von Mantey Head of Navy Archives was in charge.

>>>>> As I understand it, several authors were responsible for penning the Krieg zur See official history series. Otto Groos wrote the volume on Jutland.

Byron

Re: Books on British Battlecruisers?

Posted: Tue Dec 22, 2020 7:07 pm
by wadinga
Hello Byron,

Campbell says
The shell, which struck at an angle of c33 degrees to the plate normal, burst in penetrating, and fragments of armour and shell splinters tore a hole c5ft by 5ft in the ring bulkhead and entered the working chamber.
my italics.

So even from a non orthogonal hit, crippling damage was done by a 13.5" shell from Lion.

A tough ship, you are 100% correct, but if the seabed had not been so supportive, would she have sunk before the pumpships could reach her?

Heligoland Bight .....AARRGGh! A palpable hit! Alright, Nearly always

I must take issue with this:
explicit purpose of running down and eradicating high speed armed merchant cruisers from the imperial sea lanes.
It would vastly excessive and expensive overkill to equip warships supposed to fight armed tinplate liners with 12" guns. The Invincibles were designed and designated as superior armoured cruisers supposed to destroy inferior armoured cruisers.

The RN had many cruisers, even some quite obsolete ones, spread around the world very capable of dispatching a Cap Trafalgar or whatever, provided they could be found.

As Andrew Gordon says in The Rules of the Game p12:
Fisher, a simple and guileful man did not disseminate the mental acrobatics behind his cherished battlecruisers.
Summarising Gordon, he (Fisher) envisaged (fantasized) a superior fire control system, perhaps based on Pollen's ideas, which would allow these ships to also fight conventional battleships but hit them at longer ranges before their opponent's inferior systems could find the range and then use superior speed to pull away if it looked they would. But no such magical advantage materialised, Sturdee's ships found it hard enough to hit let alone outrange Spee's heavy ships, and in every other battle (apart from Heligoland Bight) they ended up in a slugging match against battleship guns, directed as effectively as their own.
"Speed is their protection" was Fisher's unrelenting slogan; a dictum now as flawed as the refusal of combat with a nominal equal was unthinkable.
The RN's dictum was: "These Colours don't Run"

The German version of Wikipedia says of Otto Groos
In the tendentious and one-sided volumes, Groos put the officers who had failed in Tirpitz's eyes, namely Friedrich von Ingenohl, Hugo von Pohl and Georg Alexander von Müller, in a bad light, while deliberately concealing aspects that could have contributed to a differentiated view. [2] The head of the naval archive Eberhard von Mantey admitted to Erich Raeder in 1932 that the first North Sea volumes were written entirely in the "Tirpitzschen Fahrwasser", so that a revision was necessary. Its author Otto Groos "can only think subjectively in terms of history". [3]
Judging by what von Manthey had to say, the Official History needed to be extremely subjective, but distorting truth to put the Imperial Navy in the best light possible, not supporting factions. Groos is sometimes credited as Editor, but Raeder as Hipper's Chief of Staff was far better informed about the events of Jutland. Actual authorship may be as Raeder's biographer claims.

All the best

wadinga

Re: Books on British Battlecruisers?

Posted: Wed Dec 30, 2020 11:23 pm
by Byron Angel
wadinga wrote: Tue Dec 22, 2020 7:07 pm Campbell says
The shell, which struck at an angle of c33 degrees to the plate normal, burst in penetrating, and fragments of armour and shell splinters tore a hole c5ft by 5ft in the ring bulkhead and entered the working chamber.
my italics.

>>>>> "Battlecruisers - Warship Special 1, NJM Campbell:
p.44 - The second hit from Lion at about 17,000yds caused much destruction. This shell struck the quarterdeck and burst in holing the 9in barbette armour of the sternmost turret. The shell was kept out but armour fragments entered, piercing the ring bulkhead, and ignited 11in main and fore charges in the working chamber.

>>>>> "German Battlecruisers of World War One", Gary Staff:
p.160 - "... at 10.43, she received a hit with fateful consequences: a shell apparently fired from Lion, struck the barbette of D turret. The 13.5in shell passed through the Batterie deck and struck the 230mm-thick D turret barbette, where it detonated. A red-hot piece of barbette armour was broken off and was thrown into the working chamber, where it set fire to main and fore charges there. No enemy shell parts were found in the working chamber."

p.163 - "Damage to Seydlitz: Hit One: This hit was made at 10:43 by a base-fuzed 13.5in shell containing a burster of black powder. The shell struck the Batterie deck at frame 30 and passed through it. and then struck the barbette of D turret. It detonated against the 230mm-thick Krupp cemented armour and most of the explosive effect was outside the barbette, but the barbette was holed. The outside of the hole was 350mm x 350mm, the inside was 600mm x 700mm. There were concentric cracks around the hole. The 8mm-thick Batterie deck was torn up and the wooden deck was splintered. Splinters of armour entered the barbette and penetrated the turret-supporting cylinder and turntable shaft. ..."

p.163 - After the investigation a series of conclusions were detailed in a report signed by Flottenchef Admiral von Ingenhohl. The report opened: "The detonation effect of the shell was mainly against the rooms outside the barbette and on the Zwischendeck. Only stray pieces of armour and flash flame seem to have penetrated into the barbette. Shell-parts were not found in the working chamber ... In the working chamber the fore charges and main charges present were ignited by the shot, either through the flash of the shell detonation or by the hot fragments of the barbette armour."


- - -
wadinga wrote: Tue Dec 22, 2020 7:07 pm So even from a non orthogonal hit, crippling damage was done by a 13.5" shell from Lion.


>>>>> I quite agree that the 1043 hit upon Seydlitz inflicted heavy damage; I do however question its characterization as "crippling damage". Bluecher suffered crippling damage and was ultimately sunk as a result. Lion suffered crippling damage, forced to quite the battle, left adrift with a ten degree list, no power and had to be towed home. By comparison, Seydlitz lost no speed, remained in the line and, by the end of the battle, had accounted for 8 of 22 total hits inflicted upon Beatty's battlecruisers.

- - -
wadinga wrote: Tue Dec 22, 2020 7:07 pm I must take issue with this:
explicit purpose of running down and eradicating high speed armed merchant cruisers from the imperial sea lanes.
It would vastly excessive and expensive overkill to equip warships supposed to fight armed tinplate liners with 12" guns. The Invincibles were designed and designated as superior armoured cruisers supposed to destroy inferior armoured cruisers.

The RN had many cruisers, even some quite obsolete ones, spread around the world very capable of dispatching a Cap Trafalgar or whatever, provided they could be found.
>>>>> I suggest that you check the historical record more closely on this point, Sean. The greatest perceived motive driving the Invincible design project was not the threat of other conventional cruisers. It was high speed raiders that could not be run down on the open sea by existing armoured cruisers, and that was the new generation of huge (40,000t) high-speed trans-atlantic liners with had terrific endurance in all sorts of weather. Existing triple-expansion engined armoured cruisers simply did not possess sufficiently high speed, high speed endurance or fuel capacity to run them down.

As far as large numbers of RN cruisers spread around the globe is concerned, that might well have been true in 1905. But these old and small colonial cruisers (many legitimate antiques dating back to the 1880s) had been retired en masse between 1905 and 1910 during Fisher's term as First Sea Lord, in accord with the government's urgent program to get the ballooning naval budget under control.


- - -
wadinga wrote: Tue Dec 22, 2020 7:07 pm As Andrew Gordon says in The Rules of the Game p12:
Fisher, a simple and guileful man did not disseminate the mental acrobatics behind his cherished battlecruisers.
Summarising Gordon, he (Fisher) envisaged (fantasized) a superior fire control system, perhaps based on Pollen's ideas, which would allow these ships to also fight conventional battleships but hit them at longer ranges before their opponent's inferior systems could find the range and then use superior speed to pull away if it looked they would. But no such magical advantage materialised, Sturdee's ships found it hard enough to hit let alone outrange Spee's heavy ships, and in every other battle (apart from Heligoland Bight) they ended up in a slugging match against battleship guns, directed as effectively as their own.
"Speed is their protection" was Fisher's unrelenting slogan; a dictum now as flawed as the refusal of combat with a nominal equal was unthinkable.
The RN's dictum was: "These Colours don't Run"
>>>>> A first edition of Gordon's "Rules of the Game" has been sitting on my bookshelf for 25 years. I keep it around because he produced (IMO) some useful background and insights on the evolution of the signal branch into a high priesthood over the Pax Britannica century. He can also "turn a phrase", as they say. Beyond that, I consider him valueless as either a critic or an analyst and too fond of taking "cheap shots". The assertions attributed to Gordon in your summarization only reinforce my opinion. If you want to pursue this issue, we can do so on a separate thread.

Moving on .....


- - -
wadinga wrote: Tue Dec 22, 2020 7:07 pm The German version of Wikipedia says of Otto Groos
Judging by what von Manthey had to say, the Official History needed to be extremely subjective, but distorting truth to put the Imperial Navy in the best light possible, not supporting factions. Groos is sometimes credited as Editor, but Raeder as Hipper's Chief of Staff was far better informed about the events of Jutland. Actual authorship may be as Raeder's biographer claims.
>>>>> My copy of "Der Krieg zur Zee", 1914-1918, Volume V" specifies Commander Otto Groos as the author. Von Ingenohl, von Pohl and von Muller together were all part of a faction within the German naval administration that lost out in a major turf battle over how the war at sea should be prosecuted. As a result, they were moved out of the way by the victorious Tirpitz faction. There is no difference between that and the political/bureaucratic machinations that dominated the wartime Admiralty and ultimately erupted into the decade long post-war RN blood feud between the Beatty and Jellicoe factions. Von Mantey's comment? No more than one man's opinion.



Meanwhile, hope you and yours had a passably pleasant Christmas Holiday amid this UK "19th Nervous Breakdown" Covid Part 2 lockdown. May 2021 bring a merciful end to the foolishness.

Byron

Re: Books on British Battlecruisers?

Posted: Fri Jan 01, 2021 5:58 pm
by wadinga
Seasonal Felicitations, Byron,

Indeed, a little intellectual duelling is a pleasant diversion from the grim news of the world.

I was interested to see you quoted NJM Campbell Battlecruisers Warship Special 1 as that very useful slim volume details at length the rationale behind the Invincibles' design, and it even lists in tabular form the burgeoning size and armaments of various nations' armoured cruisers and the evolution of the superior armoured cruiser Fisher wanted to out-class them. There is no mention of these AMC juggernauts you described and in fact the only place I have them suggested as a rationale is in Tarrant's Battlecruiser Invincible. He does not mention the identity of these mystery ships.

Interestingly the only ships I can find which correspond with:
the new generation of huge (40,000t) high-speed trans-Atlantic liners with had terrific endurance in all sorts of weather.
are the German Imperator class liners, Imperator, Vaterland and Bismarck all built quite a few years after the Invincibles had entered service. Fisher would have needed some foresight to imagine these, and there would still be no need for 12" guns.

The fast Atlantic liners which did exist when the Invincibles were developed included the so-called Four Flyers, one of which, Wilhelm der Grosse, did have a successful but short career as a raider before being terminated by HMS Highflyer, an unexceptional protected cruiser dating from 1899. No battlecruiser was required for such a task.

You are quite right that the damage inflicted upon Seydlitz did not "cripple" the vessel as a whole, however I think we are all aware there is not a great deal of difference between turret fires which result merely in disabling of those units and those which result in magazine deflagrations which destroy the entire vessel. Maybe only the timely flooding of her magazines by heroes grasping red hot handwheels were the difference between her escape and the kind of instantaneous destruction suffered by SMS Pommern. Spalling of armour can be as dangerous as penetration. Lion's hit knocked out 40% of Seydlitz' main armament at a stroke, killed nearly 170 crew and put her in the dockyard for two months. Even the partisan Mr Staff recounts how the Senior Gunnery Officer expected the ship to blow up at any second, and upped the firing rate to try and cause damage before he and his weapons were immolated. If the chase had continued, with so much armament disabled, Seydlitz might well have been the next "lame duck" left behind to fend for itself.

Manthey was Groos' boss.

All the Very Best

wadinga

Re: Books on British Battlecruisers?

Posted: Sat Jan 02, 2021 5:18 am
by Byron Angel
Sean wrote
Seasonal Felicitations, Byron.

>>>>> Indeed. I earnestly look forward for a return to our natural rights and fundamental freedoms in the year 2021.

Indeed, a little intellectual duelling is a pleasant diversion from the grim news of the world.

>>>>> As long as the tips of the epees remain well capped, Sean ….. ;-) ….. I have no interest in a repeat of “The Italian Interlude”.
Anyways, it is late here and I will respond by sections. First off:

I was interested to see you quoted NJM Campbell Battlecruisers Warship Special 1 as that very useful slim volume details at length the rationale behind the Invincibles' design, and it even lists in tabular form the burgeoning size and armaments of various nations' armoured cruisers and the evolution of the superior armoured cruiser Fisher wanted to out-class them. There is no mention of these AMC juggernauts you described and in fact the only place I have them suggested as a rationale is in Tarrant's Battlecruiser Invincible. He does not mention the identity of these mystery ships.

Interestingly the only ships I can find which correspond with:
the new generation of huge (40,000t) high-speed trans-Atlantic liners with had terrific endurance in all sorts of weather.
are the German Imperator class liners, Imperator, Vaterland and Bismarck all built quite a few years after the Invincibles had entered service. Fisher would have needed some foresight to imagine these, and there would still be no need for 12" guns.

The fast Atlantic liners which did exist when the Invincibles were developed included the so-called Four Flyers, one of which, Wilhelm der Grosse, did have a successful but short career as a raider before being terminated by HMS Highflyer, an unexceptional protected cruiser dating from 1899. No battlecruiser was required for such a task.


>>>>> Matthew Seligmann lays out the matter quite well in his essay “Germany’s Ocean Greyhounds and the Royal Navy’s First Battle Cruiser: An Historiographical Problem”, Diplomacy & Statecraft, Vol. 27: No. 1, pp. 162-182. (Taylor & Francis; Routledge).

Well worth the read; with extensive archival references. Matthew is a topnotch fellow and an excellent historian (Department of Politics, History and the Brunel Law School, Brunel University London).

Re the German liners, the really large 40,000 ton ships were under construction at the start of the war, including one that was 12,000t larger than Titanic. What initially drew the attention and concern of the Admiralty and Naval Intelligence was the initial tranche of 25,000t liners that dominated Blue Riband trans-Atlantic competition in the early years of the century. Their Atlantic crossings were being made in about five days, averaging 23 knots for the voyage; no cruiser of any sort in commission could catch them.


Byron

Re: Books on British Battlecruisers?

Posted: Sun Jan 03, 2021 2:55 am
by Byron Angel
Sean wrote -
You are quite right that the damage inflicted upon Seydlitz did not "cripple" the vessel as a whole, however I think we are all aware there is not a great deal of difference between turret fires which result merely in disabling of those units and those which result in magazine deflagrations which destroy the entire vessel. Maybe only the timely flooding of her magazines by heroes grasping red hot handwheels were the difference between her escape ...

>>>>> I do not agree. There is a very material difference, and it is defined by the stability properties of the propellant that is afire. The fires in C & D turrets of Seydlitz consumed six tons of RP/C12 without producing a violent deflagration. These fires endured for an uncertain period of time, certainly denominated in minutes rather than seconds as the three men responsible for ultimately opening the flood valves of Compartment III (that watertight section of the hull where turrets C & D were located) made their way from their station at “Leak Central” (situated forward of the engine and condenser room spaces) making their way aft to Compartment III, then forced to blindly feel their way below decks through passageways filled with toxic smoke to the position of flooding valves. Neither C nor D magazine exploded.

No major German warship sunk by gunfire during the war was lost due to magazine explosions; The five major British warships sunk by gunfire at Jutland -Indefatigable, Queen Mary, Invincible, Defence, Black Prince – were all lost to magazine explosions (the circumstances surrounding the loss of Monmouth and Good Hope at Coronel remain uncertain); in addition, three major British warships – Natal, Bulwark, Vanguard – were also lost to spontaneous magazine explosions while lying in harbour.


- - -

... and the kind of instantaneous destruction suffered by SMS Pommern.

>>>>> Altogether different kettle of fish, to coin a phrase. Pommern was lost to a torpedo hit in the way of a wing 6.7in secondary magazine. During WW2, USN analysis concluded that any torpedo hit in the way of a 5in destroyer magazine had a 50/50 expectation of detonating the magazine.

- - -

Spalling of armour can be as dangerous as penetration.

>>>>> Completely disagree, unless you are comparing its effect to that of a penetrating projectile which has failed to explode.

- - -

Lion's hit knocked out 40% of Seydlitz' main armament at a stroke, killed nearly 170 crew and put her in the dockyard for two months. Even the partisan Mr Staff recounts how the Senior Gunnery Officer expected the ship to blow up at any second, and upped the firing rate to try and cause damage before he and his weapons were immolated. If the chase had continued, with so much armament disabled, Seydlitz might well have been the next "lame duck" left behind to fend for itself.

>>>>> Your account of the factual events is true, but not IMO relevant to the case at hand. Seydlitz never lost any speed and, despite having her two after turrets knocked out early in the action, scored more hits (8) than any other German ship in the battle and more than Lion.

- - -

Manthey was Groos' boss.

>>>>> I see no relevance in this (Groos was incidentally also the Navigating Officer aboard Von Der Tann at Jutland). Manthey was not the man Groos was required to satisfy when writing Volume V of the official history and the consequences of failing to satisfy the BIG boss in such matters can be clearly seen in the fate of the Harper Report.


Rgds / Byron

Re: Books on British Battlecruisers?

Posted: Sun Jan 03, 2021 2:51 pm
by wadinga
Hi Byron,

I am a bit disturbed you are talking of epee :shock: , I had in mind water pistols at 20 paces or possibly balloons on sticks. This is meant to be fun, you know. :lol:
I do not agree. There is a very material difference, and it is defined by the stability properties of the propellant that is afire.
Well, I think you will find we do agree as I said
but propellant charge characteristic and protection saved her from destruction.
in an earlier post. But I cannot see what makes Pommern a different kettle of fish unless she used different propellant. Bad luck perhaps? QF guns have no exposed forecharge, all the propellant is encased in brass.
The fires in C & D turrets of Seydlitz consumed six tons of RP/C12 without producing a violent deflagration.
And killed 170 men and disabled both turrets. Hardly a flesh wound. Spalled red hot armour fragments did this, from a shell which had already penetrated the deck at a highly oblique angle, presumably triggering the fuse and creating yawing before even reaching the barbette. How much worse would an exploding 13.5" shell inside the compartment be? (maybe the ballistics club have done this to death already.)

By the way, we have also already agreed on this.
However, as you say better shells arrived later (too late for 31st May 1916).
But this is all minutae.

Books on British and indeed German battlecruisers must discuss the rationale for their existence. For the Germans it was simple. Blucher as an expanded conventional armoured cruiser was simply outclassed by the Invincibles. They had to follow suit. I cannot access the writings of Mr Seligmann at anything less than extortionate cost, but David K Brown Warrior to Dreadnought is clear when detailing the development of the Invincibles. They were considered armoured cruisers and named as such in the orders for construction. Preliminary designs had 9.2 and 7.5in guns like the Duke of Edinburghs and reciprocating engines, but plans were revised for turbines and 12" armament like Dreadnought for the same reasons. Since they were envisaged to fight armoured cruisers they needed 6" belt. Brown, in a "hindsight" section observes that only later was it considered ships should be protected against their own calibre of weapons. There is however a vague mention from Reginald Bacon writings , Fisher's protege and biographer (Dreadnought's captain) that the new ships should also be capable of catching the fastest AMCs. However this is clearly an afterthought and ancilliary, one does not need 12, 9.2 or even 7.5" guns and a 6" belt to defeat a tinclad liner, "tarted up" as a warship.

Or even turbines. The four funnel flyers had triple/quad reciprocating engines not dissimilar from many RN cruisers. HMS Kent, no youngster may have reached 24 knots in her chase at the Falklands, and Highflyer trapped her victim. Another four funnel flyer Kronprinz Wilhelm, lasted a little longer as a raider, but apparently gave up and went into internment in the USA after most of the crew fell ill, probably with scurvy. These ships had no significant speed advantage over many British cruisers, and maybe Mr Seligmann as a non-specialist confuses turbine ships built 7 years (Imperator etc) after the Invincibles with the Flyers. The USA picked up most of them as well as spoils of war when it entered the fray.

All the best

wadinga

Re: Books on British Battlecruisers?

Posted: Mon Jan 04, 2021 3:14 pm
by Byron Angel
Hi Sean,

Here is an excerpt regarding the cruise of Kronprinz Wilhelm from the Seligmann essay -

"Such certainly proved to be the case with regard to the Kronprinz Wilhelm.
When the First World War began in August 1914, the ship was in New York
harbour. Putting to sea on the evening of 3 August, the liner rendezvoused
with the light cruiser Karlsruhe on the morning of 6 August. The meeting
allowed the Kronprinz Wilhelm to take on board two 8.8 cm guns as well as a
quantity of small arms, ammunition, and additional naval personnel and,
thereby, fit out as an auxiliary cruiser. The liner’s design for a quick conversion
turned out to be of considerable importance. Just over three hours later,
the two German vessels spotted a British warship, the cruiser Suffolk, on the
horizon. By that time, however, the Kronprinz Wilhelm had already become
the newest addition to the Imperial German navy and, the presence of the
Suffolk notwithstanding, the Kronprinz Wilhelm was able to head away ready
to embark upon her new career as a warship.2
Armed and ready, the Kronprinz Wilhelm would immediately proceed to
demonstrate just what such a vessel could achieve. Over the course of the
next eight months, the German raider travelled a distance of 37,666 miles
and captured 15 Allied ships with a total displacement of 60,522 tons. The
loss of these vessels was not the sum total of the damage that the Kronprinz
Wilhelm caused. News of her deprivations caused panic on the sea-lanes and
meant deploying considerable Allied naval resources in the futile effort to
track her down and protect merchant vessels in the areas in which she was
believed to be operating. The fact that the liner was able to evade capture and
remain at sea without anchoring for a remarkable 250 days—an achievement
enabled by taking supplies from captured vessels and rendezvousing with
German supply ships operating out of neutral ports—meant that the effort to
run her down was, of necessity, a sustained one. Moreover, it seemed to have
no end in sight. The ability of its captain in avoiding Allied efforts to cut him
off from supplies and put a stop to his activities was considerable.
Fortunately for the Allies, sickness amongst the crew and increasing mechanical
problems eventually forced the liner to seek a safe haven. Arriving in
Hampton Roads on 11 April 1915, the Kronprinz Wilhelm was interned, a
fate that finally put an end to its remarkable career as a raider
."

I would never cite a reference in which I did not have confidence. Do a Google search for - "Matthew Seligmann, Professor of Naval History, Brunel University".

BRgds / Byron

Re: Books on British Battlecruisers?

Posted: Mon Jan 04, 2021 3:42 pm
by Byron Angel
Re HMS Kent, the best substantiated speed I can find for her at the Falklands was 22 knots.
I am most anxiously looking forward to the publication of Mark Bailey's volume on Coronel and the Falklands.

Byron

Re: Books on British Battlecruisers?

Posted: Mon Jan 04, 2021 7:24 pm
by wadinga
Hi Byron,

Well, although I am indeed most impressed by Mr Seligmann's credentials I'm afraid I still back David Brown, NJM Campbell, Oscar Parkes, Arthur Marder and Norman Friedman against him, assuming he is the source of the assertion:
I suggest that you check the historical record more closely on this point, Sean. The greatest perceived motive driving the Invincible design project was not the threat of other conventional cruisers. It was high speed raiders that could not be run down on the open sea by existing armoured cruisers, and that was the new generation of huge (40,000t) high-speed trans-atlantic liners with had terrific endurance in all sorts of weather. Existing triple-expansion engined armoured cruisers simply did not possess sufficiently high speed, high speed endurance or fuel capacity to run them down.
All of the above worthies describe the Invincibles as a response to foreign armoured cruisers. Brown in the Grand Fleet also makes reference to the ancillary role of chasing AMCs but only mentions it with reference to Bacon's biography of Fisher published much later in 1929 when memories might have become tainted by hindsight, and notes Bacon is not always reliable.

According to the list in Wikipedia, of the measly 15 ships captured in eight long months by Kronprinz Wilhelm, one third were sailing ships, hardly needing an ocean greyhound to bring them down. This paucity of success suggests the raider did not hang about in the busy shipping lanes where it might be caught, but spent most of its time skulking around out of sight in out of the way regions. This lacklustre performance contrasts with the career of the Moewe, the most successful commerce raider in either war, which was responsible for 40 ships, despite having a top speed of only 13 knots. That's what I would call a "remarkable career as a raider".

Whether Kent made 22 or 24 knots in 1914 is largely immaterial, (speed logs are unreliable) since it was a long time since the Flyers had held the Blue Riband and therefore their speed may have dropped off somewhat too. SMS Highflyer was no speedboat but Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse could not escape her guns.

I'm sure Mr Bailey's work will be much more reasoned and at least, less Anglophobic than fellow Australian Gary Staff's treatment of Coronel and the Falklands. :cool:

All the best

wadinga

Re: Books on British Battlecruisers?

Posted: Mon Jan 04, 2021 7:49 pm
by wadinga
To All,

SMS Highflyer??? :shock: Got carried away with my own rhetoric :lol:

All the best

wadinga

Re: Books on British Battlecruisers?

Posted: Mon Jan 04, 2021 9:04 pm
by Byron Angel
Sean,

The following passages are extracted from "The Life of Lord Fisher of Kilverstone, Admiral of the Fleet", written by his personal friend, professional colleague and charter member of the "Fish Pond" advisory committee, Admiral Sir Roger H. Bacon.

Volume 1, page 255 -
"The Invincible had a totally different genesis from the Dreadnought. She was designed in order to meet a want that had long been felt but never supplied, namely, a ship fast enough to hunt down any armed merchant ship afloat, and at the same time to be able to fight any cruiser afloat.
<snip>
The speed of the Invincible was definitely fixed at 25 knots. This gave her some margin over the German Transatlantic liners. Hitherto we had subsidized, for a huge annual sum, some of our own liners to fight those of Germany, in spite of the fact that they had never been designed to fight and were totally unfitted to do so."

- - -

The reason why existing armored cruisers were perceived as inadequate to the task of dealing with high-speed liners is discussed here -

Volume 1, page 264 -
"Fisher knew that no Fleet then at sea in the world could be relied up to steam for eight hours at full speed without one or more ships breaking down. One of his greatest pre-occupations in the Mediterranean had been to work up the effective speed of his Fleet; he had succeeded up to a speed of 14 knots, but no higher. He knew that this was due to defects inherent in reciprocating machinery.

When Prince Louis of Battenberg carried out a most instructive trial with his Cruiser Squadron of six ships, by steaming from New York to Gibraltar in November 1905, only the Drake, Berwick and Cumberland got across at 18-1/2 knots, consuming all their coal supply in so doing, and requiring extensive minor repairs to their engines afterwards
."


Rgds / Byron