Was the H.M.S Hood the most powerful ship for 20 years?

General naval discussions that don't fit within any specific time period or cover several issues.
Byron Angel
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Re: Was the H.M.S Hood the most powerful ship for 20 years?

Post by Byron Angel »

wadinga wrote: Mon Aug 08, 2022 12:58 pm On the subject of what happened with Lion between 16:00 and 16:09 Harper's recalculated navigation is available at:
https://www.jutland1916.com/wp-content/uploads/051.jpg
However unlike your splendid 100 year old maps these online renditions pixelate when you expand them sufficiently to show detail. Grrr :x
He shows Lion making a slight turn to starboard and turning back to port later. As we know there was some enmity between Harper and Beatty so if this deviation had been more extreme I expect it would have been identified.
>>>>> It is important to note that, however valuable Harper's work was (and remains), the only reason it ever saw the light of day was because Harper was forced to agree to some "judicious editing" by Beatty and his BCF cronies. Recall that,by this time, Beatty held great bureaucratic power as 1st Sea Lord at the Admiralty and had populated his bureaucracy with numerous BCF supporters. People think that the Battle of Jutland ended at nightfall on 31 May 1916; not so. It continued for another ten years or so as an internecine war between the Jellicoe and Beatty faction for control over the "official account". To get an appreciation of how ridiculous this dispute became, consider the famous 360 degree turn executed by the BCF late in the battle (around 7pm). Beatty at first vigorously denied that it ever occurred and produced an imaginative "S curve" track plot that he claimed was the actual maneuver carried out. However, when the Jutland Despatches was printed and released, NEW ZEALAND's track chart clearly showed a 360 degree circle having been performed. Chatfield then rushed to Beatty's defense, claiming that although the BCF had indeed performed a 360deg circle, it was simply an accident caused by a faulty gyro-compass.

I recently uncovered a further cache of nineteen charts lying forgotten in my files. These were large individual charts that accompanied the Jutland Despatches in a separate case; I had forgotten I had them. Each prominently bore the printed signature of the commander whose forces were depicted - Jellicoe, Beatty, Burney, etc. Sadly, they all lack range/distance scales and the German track charts bear no resemblance to Corbett's careful reconstruction - just arbitrarily drawn straight lines that fictitiously suggest the Run to the South to have been a more or less parallel gun battle between Beatty and Hipper. One amusing item I noticed was that Beatty's BCF track chart shows his 7pm BCF maneuver as the above-mentioned S-curve, while the track chart of 3BCS, which had just rejoined Beatty, was consistent with that of NEW ZEALAND showing the BCF circling 360 degrees. Moral to this story: "Praemonitus, praemunitus" - Forewarned is forearmed; be careful when studying such issues.


- - - - -
Beatty was not alone in imagining periscopes P216 of Campbell -
"The 6th division steadied on course 178 at about this time , but turned sharply to port again to avoid supposed torpedoes, and an imaginary submarine,"

Later on the same page:
"As usual imaginary submarines were sighted. The Calliope signalled the presence of one......."

p250
"There were the usual sightings of imaginary submarines between 1945 and 2015 The Hampshire, Shannon and Duke of Edinburgh firing at one of these supposed targets."
>>>>> Submarine sightings were indeed commonplace. What piques my interest is that Beatty himself claimed to have personally made such sightings.

For example, see Beatty's original 2 February 1914 despatch regarding the Battle of Dogger Bank ("With Beatty in the North Sea" by Filson Young, Appendix A, para 18. page 296) -"At 10.54 A.M. submarines were reported on the starboard bow, and I personally observed the wash of a periscope, 2 points on our starboard bow. I immediately signaled, 'Turn 8 points to port together' - this signal was hauled down at 11.0 A.M." Interestingly, Filson Young footnoted this passage as having been "altered in published report". Curious.

Unable to track down the reference re the Jutland submarine sighting right now.


- - - - -
Beatty is a contentious and perhaps over-rated commander but given the performance of some of the other senior officers, eg Evan-Thomas, Arbuthnot for instance he might not be as bad as some paint him. OTOH he might be. For me Chatfield's cold-hearted comment:
This seemed at the moment just a disappointment. The Indefatigable was a smaller and more weakly protected ship than those of the first division and was not really a serious tactical loss. - is a bleak indictment of attitude. At least Beatty was moved to some human emotion when his ships and men were destroyed.
"There seems to be something wrong with our bloody ships today." comes to my mind. What other heartfelt sympathies were expressed by Beatty? Not saying you are necessarily wrong on this point; I just can't recall any regretful comment beyond that expressed by Beatty.

- - - - -
I don't see that the 15:46 signal countermands the 15:45. One is about formation and the second is about the course of the formation. The idea might have been that with the ships on Lion's starboard quarter, smoke blowing downwind to the east would dissipate a bit by the time the next astern reached it. In reality it didn't because the wind was so light. This starboard echelon does fit with Harper's depiction of Indefatigable's sinking well to the west of Lion's track, although even Harper's best efforts must be qualified when McCartney has shown considerable error in Indefatigable's location.
We have discussed this several times previously. If you plot the progress of the change into line-of-bearing formation versus the flurry of last minute signals hoisted by Lion between 3:45 and 3:48, it could not have possibly have been completed within the time available before fire wsa opened. Brooks estimates that the formation change would have required six minutes to complete; the BCF had, at most, three minutes. See Brooks' "The Battle of Jutland", pp. 184-187.. Brooks further argues (and I concur) that the prevailing 4-6kt breeze out of the WNW was piling up on the engaged side of the BCF battle line quite in addition to the smoke of the 9th flotillas destroyers crawling along the engaged side of the battle-cruisers - especially since Beatty was steadily altering course by successive turns to starboard (3:49, 3:50.5, 3:52.5, 3:55, 4:00).

Re the location of Indefatigable's sinking relative to Lion, see Campbell ("Jutland", pp. 60- 61) -

The Navigating Officer of the New Zealand, Commander Creighton, who was stationed in the conning tower, stated that the Torpedo Officer's attention was drawn to the Indefatigable by the Admiral's Secretary, both of whom were also in the conning tower. The Torpedo Officer, Lieutenant -Commander Lovett-Cameron crossed to the starboard side of the conning tower, and observed her through his glasses. She had been hit aft, apparently by the mainmast, and a good deal of smoke was coming from the superstructure aft, but there were no flames visible, and Lovett-Cameron thought that the smoke came from her boom boats. The New Zealand was turning to port at the time, and the Indefatigable's steering gear seemed to be damaged, as she did not follow round, but held on until she was about 500 yards on the New Zealand's starboard quarter, and in full view from the conning tower. While Lovett-Cameron still had his glasses on her, the Indefatigable was hit by two shells, one on the forecastle, and the other on "A" turret. <snip> ..... the Indefatigable completely blew up .....
.
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Re: Was the H.M.S Hood the most powerful ship for 20 years?

Post by NCC1717 »

Unable to track down the reference re the Jutland submarine sighting right now.
Beatty's original Jutland dispatch Section 9, from Beatty Papers Vol. I, page 326, gives some of the submarine sightings. Beatty does not indicate any personal sighting in that dispatch that I can find.
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Re: Was the H.M.S Hood the most powerful ship for 20 years?

Post by Byron Angel »

I ran across an interesting passage in "The Fighting at Jutland", Fawcett & Hooper, p.29
(Narrative by Navigating Officer, "HMS New Zealand") -
The loss of our next astern (HMS Indefatigable @ 4:04pm according to the author) happened so suddenly that, almost before we had realized she was gone, our attention was entirely absorbed by the very fierce battle that was now progressing. The noise of our own salvoes, and the shrieking of the enemy's shells falling over or short, and throwing up great sheets of spray, left one with little time to think of anything except the work in hand. I personally was fully occupied in keeping station on our next ahead (HMS Tiger) together with plotting our position on the chart, for we were being led by the Flagship along a snake-like course, to reduce the chances of being hit.
What do we suppose is the meaning of "a snake-like course, to reduce the chances of being hit"? Was Lion actually weaving? I'm not sure. One working theory that comes to mind is that Lion's maneuvering during the immediately preceding minutes may have been misconstrued as intentional weaving:

Target Bearings (Lion > Lutzow)
3:58 - Red 114
3:59 - Red 114
4:00 - Red 114
4:01 - Red 129 (suggesting a 2-point alteration to starboard)
4:02 - Red 144 (suggesting a further 2-point alteration to starboard)
4:03 - Red 136 (suggesting a 1-point alteration back to port)

Thoughts? Opinions?
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Re: Was the H.M.S Hood the most powerful ship for 20 years?

Post by wmh829386 »

Byron Angel wrote: Tue Aug 09, 2022 10:41 pm I ran across an interesting passage in "The Fighting at Jutland", Fawcett & Hooper, p.29
(Narrative by Navigating Officer, "HMS New Zealand") -
The loss of our next astern (HMS Indefatigable @ 4:04pm according to the author) happened so suddenly that, almost before we had realized she was gone, our attention was entirely absorbed by the very fierce battle that was now progressing. The noise of our own salvoes, and the shrieking of the enemy's shells falling over or short, and throwing up great sheets of spray, left one with little time to think of anything except the work in hand. I personally was fully occupied in keeping station on our next ahead (HMS Tiger) together with plotting our position on the chart, for we were being led by the Flagship along a snake-like course, to reduce the chances of being hit.
What do we suppose is the meaning of "a snake-like course, to reduce the chances of being hit"? Was Lion actually weaving? I'm not sure. One working theory that comes to mind is that Lion's maneuvering during the immediately preceding minutes may have been misconstrued as intentional weaving:

Target Bearings (Lion > Lutzow)
3:58 - Red 114
3:59 - Reqd 114
4:00 - Red 114
4:01 - Red 129 (suggesting a 2-point alteration to starboard)
4:02 - Red 144 (suggesting a further 2-point alteration to starboard)
4:03 - Red 136 (suggesting a 1-point alteration back to port)

Thoughts? Opinions?
One must remember there is plenty of "slack" between the motion of HMS Lion and HMS New Zealand due to the three other ships along the line. Some ships were trying to form the line of bearing which complicates the matter.

Although Lion's didn't seem to be zigzaging at that time, Tiger and Queen Mary just managed to open fire with the rear turrets after presumably trying to form the line of bearing and a few minutes before that the 3BCS just managed to prolong Beatty's line.

It may very well resulted in a snake-like course without Lion actually weaving.
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Re: Was the H.M.S Hood the most powerful ship for 20 years?

Post by Byron Angel »

Sorry for the delay in response. In the midst of setting up a new PC and learning the ropes with Windows 11.

Anyways ... the way I see it:
The comment from NZ’s navigating officer cannot alone be taken as conclusive. It is <<<possible>>> that he mistook Lion’s miscarried turn to starboard followed by an apparent immediate correction back to port as an “evasive maneuver”. OTOH, the tenor of his commentary might easily be construed to imply that he had considered Lion’s previous succession of four small turns to starboard as evasive maneuver also. Beatty and Chatfield (IIRC) did describe them as such.

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Re: Was the H.M.S Hood the most powerful ship for 20 years?

Post by NCC1717 »

The plot from New Zealand in the Jutland dispatches does not seem to show much of a snake like track after the loss of Indefatigable. Perhaps it does not include all the turns, or perhaps the Navigating Officer was referring to the track between 3:30 and 3:45 when the 2BCS maneuvered to prolong the line of the 1BCS.
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Re: Was the H.M.S Hood the most powerful ship for 20 years?

Post by Byron Angel »

Hi Warren,
The sense I took away from the account of NZ’s Navigating Officer is that he was referring to the period after the opening of fire. Considering the punishment the BCF was taking, it could not be surprising if they were undertaking evasive maneuvers. If such ad hoc maneuvers were viewed as distinct from normal maneuver, they might well not have been recorded as formal course alterations so long as the base course was still being respected.

Interesting chart you selected BTW 😋. It shows the 7:00pm 360 degree loop turned by the BCF. Beatty denied that it happened.

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Re: Was the H.M.S Hood the most powerful ship for 20 years?

Post by NCC1717 »

Byron,

Reading the new Zealand Navigator's narrative again (you must have a different edition than I do; mine is on pages 37-40) it does seem that the ‘snake-like course’ is associated with the loss of the Queen Mary. He mentions a signal ‘..alter course turn two points to port’ from Beatty which is dismissed as incorrect by Brooks (page 206) and not supported by the plots. There is a signal from Beatty at 4:25 ordering Princess Royal to keep clear of the smoke, and Brooks suggests that PR may have responded by turning to the SE (to port). If so, the following ships (Tiger, New Zealand) may have followed PR. Since NZ had altered course to pass the QM to starboard, she would have needed a port turn to follow Tiger. None of this is on the NZ track.

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Re: Was the H.M.S Hood the most powerful ship for 20 years?

Post by wadinga »

Hello Byron and new contributors,

I was first intrigued by
The New Zealand was turning to port at the time, and the Indefatigable’s steering gear seemed to be damaged, as she did not follow round, but held on until she was about 500 yards on the New Zealand's starboard quarter,
We have New Zealand conforming to Lion's movements in some way, but going to port right about the time Lion is supposed to be going to starboard.
It seems to me that instead of attempting some kind of mindless “parade ground” precision individual ships of the BCF were manoeuvring with some element of freedom. Since there were no deflection scales or range clocks to read on adjacent vessels relative position could vary within a general course trend dictated by the flagship’s movements.
Then we have for Lion
4:00 - Red 114
4:01 - Red 129 (suggesting a 2-point alteration to starboard)
4:02 - Red 144 (suggesting a further 2-point alteration to starboard)
4:03 - Red 136 (suggesting a 1-point alteration back to port)
Suggesting the whole period of increasing to 30 degrees off preferred heading by Lion and return towards original heading might only be, say 4-5 minutes in all.

Given the chaos ensuing at that time is that unreasonable or inconsistent with Chatfield’s account?

At a distance of a hundred plus years we do not have the extremes of disappointment and frustration that motivated members of the two emerging factions (Beatty or Jellicoe supporters) or their willingness to undermine the other party’s reputation, in public, in time of war, particularly in the newspapers. These bitter exchanges were whipped into a further frenzy by the Admiralty's, not just the new First Sea Lord’s, refusal to give out the unexpurgated version, even after the end of hostilities. An unrealistic expectation of the RN's ability to smash the HSF had built up in response to two years of ghastly stalemate on land, (and a hundred years of tradition) and it had failed to deliver. One of the two commanders must be to blame. Hence the gleeful leaping by these critics on any inconsistencies in accounts and the trenchant refusal by the principals to accept that any mistakes had been made, by them, at all. Beatty’s frankly ridiculous refusal to accept the evidence that the BCF circled is an example, “If I don’t remember it, it didn’t happen”. Today we can apply a more balanced view and surely accept that fallible leaders of men did their best, but failed in some aspects.

Back then, in addition to defending against brutal binary hindsight on these decisions made in the heat of action, there were many other skeletons in the Admiralty cupboard. Those responsible for the quality of British shells as well the vulnerability of cordite and the design of the ships, both in Government and amongst the other Sea Lords, were not keen to see matters re-examined. Hence the withholding and demands for changes to Harper’s commissioned Record.

Reading Harper’s book The Truth about Jutland, Bacon’s The Jutland Scandal and Langhorne and Harper’s The Riddle of Jutland it is clear that when Beatty became First Sea Lord his problem was much the same as those writing Der Krieg zur See, in the need to promote the continuing existence of a navy after the War to End All Wars. In the German case, KzS was written under Versailles constraints and the historical account is strongly flavoured IMHO with excessive self-congratulation. This is surely to try and exorcise the shame created by lack of action and initiative by the HSF during most of the war, and the ignominy of being the mutinous crucible of the Revolution which collapsed Imperial Germany.

In post-First War Britain, there was much practical current value in being "judicial with the truth" about organisational and personnel shortcomings in the past in order to bolster the RN’s chances of securing funding and a future. Therefore, the RN’s systemic failures as well as Beatty’s own decision-making limitations at Jutland did not need to be paraded for public opinion which might lead politicians to downsize the RN to an unsustainable level. As an avowed egotist, Beatty was particularly concerned to see his actions depicted in the most favourable light. Whether Beatty actually encouraged the writings of Filson Young and others against Jellicoe, during the war, is difficult to know. Whilst apparently Beatty and Jellicoe were cordial enough about each other in the immediate aftermath of the action, a different picture emerges in the Beatty papers Vol 1. A letter from Lady Beatty to a family friend written in July 1916 perhaps reveals not just a loyal wife fiercely defending her husband’s actions, but more likely what Beatty himself truly thought, and told her, namely that timid, over-cautious "cursed" Jellicoe had let the HSF off the hook, devaluing the heavy price in blood the BCF had shed just to put Scheer under the GF’s guns.

John Winton, is his biography, Jellicoe, details the wrangling over the wording of Harper’s Record in 1920-1 but points out the Dispatches, with evidence like NZ’s track plot (thanks NCC1717) was already published. Commentators with little experience of the sea, limited understanding of the problems of controlling tens of fast-moving vessels with primitive communications and particularly North Sea visibility, have used their hindsight and pre=mapped oversight to pillory one or the other principal. These notably include Winston Spencer Churchill, himself pilloried for factual errors, lack of understanding and partisanship by Bacon.

If there was enmity between the two former 1st Sea Lords, age and time surely mellowed it. When Jellicoe passed away, Beatty got out of his own sickbed to be a pallbearer, honouring his old commander.

All the best

wadinga
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Re: Was the H.M.S Hood the most powerful ship for 20 years?

Post by HMSVF »

Daft question (I'm full of them !)


Were the individual ships allowed limited freedom of action as long as they stayed in formation. I'm sure I've read that individual ships opened up the range if their (German)opposite number had a good firing solution. Would this explain the "raggedness" of the formation? Individual ships reacting to their individual problems?
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Re: Was the H.M.S Hood the most powerful ship for 20 years?

Post by NCC1717 »

In the Beatty Papers, Vol I, Item 169, Advance Report of Gunnery Committee, 22nd June 1916, Section 6, part ii (page 350) it states:

“Alteration of own course did not hamper the control and director layers to any great extent, and it should be understood that in this respect Gunnery must meet the requirements of tactics. Future practices for B.C.F., both rangefinding and firing, should allow for this. It is imperative for ships to slightly alter course for defensive purposes, when to do this must be left to the discretion of Captains of ships, and certain limitations to govern this matter should be laid down. “

Since this report was based on a review of the Jutland reports from the B.C.F. and the 5th BS, this may mean that individual ships were altering course for this purpose at Jutland. It does seem to imply that the practice needed to be controlled by new doctrine.

On the other hand, if the individual ships were maneuvering separately, the statement by New Zealand’s navigator that “… we were being led by the Flagship along a snake-like course, to reduce the chances of being hit” seems in conflict with that.
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Re: Was the H.M.S Hood the most powerful ship for 20 years?

Post by Byron Angel »

NCC1717 wrote: Sun Aug 21, 2022 11:39 pm Byron,
Reading the new Zealand Navigator's narrative again (you must have a different edition than I do; mine is on pages 37-40) it does seem that the ‘snake-like course’ is associated with the loss of the Queen Mary. He mentions a signal ‘..alter course turn two points to port’ from Beatty which is dismissed as incorrect by Brooks (page 206) and not supported by the plots. There is a signal from Beatty at 4:25 ordering Princess Royal to keep clear of the smoke, and Brooks suggests that PR may have responded by turning to the SE (to port). If so, the following ships (Tiger, New Zealand) may have followed PR. Since NZ had altered course to pass the QM to starboard, she would have needed a port turn to follow Tiger. None of this is on the NZ track.
Regards,
NCC1717

Hi Warren,
My copy of "The Fighting at Jutland" is (I believe) a first printing. Although there is no copyright date, it states - "Printed by MACLURE, MACDONALD & Co., 164 Bothwell Street, Glasgow" and bears a notation to the effect that "The Jutland Despatches, published on 17th December, 1920, were not available until after this book was completed.". It includes both glossy pages of conventionally reproduced photographs plus some india ink drawings on the normal nook pages and sepia-tone photo images on separate paper glued to heavy brownish-grey pages bound into the book. I bought the book at Maggs in London in 1976 for 10 Pounds Sterling, :angel: FWIW.

There are three accounts attributed to HMS New Zealand -
Pages 23-26: Narrative of HMS New Zealand by an Officer Stationed Aloft (3.47 p.m. to 4.46 p.m., which should read "5.46 p.m.").
Pages 27-30: Narrative by the Navigating Officer of HMS New Zealand.
Pages 40-41: Continuation of Narrative of the Navigating Officer of HMS New Zealand.

On page 28, the account of New Zealand's navigating officer reads as follows -
We had only been in action a few minutes when the Admiral's Secretary came across to where the Torpedo Officer was stationed in the conning tower and drew his attention to the Indefatigable. He crossed at one to the starboard side and laid his glasses on her. She had been hit aft, apparently by the mainmast, and a good deal of smoke was coming from her superstructure aft, but there were no flames visible. He thought it was only her boom boats burning. We were altering course to port at the time, and apparently her steering gear was damaged, as she did not follow round in our wake, but held on until she was about 500 yards on our starboard quarter, in full view from the conning tower.

>>>>> A theory - the timing here would have been very close to the 4:00pm hit upon Lion and the Quartermaster overrunning the (presumably) ordered course alteration to starboard. An examination of Lion's relative target bearings in that period shows -
4:00 - Red 114
4:01 - Red 129
4:02 - Red 144
4:03 - Red 136
- which suggests the possibility of an initial course alteration of 30 degrees to starboard between 4:01 - 4:02, followed by a correction of 8 degrees back to port between 4:02 - 4:03 (with an implied rapid change-over from port helm to starboard helm). If Indefatigable was in process of following Lion's turn to starboard and had her helm jammed by hits aft, she would easily appear to have climbed up onto New Zealand's starboard quarter.



<snip>
The loss of our next astern happened so suddenly that, almost before we realized she was gone, our attention was absorbed by the very fierce battle that was now progressing. The noise of our own salvoes and the shrieking of the enemy's shells falling over or short, and throwing up great sheets of spray, left one with little time to think of anything except the work in hand. I personally was fully occupied in keeping station on our next ahead together with plotting our position on the chart, for we were being led by the Flagship along a snake-like course, to reduce the chances of being hit. The enemy could be seen on our port beam at a range of about 16,000 yards, but the damage that we were inflicting upon them could not be made out at this distance.

>>>>> This sounds to me as related to the 4:00 - 4:05 period. The range is correct for the time and I could easily accept that Lion was evasively maneuvering, as she was actually hit several times in quick succession at this point in time

For the next half-hour the battle continued on a south-easterly course, the German firing growing steadily less accurate and at times becoming quite wild, whilst we were maintaining a steady flow of salvoes.

>>>>> If the half-hour time period mentioned is an estimate, the time line moves up quite close to the loss of Queen Mary. FWIW

All seemed to be going well with us, when suddenly I saw a salvo hit Queen Mary on her port side. A Small cloud of what looked like coal dust came out from where she was hit, but nothing more until several moments later, when a terrific yellow flame with a heavy and very dense mass of black smoke showed ahead, and the Queen Mary herself was no longer visible. The Tiger was steaming at 24 knots onlt 500 yards astern of Queen Mary, and hauled sharply out of the line to port and disappeared in this dense mass of smoke. We hauled out to starboard, and Tiger and ourselves passed one on each side of the Queen Mary. We passed her about 50 yards on our port beam, by which time the smoke had blown fairly clear, revealing the stern from the after funnel aft, and the propellers still revolving.
<snip>
This second disaster was rather stunning, but the only sign from the Flagship was a signal, "Battle cruisers alter course two points to port" - i.e., toward the enemy.

>>>>> Quite concur that no evidence exists for any BCF maneuver order to close the enemy. As for the respective movements of Tiger and New Zealand to clear the wreckage of Queen Mary, I would imagine that a minor helm alteration to clear Queen Mary's remains and some minor follow-on adjustments to resume line ahead formation in good order on the original base course MAY have been seen as minor housekeeping rather than important course alterations to be officially recorded.

Like a great jigsaw puzzle with 20pct of the pieces missing ..... :D

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Re: Was the H.M.S Hood the most powerful ship for 20 years?

Post by NCC1717 »

Byron,

After reading the new Zealand Navigator's narrative several more times, I’ve realized I was wrong, and agree with you that the ‘snake-line course’ comment is close after the loss of Indefatigable (just after 4:02 per Brooks, page 198). Then there is the time lapse called ‘the next half-hour’ before the loss of Queen Mary (signaled at 4:20, Brooks page 202) and the maneuvers to avoid her wreck.

My copy of "The fighting at Jutland" is the 2001 Naval Institute typeset of the 1921 edition.

Thanks,
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Re: Was the H.M.S Hood the most powerful ship for 20 years?

Post by wadinga »

Hello Byron and All,

It is indeed an interesting jigsaw puzzle since the information on each piece is ofttimes consistent, but sometimes contradictory to those around it. :cool:
- which suggests the possibility of an initial course alteration of 30 degrees to starboard between 4:01 - 4:02, followed by a correction of 8 degrees back to port between 4:02 - 4:03 (with an implied rapid change-over from port helm to starboard helm).
It seems to me this is entirely consistent with Chatfield's account of a misheard helm order, whose unintended heading change effect was not immediately identified due to the chaos surrounding the Q turret hit, but was followed by a major helm reversal which clawed back 8 degrees in as little as a minute. In his memory the Indefatigable disaster became chronologically muddled with these events. It also seems unlikely that Lion increased the range by three miles in the time available, as was suspected, and this is surely further evidence of the failure of the Barr & Stroud 9ft RF to provide reliable or even useable information in the operating/visibility conditions prevailing at the time.

I now have access to Brooks and I note he uses a Despatches-based map (fig 8.1) to suggest Lion's maximum displacement to the west of the rest of 1st BCS track was at 16:12 and was about 2,000yds only. It also shows the 2nd BCS about the same distance east of the 1st BCS track at the time of Indefatigable's destruction.
This second disaster was rather stunning, but the only sign from the Flagship was a signal, "Battle cruisers alter course two points to port" - i.e., toward the enemy.

>>>>> Quite concur that no evidence exists for any BCF maneuver order to close the enemy.
I believe this is the origin of what has always been considered a Churchillian propagandist invention. This eye witness clearly says there was an instruction by the flagship to turn towards the enemy right after Queen Mary's destruction. It is, of course, possible he was mistaken. There may, or may not be any surviving, corroborating evidence in signal logs to support this officer's recollection, but then it would be quite a stretch to suggest he either decided to invent or was instructed to remember something that "sounded good" but didn't actually happen. But then people's recollections are affected by subsequent discussions, so it possible someone else told him this "fact".

I hope everyone is enjoying this collaborative investigation as much as I am. :D

All the best

wadinga
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Re: Was the H.M.S Hood the most powerful ship for 20 years?

Post by Byron Angel »

NCC1717 wrote: Wed Aug 24, 2022 12:10 am Byron,

After reading the new Zealand Navigator's narrative several more times, I’ve realized I was wrong, and agree with you that the ‘snake-line course’ comment is close after the loss of Indefatigable (just after 4:02 per Brooks, page 198). Then there is the time lapse called ‘the next half-hour’ before the loss of Queen Mary (signaled at 4:20, Brooks page 202) and the maneuvers to avoid her wreck.

My copy of "The fighting at Jutland" is the 2001 Naval Institute typeset of the 1921 edition.

Thanks,
NCC1717
Everyone's trek into complex and contradictory subjects like Jutland is marked by "Aha" moments. My journey is well posted in that regard :angel:

B
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