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Topic review - British Battlecruisers at Jutland - under armored?
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  Post subject:  Re: British Battlecruisers at Jutland - under armored?  Reply with quote
I’ve red memoirs of gunnery officer from Lion (forgot the name), where he described his attempts to correct “unacceptable” practices in magazines and handling rooms. He succeeded to some extent.
I probably don’t understand what “barrack for” means (I’m in New York :) but I’m more or less neutral in this case, I’m just disturbed by what happened to those ships and their crews, both sides. I realize, that catastrophic magazine explosions were not exclusive to RN (da Vinci, Mutsu, Main and probably some more cases happened elsewhere) it was just too regular at Jutland. Regular to me means preventable.
Post Posted: Tue Jan 02, 2018 12:57 pm
  Post subject:  Re: British Battlecruisers at Jutland - under armored?  Reply with quote
You would have to say that the discussion about the Battle of Jutland has been more heated that the actual battle but fortunately without the casualties.

I think most recent research has established that poor cordite handling to maximise rate of fire in the Battlecruiser Squadrons was a cause of the disastrous magazine explosions. Lion's cordite was better managed and with a bit of luck the ship survived a hit on the "Q" turret. The armour was good but more importantly the impact of secondary explosions, flash and fire on cordite were underestimated leading to the loss of the Battlecruisers.

However it helps if your return fire hits and explodes. Beatty made frequent minor course changes which threw off the fire control system making it difficult to acquire a suitable solution for long range gunnery. As I read Friedman's book on Naval Firepower the German system was better for quickly acquiring a target and getting a workable range, rate and baring.

The other side of the coin was that those shells that did arrive on the ships of the High Seas Fleet performed poorly typically exploding before they pieced the ships armour. It was not German armour but poor shell fuzes that was the problem - this was discussed in a series of three articles in Warship some years ago and was recognised by Jellicoe and Beatty anbd was kept strictly secret until improvements could be made.

There clearly would have been more German losses if these deficiencies were not present.

The Battlecruisers served their role in the battle and the Germans were in a poor position and nearly lost the lot when the Grand Fleet turned up. If you barrack for the British its a pity that nobody thought to tell Jellicoe anything and so the commander was lacking in situational awareness which allowed the High Seas fleet to escape.
Post Posted: Sun Dec 31, 2017 11:51 pm
  Post subject:  Re: British Battlecruisers at Jutland - under armored?  Reply with quote
This year under the tree I have found (OK, it was on my list with precise instructions for Santa) "Clydebank battlecruisers" by Ian Johnston.
Wow, all I can say.
Treasure trove of information and, of course, beautiful pictures. Facts I didn't know about (not a surprise) -some just curiosities, some very informative about history of British battlecruisers.
Sample of interesting trivia - why P and Q turrets (as opposed to just A, B, and C) - B and C sound similar and that could lead to some confusion: Turret Cee - fire! captain orders. They hear Bee and the friendly destroyer goes down.
On the serious note - the book describes process of construction of five battlecruisers built in John Brown's shipyard; HMS Inflexible, Australia, Tiger, Repulse and Hood. As the author points out, this lineup constitutes one one ship from each five classes of Royal Navy battlecruisers. (another new fact for me that Tiger was considered in the same class as the rest of Lions).
You read about the euphoria in the Admiralty after the Falkland Battle and haste ordering of Repulse and Renown - the ships were given priority and, in Repulse case in particular, were constructed in record time. Than comes despair after Jutland to the extent that the new battlecruisers are, in effect, not wanted by the navy.
I'm afraid I can't add anything new to the discussion at hand - there are compelling arguments on both sides of the "divide".
One thing I've always wondered about - why did Admiralty send armored cruisers with Jellicoe? What was their role other than "not being able to fight and not being able to run away". I'm inclined to apply the same logic to battlecruisers - why were they needed at Jutland, at this particular battle? British new, at least in general, what Germans are up to - wouldn't Grand Fleet dreadnoughts, all 28 of them with their light cruiser and destroyer escort, suffice to prevent Germans from breaking out?

Apologies if info about the book is an old news - couldn't resit to share my excitement.
Post Posted: Sat Dec 30, 2017 9:42 am
  Post subject:  Re: British Battlecruisers at Jutland - under armored?  Reply with quote
Yet the Analysis that the Hood was hit by plunging fire on her deck continues to be repeated and reported by about every expert on every documentary......
Post Posted: Sun Dec 10, 2017 2:44 am
  Post subject:  Re: British Battlecruisers at Jutland - under armored?  Reply with quote
ChrisP wrote:
The pocket battleships, especially, would have been far more concerned about a modernised HMS Tiger in the vicinity than the rather ponderous 'R' class.

Obviously - a Deutschland class cruiser could not escape, because they were slower. A modernised battlecruiser could also have escorted the carriers, for which the Queen Elizabeth and R class were too slow.

I still wonder about the tendency of stronger and stronger armour in cruisers in the 1930s and 1940s - there is no evidence that it was ever useful. As I had written: the heavier armour of the German battlecruisers were repeatedly defeated and they lost most heavy turrets. The difference was not the armour, but the way the propellant was stored and handled and how stable it was in general.
Post Posted: Sat Dec 09, 2017 10:20 am
  Post subject:  Re: British Battlecruisers at Jutland - under armored?  Reply with quote
Good point! Have you noticed that in both world wars, speed was often the most important factor in engagements. It is surprising how little action 'slow' ships had, when compared to the fast battleships, battlecruisers and cruisers. An admiral with fast ships at his disposal could usually choose whether or not to engage, and on what terms. By contrast, a fleet containing slower ships were often forced to either split, thus weakening itself, or to rely on aircraft/subs to slow down opponents.
I've often wondered if, with hindsight, the British would have been better off keeping HMS Lion, Tiger and Princess Royal after the Washington Treaty, rather than three of the 'R' class battleships. These battlecruisers, especially if modernised, would have been very useful in WW2, especially in the early stages. The pocket battleships, especially, would have been far more concerned about a modernised HMS Tiger in the vicinity than the rather ponderous 'R' class.
Post Posted: Sat Dec 09, 2017 9:07 am
  Post subject:  Re: British Battlecruisers at Jutland - under armored?  Reply with quote
Battlecruisers were considered to be capital ships under the Washington treaty and thus new constructions were prohibited.

But your are right, battlecruisers were not cost effective for patrolling the sea lanes.
Post Posted: Sat Dec 09, 2017 2:26 am
  Post subject:  Re: British Battlecruisers at Jutland - under armored?  Reply with quote
Interestingly after the war most navies switched to lightly armoured fast ships: the Washington type of heavy cruiser, much more similar to the original battlecruiser concept of Fisher than HMS Hood. HMS Hood was way too valuable/expensive to be used as scout and to hunt cruiser attacking trade.
Post Posted: Fri Dec 08, 2017 3:30 pm
  Post subject:  Re: British Battlecruisers at Jutland - under armored?  Reply with quote
As designed, the Hood's main belt was to be 8". After Jutland, the main belt was increased to 12" but it was narrower than the typical battleship's main belt to save weight. Even so, the Hood lost 4-6 feet of freeboard and about 1 knot in speed.
Post Posted: Fri Dec 08, 2017 1:33 am
  Post subject:  Re: British Battlecruisers at Jutland - under armored?  Reply with quote
warspite63 wrote:
'why the Hood was not simply designed as a fast battleship, rather than a somewhat up-armored battlecruiser.' - from what I've red on the subject, Hood essentially was the first fast battleship - her armour was at least equivalent to that of the QE class battleships. When Hood was sunk, the admiralty concluded that battleships built before Nelson would be equally vulnerable to similar hits


Exactly.

Remember Hood was originally designed before Jutland and her keel was laid on the day the battle was fought. In the aftermath, following the British BC losses, construction was halted and her design was modified to include better horizontal protection. Subsequent research showed that the armour scheme could be defeated by her own AP shells, and proposals were made as to how that could be addressed.

http://www.hmshood.org.uk/reference/off ... 1-9226.htm

At the time, there was no such thing as a "fast battleship" - the ships with long, sleek hulls, high speed and heavy armament were designated battlecruisers - at least by the British, even if better armoured than earlier ships- so Hood remained a battlescruiser. British post WW1 designs were high speed battlecruisers such as the G3's or low speed somewhat heavier armoured battleships. The Washington Treaty resulted in the G3 design being shortened and slowed to produce Nelson & Rodney.

(This is partly why the British called Dunkerque, Strasbourg, Gneisenau and Scharnhorst battlecruisers even though the French and Germans considered them battleships.)

After the loss of Hood, the British decreed that not only Renown & Repulse (obviously), but the 4 remaining R-class battleships (and the unmodernized QE's) were not to engage a Bismarck-class battleship unless it was otherwise engaged by better protected ships.
Post Posted: Thu Dec 07, 2017 10:03 pm
  Post subject:  Re: British Battlecruisers at Jutland - under armored?  Reply with quote
'why the Hood was not simply designed as a fast battleship, rather than a somewhat up-armored battlecruiser.' - from what I've red on the subject, Hood essentially was the first fast battleship - her armour was at least equivalent to that of the QE class battleships. When Hood was sunk, the admiralty concluded that battleships built before Nelson would be equally vulnerable to similar hits
Post Posted: Thu Dec 07, 2017 8:50 pm
  Post subject:  Re: Why no WW1 British Battlecruisers in 1:700 plastic?  Reply with quote
For those who haven't seen/read it previously, here's a link to the analysis Bill Jurens did concerning the loss of HM Hood for Warship International in 1987:
http://www.navweaps.com/index_inro/INRO_Hood.php
Post Posted: Thu Dec 07, 2017 5:18 pm
  Post subject:  Re: British Battlecruisers at Jutland - under armored?  Reply with quote
Battlecruisers were designed to scout for the fleet and to hunt other cruisers. The losses among them occurred when they were placed in battle against capitol ships, which was the wrong place for them.

A British Admiral (I can't find the exact quote ATM) who was critical of the battlecruiser concept cautioned that those big guns would be far too much of a temptation to some future admiral in some future battle and at such a moment they would probably end up placed in the battle line-not far from what transpired at Jutland.

The thing that makes me wonder, though, is that with technology being what it was, and battlleships being capable of battlecruiser speeds, why the Hood was not simply designed as a fast battleship, rather than a somewhat up-armored battlecruiser.

Later, the US navy made another perplexing decision to build the Alaskas with no underwater protection which makes no sense when one considers the damage done repeatedly to US ships by Japanese torpedoes. It seems that with such a "spare no expense" approach that they should have had effective protection below the water line. My sentimental fascination with the class prevents me from suggesting that building a couple more Iowas, or a bunch more cruisers might have been a more cost effective strategy. ;)
Post Posted: Thu Dec 07, 2017 5:05 pm
  Post subject:  Re: Why no WW1 British Battlecruisers in 1:700 plastic?  Reply with quote
potchip wrote:
British BCs and German BCs are not the same thing, despite being grouped as the same

The strongest armour of German battlecruisers were repeatedly pierced causing the loss of most heavy artillery. The difference is not the armour.

The difference was more likely the stability, storage and handling of the propellant - remember that also multiple British ships were lost in harbour to ammunition explosions.
Post Posted: Thu Dec 07, 2017 12:46 pm
  Post subject:  Re: Why no WW1 British Battlecruisers in 1:700 plastic?  Reply with quote
That would all be fine if we knew the actual reasons for the Hood's loss. At Jutland, munitions handling and Flashover created a vulnerable chain from magazine to turret. A penetration at any place on the chain could, and did, have disasterous results.

The Hood's loss was somewhat different. The notion that a plunging shell penetrated an aft magazine, although almost universally accepted at the time of loss, did not survive the Second Board of Inquiry. Indeed one modern writer pointed out that given the relative positions of Hood and Bismark, the angle that Bismark's shells descended on Hood made deck penetration unlikely.
Most people agree that a fire in the 4inch magazine propagated to the 15inch magazine after the bulkhead between the two failed. What caused the fire in the 4inch magazine is the real mystery. There are various theories some of which have nothing to do with armour thickness.

Weak deck armour? Maybe. Then again, maybe not.

W.D.B.
Post Posted: Thu Dec 07, 2017 11:43 am
  Post subject:  Re: Why no WW1 British Battlecruisers in 1:700 plastic?  Reply with quote
I'm sure I remember reading that part of the problem was that the British cordite was more unstable and stored in silk bags whilst the German was stored in brass cases.

Vlad wrote:
On the historical side, if you take a look at the number of hits sustained by Lion at Dogger Bank and Tiger at Jutland it's clear that the survivability of British battlecruisers was quite commendable under normal circumstances. The other thing to remember is that at Jutland their shooting was appalling. If the British had scored hits as quickly and often as the Germans the effectiveness of the latter would have decreased rapidly. The whole point of mounting bigger guns was to "beat down" the enemy before they could do the same to you, as early advantages in a naval gunnery duel essentially snowball. The BCS did not succeed in using their speed to set up the required parameters for that engagement, and did not have the gunnery practice necessary to capitalise on it even if they had. The speed+firepower at the expense of armour combination is not conceptually flawed and has been used very succesfully in warfare from the dawn of time to the present day. In theory it's essentially unbeatable but requires a certain approach and set of conditions to work.
Post Posted: Thu Dec 07, 2017 4:14 am
  Post subject:  Re: Why no WW1 British Battlecruisers in 1:700 plastic?  Reply with quote
The BC armour was only poor because they were used incorrectly. Per design these ships are never intended to be front and centre in a line of battle (from the side as support maybe against heavily armed/armoured opponents.

So the only reasons for the loss were luck, and mis-use. Granted there's always a human tendency to try one's luck when valuable pieces of military equipment are concerned whereupon weakness not exposed by explosions!

British BCs and German BCs are not the same thing, despite being grouped as the same - one type is the mobile hard hitting pieces for a navy that controls the open oceans and the other a compromise (where range was irrelevant given zero expectation of actual dominance in open seas) in relation to protection and firepower.

Hood was purely bad luck - she had better armour protection as built compared to contemporary battleships, just not at the plane that mattered in that particular engagement.

On to model kits, Poseidon Repulse hull is original, but somewhat moot due to it being poorly re-casted. The piracy tag should mainly attribute to some PE parts being copied from NNT kit where I'm sure formed in some form as a reference (perhaps even upper structures?)
Post Posted: Thu Dec 07, 2017 1:18 am
  Post subject:  Re: Why no WW1 British Battlecruisers in 1:700 plastic?  Reply with quote
Bill Clarke wrote:
Chris, the disaster at Jutland was, IMHO, caused by the combination of thin armour and poor munitions handling


Agreed. I too believe that ability of German shells to penetrate to the ammo/cordite handling areas was a product of the weaker armour of the British BC's. Better safety procedures, which would have slowed the rate of fire may have meant fewer magazine explosions, but turrets would have probably been put out of action (as happened to Lion).

I read that at Dogger Bank, Seydlitz almost suffered a magazine explosion following a hit on one of her turrets and the near disaster gave the Germans the opportunity to make adjustments to prevent a repeat. They were obviously successful.

Also, a Jutland factor was the poor quality of British AP shells - many tended to explode too quickly, bursting on impact or failing to penetrate deeply.

Bill Clarke wrote:
WRT Hood, it was a repeat of Jutland, her deck armour just didn't stand up to the German shells.


Her armour in general could not stand up to German 38 cm shells with the muzzle velocity that Bismarck's had, at the range at which she was hit (16-18000 yards). It was NOT a shell plunging out of the sky through thinly armoured decks as has been portrayed in books and documentaries over and over. The most likely scenario was penetration through the side armour, possibly her 12-inch belt, or more likely the 7-inch strake above it, then through whatever deck plating encountered to explode in or near the 4-inch magazines, which set off the 15-inch aft.

Shortly after she was completed, tests done using British 15-inch shells (heavier than the German 38cm, but with a lower muzzle velocity) showed how her side armour scheme could be penetrated and a magazine reached at the very range that it happened in reality!

So the whole story of her not having closed the range enough is not really accurate. At that point, the closer she got the MORE vulnerable she was becoming to side penetration.

Her case was somewhat different to Jutland though- there was no cordite stacking for rate of fire, and it was not a turret hit that created flash that then burned along the route to the main magazines.

On the subject of kits - I've been hoping to see Flyhawk give us British BC's since they did Lutzow & Derfflinger... so far no such luck. :(

Paul
Post Posted: Wed Dec 06, 2017 9:18 pm
  Post subject:  Re: Why no WW1 British Battlecruisers in 1:700 plastic?  Reply with quote
ChrisP wrote:
Really interesting points! I wonder what would have happened if the British battleships had become more heavily involved at Jutland, and taken more hits. If the main issue was munitions handling rather than thin armour, would some of them also have exploded? I know that the 5th Battle Squadron took some punishment, but many of the Grand Fleet ships remained undamaged. Or perhaps did Beatty and his battlecruisers have different standards as regards the handling of munitions when compared to Jellicoe and the main body? Was Beatty simply more cavalier in the pursuit of the fastest possible rate of fire, and suffered accordingly?

Might the problem at Jutland have been the combination of thinner armour and poor munitions handling, where one or the other might have been survivable, but both together were fatal?

My only other thought concerns the loss of HMS Hood - was this a repeat of Jutland? A munitions issue? Or simply a 20 year-old ship taking on a brand new one? (Possible comparisons to the USS Washington vs IJN Kirishima battle.)


Chris, the disaster at Jutland was, IMHO, caused by the combination of thin armour and poor munitions handling, and the fact that German propellant burned at a higher rather than British propellant.

WRT Hood, it was a repeat of Jutland, her deck armour just didn't stand up to the German shells.
Post Posted: Wed Dec 06, 2017 5:00 pm
  Post subject:  Re: Why no WW1 British Battlecruisers in 1:700 plastic?  Reply with quote
The ammunition handling problem was an issue with the Battle Cruiser Squadron, because they were based in the Forth they did not have the opportunity to exercise their Gunnery as often as the Scapa Flow based Battleships they compensated by emphasising rate of fire, some apocryphal tales of BC removing magazine doors to speed up ammunition handling.
Post Posted: Wed Dec 06, 2017 4:46 pm

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