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PostPosted: Sat Dec 30, 2017 9:42 am 
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.


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PostPosted: Sun Dec 31, 2017 11:51 pm 
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Joined: Mon Jul 11, 2011 5:06 pm
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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.


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PostPosted: Tue Jan 02, 2018 12:57 pm 
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.


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