# The Age Of The Battlecruiser



## Foxbat (Mar 5, 2018)

Been reading the forty year history of this class of ship and it makes for interesting reading. 

Admiral Jacky Fisher came up with the concept and referred to them as his_ glorious cats_ (probably because a couple of them were called Lion and Tiger).

The idea was to build a class of ship that could roam the oceans and destroy enemy cruisers at will. They were meant to protect the sealanes for British Merchant ships. They were not meant to be used in conjunction with battleships. 

They had to be faster than a normal cruiser and also be able to outgun them. The three points of the triangle for warships are guns, armour and speed. To increase one leads to a need to decrease another. In this case, armour was sacrificed for speed. 

There were some early critics who fretted over the fact that having guns on a par with the battleships of the day would lead them to be used as battleships and they were right. What made it worse was their vulnerability to long-range fire. Normally, you'd think that the longer the range, the less effective the weapon but with naval gunfire, a longer ranges means a steeper descent (plunging fire). This left the least armoured parts of the battlecruiser open to attack (turret tops, decking etc.).

One of the theories on the destruction of HMS Hood (with only three survivors) was that a shell penetrated the decking or one of the turrets and hit one of the magazines. Hood is also a perfect example of the flaw - a battlecruiser up against a battleship (Bismark). The problem for the Royal Navy was that very few of their big ships could match Bismark's speed. Hood was one of the few but lacked sufficient armour to take on such a beast.

And yet, if they had been used as designed, they should have been the great naval predators - the great white sharks of any navy - that Fisher meant them to be. But there was one flaw in the design that could not be engineered out and that was human nature. If it quacks like a duck and walks like a duck, it must be a duck. If it looks like a battleship and fires like a battleship, it must be a battleship...except when it's a lighter armoured battlecruiser.

And yet, the heroic fascination surrounding this failed concept exists even today. Anybody that's read Jack Campbell's The Lost Fleet will know (at least in the first three books that I've read) that it's the battlecruiser that is the star of the show...and all this from an ex-navy man!

So there we have it - the battlecruiser fighting against overwhelming odds, struggling against a greater foe and succumbing in heroic fashion to inevitable defeat....sounds a bit like the whole of Scottish history


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## Pyan (Mar 6, 2018)

Foxbat said:
			
		

> Anybody that's read Jack Campbell's The Lost Fleet will know (at least in the first three books that I've read) that it's the battlecruiser that is the star of the show



Same with David Weber - there are several passages in the 'Honor Harrington' series where he eulogises the speed and power of the battlecruiser as the epitome of the Manticore style of battle.

For an example of BCs used correctly, there's the Battle of the Falkland Islands - Wikipedia


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## Foxbat (Mar 6, 2018)

pyan said:


> Same with David Weber - there are several passages in the 'Honor Harrington' series where he eulogises the speed and power of the battlecruiser as the epitome of the Manticore style of battle.
> 
> For an example of BCs used correctly, there's the Battle of the Falkland Islands - Wikipedia


Yes. Just read an account of the Falklands and Coronel battles.

It's also probably worth keeping in mind that the Royal Navy was in a unique position. The policy at the time was  for a two-fleet navy...meaning that the RN should always be greater than the next two biggest fleets combined.

But that didn't solve the problem of empire. In the case of the German navy, the vast majority was stationed and ready to emerge at any time in the North Sea. Because of the British Empire and the need to protect merchant shipping, it meant a greater dispersal of RN ships throughout the world. This made it much more difficult to concentrate a fleet large enough to counter the German threat despite the fact that the RN was the larger of the two. When you take this into account and then consider these large, long range predators either singly or in very small groups, roaming the sea lanes, freeing up other ships for fleet concentration, you begin to understand where the thinking behind battlecruisers actually came from.


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## Parson (Mar 6, 2018)

Honor Harrington's only fleet defeat came from a massive fleet of battlecruisers.  (But search me if I remember which book it came in. One of the middle books, Honor Among Enemies?)


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## Foxbat (Mar 7, 2018)

Went looking for some David Weber literature because of this thread and managed to get the first two Honor Harrington books on Amazon for free for my kindle


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## Foxbat (Mar 7, 2018)

Just some further thoughts on the UK battlecruisers. They were first built in 1908 and most served in WW1. Three, however remained to serve in WW2. These were Renown, Repulse and Hood. In 1936, Renown was subjected to a major refit where her engines,  armour, gunnery and anti-aircraft capabilities were significantly upgraded. The cost of this upgrade was only £30000 short of the cost of her initial build. Renown was, effectively, a new ship. Unfortunately, neither Hood nor Repulse were given these upgrades and I wonder how history might have differed if they had. 

Would Hood have survived the pummelling from Bismark and would Repulse (if it had been given substantially more and better anti-aircraft gunnery) have survived the onslaught from Japanese land-based aircraft that sent her and Prince Of Wales to the ocean depths?

The answers, of course, are that they probably wouldn't have made a difference. Hood, like many British ships of the time, often ignored safety precautions during battle - leaving open doors leading to the magazines and storing extra cordite charges (for fast use) within the turrets, and this may be a reason for such a terrible explosion. The Japanese air attack would probably still have overwhelmed both the capital ships of Force Z but perhaps Repulse might have taken a few more of the enemy with her. Don't think there's much of a possibility of alternate history here


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## Pyan (Mar 7, 2018)

Foxbat said:


> Went looking for some David Weber literature because of this thread and managed to get the first two Honor Harrington books on Amazon for free for my kindle


Excellent - that's exactly how I got started. I now have 52 Weber books on the Kindle, plus a pre-order for _Uncompromising Honor,_ due out in October, so be prepared...


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## Parson (Mar 7, 2018)

Foxbat said:


> Went looking for some David Weber literature because of this thread and managed to get the first two Honor Harrington books on Amazon for free for my kindle



Ah! to have* On Basilisk Station *and *For the Honor of the Queen* ready to read and never have read them. I am so jealous!! 

@pyan ... fifty-two Weber books?! I don't think I have many over 30 and I thought I had about all of them (Hm, maybe a few more fantasy books that I remember, because I don't have any of them.)


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## Pyan (Mar 7, 2018)

Foxbat said:


> Just some further thoughts on the UK battlecruisers. They were first built in 1908 and most served in WW1



And both sides used them without taking into account their fragility when facing heavy guns. At Jutland (1916), Scheer sent them on the notorious "Death Ride" to cover his battleship squadrons withdrawal, with desperate results for SMS_ Lützow_, von Hipper's flagship, while Beatty, the admiral in charge of the British battlecruisers, was too far in front of the main fleet and lost _Queen Mary, Indefatigable_ and _Invincible_ in short order.

Fascinating battle, Jutland, a textbook example of Murphy's Law in action. Personally, I wouldn't have let Beatty command the Gosport Ferry...

Battle of Jutland - Wikipedia


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## Pyan (Mar 7, 2018)

Parson said:


> Ah! to have* On Basilisk Station *and *For the Honor of the Queen* ready to read and never have read them. I am so jealous!!
> 
> @pyan ... fifty-two Weber books?! I don't think I have many over 30 and I thought I had about all of them (Hm, maybe a few more fantasy books that I remember, because I don't have any of them.)



33 _Manticore_ books, 4 _Dahaks_, 6 _War Gods_, 9 _Safeholds_.... And I'm not counting the collaborations, which adds 4 _Empire of Man_ (with John Ringo) and 2 _1623_s (with Eric Flint)....


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## Parson (Mar 7, 2018)

Parson will go home later today and take inventory. But I suspect I have underestimated. I believe I have all 33? Manticore books I know I have 9 Safeholds (grumpily by the last couple) and 4 Dahaks, no War Gods. So..... 46 I guess. ---- Parson suddenly remembers moving and throwing away (please no one shoot me) almost all his paperbacks, so 46 will be the best guess!


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## WarriorMouse (Mar 8, 2018)

pyan said:


> And both sides used them without taking into account their fragility when facing heavy guns. At Jutland (1916), Scheer sent them on the notorious "Death Ride" to cover his battleship squadrons withdrawal, with desperate results for SMS_ Lützow_, von Hipper's flagship, while Beatty, the admiral in charge of the British battlecruisers, was too far in front of the main fleet and lost _Queen Mary, Indefatigable_ and _Invincible_ in short order.
> 
> Fascinating battle, Jutland, a textbook example of Murphy's Law in action. Personally, I wouldn't have let Beatty command the Gosport Ferry...
> 
> Battle of Jutland - Wikipedia



I have read nothing so idiotic as reading that the Brit's sailed off for the battle with masses of ordinance and powder for the main guns stacked in the ships corridors. And if that was not bad enough, gun crews regularly left turret doors open, extra cordite charges stacked in and outside the turrets and they would  leave magazine doors open. It beggars belief that  Parliment did'nt hand the General Staff their own heads on a platter for allowing that type of idiocy.


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## Foxbat (Mar 8, 2018)

pyan said:


> And both sides used them without taking into account their fragility when facing heavy guns. At Jutland (1916), Scheer sent them on the notorious "Death Ride" to cover his battleship squadrons withdrawal, with desperate results for SMS_ Lützow_, von Hipper's flagship, while Beatty, the admiral in charge of the British battlecruisers, was too far in front of the main fleet and lost _Queen Mary, Indefatigable_ and _Invincible_ in short order.
> 
> Fascinating battle, Jutland, a textbook example of Murphy's Law in action. Personally, I wouldn't have let Beatty command the Gosport Ferry...
> 
> Battle of Jutland - Wikipedia


So very true...and yet...the fragility had been known about from the very start when they were first built in 1908. Here's a quote from Brassey's Naval Annual of the time..

_Vessels of this enormous size and cost are unsuitable for many of the duties of cruisers, but an even stronger objection is that an admiral, having 'Invincibles' in his fleet will be certain to put them in line of battle, where their comparatively light protection will be a disadvantage and their speed of no value...
_
A case of Nelson putting a telescope to his blind eye methinks.


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## Pyan (Mar 8, 2018)

Yet Fisher was absolutely clear on the purpose of the BC - heavy enough guns to destroy anything smaller, fast enough to run away from anything bigger. It was the admirals who couldn’t resist putting them in the line of battle, where their lack of armour proved disastrous.


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## Edward M. Grant (Mar 8, 2018)

Yes. Like so many things in military history, they made sense when used as they were designed to be used, but the military decided to use them for something else.


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## WaylanderToo (Mar 8, 2018)

Foxbat said:


> Just some further thoughts on the UK battlecruisers. They were first built in 1908 and most served in WW1. Three, however remained to serve in WW2. These were Renown, Repulse and Hood. In 1936, Renown was subjected to a major refit where her engines,  armour, gunnery and anti-aircraft capabilities were significantly upgraded. The cost of this upgrade was only £30000 short of the cost of her initial build. Renown was, effectively, a new ship. Unfortunately, neither Hood nor Repulse were given these upgrades and I wonder how history might have differed if they had.
> 
> Would Hood have survived the pummelling from Bismark and would Repulse (if it had been given substantially more and better anti-aircraft gunnery) have survived the onslaught from Japanese land-based aircraft that sent her and Prince Of Wales to the ocean depths?
> 
> The answers, of course, are that they probably wouldn't have made a difference. Hood, like many British ships of the time, often ignored safety precautions during battle - leaving open doors leading to the magazines and storing extra cordite charges (for fast use) within the turrets, and this may be a reason for such a terrible explosion. The Japanese air attack would probably still have overwhelmed both the capital ships of Force Z but perhaps Repulse might have taken a few more of the enemy with her. Don't think there's much of a possibility of alternate history here




talking of Hood era alternate history - I do wonder what would have happened had the Germans not lost:

Bismark
Graf Spee

and had used the Tirpitz properly too.

2 major ships and one reasonably large one would not have changed the course of the war, I do wonder the inpact they would have had?


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## Edward M. Grant (Mar 8, 2018)

WaylanderToo said:


> 2 major ships and one reasonably large one would not have changed the course of the war, I do wonder the inpact they would have had?



As I understand it, Churchill wasn't afraid of those ships taking on the Royal Navy, because they weren't capable of doing so: as history proved, all they could do was sink a few of the older British ships before they were sunk themselves. The big fear was that they'd attack convoys, which they could utterly destroy at little risk to themselves.

I'd say they could certainly have changed the course of the war if they'd been able to operate for months in the Atlantic and dramatically reduce the supplies reaching Britain from abroad.


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## WarriorMouse (Mar 9, 2018)

Edward M. Grant said:


> Yes. Like so many things in military history, they made sense when used as they were designed to be used, but the military decided to use them for something else.


But that's what military's do, they experiment. If they did'nt then we would not have C-130 gunships (Spooky)or Fighter aircraft that hover (F-35).
They are constantly using equipment or tactics in nonstandard ways to find what works. What is unfortunate is that when the use or tactic fails, men die.


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## Foxbat (Mar 9, 2018)

In my opinion, the real problem that faced Britain was not facing up to capital ships with other capital ships but the problem of having to divert destroyers away from convoy duties to protect the big guns from submarine attack. The British would have just hunted down Bismark et al relentlessly(they had weight of numbers) but the real threat in the Atlantic was the U Boat and any destroyer diverted to help deal with a surface ship was one less to protect merchants.


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## Edward M. Grant (Mar 9, 2018)

WarriorMouse said:


> But that's what military's do, they experiment. If they did'nt then we would not have C-130 gunships (Spooky)or Fighter aircraft that hover (F-35).



There's a difference between sticking a big gun in a cargo aircraft that's facing a few guerillas with AK47s and RPGs who are a minimal threat, and sending a big, expensive, lightly-armoured ship to fight battleships that can destroy it with one hit. One is sensible, the other is, if I can use a technical term... stupid.


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## WarriorMouse (Mar 10, 2018)

Edward M. Grant said:


> There's a difference between sticking a big gun in a cargo aircraft that's facing a few guerillas with AK47s and RPGs who are a minimal threat, and sending a big, expensive, lightly-armoured ship to fight battleships that can destroy it with one hit. One is sensible, the other is, if I can use a technical term... stupid.



I disagree with you on that. To a degree, it was a reasonable tactic. If you sent out the big guns, Battleships/Dreadnaughts, screening elements also go along. ie: Cruisers, Destroyers, Frigates. The tactic is still used today with the Aircraft Carrier fleets. The British Navy believed, somewhat wrongly, that the German fleet would have the same problems with long range plunging fire accuracy as they did. The stupidity is that they did not learn their lesson in WW1 as so repeated it in WW2 resulting in the loss of HMS Hood.


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## Foxbat (Mar 10, 2018)

From the accounts I've read of actions in both wars, it's the destroyer (closely followed by the cruiser) that comes out with most credit. There were some heroic efforts where the smaller ships took on much larger opponents...example.. Glowworm versus the Admiral Hipper   HMS Glowworm (H92) - Wikipedia 

They truly were the attack dogs of the sea.


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## BAYLOR (Mar 11, 2018)

Foxbat said:


> From the accounts I've read of actions in both wars, it's the destroyer (closely followed by the cruiser) that comes out with most credit. There were some heroic efforts where the smaller ships took on much larger opponents...example.. Glowworm versus the Admiral Hipper   HMS Glowworm (H92) - Wikipedia
> 
> They truly were the attack dogs of the sea.



What about PT Boats?


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## Ursa major (Mar 11, 2018)

BAYLOR said:


> What about PT Boats?


I doubt that they would have sunk the Bismarck out in the Atlantic....


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## Foxbat (Mar 11, 2018)

BAYLOR said:


> What about PT Boats?



I certainly don't mean any disrespect to the crews of these craft but to be honest, I don't know much about them.  I think the British equivalent would be the Vosper MTB. 
Vosper 73 ft motor torpedo boat - Wikipedia

I do know two things...1) that the future President John F. Kennedy was a PT boat captain
2) that small motor gun boats played a major and absolutely vital role in the greatest Commando raid in history (the raid on St. Nazaire) so kudos to the crews of all MTBs, PT Boats and E Boats (the German torpedo boats)


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## Venusian Broon (Mar 11, 2018)

WaylanderToo said:


> talking of Hood era alternate history - I do wonder what would have happened had the Germans not lost:
> 
> Bismark
> Graf Spee
> ...



I don't see what the survival of the said ships would have done to change anything. They were really just white elephants - as soon as they were on the open see, the RN would have hunted them down, so the only impact they could have had was, as Foxbat states was a threat to convoys - particularly the Russian ones that had to go past Norway. I believe faulty intelligence did cause the RN to order PQ 17 to scatter, believing that Tirpitz was on course and almost 2/3rds of the convoy was sunk because of this.  

No, what they should have done instead of building these capital ships (They also built the hull of an aircraft carrier - the _Graf Zeppelin_ - but never completed her) was to focus on U-boats. Luckily for us they only had 46 operational submarines at the start of the war and it took them a long time to really shift naval production to them. They were highly effective at the start of the war, if there had been a significant number more they could have starved the UK out.


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## ralphkern (Mar 11, 2018)

The value of the _Bismark_, _Tirpitz _and the _Graf Spee_ would have been to divert our own heavy fleet units into convoy defence duties, rather than their war fighting power in of themselves. (as impressive as they were - the Kreigs Marine had far fewer heavy units and there was no opportunity for the huge Pacific theatre battles).

In particular for Operation Rhienburg, the mission of _Bismark _and _Prinz Eugens_ was never to engage enemies of equal strength:

_Grand Admiral Erich Raeder's orders to Admiral Günther Lütjens were that "the objective of the Bismarck is not to defeat enemies of equal strength, but to tie them down in a delaying action, while preserving her combat capacity as much as possible, so as to allow Prinz Eugen to get at the merchant ships in the convoy" and "The primary target in this operation is the enemy's merchant shipping; enemy warships will be engaged only when that objective makes it necessary and it can be done without excessive risk."
_
This is one of the reasons why, following the destruction of the _Hood_ (a battlecruiser), Lutjens never pressed the attack against the_ Prince of Wales (_POW - A battleship_)_. They probably were not aware of the issues the POW was suffering from, (malfunctioning turrets) and even if they did, the initial engagement had used up around a third of their ammunition stores. POW, even wounded and with malfunctioning turrets, would have been a much tougher nut to crack than the _Hood _in terms of actually sinking her. 

This is somewhat evidenced by how tough _Bismark _herself was to sink -
_
The four British ships fired more than 2,800 shells at Bismarck, and scored more than 400 hits, but were unable to sink Bismarck by gunfire._

_Bismark _might have eventually won against the POW, in fact probably would have, but it would have been a pyrhic victory (in actual fact, history proved that to be the case anyway, but there was no way they could know that at this point). Their mission would be over. They would have likely sustained further damage. Their ammunition stores would have been depleted. And strategically, they would have accomplished very little - after all, we vastly outnumbered the Kreigs Marine in terms of heavy fleet units - in other words, we had plenty more BBs, and _Bismark _would never have taken them all out. It was more important for them to preserve the _Bismark _and _Prinz_ _Eugens_, both in terms of mission objectives and the units themselves.

*Now back to the original post's point. 
*
In many ways, the roles of _Bismark _and the _Hood _was reversed in intention.

Rheinburg intended _Bismark_ to be used as a Battlecruiser, as per Fisher's original vision:

_"Heavy enough guns to destroy anything smaller, fast enough to run away from anything bigger."

Hood and POW _were being used as Battleships (admttedly - that was less planned, and more a response)_, _to deny the theatre to _Bismark _(forcing her to run) or simply take her out.

Both _Bismark _and _Hood _failed in their missions. They were the wrong tools for their mission briefs. (POW did, kind of, succeed in driving _Bismark _away)

Had _Bismark _been a faster BC, she might have avoided engaging _Hood _and POW. And evaded the subsequent hunt and been able to perform her mission. Had _Hood _been a BB, or had received her upgrades, she would have been far more effective in denying the theatre, perhaps forcing _Bismark _out of the area completely, or kept her moving, and unable to effectively strike, until she ran out of fuel and had to leave.

But yes, there is a certain romance to the BC, which was never afforded the opportunity to actually happen in the real world. A fast and powerful predator. She chooses her fights, and wins. Those she can't win, she's not interested in fighting.


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## Venusian Broon (Mar 11, 2018)

Hey @Foxbat I don't think you've mentioned that, at least for WW1, I believe that Beatties Battlecruiser squadron was stationed just doon the water from you at Rosyth.

Cue picture of the HMS Hood next to the Forth Rail Bridge


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## Pyan (Mar 22, 2018)

And here's one of HMS _Tiger_, also by the Bridge (that's probably _Lion_ behind her to the right):





And one taken from a British airship, of battlecruisers and escorts in 1916...


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## Venusian Broon (Mar 23, 2018)

pyan said:


> And one taken from a British airship, of battlecruisers and escorts in 1916...
> 
> View attachment 43725



That's almost the full strength of the current Royal Navy, just counting surface combatants, number-wise!


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## Pyan (Mar 23, 2018)

HMS _Invincible_ (1907-1916)

The very first of Jackie Fisher's battlecruisers, fought with distinction in the Battle of the Falkland Islands (1914)





Hit by plunging fire from either _Lützow_ or _Derfflinger _at Jutland. The central magazine has been hit, and the explosion touched off the forward one as well - note the plume of flame from the fore-turret...



 

Minutes later. The stern and bow aren't floating - the North Sea there is so shallow, the broken ends are actually resting on the sea-bed.





1,032 officers and crew. 6 survivors. "Eggshells armed with sledgehammers"


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## Foxbat (May 2, 2018)

Saw an interesting piece on the battle of Jutland on BBC4. It has some relevance to this thread because they carried out a couple of experiments. 

The first was a comparism between HMS Queen Mary (which sank after only seven hits) and SMS Seydlitz - a comparable german battlecruiser that survived twenty one hits and managed to limp home. They built a scale model of the Queen Mary hull with all the watertight compartments. Then they simulated flooding caused by hits - except they used the 21 hits from the Seydlitz instead of the 7 hits QM actually took. The hull managed to stay afloat (just). They concluded that it was not an engineering or design flaw that sunk the HMS QM.

Next, they did an experiment with cordite and built a model representing a turret and shaft leading to the magazine. It was known that to save time, bags of cordite were stashed in the turret and all doors wedged open (against safety protocols). A ship like the QM carried around 1000 15 inch shells and each shell needed 4 bags of cordite for propellant, so that's 4000 bags of cordite.

They filled both turret and magazine with the amounts representative by the scale and ignited the cordite in the turret to simulate a shell hit. The results were spectacular. Slow motion showed a flame rapidly moving downwards and into the magazine, which, when ignited, literally blew the model apart - blasting welds and rivets with the pressure. What the model did not have was the high explosive equivalent of the fifteen inch shells themselves. Add those to the mix and the results would be horrific.

Allied to the fact that all eyewitness accounts mentioned a tower of flame, it left me in no doubt that the suspected bad practices of leaving doors open (under pressure from the commanding officers to fire as rapidly as possible) between turret and magazines were indeed the reasons for such catastrophic sinkings.


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## Foxbat (May 26, 2018)

Just finished another book on the subject (British Battlecruisers 1914-1918 by Lawrence Burr). I think the author makes some interesting points. One is that the Battleship was reaching an evolutionary dead end and that the battlecruiser is the true descendant of modern warships. The battlecruiser  concept had, at its heart, the notion of replacing a large number of short duration battleships scattered at coaling stations throughout the empire. The battlecruiser with its greater range and speed would mean that less ships were needed to give a global reach. They relied on speed, agility and hitting power rather than armour. When you look at today's ships, you can see how they have rid themselves of armour and rely on speed, agility and defensive countermeasures to defend themselves. The effects of what goes wrong when all defences fail and  a lightly armoured ship is struck by a powerful weapon became all too clear in the Falklands Conflict.

But, like the battlecruiser, modern ships maintain great hitting power and provide global reach. Indeed, it has been said (although I am not qualified to know one way or the other) that a single Type 45 Destroyer could deal with the entire Argentine navy should there ever be another conflict.

Another point he makes about Fisher's reasoning behind the design was the fear he had of the great strides being made in torpedo development. It's not hard to see how a line of very large battleships would make easy targets for a spread of torpedoes. Ironic, that the battlecruiser was used as a ship of the line when it was designed to move away from that concept to one of smaller, faster, hard hitting squadrons. Again, this can be seen in the initial battlecruiser designs with  two of its four turrets amidships. This was done in order that six large guns could be trained forward rather than as a traditional broadside. The thinking behind it was that the battlecruiser would be chasing down its prey rather than taking its place in a line.

Finally, a thought for the ship designers. It's easy to see how difficult their task must have been when you look at the rapid development of naval technology.

1860 first ocean-going ironclad
1862 revolving gun turret
1866 first torpedo trial
1868 submerged torpedo tube
1870 hydraulic power
1874 electric power
1876 armour plating
1879 breech loading guns
1881 electric range trasmitter
1883 rapid fire guns
1884 turbine engines
1885 armour piercing shells
1886 high pressure boilers
1888 nitro glycerine & cellulose based propellants and high explosives
1890 director firing and stereoscopic rangefinders
1891 telescopic gun sight andautomatic plot for fire control


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## Pyan (May 26, 2018)

FB said:
			
		

> ...and that the battlecruiser is the true descendant of modern warships



I'd agree with your argument, especially if you meant to say 'ancestor...'


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## Foxbat (May 27, 2018)

pyan said:


> I'd agree with your argument, especially if you meant to say 'ancestor...'


Doh!


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## RJM Corbet (May 27, 2018)

pyan said:


> ... Fascinating battle, Jutland, a textbook example of Murphy's Law in action...



And Murphy, I believe, was indeed a First Engineer, whose famous 'If anything can go wrong, it will' was coined in the engine room of a ship at war?

Great thread. Fascinating ...


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## Foxbat (May 28, 2018)

Something else worthy of note: HMS Furious was a battlecruiser converted to one of the earliest aircraft carriers. Battlecruisers were the perfect choice for conversion because they were long (HMS Invincible was forty feet longer than HMS Dreadnought...the additional length giving space for more boilers and turbines for extra speed). The additional speed gave planes a better chance to take off when the ship turned into the wind.

In July 1918, seven Sopwith Camels were launched from Furious and destroyed two zeppelins stationed at Tondern. This was the first successful carrier strike in history and provides another link between the battlecruiser of the early twentieth century and the modern fleet operations we see today.


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