Slitherine

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ORIGINAL: madmickey

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ORIGINAL: Tankerace

YOu mean Fisher acknowledged the submarine as a weapon? I thought that was back when the submarine "was not a gentleman's weapon, as it did not fight in plain view." Gotta love the British.

Not quite as goods as Beatty saying "There is something wrong with our ships" at Jutland or the British officer complaining that the German use of the 88-mm flak gun against tanks was not very sporting.

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ORIGINAL: Nikademus

The most damaging hits were caused by HMS Invincible (along with Inflexible) So much so that Lutzow was out of action by 1837. The Death ride of the Battlecruisers was ordered by Scheer at 1913. Lutzow did not participate in this action as she was mortally wounded and disabled.

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ORIGINAL: Ron Saueracker

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ORIGINAL: Tiornu

I've often see the "speed is armor" quote ascribed to Fisher, but I've never seen any documentation on its context. If he was referring to the use of large cruisers against the enemy's battle line, then I'd have to say the historical precedents tend to support his idea. I don't know of any disproportionate losses we can pin on him for it.
As far as I can tell, the only reason for proposing the disappearing mounts would be to indulge the appetite for newfangled whatevers.

The losses in BCs can't be pinned on Fischer (stupid freak designs like Furious, Courageous and Glorious which wasted resources could be), but on the Admirals commanding and deploying them. As cruisers got bigger and faster, so too did BCs, as the need for speed increased size and cost passed that of BBs. Because of this, many felt them a waste unless used in the battleline. Kaboom!

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ORIGINAL: fbastos

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the navy with the largest sub fleet was......Britian

The Navy with the largest number of everything was British...

In this case it proves that the navy with most underutilized submarines was the Royal Navy..

You mean the most-under-reported submarine work was done by RN submarines. Did the Germans ever have a large merchant marine to sink? No. But RN subs beat up the Turks in WWI and the Italians in WWII.

F.

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ORIGINAL: Nikademus

Well location of hit as well as shell size factor greatly in such a situation as this. All things being equal, yes i'd expect greater things from a 15inch vs a 12inch shell. Unfortunately for the British, their APC and CPC shellls of the time were prone to premature detonation before or as they were penetrating armor so the full potential of the big guns so to speak was much muted.

Invincible and Inflexible's hits were in the right area at the right time and are most responsible for her crippling. If you want a nausiating level of analysis on all the hits, i highly recommend John Cambell's "Jutland, an analysis of the fighting" It gives (litterally) a blow by blow accounting of the battle.

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ORIGINAL: rtrapasso

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ORIGINAL: Nikademus

The most damaging hits were caused by HMS Invincible (along with Inflexible) So much so that Lutzow was out of action by 1837. The Death ride of the Battlecruisers was ordered by Scheer at 1913. Lutzow did not participate in this action as she was mortally wounded and disabled.

Ach - you are right. I thought she had participated, but I guess I was thinking about the Derfflinger, her sister ship, which suffered mightily in the Death Ride (but survived).

After looking it up - Lutzow suffered 10 hits, 6 from BC, 4 from the Fast BB squadron with 15" guns (according to one source, anyway). It looks like most of the BC hits were from 12" from Invincible/Inflexible. They are said by most sources to have caused the most damage, but the 15" shell is about double the weight of the 12" ones, so, I think the BBs made a big contribution here to the Lutzow's demise.

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ORIGINAL: rtrapasso

There were a couple of other battleships that blew up supposedly due to "cordite" deterioration. Alas, I got rid of most of my books before leaving, so I can't remember who or what nations they belonged to... French? Italian? Russian? I think they are mentioned in passing in The World's Worst Warships. This has lots of fascinating stuff, prime material for quizzes.

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ORIGINAL: EUBanana

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ORIGINAL: madmickey

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ORIGINAL: Tankerace

YOu mean Fisher acknowledged the submarine as a weapon? I thought that was back when the submarine "was not a gentleman's weapon, as it did not fight in plain view." Gotta love the British.

Not quite as goods as Beatty saying "There is something wrong with our ships" at Jutland or the British officer complaining that the German use of the 88-mm flak gun against tanks was not very sporting.

According to a documentary I saw on the BBC the other day, apparently all those battlecruiser of Beatty's that were blown away were destroyed by ammunition fires flashing from the turrets and handling rooms to the magazines. That was theorised for some time now.

But a bit more interesting, apparently at the time it was thought that ships wouldn't carry enough ammunition to cause a decisive blow the enemy - ie, they would run out of ammo before the battle was conclusively decided. A bit like how the ironclads of the American Civil War emptied their magazines into each other with minimal effect, I suppose.

Apparently Beatty's battlecruisers were carrying 110% or so of their designed ammunition capacity because of this, trying to squeeze in as much ammo and propellant as they could. Also, the British gunnery focused on rate of fire, to try and fire as many shells as they could in as short a time as possible. As a result of these policies, those battlecruisers had bags of cordite and shells lying around in the handling rooms, to speed reloading times and allow more ammo to be physically packed into the ships.

Needless to say, a spark in the turret caused by a penetrating shell hit didn't do this arrangement much good at all.

This documentary included some divers going down to the wrecks, and finding shell cases lying around in the handling rooms which shouldn't be there, which supports this theory.

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ORIGINAL: madmickey

He was the one who made the comment about something wrong with the bloody ships and he allowed overloading of ammo.

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ORIGINAL: herbieh

I think what Beatty said after the comment "there seems to be something bloody wrong with our ships today" is even more insightful - " turn 2 points towards the enemy"

Steadfast Englishman that

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ORIGINAL: MengCiao


Beatty can be blamed for a lot, but he basically did a very good job at Jutland and everyone knew it and he got command of the Fleet eventually after the battle.