Then Admiral Beaty said "There seems to be something wrong with our bloody ships today"
As it turns out, the ‘something wrong’ part was that the sailors were ignoring safety procedures, like leaving various hatches and doors open. The idea was to make sure one didn’t ‘Starve the Guns’
My questions are these: How much increase in the rate of fire would leaving the flash doors open actually gain you? (Think of a bucket brigade, you could pass stuff through a closed door at, maybe, once a second.)
Second question is: How could Beaty, not to mention the whole upper command structure, not know that this was going on?
Bare in mind the exact cause of the explosions on the battlecruisers at Jutland is still a live issue of academic debate. Having said that, as I understand it, the consensus is that the problem was not the flash doors being left open but the amount of cordite propellent stored in the turrets and in the spaces around and below them.
You are right that the bad practise - stacking cordite propellent near the guns ready for use - was to provide for the maximum rate of fire, particularly at the start of an engagement. The desire to achieve a high rate of fire came out of the problems inherent in using big guns on fast ships in the North Sea where visibility was rarely brilliant. Two issue: 1) it was quiet likely you would only see the enemy ships when they were at medium or short range (say 10000 yards or less) in which case you needed to get a high volume of fire on to them very quickly both to cause damage and to disrupt their shooting, and 2) the rangefinders, mechanical predictors and gun laying systems took time to develop a plot and achieve a solution to hit a distant fast moving target. When you did have a solution you wanted to fire as many times as possible before you lost the plot again. Given these issue and not really appreciating the dangers inherent in open cordite charges (when ignited in a confined space like a turret cordite creates a massive flash) senior officers considered that there was more risk in not firing quickly enough than in the poor storage arrangement. The irony was that properly organised there was no real need for the dangerous storage arrangements as the Chief Gunner on HMS *Lion * (Beatty’s flagship) showed. Horrified by what he found when he joined the ship in 1915 he tightened up the procedures without loosing speed of firing but the results were not spread to other ships.
As to how much of an increase in rate of fire this gained, well, according to Jellicoe’s chief gunnery officer the normal rate of fire for a 13.5 inch gun was a round every 40 seconds and rapid fire was a round every 30 seconds while in a pre-war practice shoot one ship achieved a round every 24.3 seconds. I cannot find a record of what was being achieved a Jutland but the fastest rate of fire was clearly significantly quicker than the “normal” rate of fire. Part of the point of rapid fire was to make it hard for the enemy ship to fire accurately and a salvo arriving every 25 seconds would be much more effective at this than one arriving every 40 seconds.
Unfortunately, as so often in the Royal Navy competition let to this positive - rapid firing of big guns - to be taken way too far, particularly in the battlecruiser squadron. Beatty’s battlecruisers fancied themselves as an elite but, based at Rosyth 200 miles south of the battle practice ranges near Scapa Flow, they had less actual firing practice than the rest of the Grand Fleet. To compensate for this they practised loading rapidly which could be done anywhere. Speed became a fetish and accuracy went out the window with the result that at Jutland HMS New Zealand fired 422 rounds but only achieved 2 (maybe 3) hits!
There is that cynical quote about the military always being well prepared to fight the last war. The English navy had dominated the seas during the days of sailing vessels and cannon by (amongst many other things) practicing the ability to fire a broadside at a rate higher than anyone else. Old habits die hard I suspect.
Their army back in the age of muskets was also famous for firing and reloading faster than any other European military; and now that I think of it, can’t you shoot a longbow much quicker than you can a crossbow? It seems as though the Brits had a weird ROF fetish.
Well given that it was genuinely considered to be one of the reasons the British navy kicked ass in the days of sail, the terms “weird” and “fetish” might be inappropriately pejorative.
Oh, definitely there was an appeal to tradition but it was also based on analytical thinking about what a battle between dreadnoughts would be like. All the Royal Navy’s senior officers were acutely aware that they were in a whole new world where past lessons may or may not apply. When Nelson and his fellow British admirals led their fleets into action they had a massive well of experience to draw on. They knew the capabilities of their ships and their men, what was likely to succeed and what wasn’t - Jellicoe and Beatty didn’t.
By the start of the First World War British naval strategy was fairly fixed - distant blockade of the North Sea, be ready to jump on the High Seas Fleet should it come out, avoid losing Britain’s own superiority by not letting small detachments be defeated in detail - but the tactics were much less certain. What range should you open fire? how close should you approach for maximum effect? how best to use destroyers and submarines in a fleet battle? how should battleships respond to torpedoes? etc. etc? There had been much theoretic thought and experiments in exercises but how it would go in a real battle was anyone’s guess.
It was this uncertainty that led to the rigidity of control in the Grand Fleet, certainly in comparison to Nelson’s fleet. Jellicoe marshalled his battleships as a unit to obey his will, even the Admirals commanding the individual battle squadrons had almost no room for initiative, they did what they were told. The result was missed opportunities and a failure to achieve a decisive result. Nelson could risk telling his captains “No captain can do very wrong if he places his ship alongside that of the enemy.”, he knew ship for ship this was likely to achieve victory, Jellicoe had no such assurance.
I read the other problem that compounded this was the German ships had thicker armor and all their doors were shut. Also, the German guns had better fuses, supposedly. A “all offense” strategy where you plan to rapid fire at the enemy only works if your fire actually reduces the enemy ability to shoot back.
According to this treatise, it is vital to get an early lead on your opponent, damage-wise. Once you’ve got an advantage in effectiveness of fire, it increases as the fire fight goes on, all other things being equal.
The Germans were also guilty of the same practices, but had rejigged their ammunition handling procedures after Seydlitz almost suffered a magazine explosion at the Battle of Dogger Bank:
[QUOTE=wikipedia]
At 09:43, Seydlitz was hit by a 13.5 in (340 mm) shell from Lion, which penetrated her after turret barbette and caused an ammunition fire in the working chamber. This fire spread rapidly through one compartment after another, igniting ready propellant charges all the way to the magazines, and knocked out both rear turrets with the loss of 165 men.[8][9] Only the prompt action of the executive officer in flooding the magazines, saved Seydlitz from a massive magazine explosion that would have destroyed the ship.
[/QUOTE]
German ships exhibited greater compartmentalisation, due partly to their crews living ashore in barracks when in harbour, and partly because they were designed for short duration voyages rather than the worldwide role British ones had to play. Their armour was better at keeping British shells out of vital areas and their shells didn’t break up on striking.
The British had become somewhat complaisant, believing that cordite was inherently safer than the powders used by foreign navies. There is some evidence that the cordite was not being exchanged regularly at the end of its shelf life and that some charges were being put back in the wrong Clarkson cases giving a false record of the expiry date. The Chief Gunner in Lion had had all the cordite exchanged regardless of apparent date.
After the battle the Third Sea Lord (Tudor) wrote a number of minutes putting the blame squarely on ships’ staff for having too many charges exposed and generally slack procedures. When Jellicoe became First Sea Lord he ordered Tudor to retract these criticisms of senior officers and put the blame on inadequate armour and physical protection against flash.
The ‘Cult of the Offensive’ wasn’t just confined to the Armies when the Great War started. The Navies had caught a bad dose of it too. Both British and German Navies.
But at the 1915 Battle of the Dogger Bank the Germans came within a hairs breadth of losing the BC Seydlitz. The ship was saved from a catastophic fire spreading to the magazine only by the prompt flooding of those, the whole thing was remarkably similar to what would happen with Lion at Jutland a year later.
The Germans After Action Report analysed the situation and realised how narrowly disaster had been avoided. Subsequently ammo handling procedures were tightened and further flash protection added across the High Seas fleet.
At Jutland the importance of these precautions was demonstrated, and what the lack of them could lead too.
Were they ignoring any realistically beneficial safety procedure ?
These were not the battleships , these were battle cruisers, even if they were previously called battleships. The british deck plate was thin even if the hull was thick. So they were really exposed to being destroyed by big rounds from the enemy’s battleship/ battle cruiser… The safety measures were of no use; if hit the explosion would be dramatic, no matter what.
The quote “Something wrong with our ships today” isn’t something he learnt that day, he knew it all along.
One of the other things to consider was that the British equipped their ships with bigger and bigger guns. (The 12inch main battery gave way to the 13.5 inch, then eventually the 15inch of the QE class…)
This was intended to be able to engage the enemy at ranges far exceeding what was considered “normal” only 20 years previously. Admiral Fisher, while commanding the Mediterranean Fleet in 1900, extended the ranges of their gunfire exercises from 2000 to 5000 yards (:eek:). The battlecruiser, moving at 25 knots at 10k to 15k yards should have been a very tough target to hit for anyone only using the fire control equipment available in 1900.
So, BC’s were built for speed and hitting power, but they became obsolete once better fire control equipment (rangefinders with a wider spread, the Dreyer/Pollen fire control tables) and methods (the “ladder”, centralized fire control) were implemented.
I don’t know what assessment the British admirals of the day would have had, concerning the vulnerability of the ships they commanded, but just because they lived over a century ago doesn’t mean they were stupid men. I would like to think that they were aware of the potential vulnerabilities, but I bet it would have been deemed cowardly to point out these risks, especially if done so in an overly public manner (like via the press). They would be expected (while holding important combat leadership positions) by the Admiralty to display the utmost confidence in their ships, their tactics, and their men. It’s possible Beatty’s utterance is actually more profound or daring than I had considered before.
Of course, cynically speaking, another way to look at the utterance is to hold the view that what Beatty actually meant was that “There’s nothing wrong with my tactics! It must be the equipment’s fault!” The RN was a politically charged service back then, and every decision gets scrutinized back home, with the full force of hindsight. Any ship lost is going to have to be answered for in some kind of committee (or is it a full mandatory non-punitive court martial?) studying the after-action reports. Beatty almost lost the HMS Lion off Dogger Bank the previous year, and came under some criticism for not bagging the entire German force.
"…According to RAdm W S Chalmers (Beatty shipmate and biographer):
Beatty came into the LION’s charthouse. Tired and depressed, he sat down on the settee, and settling himself in a corner he closed his eyes. Unable to hide his disappointment at the result of the battle, he repeated in a weary voice, “There is something wrong with our ships”, then opening his eyes and looking at the writer, he added, “And something wrong with our system.” Having thus unburdened himself he fell asleep."
This turns out not to be the case. Yes, the British BC’s armour was probably too thin but that still does not excuse condoning unsafe (and unnecessary) practices that meant a shell penetrating that thin armour could destroy the ship, not just the turret it hit. There were plenty of hits on the battlecruisers from the German big guns, some that penetrated and some that didn’t, that caused damage but did not cause the ship to blow up or even have to drop out of the fight.
Oh, and they were never referred to as battleships either at the time or subsequently.
I think there’s a key factor here. Naval command had become centralized.
In Nelson’s area, individual captains had to show initiative. The technology didn’t exist for an admiral to make all the decisions for his fleet. So officers had opportunities to act on their own. Some demonstrated they were good and got promoted. Others showed they weren’t capable and were sent back to shore.
By World War I, it had become possible for one man to micromanage everything. So a single bad decision could defeat an entire fleet. Even in peacetime, as Admiral Tryon proved.
I wouldn’t say they were obsolete. The were good ships doing there own job of protecting the sea lanes and hunting down commerce raiding armoured cruisers and converted fast liners. What they shouldn’t have been doing is pretend to be battleships and slugging it out with other heavily gunned ships.
Of course they were aware of the vulnerability of there ships and the accuracy of German shooting at long range at the Dogger Bank was a nasty shock. The question was what to do about it. Hence the decision to try and establish fire superiority by rapid fire at long range to prevent accurate spotting and shooting by the Germans with their lighter guns and assumed less sophisticated fire control arrangements. The trouble was the Beatty, who was not any sort of gunnery expert (unlike Jellicoe and many of the other Admirals), did all the wrong things. He was slow getting his ships into formation and slow to open fire so the ranges were rapidly coming down giving the un-engaged Germans all the time they needed to establish accurate ranges and start hitting.
It’s not clear if Beatty actually made the comment but, yes, he absolutely had a massive interest in putting the losses down to something wrong with the ships rather than his handling of them. The original Admiralty report into the losses immediately after the battle blamed poor practice in handling the charges but before it was released Jellicoe took over as 1st Sea Lord and Beatty as CinC of the Grand Fleet and the report was suppressed. It was decreed that the problem was with the design of the ships for which no-one - at least no one in a senior position in 1916 - was to blame.
Very true. Actually the initiative shown by the captains in Nelson’s day was quite a new thing. In the wars of the 17th and 18th century admirals had tried to operate their fleets as a single unit - forming vast long single lines of battle that slowly tried to come to grips with another great long line of ships. The result was a whole series of indecisive engagements. It was only with the overwhelming confidence of the Royal Navy in Nelson’s day that Admirals could allow individual captains to show initiative. As I said before Nelson knew what his ships and captains could do. In the early part of the 20th century no admiral did.
Of course this went with a strong tendency to admirals with authoritarian personalities who expected to make all the decisions themselves and for their subordinates not to question, just to get on with it. As you say, Tyron is a fine example. By all reports he was actually a pretty forward thinking commander who wanted to try and restore initiative to his subordinates but when it came to it and he issued a totally incorrect order no one dared challenge him.
Wireless definitely made it worse until the point where the 1st Sea Lord, Wilson, took direct control of the fleet from his office in the Admiralty during the naval manoeuvres in the summer of 1910 leaving the fleet C-in-C, Admiral Sir William May, and his subordinate commanders as little more than spectators. Fortunately by the outbreak of war they had backed off a bit from quite such central direction but precious little initiative was allowed to Jellicoe’s subordinates - other than Beatty and his battlecruisers (more’s the pity!).
The RN was a politically charged service back then, and every decision gets scrutinized back home, with the full force of hindsight. Any ship lost is going to have to be answered for in some kind of committee (or is it a full mandatory non-punitive court martial?) studying the after-action reports. Beatty almost lost the HMS Lion off Dogger Bank the previous year, and came under some criticism for not bagging the entire German force.