Most powerful ship

[Freebird]

It would have been interesting to see how that panned out - AFAIK, no BC was ever actually used as a commerce raider .

I know it's a different era, but Scharnhort and Gneisenau were employed as commerce raiders during WWII with some luck.

Viking beat me to it, the German BC's did commerce raiding...
Also the "PocketBB's" could be seen as a sort of cut-down BC, very effective for commerce raiding. They were listed as 28 knts, same as the older BC's, and the 11" guns could overpower the light cruisers that usually defended a convoy.

The raid in the South Atlantic by Scheer was quite profitable, IIRC it sunk 19 ships

As originally designed, they were not intended to serve in the line of battle - much like the BC again.

And the BC did make sense when it was originally designed, as the British were much more worried about commerce raiders pre-WWI, so having some BC "cruiser killers" was a good idea, especially in the era before AircraftCarriers. The effectivness of the BC's was demonstrated in the Falklands.

It was just the folly of the admiralty in putting them in the battle line for Jutland that caused the problem, something they were not designed for.

 

[diddyriddick]

When I find it, I will reread to find out the rationale for that type.

If you mean the rationale for BCs, then it was relatively simple. They could outfight anything that could catch them, and out run anything that could hurt them. Remember that Jackie Fisher was the big spur for the development of BCs, and Fisher loved fast ships.

 

[renrich]

ACs not BCs, they could not catch modern light cruisers and they could not out gun BBs. They were in many cases as large as BBS and cost as much but could not survive in the battle line. Actually Fisher envisioned BCs as scouts for the Battle Line. They could find the enemy fleet, report them and stay out of reach while shadowing and out gun all but dreadnoughts.

 

[Amsel]

Maybe even shoot off a salvo of fish and hightail it.

 

[delcyros]

Escorted convoys could be a problem for BCs as well, don't forget the guns of an AC or OB could easily penetrate a BCs armour, and it will have to close with the escort in order to get at the convoy. Under those circumstances, you run the risk of a Jutland-style conflagration.

The Battlecruiser GOEBEN / YAVUZ was used as a raiding BC in the med and several times in the Black Seas region with success.
This Armour problem is likely overestated in 1914. By this time, only three Navies in the world had reliable, delay fuzed APC projectiles, which could be expected to defeat half calibre sized armour plates in a condition fit to burst:
The High Seas Fleet, the Austro-Hungarian Navy and the russian imperial Navy.
Unless the raiding BC get´s into contact with an russian pre-Dreadnough (which Yavuz got twice!), it may feel safe in 1914. The AC´s by then had no guns powerful enough to defeat full scale armour and inflict decisive damage behind. This makes DERFFLINGER probably the most dangerous ship in 1914.
Otherwise the austro hungarian TEGETTHOFF class of dreadnoughts is very dangerous (moreso than TEXAS!). It features the best quality armour (Witkovitz armour was the only manufacturer to make plates able to reliably defeat all soft capped projectiles, regardless of impact condition, which gave these battleships the highest degree of gunfire protection), excellent guns and projectiles (hard capped, delay fuzed super heavy projectiles, talk about advanced in 1914!) and decent firecontroll.
It suffers from poor subdividion, a general lack of watertightness and low metacentric stability, which makes it vulnarable against underwater damage.

 

[BombTaxi]

All very good points del, I was thinking more in terms of the British-style BC, which was essentially a big light cruiser with BB guns strapped to it. The German BCs were designed on a much more sensible scheme, which gave them a chance of surviving an encounter with another big-gun ship. As we have already seen in this thread, German 8.3in shells were more than capable of penetrating the armour of a British 'I' type BC - the Falklands demonstrated this beyond doubt.

 

[delcyros]

They would be hard pressed to defeat the "I"´s armour scheme with only 8.3 in guns. The british battlecruisers fall into two generations: The older one, INVINCIBLE and INDEFATIGABLE classes were what You probably have in mind and originally they were classified as dreadnought cruiser (only to be reclassified as battlecruiser in 1912) but the successive LION and TIGER classes were much more ambitous attempts in battlecruiser design with staying power. I don´t think that it´s justified to say that they were basically light cruisers with big guns strapped on them.

 

[Glider]

They would be hard pressed to defeat the "I"´s armour scheme with only 8.3 in guns. The british battlecruisers fall into two generations: The older one, INVINCIBLE and INDEFATIGABLE classes were what You probably have in mind and originally they were classified as dreadnought cruiser (only to be reclassified as battlecruiser in 1912) but the successive LION and TIGER classes were much more ambitous attempts in battlecruiser design with staying power. I don´t think that it´s justified to say that they were basically light cruisers with big guns strapped on them.

I am not so sure. Had Spee closed the island as soon as he arrived he would have been able to shell the British BC's whilst they were loading and concentrated on the RN ships one at a time as they left the harbour. The Two large germans ships are unlikely to have survived as the British wouldn't have just sat there but the German Light Cruisers may well have been able to make their escape.

 

[delcyros]

A big what-if. Based on knowledge on how the battle evolved it might appear to be the better option. But Spee had some time advantage (the british ships needed to raise steam before making power) and the weather would perhaps permitted him to disappear in a rain squall. Spee had already used up a good contingent of his ammunition in the earlier battle and would soon run short on ammo. This maneuver at least offered a small window to escape. On the other hand, it was exactly what the I´s were designed for. To hunt and fight down enemy armoured cruisers.

 

[Glider]

A big what-if. Based on knowledge on how the battle evolved it might appear to be the better option. But Spee had some time advantage (the british ships needed to raise steam before making power) and the weather would perhaps permitted him to disappear in a rain squall. Spee had already used up a good contingent of his ammunition in the earlier battle and would soon run short on ammo. This maneuver at least offered a small window to escape. On the other hand, it was exactly what the I´s were designed for. To hunt and fight down enemy armoured cruisers.

Its not as big a what if as it first seems. The British ships weretotally unprepared and were actually coaling without steam when the Germans arrived, but there was an old pre dreadnaught which had been beached to act as a guard ship. She saw the Germans first and fired a salvo from behind a hill using a land based spotter.
This salvo had two important impacts,
a) It warned the RN Battlecruisers that something was coming
b) It made the Germans slow down as they couldn't see the what was firing at them.

When the Germans closed they saw the Battlecruisers still in the harbour they turned to run. The British crews went to breakfast as there was time before steam could be raised and they finally left port at 10.00.

Had the Germans attacked they had almost the entire British Fleet at their mercy as the only vessel with steam up was HMS Kent an old 6in armoured Cruiser. The Germans would have used up the last of their ammunition but its pretty certain that they would have caused a lot of damage to the British ships and then had the chance to make their escape. The German Light Cruisers would have been able to escape by leaving the larger ships to fight and leaving the battle from the start.

 

[delcyros]

This is probably what we could see in a resim of the situation on the board.
And I agree that´s a plausible development of events. But such information were not aviable to Count v. Spee. He had to cope with the limits in communication, observation and controlling of the time. His actions lead to the demise of his small fleet but really, do You think in an opposite event (they all break free with minor damage) the cruisers could make it all the way through the south, central and north Atlantik back to Germany or Turkey?

 

[Glider]

Count V Spee didn't have the information about coaling, but he did know that the British ships were in harbour and they would have had to come out one at a time at slow speed. He also would have known that the British ships out ranged him and were faster so getting closer would have been his best chance, finally he knew that his guns had a faster rate of fire.

Re the light cruisers The Emden, Konigsberg and Karlsruhe did a fair amount of damage and his three cruisers could have caused a fair amount of distruption.

I know that hindsight is a wonderful thing but it was a good chance.

 

[renrich]

Canopus opened fire at 12000 yards on Nurnberg and Gneisenau at 9:20 AM. The remainder of V Spee's ships were about 12 miles further away than the 6 miles of Maerker's ships. That meant that Spee would take almost an hour to assemble all his ships off the harbor mouth. More importantly, Spee did not want to engage an old BB with 12 inch guns along with some British ACs. The gunnery officer on Gneisenau thought he saw tripod masts but Captain Maerker dismissed this since he knew no British BCs were in the South Atlantic. At 9:50 the British squadron weighed anchor and began to steam out of the harbor. That was only 30 minutes after Canopus had opened fire and the Germans still did not realise that they were facing BCs until the chase was well under way.

 

[Seawitch]

Thorlifter, they were beautiful ships but Queen Mary blew up at Jutland and Lion was lucky not to. They were victims of German BC guns of no more than 11 or 12 inch calibre. They seem to have been lacking in armor. They may have been hard pressed against a dreadnought battleship.

I once argued in these forums that a ships strength had to include their ability to withstand penetration, you can't really produce dimensions or statistics for that, especially since it could be seriously effected by the way the ship is being operated.
No amount of armour will prevent penetration when Battleships are exchanging salvo's!
It is the reason why I see two types of warship at Jutland, those commanded by the cautious Admiral Jellicoe, a technocrat who knew how vulnerable his Dreadnoughts were, and the more aggressive Beatty, the youngest Admiral since Nelson by the way.
Beatty was obsessed with rates of fire and many internal hatches on the ammunitions journey between the magazine and the gun turrets were left open to meet this demand, a lot of the ships strength was compromised and ammunition fires did there worst.
Given a (wrong) report that another ship had exploded at Jutland Beatty said 'there seems to be something wrong with our bloody ships today!'
His own ship the Lion was saved from this fate by a Captain of marines ordering the turret he was in to be flooded , he died of the wounds he had at the time and got a posthumous VC.
Well...that lot was from memory, I hope it's all correct!8)
Whatever, I swear it takes more dimensions to rate a ship fully.

 

[renrich]

Seawitch, your recollections are right on essentially. However, I would invite you to get your hands on "Castles of Steel" by Massie. For one thing, you may have a different perspective on Beatty and Jellicoe after reading that book. Jellicoe, as was said, was truly the only man on either side who could lose the war in one afternoon.

 

[BombTaxi]

Beatty's leadership abilities are also open to some question. Why he took Ralph Seymour back to sea as 'Flags' after the debacle at Dogger Bank is beyond human comprehension - only arrogance or stupidity seem to furnish an answer.

It is true that there are more than just statistics to the arguments here, but it remains a fairly safe assertion that British BCs were not fit to stand in the line of battle due to their lack of armour. Nor were they fit to face the German BCs, for the same reason. The evidence of Dogger and Jutland shows that German BCs were capable of taking hits from their British conterparts, while the reverse was not true. The effect of a German 11in shell on a British BC was far greater than that of a British 12in shrll hitting a German BC.

It is also true that sloppy ammuntition handling procedures contributed to the loss of the three BCs at Jutland - IIRC, the same thing had nearly happened to the Germans at Dogger and they changed their ways accordingly. But, IMHO, the bottom line is that the BCs were the wrong ships, in the wrong place, fighting the wrong battle. They should have been away from the fleet engagement gobbling up light cruisers, not in an environment where their lack of protection was somewhat akin to bringing a knife to a gunfight.

 

[renrich]

BT, I agree with you, on your conclusions. If Beatty had been in Jellicoe's place there may have been more fireworks but Britain might have lost the war. It was interesting in Massie's book to learn that Beatty may have had an affair with Lily Langtry early in his career. There is a town in Texas named after Lily Langtry, where Judge Roy Bean used to practise "law." Some of the British BCs did take a lot of punishment at Jutland. I believe that Lion was hit at least ten times. I have a book, (packed) that enumerates all the hits, but the German BCs were highly resistant to shell fire. The British had to build their ships with habitibility in mind whereas the Germans did not. Consequently the German's were more compartmented than the British.

 

[delcyros]

The building superiority of german capital ships in the early half of ww1 had several causes. The most important were technical in nature. Massive investment into propulsion plants (lightweighted turbines, small pipe and higher pressure boiler designs, finally marine Diesel engines), projectile design (reliable delay fused and hard capped projectiles which could defeat >half calibre thick plates at obliquity impacts and reliably burst behind the plate), ammo handling procedures (improving rate of fire) and chemicals (cooler burning and blast resistent RP/C) paid off. There were many aspects (also ship controll, damage controll and communication), where the RMA was working on the very bleeding edge of technology.
The only area where they were clearly lackiong behind the british was firecontroll (Dumaresq clocks, director pointer, range and bearing plotter) and the adoption of all oil firing, altough the former was by a large margin counterbalanced by more extensive gunnery training and better gunlaying procedures (ladder firing) while the latter was not possible to sustain logistically for Germany.
Organizational aspects also benefitted the design environment:
The naval designers inside RMA were able to think in a different direction. The evolution process step by step was stopped after end of ww1, were the RMA and the Navy were downsized by the allies.

HMS LION showed a remarkable ability to withstand major calibre hits (16 at Doggerbank, after which LION was dead in the water without power and steam and 13 at Jutland, after which she still stayed in reduced but good fighting condition).
Five of the hits at Doggerbank and five of the hits at Jutland were on relatively unimportant, non hull related locations (through the funnel or mainmast without exploding) and consequently of low imprtance but this shouldn´t detract fromt he relatively good survivability. There are some cases where german 11 in and 12in SAP&APC projectiles failed to penetrate LION´s thickest armour.

 

[BombTaxi]

I think Betty leading the battleline at Jutland would have lead to a spectacular confrontation, but I'm not sure it would have been decisive - the British BBs seem fairly evenly matched with the Germans, going on the few salvos that were exchanged historically.

British fire control was fairly advanced - but they had only just made it. Director firing was adopted only a few years before the war, and the choice of computer equipment still causes fierce debate to this day. Massie tends to favour the Admiralty design adopted, while authors such as Peter Padfield in Battleship argue that Polen's system was in fact far superior. Either way, British gunnery at most of the major engagements of the war was less than spectacular, and continued to be a weak point right up until the missile age rendered the issue largely moot.

 

[renrich]

Am reading about Jutland for the umpteenth time. Rereading Massie," Castles of Steel" One point struck me that shows how fickle fate is. Neither New Zealand or Moltke suffered much damage. Yet they were in the thick of things from beginning to end and the other BCs on both sides, right in the same kill zone suffered numerous hits. We know that the CO of New Zealand had on his Maori lucky skirt but what did the Moltke's skipper have. It seems incongruous that one BC on either side was spared much damage at all. Another point about fate is that while Queen Mary blew up spectacularly. The other Cats, of the same design, while sustaining many hits, especially Lion, remained in operation. We know that Lion's Q turret was hit and a fire started and the magazine below was flooded but it almost appears miraculous that Princess Royal, Lion and Tiger escaped the fate of the British BCs that blew up.