Anyone here read Campbell’s Jutland? If not, I highly recommend it. Probably the best work in English on the battle. Looks at the battle from the technical aspect. Goes into great detail on the damage suffered by individual ships, when this damage occurred and what effect it had on the ship during the battle. Also very good technical coverage of things like propellant, projectiles, fire control and damage control. The positive and negatives of the two sides in these and much, much more. Most of what I will post here is based upon this work. Unfortunately, the book is packed away where I cant get to easily and I will be going from memory.
First I’ll start with the propellant. British cordite used was defective. A stabilizing agent that was supposed to make it more stable proved to do the opposite. It actually made the cordite less stable. When compared with the German propellant, which was a very much different chemical formula using different ingredients, the British cordite had a tendency to detonate, whereas the German propellant would just burn. It was this tendency to detonate that contributed much towards the catastrophic demise of the 3 British battle cruisers and 3 armoured cruisers. I don’t know if the stability defect was known before Jutland, but it was definitely known after the post battle investigations. It took time to redesign the formula, test it and then put the new cordite into production. The Vanguard, and I think a cruiser which blew up on another occasion as well, had the old cordite still aboard. I think it wasn’t till some time in 1918 that the whole of the cordite supply aboard ship could be fully exchanged.
A second difference between British and German ammunition was the method of containing the charge for the projectile. In British service, medium and larger calibre guns used bagged charges. The larger guns using 2 or more bags per charge to keep the bags manageable. Each bag had its own black powder (IE: old fashioned gunpowder) detonator taped on. These had a tendency to leak gunpowder over the outside of the bags sometimes when the charges were handled. German charges were in metal cases, like small arms cartridges. The larger guns had these charges broken into 2 parts. The metal cased rear charge and a smaller, bagged forecharge. Only the metal cased rear charge contained a detonator and it was protected within the case.
The ammunition train leading from the magazine to the guns probably getting set off might have resulted in the loss of some of the British ships. It almost lead to the loss of the Lyon (but note her ammunition caught fire about a half hour after the turret was knocked out) and probably others including possibly the Malaya. Contrary to common belief, the German flashtighedness of their magazines and ammunition trains was not overall superior to that in British ships. It varied from class to class in the German navy and some classes were better than the British and some were worse and vice versa. The most modern were not necessarily the best, BTW. Overall, the flashtightness of the two country’s ship designs were about on par with each other.
But this is where the instability of British cordite did its damage. Where the German propellant burned, the British detonated, blasting a path right down to the magazine. Had the British cordite been stable like its German counterpart, chances are the fires would not have got to the inside of the magazines. Had the British charges been encased in metal cases, even if fire did reach the magazines, the charges would have been less likely to catch fire. The very flammable loose gunpowder that had leaked out of the detonators in the British charges was another added weakness to the British set-up making their charges more vulnerable still. Campbell makes it quite clear that most British and German set-ups were adequate designs that would keep the magazines isolated when a mount got knocked out as long as stable propellant was in use.
I’ve mostly been describing main gun set-ups so far. The smaller secondary guns in both navies generally used metal cased charges, the smaller weapons having case and projectile united together like a rifle cartridge. The ammunition trains of these guns were very vulnerable in both navies despite the better enclosure of the charges. Most ships of both navies grouped their secondaries into large batteries. These generally shared some of the same ammunition hoists so there had to be access between the different guns and these hoists. depending on the ship, the guns in these batteries were separated from each other by varying degrees of enclosure. But even where they were the most isolated, it was still possible for ammunition going off in one gun bay communicating to the next gun bay over and setting off its ammunition. These gun batteries saved space and weight when compared to conventional turret mounts, but resulted in more vulnerable designs. In those earlier days before sophisticated directors and central gun control, the batteries also made it easier to control the secondaries. Both the Malaya and the König were almost destroyed when ammunition in their secondary batteries went up and came close to reaching their magazines.
There is a good chance that the 6 inch armoured Invincible and Indefatigable (and the slightly less well armoured armoured cruisers) could have been sunk from direct magazine penetrations. The better armoured Queen Mary would have been less likely to have been penetrated to the magazine. Any of these ships could have been lost to turret hits that set off ammunition which then set off the magazines. But as there were no survivors from any of these ships who had direct knowledge of the exact nature of the hits these ships received, a full accounting of why they blew up is still speculation.
One of the interesting things Campbell did while describing the damage that occurred to the ships was to compare what might have happened had these ships had the ammunition set-up of the other country. According to him, had the German ships had British cordite in bagged charges like the British, there would have been a good chance probably all of the German battle cruisers would have blown up along with a couple of German dreadnoughts that also had turrets knocked out. Likewise, had the British used the German set-up, Queen Mary would have survived probably, and probably some of the others would have as well.
I’ll cover other aspects of the design differences between the fleets in later posts, I’m out of steam tonight.
Most probably I try to get this book you mentioned.
