Favorite dreadnought - era ship classes

[iambecomelife]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

It was 3 battlecruisers, and it was a lot more complicated than just the armor protection.

Nice comment. One problem was British explosives lacking the same stabilizing chemicals as Germans'.

Always thought it was kind of funny how the "Tiger", which was just as badly armored as the other BC's, got absolutely riddled at Jutland - including one hit near a magazine - and basically shrugged it off! IIRC she had few fatalities and was repaired pretty quickly.

[keltos01]

Maybe we could scrounge up those models from Shells of Fury and give them a better environment to sail in ?

and a campaign to go with it of course !

Keltos

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by iambecomelife

Nice comment. One problem was British explosives lacking the same stabilizing chemicals as Germans'.

True, and that problem was not effectively fixed until after the Hood sinking in WW2. The Americans and Italians also had less stable powder than the Germans, but was considered better than the British. The Japanese obtained their powder mixture from the British, so presumably they should have had similar problems.

1) It was observed at the battle of Dogger Bank that the Germans were firing faster than the British. This was partly because the Germans had smaller guns (11.1" v 12" or even 13" in some cases) which meant lighter shells.

2) The Germans didn't have anti-flash doors between the magazines and the turrets, and this almost led to SMS Seydlitz (if I'm remembering correctly - my books aren't with me) blowing up. She was saved by the fast action of a sailor dogging down the doors, and receiving serious burns for which he was awarded and had a Type 34 destroyer named for him (I think it was Theodor Heidekamp, but again I'm not sure). This led to the Germans installing anti-flash doors, which may have helped at Jutland.

3) The British did have anti-flash doors, but the observation of the Germans' faster firing rate may have led Beatty's battlecruiser crews to lock them open to facilitate firing, and may have been the main cause of the loss of the three big cruisers at Jutland. All were observed to have taken turret hits just before exploding, and the fire may have run straight down to the magazines.

4) Tiger also took a turret hit, and had a fire which was blocked by the fast action of a sailor in shutting the doors leading to the magazine. Whether this could have meant the same catastrophe, I don't know.

5) British battlecruisers were originally called 1st Class Armoured Cruisers. The 'Battlecruiser' designation wasn't applied until the great renaming of 1912. In any case, they weren't designed to stand in the line of battle, having only 6" of belt armor in the early ones, and 9" later; as opposed to the German BCs, which carried over 13" on the belt right from the start.

After Jutland all major British warships were given an extra inch of deck armor over the magazines and an extra inch to the turret tops.

[WalterJConklin]

Looks like someone is creating a WWI Dreadnaught Mod for Empire Total War http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=227939&highlight=american+civil+w ar&page=93.

http://ww1tw.spruz.com/forums/?page=post&id=72D5ACCA-1B5D-4394-901B-D834EAC8CDD0&fid=CF65FDA2-ABFB-4328-86BE-C4C1F1FF8B98

Perhaps you guys can share models?

[iambecomelife]

erm... I am Iambecomelife on both ETW and Subsim. I am part of World War I: Total War's naval modeling team (I think you actually sent me a msg about this mod on the other forum!)