RMS Titanic simulation

[Oberon]

I think you can drive the Titanic in Ship Simulator 2008, but the actual innards of the ship are relatively limited.

In regards to the collision itself, IIRC the steam powered tiller took about 30 seconds to move the rudder and the ship itself was travelling around 22.5 knots, getting the engines into reverse would have taken a couple of minutes to get going, especially from forward speed. There's some testimony that Murdoch waited about thirty seconds after spotting the iceberg before issuing his orders, in order to see if the Titanics course would have missed the iceberg, rather than turn and risk the berg hitting her in the stern.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukne...med-liner.html

Honestly though, I think Murdoch went through the actions as any steamship officer would have done, evaluate the threat, and take the necessary actions. Unfortunately due to no single factor but a number of factors, his actions were too little too late.

[Platapus]

One of the issues with the mate reversing the engines is that only the two outboard engines were reciprocating engines. The middle one was a turbine and was not able to be reversed. This meant that when the order to reverse engines was made, the middle engine was disengaged. Unfortunately, this turbine engine's prop was in front of the rudder.

As already stated, reversing engines (and the necessary disengagement of the middle engine) resulted in the ship turning slower than normal.

Oberon, there is no evidence that Smith was under any specific pressure to make a schedule. The schedule planned was reasonable and took into account the season. White Star, at that time, did not put a priority on speed (like Cunard did) . White Star put a priority on comfort and a predictable arrival time.

Alcon, in hind sight, ramming a brand new ship directly into an iceberg may have been a better decision. However any officer who would make this decision, given the information they had, would have been rightfully fired for lack of judgment. While ramming head on into an iceberg may have limited the crush damage to the first few compartment, it is also important to remember that the Titanic was traveling at about 22 knots (which was under her max speed).

Hitting what would be an essentially unmovable iceberg with a 46,000 ton boat at 22 knots will result in a large amount of energy transferred back to the Titanic. I seriously doubt the engineering department (boilers and such) were designed with mountings that could withstand that much deceleration. Certainly the passenger related compartments would not survive this impact well. The resulting internal damage may have caused more damage to the hull then the iceberg did.

In addition, hitting an iceberg head on to reduce the damage to the entire ship would depend on being able to hit the iceberg exactly perpendicular, which is almost impossible due to the shapes of icebergs. If the Titanic would have hit the iceberg nose on but at even a slight angle, the Titanic probably would have pivoted after the impact and slammed one if its sides into the iceberg, probably causing the same or even more damage than the glancing blow that actually happened.

I do not think it is a safe assumption that the Titanic would have survived a head on collision with an iceberg. The only advantage would be that the Titanic might not have sunk as fast as it did and therefore more passengers could have been saved.