Best naval designs of ww1, Your ideas?

[delcyros]

I understand my mistake. The drawing of QE shows the middle deck longitudinally (note 152 mm=6" side belt), while the lower, main armor deck would figure 13" side belt and 4-6" forward belt. It isnt displayed at this drawing
I can confirm that the spread factor of the german 15" gun was higher than the spread factor of the german 12" gun (and probably equal to or slightly higher than the british 15"/42 gun as well). According to the powerload during shots in correspondence to the barrel lentgh anything else would wonder me.
The tested guns belong to the individual guns of the uncompleted BB Würzburg. It´s naval 15"ers were used as land based heavy artillery from late 1916 on (Langer Max) to wars end. They fired a reduced weight projectile. The individual gun tested in 1919 had 700 rounds fired during ww1 (including one major overhaul in mid 191. The test results of 1938 belong to armor penetration only (note that the armor used in these tests was KCnew and not any ww1 armor), I haven´t seen any muzzle velocity datas for them. With all respects, the actual muzzle velocity for a brand new 15" must therefore have been higher than 2.625 ft/sec. I suspect something closer to 2.750-2.800 ft./ sec. according to the powerload and barrel length. The approximate barrel live for standart naval projectiles was around 300 rounds. I don´t have figures for barrel live of reduced weight ammo only.
Hands down, the Queen Elizabths are more advanced thanks to oil firing but they aren´t either better protected or better armed than the Baden´s.
Lets check it with Nathan Okun´s facehead program. At first the distances at which the thickest belt can be penetrated:
Queen Elizabeths 13" lower main belt / turret face (against SK38 C13):
@ 0 degrees angle of fall: 1.484 ft./sec. striking velocity needed for EEF
@ 5 degrees angle of fall: 1.583 ft./sec. striking velocity needed for EEF
@ 10 degrees angle of fall: 1.602 ft./sec. striking velocity needed for EEF
@ 15 degrees angle of fall: 1.692 ft./sec. striking velocity needed for EEF
@ 20 degrees angle of fall: 1.810 ft./sec. striking velocity needed for EEF
@ 25 degrees angle of fall: 1.980 ft./sec. striking velocity needed for EEF
@ 30 degrees angle of fall: 2.236 ft./sec. striking velocity needed for EEF
And now 13.75" barbette, turret face, command tower face, main belt of Baden vs. british 15"/42 left=original ww1 AP-ammo; right= late 1918"Greenboy"):
@ 0 degrees: never (shatters); 1.458 ft./sec. w/o shatter for HBL=EEF
@ 5 degrees: 1.320 ft./sec. for EEF; 1.255 ft./sec. for EEF
@ 10 degrees: 1.496 ft./sec. for EEF; 1.421 ft./sec. for EEF
@ 15 degrees: 1.748 ft./sec. for EEF; 1.661 ft./sec. for EEF
@ 20 degrees: 2.124 ft./sec. (if soft AP-cap works, otherwise shatter); 2.019 ft./sec. for EEF
@ 25 degrees: never (shatters or deflected); 2.671 ft./sec. for EEF
@ 30 degrees: never (shatters or deflected); 3.812 ft./sec. for EEF
With these datas I feel justified to say that Baden is better protected against the "Q"´s 15"ers using ww1 or post ww1 Greenboys. I don´t have all the figures for range, angle of fall and corresponding striking velocity for the shells to extrapolate immune zones but it is obvious that the german gun has a wider window for penetration than the british against Baden. The british shells, despite beeing heavier, only have the advantage at an angle of fall up to 15-16 degrees (this implies around 11 degrees elevation and around 16.000 yrds range. At this distance the 15" shell will not penetrate 13.75" armor since it has only 1.480 ft./sec. remaining striking velocity), while any higher angle of fall= any higher range benefits the german gun/shell combination. Queen Elizabeths belt is vulnarable from 0-22.000 yrds to Badens 15"ers! That´s almost the whole range of the guns and includes all probable fighting distances. Using standart soft capped ammo, the british gun failes to penetrate Badens armor at point blanc range due to shatter gap and it fails to penetrate at any range over ~13.000 yrds. Even in the window in between, the standart instantious fuze delay will not allow the shell to penetrate behind the armor and detonate. Only duds will be able to penetrate Badens belt.
The later Greenboy shells are more advantageous and allow penetration due to proper fuze delay but even they penetrate Baden only at distances between 0 and ~14.000 yrds.
(Facehead v. 5.8 from Nathan Okun)

[Glider]

There is no doubt that the achilles heal of the British Battleships was the shell design but once fixed then the two ships largly cancel each other out. 14,000 yards was quite a good range in WW1 with all the smoke generated by the vesels involved in the battle.
I will certainly conceed that the Germans had better compartmantisation, its something that they were rightly fameous for. There is equally no doubt that the QE were well protected. As you know the Warspite was hit 15 times at Jutland 2 x 11in and 13 x 12in and although badly damaged made her own way home and the crew casualties were light with 14 killed and 32 wounded. I wouldn't give odds on any other ship in the Grand Fleet taking such a pounding and getting away with such losses. German Vessels sufferred in some cases 24 hits but their losses were often a hundred or more dead.

The German ability to take damage was of course remarkable but if we had been equipped with shells of similar design to the Germans then who knows what the result would have been.

I recommend the following for a good description of what it was like to fight in a battle of this type. No doubt a similar story could have been written from both sides of the conflict. The damage control training of the german crews is particually worthy of mention.

http://www.gwpda.org/naval/jut01.htm

[delcyros]

Very true, Glider. If we discard the worse british shell design (a feature for which we cannot blame the ship designers) the odds will turn to about equal in firepower/protection of both designs and furtherly to favour of the "Q"´s because of their 10% speed advantage.
The protection of the Queen Elizabeths is sufficiant against german 12"ers, which faced them at Jutland. Warspite is for my view the most important BB of both wars and it took -as you said- considerable damage (repeatedly in both wars) and always made it back home. This is a quality of it´s own.
The Badens, however, never faced real opposition.
I wished they had turned one of the "Q"´s into a museums ship!

[Henk]

Great pics guys.

Henk

[Henk]

What, the Baden were a great Battleship and the Baden changed the way Battleships are designed. I would say the Baden the only problem is that the baden never saw action. I would say the Germans came up tops when it came to designs. Yes there were poor designs on all the sides.

You guys just gave a lot of stats and I think you should look at the bigger picture. The Germans were famous for their accurate shooting when it came to Naval action and if you look at the battle of Jutland you would see that the Germans actually won the Battle. Who lost the most men and equipment?

But I must say you guys gave great info and do know what you are talking about.

Henk

[Glider]

Appreciate your copmments Henke and I am sure that Delc would second that.
Your comments on the bigger picture are also fair. There is no doubt that the Germans lost fewer ships and fewer men and that on average the German shooting was more effective. Note the 'on average'.

Regarding the shooting the British Battlecruisers were in many ways poorly trained regarding shooting. A lot of emphasise in training was put on the rate of fire but they didn't train as much as the rest of the Grand Fleet. The importance that was given to the rate of fire led to short cuts being taken with the Cordite Bags, which in turn led to the magazine explosions which caused so many losses.
The Queen Elizabeth class were better trained and had the latest rangfinders resulting in their accuracy being every bit as good as the Germans. If yu look at the hits sufferred by the Germans the proportion of 15in hits are quite high which helps back up this observation and you must remember that these ships were for most of the time further away than other British Battlecruisers.
What is also suprising is the ability of the British Battlecruisers to take damage (assuming their magazine didn't blow up.
Lion was hit by 13 x 12in, Princess Royal by 8 x 12in and 1 x 11in. Tiger 15 x 11in,
As for night fighting the Germans were far in advance of the British Fleet. There was one British Force who were trained, equipped and experienced in night fighting called the Harwich Force who could have been supplementedby the Dover Patrol. Unfortunately for the British and fortunately for the Germans, due to internal wranglings this force wasn't present in the battle. This force had they been present could well have signalled the end of the German Fleet as they could have been decisive in the night following the battle.

[delcyros]

I absolutely agree with You. The gunnery training of some BB were at least as high as the best of the HSF. We should note that the BC Queen Mary also wasn´t that bad, it had the reputation for the fleet´s best gun accuracy. The "Q" seems to be excellent but I haven´t seen statistics for individual ships (I use to avoid generalizations and therefore believe firmly that some ships had individual better training / crew than other ones), so it could be that one or two of them were really exceptionell, raising the total statistic for the 5th fast BB during Jutland. The average gun accuracy of the other RN BB did not seemed to have impressed Scheer at all. As Glider correctly pointed out, the german accuracy differs as well. The BC all had very good accuracy due to excellent training (not eqiupment or firecontroll tech, this was the RN advantage). As did the BB of the König and Kaiser class with the individual BB König standing in reputation for the best gun accuracy in the german fleet. Some pre-dreadnought also had good accuracy (Schlesien), at least during the night engagement but they were the exceptions among them.
It is interesting to note that the emphazis on high rate of fire on both sides (the german guns had usually a higher RoF) led to disastreous explosions only on the british side despite the lessons of Doggerbank. The additional security measures on german ships helped them to even increase the main battery output while providing a higher degree on safety: Once during the opening engagements at Jutland the BC Derfflinger fired 3 full salvos in 48 seconds (24 rounds), BB Markgraf later fired amazing 30 rounds in 50 seconds. All this without extra ammo stored in the turrets and barbettes as in the RN BC´s.
The night battle itself can be seen as a british advantage as well, the HSF lost more in the night than the RN, it only kept a better controll and communication, helping them to evade.
Regarding wether it was a victory or not isn´t easy to determine. You can read everything from major german victory to strategical british victory. Arguably the british side won the PR-campaign after the battle, at least in the US. The aim of the HSF wasn´t to crush the RN (as you might falsly read) but to defeat a portion of it, while keeping own losses low, and this barely was achieved. From the RN point of view, the exaggerated sunken HSF ships balanced the opinion that the RN had sunk a larger percentage of HSF than vice versa:
class-------HSF lost-------claimed by RN-----RN lost----claimed by HSF
Battleship----0--------------2+2probable-------0--------------1----------
battlecruiser-1--------------1------------------3--------------3---------
pre-dreadn.--1--------------0------------------0--------------0---------
CA-----------0--------------0------------------3--------------4---------
CL-----------4--------------5------------------?--------------2---------
Destroyer:---0--------------0------------------?--------------13--------
torp-boats:--5--------------6+3probable--------0--------------0---------
submarines:--0--------------1+3probable-------0---------------0--------
There are two independent points: 1.- who got any advantage and 2.-did this changed the situation in favour or not.
It is often quoted that after Jutland the HSF kept in port and never questioned the RN again in the Nort Sea. This obviously is false as the raids in 1916 (19th of august to the english east coast, 19th of ctober to Doggerbank, 5th of november to north Denmark), 1917 (5th march german bight, october operations) and 1918 (23rd of april to Stavanger, october operations did not happen due to marine revolutions) imply. On some ocassions poor timing prevented a scond jutland like clash. So I would conclude that neither got anyone a decisive advantage nor does it changed the situation substantially. Both forces got what they wanted (the HSF a minor tactical victory and the RN an unchanged blockade situation), making it a draw. -just my personal opinion.

[Henk]

True guys. The Queen Elizabeth were a great ship and had equipment that were superior to the German ones. It is a shame that the Baden never saw action and the design of the Bismarck were also based on the design of the Baden.

I have some great pics of the Baden and some other German Battleships of WW1 which I will post when I can find them.

Great info guys. You know do you guys have the Jane's fighting ships of WW1, it is a great source of WW1 ships. That is how I learned about WW1 ships.

Henk

[Glider]

Henk. If you can afford it as I know that its not cheap, I suggest Conways as well as Janes. Conways have the advantage of being written in hindsight and lack some of the propaganda which tends to be included in the Janes books.

[Henk]

The Janes books I have I never found any propaganda like in the other books I have seen. The ones I have give more the Technical stuff and the history of the ships/aircraft. I will have a look out for it thanks mate.

Henk

[delcyros]

What do You all think about italian and austro-hungarian capital ships in ww1?

[Glider]

The Austrio Hungarian Navy had some good ships. The pick of the bunch being the Tegetthoff BB's, 12 x 12in in triple turrets, good secondary armament of 12 x 5.9 and decent armour with 11in Belt and Turrets. A little slow at 20 knots but not that far behind the majority. Unusually for the period it also had a good AA defence of 16 x 66mm.

May not be a world beater but not a ship to be taken for granted. She would certainly stand more than a fighting chance against most of the first modern BB's

[delcyros]

Agreed. Impressive ships. I had opportunity in 2003 to dive for the wreckage of Viribus Unitiis in the harbour of Pola / Histria. It lays upside down but you can easily recognize the massive hull and one screw.
I read that austro hungarian face hardened armour was the very best of ww1 (according to Okun Q:0.9435, which isn´t far away from british cementated or german KC n/A). I would like to know how they would do against their italian counterparts..

[Glider]

The italian ships were also pretty good but I always thought their armour was a little on the thin side. The naval race between the two sides is often lost in the shadow of the UK/German race for supremacy.

One odd fact that I know is that as Austro Hungarian submarine I forget which one torpedoed and nearly sank a Japenese destroyer that was escorting a convoy in the Med. It also forgotten how much help the Japs gave to the allies in WW1.

[delcyros]

U-27 vs DD Sakaki. There is a very interesting article about anglo-japanese coalition from Timothy D. Saxon, try:
http://www.nwc.navy.mil/press/review...r/art3-w00.htm