JeeWeeJ

Not going anyhere. Ev1n and Tuccy need to be annoyed more! But, was great testing with you gents!

Strange fact? Sure, I got one! The Brazilian cruiser Bahia sank herself while having a practice session with her AA guns. The AA guns on the Bahia-class lacked guide rails and thus were capable of depressing the guns enough to shoot her own deck, which accidentally happened during that fateful practice session...hitting the depth charges stored on the aft deck. A cataclysmic explosion followed and the ship sank within three minutes, the survivors of the blast and sinking had to survive on rafts made from floating debris for four days before they were found.

Ofcourse, having more turrets is, in a way, a safer method to "preserve" firepower. However, more turrets usually also has the result that the ship has more, or bigger, magazines. And especially when the newer guns and shells could more easily penetrate the armor of these, usually older, designs these magazines actually became a danger to the ship. It's, if I recall correctly, one of the reasons the late-WW1 actually had less turrets when compared to those of pre-WW1 design.

Ofcourse, there are many variants of it. I only reffered to those on the Richelieu-class and, I think, Dunkerque had a same-ish turret setup (but with smaller guns), but not 100% sure of that. Otherwise I totally agree with you, but then again...if you desperately want an X amount of guns on a ship I think it might actually be preferrable to use multi-gun turrets instead of smaller turrets everywhere like on ships like Fuso or Agincourt. Lyon and some of those Russian dread designs might get interesting though, with four quad turrets.

Actually, those French ships didn't have real quad turrets, as they were divided by an armored bulkhead to prevent one hit taking out all four guns. More a dual-twin setup, so to speak. I believe the concept behind that was proven when a gun of Richy (not entirely sure, could also have been Jean-Bart) backfired and pretty much wrecked one half of the turret. The crew in the other half was concussed and shellshocked, but otherwise operational. Ofcourse one hit to the turret ring could still jam the whole thing.

Well done! +1!

Happy Washington Naval Treaty day!...yes, I made that up. But that doesn't change the fact that today in 1922 the Washington Naval Treaty was signed, a treaty what would change the balance of power, and in effect naval warfare forever. But while many people talk or know about the Washington Naval Treaty, it was actually just one of a total of five naval conferences that were held in order to prevent new naval arms races from happening like the one that took place between Great Britain and Germany and was one of the major causes that started WW1. Because while WW1 was over, the world was far from a peaceful place. Even though the economies of Great Britain and France were ruined, they were far from planning on giving up their place of power in the world and shortly after the war ended started new shipbuilding programmes...even though their economies could barely keep their countries running. The US was also planning on further expanding their navy, as in the east the Japanese Empire was looking to expand their sphere of influence, while in the west they eyed the UK as their -theoretical- main competitor. (You can do a google search on Warplan Red and Warplan Orange on this, it's quite the interesting read!) So, even though the world had just seen the biggest round of bloodshed known to man (up to that point), the remaining major powers of the world (Germany was gagged by the treaty of Versailles and was no longer a immediate threat) were already making the same mistakes that partially caused the war: multiple naval arms races were in the making! The Washington Naval Conference Fortunately, some wise men saw what was happening and decided to act. Initially the US Senator William E. Borah pushed the US congress that negotiations with the two main rivals of the US (the UK and Japan) should be started in order to discuss disarmament. The Washington Naval Conference In 1921 the US Secretary of State, Charles Evans Hughes, did just that...but on a far larger scale. He invited not three, but nine nations to discuss a reduction of naval capacity, these countries were: Great Britain The United States of America Japan France Italy The Netherlands Belgium Portugal China The negotiations lasted until Februari of 1922 and resulted in not one, but three seperate treaties. The first was the Five-Power Treaty, which stated that the five major powers (US,UK, Japan, France and Italy) were to stop all capital ship construction for the next ten years and limited the total tonnage of capital ships to 500.000 tons for the UK and US, 300.000 tons for Japan and 175.000 tons for France and Italy. A loophole in this treaty was that there was no tonnage limit set for cruisers and other ship classes (like submarines), which was happily abused by all five powers. Then there was the Four-Power Treaty between the UK, US, Japan and France which replaced the old Anglo-Japanese Treaty of 1902 and was focussed on avoiding a future conflic in Asia. Lastly there was the Nine-Power Treaty, which was signed by all attending nations and covered the territorial integrity of China, acknowledged Japans rule over it's Chinese territory of Manchuria and ensured equal trade opportunities for all nations in China, while China promised not to discriminate certain nations. The actual results of the Washington Naval Conference The First Geneva Naval Conference While these treaties were definately a step in the right direction, there were still certain loopholes which needed to be closed. This was cause for the Geneva Naval Conference of 1927, which was focussed on limiting cruiser construction. The idea was to limit cruiser construction in a similar fashion as the Washington conference had limited capital ships...but they quickly ran into troubles. To start France and Italy refused to take part in the conference, Britain demanded to have a much larger tonnage of cruisers than the US because of her empire and Japan wouldn't agree with the suggested tonnage by the US and the UK as its leaders demanded a cruiser tonnage of at least 70% the size of that allocated to the US. The gentlemen of the first Geneva Naval Conference Even though the negotiations lasted for quite some time, no agreement was reached and the Geneva Naval Conference was deemend a big failure. The First London Naval Conference Fast forward to 1930 and the five major powers had another go at renegotiating the Five-Power Treaty of 1922. But unlike the failed attempt at Geneva, the London Naval Conference had one big motivator: the world was plummeting into the biggest financial crisis it had ever seen, and a reduction in naval spending was something all countries could use. The first objective was to put a tonnage limit in place for "auxillary vessels", which would finally halt the unrestricted construction of smaller ships allowed by the 1922 treaty. The second objective was to limit the maximum tonnage of cruisers and create the light cruiser and heavy cruiser classes. A third objective, but only to the Japanese, was to change the 5:5:3 ratio between the US, UK and Japan to a 10:10:7 ration, allowing the Japanese to build a force of roughly 70% the strength of that of the US. The First London Naval Conference in full swing After some tough negotiating all these objectives were met. First the distinction was made between light and heavy cruisers: light cruisers were armed with guns up to 6", while heavy crusiers were armed with guns of 6.1" up to 8" in size. The total displacement was also limited to 10.000 tons, creating the well known "treaty cruisers". Japan got the 10:10:7 ratio it wanted, even though there was a slight difference between the heavy- and light-cruiser/destroyer ratios (10:10:6 and 10:10:7). All this resulted in the following tonnage limits: UK: 339,000 tons with a maximum of 15 heavy cruisers US: 323,500 tons with a maximum of 18 heavy cruisers Japan: 208,850 tons with a maximum of 12 heavy cruisers Another point of the treaty had to do with submarines. As these craft were left untouched by the 1922 treaty some underwater behemoths like the French Surcouf had been built to make use of that loophole. In order to remedy this submarines were placed under the "Auxillary ships" category, meaning that their tonnage would add to the total of the country building them. Added to this a limit was placed on the maximum gunsize carried by subs and the total displacement of subs. Last but not least, the rest of the 1922 treaty which wasn't altered by the new one were extended by five years, effectively extending the capital shipbuilding holiday to 1936. Second Geneva Naval Conference (aka World Disarmament Conference) In 1932 another attempt was made at arms reduction, this time not limited to the navy. This conference was initiated by the League of Nations and included sixty-one nations, including Germany and (for the first time) the Soviet Union. Negotiations lasted up to 1934, with Germany exiting the League in 1933 as Hitler came to power. While this was in violation of various treaties, nothing was done about it and negotiations soon stalled. Small photo of the Geneva Conference of 1932 Anglo-German Naval Agreement of 1935 While not a naval treaty, or conference, in the scope of those covered above, this one was of import as it gave Germany the freedom to build a naval force larger than that allowed by the treaty of Versailles: up to 35% of the total strength of the Royal Navy. While obviously not a great deal, nor threat, to the British, this did stir up some bad vibes in France. The treaty of Versailles was a means to keep Germany in check, as France was still deeply distrusting their German neighbours and with Hitler in power Germany was flexing its military muscles once again... ...and now Germany was allowed to build a navy far larger than that allowed by the very treaty supposed to keep Germany in check...and the British didn't even bother to involve France and Italy in the negotiations. Von Ribbentrop in London after concluding negotiations on the Anglo-German Naval Agreement This treaty gave Germany the freedom to build up its Kriegsmarine, leading up to the very ambitious Plan-Z which, when announced, pretty much killed the Anglo-German Agreement. Second London Naval Conference In 1936, as the first London Naval Treaty was about to expire, the five major naval powers were once again invited to talk about naval arms reduction. However, as tensions between nations were becoming more apparent only the UK, US and France signed it. The main focus was on limiting the size and armament of battleships. As the surviving ships of the WW1 era were at the end of their service life, new ships were being designed and this treaty was intended to limit their size, and in effect: costs. The signatories agreed that battleships were to displace no more than 35,000 tons and would have a battery of guns no larger than 14". The US diplomats did manage to include the so-called "escalator clause", which stated that if any of the signatories of the ORIGINAL Washington Naval Treaty was to exceed these limits, the signatories of this new treaty were allowed to use guns up to a size of 16" instead of 14". A direct result of the Second London Naval Treaty: the King George V-class battleships Other ships were also placed under new limitations: submarines were to displace no more than 2,000 tons and have a gun no larger than 5.1", light cruisers were to displace no more than 8,000 tons and aircraft carriers were limited to a maximum of 23,000 tons. In 1938 the three signatories agreed that the escalator clause was to be expanded, giving the signatories the right to build battleships of a displacement of 45,000 tons instead of 35,000. Good examples of these treaty battleships are the British King George V-class and the French Dunkerque-class battleships. As the escalator clause kicked in in 1939, the American ships of the South-Dakota and North-Carolina classes were modified to include the now allowed 16" guns. The ships of the Iowa-class were the only ones to be actually built and make full use of the new limits, displacing 45,000 tons and armed with nine 16" guns. Other classes like the German Bismarck-class and Italian Littorio-class battleships were, more-or-less, built to the treaty specifications, but were displacing a LOT more than allowed and fielded bigger guns. These, together with the rumors of a "new, big class of Japanese battleships" *cough*Yamato*cough* were actually the reason that the escalator clause kicked in. Escalator clause-a-gogo! USS Iowa, the largest (proper) treaty battleship ever built In the end... In the end the naval treaties were pretty much a double edged sword. While they saved the major nations a lot of money otherwise spent on capital ships, they did level out the playing field with their maximum tonnages of ships and limitations to the actual classes that were built. They also meant the end of the British dominance over the seven seas that it had enjoyed for so long, even though it is questionable if the British economy would be able to support that dominance given it's post-war state if these treaties wouldn't have been signed. One of the sideeffects of these treaties and the limitations they imposed was rapid and sometimes radical advancements in shipdesign and technologies. The all-or-nothing armor scheme and welded hulls are just a few examples of weight saving techniques used in treaty cruisers and battleships in order to keep the weight down. Another unintended sideeffect was the rise to power of the aircraft carrier due to the loopholes in the Washington Naval Treaty, allowing hulls then under construction to be converted to carriers. Because of this the battleship would never again be the center of the fleet as it had been before and during WW1. ...and we all know what place the Carrier would take in history...

In general, most AMC ships will be good for a place at tier 1 AT MOST. They lacked armor and firepower when compared to proper warships and most of them also lacked speed (a merchant ship is usually built for efficient steaming, not speed). Ofcourse there are exceptions to the rule, like converted passenger liners usually were quite speedy, but they would still be lacking in the other categories. But still, I'd like to see ships like KM Pinguin.

*Sigh*Oh, very well then... Let me grab something else from my archives. Ah, got just the thing! It's a few weeks late, but it'll do! "But what is a few weeks late JeeWeeJ?" Well, a few weeks ago, on the 24th of January to be exact, it was exactly a hundred years ago that one of the more ferocious naval battles of WW1 was fought: the Battle of Dogger Bank. So sit back, grab a cup of hot choco (cookie optional) and start scrolling! Prologue When WW1 started everyone was certain of one thing: this war would be won at sea. (And they would be proven right! Just not in the way they expected) With both Great Britain and Germany building large fleets of dreadnoughts and battlecruisers everybody was expecting one deciding battle in which the war would be won or lost. But as the first few months of the war flew by, no large scale naval action took place (beside a few small scale skirmishes). The German Hochseeflotte was waiting in their ports for the British to come to them and fight them on their terms, while the British initated a distant blockade, staying out of reach of the German fleet but effectively blocking all trade to Germany. Also, the British had recalled pretty much all capable warships back to Great Britain (something that would initially bite them in the [edited]during the battle of Coronel), but increasing the size of the Home Fleet by a large amount by doing so. Such was the difference in fleet sizes that at that point, the Germans already knew that taking on the entire British fleet head on would be suicide. So they had to come up with another plan. If the British would not fight them on their terms, then maybe they could lure them out in more manageable numbers? In order to achieve this, a number of raids on the British coast were planned by the German Commander-in-Chief of the Navy: Admiral Friedrich von Ingenohl who hoped that, with a bit of luck, the British would send out their battlecruiser squadron in defence, which could then be mopped up by the entire German fleet. As they say, there is no such thing as overkill! Admiral Friedrich von Ingenohl The first of these raids took part on November 3rd, 1914 by attacking the British coastal town and fishing port of Great Yarmouth. While little damage was done, the British populace was outraged by this attack on their soil and demanded that something was done. But something was already being done, just out of public view. Because in room number 40 of the Admiral Ripley building in Whitehall British cryptographers were hard at word decyphering German radio messages, and just the month before they were given a little present from the Russians: a captured Signalbuch der Kaiserlichen Marine - the German Naval codebook. This codebook helped Room 40 (as they became known) immensely, German radio messages were coded AND encrypted but with the British now in posession of the codes, all they had to do was decrypt the messages, making their work a lot easier. So much easier in fact that the German cypher was broken just one month later. And the Germans had no clue this was going on. Raid on Scarborough, Hartlepool and Whitby While the raid on Yarmouth wasn't as effective as planned, it did prove that the German Navy was indeed capable of fast raids on British soil. Still having the idea that they could draw out a portion of the Home Fleet, the commander of the German 1st Scouting Group (which contained all German battlecruisers), Admiral Franz von Hipper, convinced Ingenohl that they should undertake a more ambitious raid. One the British could not ignore. The targets would be coastal towns of Scarborough, Hartlepool, West Hartlepool and Whitby. The raid was to be carried out by the first and second scouting groups consisting of four battlecruisers. After a fierce discussion, Ingenohl agreed with Hipper and asked the Kaiser for permission to undertake the operation, which was granted. Thanks to Room 40, the British knew of the German plans and Admiral Jellicoe formulated a controversial plan with which he intended to trap, and destroy, the German battlecruiser. The reason that it was controversial was that he intended to let the Germans execute their raid and take them out on their way back, this in order to avoid scaring the Germans away when they got wind that they might be lured into a trap. On December the 14th 1914 the British intelligence intercepted transmissions indicating that Hippers battlecruisers were leaving port. The British reacted immediately by preparing a force more than capable of taking out four battlecruisers: six dreadnoughts, four battlecruisers, four armoured cruisers, four light cruisers and seven destroyers would take on Hippers four battlecruisers, one armoured cruiser, four light cruisers and eighteen destroyers. But what the British didn't know, was that shortly after Hipper left, the entire Hochseeflotte , yes, you read that right: the ENTIRE German fleet, sortied to back them up. To keep this short, the result was the biggest amount of EPIC FAIL imaginable. While the Germans successfully raided the towns AND escaped from the British, Ingenohl was somehow under the impression that he was facing the entire Home Fleet and, as he was ordered by the Kaiser not to needlessly endanger his capital ships without his permission, turned the Hochseeflotte around and headed for home. He had the chance to deal a massive blow to the Royal Navy, outnumbering the British twelve capital ships with his twenty-two...and let it slip. As Großadmiral Tirpiz said: "Ingenohl had the fate of Germany in his hands". Road to battle Even though the previous raid was not the grand success it could have been for the Germans, they did accomplish their mission, giving the men of the German navy a big boost in morale as surface victories were scarce. Under the impression that more easy raids were possible AND with the possibility of once again drawing out a portion of the British fleet, Hipper immediately pressed for more raids on the British coast. In Great Britain, things were quite different. The general public was outraged that the Germans were able to raid the British coast, cause over one hundred dead, hundreds of casualties, towns in ruins and the Royal Navy was, in the eyes of the public, just sitting in harbour drinking tea on their expensive ships? No, that just would not do! Luckily for the Navy (and the armed forces in general) nobody knew that they, in fact, had known of the German plans and actually let the raids take place! Eventually, some inquiries were done, some people were blamed (but not punished) and the raids were actually used as propaganda material in order to recruit more men for the war. One thing was clear though: they could not pull a stunt like that again, as the populace just would not accept it. Meanwhile, Hipper had found his next target: the British fishing fleet active on the Dogger Bank, for he suspected that they weren’t the innocent fishing vessels they were supposed to be! Because who else would be providing the British information on German fleet movements? (well…Room 40 maybe?) So he drew up a plan to take care of these “intelligence gathering vessels” and picked a day his ships would sortie: January 23rd of 1915. And a few hours after he transmitted his orders over the radio, Room 40 informed the British admiralty of the upcoming German raid. At the 24th of January, 04:45pm (GMT) a German fleet of three battlecruisers, one armored cruiser, four light cruisers and eighteen torpedo boats left the port of Wilhelmshaven for the Dogger Bank. Literally a few minutes later an overwhelming force of five British battlecruisers, seven light cruisers and no less than thirty-five destroyers left the ports of Rosyth and Harwich. The game was set and the pieces were, quite literally, moving. Lines of battle The German 1st and 2nd Scouting GroupsThe ships under the command of Admiral Hipper were, mostly, the same ships which took part in the previous raid: 1st Scouting GroupThe 1st Scouting Group was the German battlecruiser squadron made up of SMS Seydlitz, SMS Moltke and SMS Derfflinger. Usually SMS Von der Tann was also a part of this group, but she was still under repair as she took extensive damage in the previous raid. In addition to the battlecruisers there was also the large armoured cruiser SMS Blücher. As Blücher took a central role in the battle, I’ll cover her in more detail. SMS Derfflinger, the most powerful ship in Hipper's fleet. Later to be nicknamed "The Iron Dog" by the British for her actions during Jutland SMS BlücherBlücher was the last armoured cruiser, or Großer Kreuzer (large cruiser), to be built by the Germans. She was designed to be a bigger, more badass version of the previous cruisers of the Scharnhorst-class (of Battle of Coronel and Battle of the Falklands fame) and a direct answer to the rumoured new British cruisers of the Invincible-class. She was a proper armoured cruiser: lots of armor, triple expansion engines, a top speed of 25 knots…but a LOT better. She was 25% larger than the previous classes, dumped the mixed-gun weapon setup and instead had twelve 8.2” (210mm) guns in six turrets. She had more powerful engines and a torpedo protection system built into her design. She was, by far, the most powerful armoured cruiser afloat…but she was no battlecruiser. And when the Germans learned that the “cruisers” of the Invincible-class were armed with 12” guns and were powered by steam turbines, it was already too late to alter Blücher’s design. While a very capable ship, she was totally outclassed in every respect when compared to the battlecruisers she served with. And that would ultimately be her doom. SMS Blücher 2nd Scouting GroupThe 2nd Scouting Group was made up of four light cruisers: SMS Kolberg, SMS Stralsund, SMS Rostock and SMS Graudenz. All these ships were modern light cruisers and very capable of the job at hand and armed with large numbers of 10.5cm/45 SK L/45 guns and torpedoes. Finally there were two flotillas of torpedo boats, but I could not find any sources stating which specific ships they were made up of. The British ForcesAdmiral Beatty had command of a sizable force made up of four squadrons with the five ships of the two battlecruiser squadrons at its core. All ships were new and, most important, very fast. So fast in fact that they would not have problems in overtaking the German ships (which were, in general, slower than their British counterparts while more heavily armoured) 1st Battlecruiser SquadronThis squadron was composed of just three ships: HMS Lion (Beatty’s flagship), HMS Tiger and HMS Princess Royal HMS Lion, Beatty's flagship 2nd Battlecruiser SquadronComposed of HMS New Zealand and HMS Indomitable. 1st Light Cruiser SquadronHMS Southampton, HMS Birmingham, HMS Lowestoft and HMS Nottingham. Like the German cruisers, they were all built shortly before the war and were equipped with the best weaponry available. They did have an edge in range an firepower, as they were armed with 6” gun. Harwich ForceLike the CL squadron from Rosyth, these were all modern cruisers: HMS Aurora, HMS Arethusa and HMS Undaunted, backed up by a force of thirty-five destroyers. The battle The 24th of January was an exceptionally clear day for the time of the year, one could say a perfect day for a surface battle where rangefinders could only rely on optical systems. It was around 07:15am that the British cruiser HMS Aurora stumbled into SMS Stralsund. Being at war, Stralsund immediately engaged Aurora, scoring two hits within the first few minutes. While the two cruisers were duking it out, Hipper ordered his heavy units towards the fighting, thinking that his force had encountered some light British units, a patrol force most likely. While Hipper was in the turn towards Stralsund, the cruiser reported seeing smoke from heavy units from the north-north west. Hipper immediately realised that he was in trouble: the fishing ships of those days were still mostly sail powered and that amount of smoke was more than cruisers could generate. Hipper initially thought that the smoke came from British battleships, which he could easily outrun, so at 07:35am he ordered a course south-east, back to Germany…and then he realised that the smoke didn’t come from battleships, but from much faster battlecruisers. And they were closing fast. Meanwhile, around 08:00am Beatty’s battlecruisers finally sighted Hippers big ships. The British fleet was running at high speed, some ships doing 27 knots, quickly closing the gap between them and their prey. The Germans, on the other hand, could only manage to do the maximum speed of the slowest ship of the fleet, Blücher, which was only capable of doing 23 knots due to using bad quality coal (thus raising less steam, in more modern ships this problem of bad quality coal was compensated with oil spraying...but Blücher did not have this). Not satisfied with the speed of his ships, Beatty ordered the impossible speed of 29 knots, a speed most ships of his fleet were unable to achieve. Due to the massive amounts of smoke such speeds generated (it burned A LOT of coal), Beatty ordered his cruisers to the sideline, out of the way of his battlecruisers as their smoke blocked their rangefinders. At 08:52am, HMS Lion opened fire on SMS Blücher at a range of 20,000 yards with other ships joining in on the party as soon as they got in range with the first hits on Blücher being reported at 09:09am. The Germans were unable to return fire until 09:11am, due to the shorter range of their guns. Never before in the history of naval warfare had a surface action taken place at such high speeds and at such extreme gun ranges, making it extremely challenging for gunners on both sides to land shots on target. That both sides managed to straddle and hit ships within a few salvos is a testament to the gunnery skills of the crews. Map of the battle With ranges closing, Beatty ordered his ships to fire on their corresponding target (first British ship firing on the first German ship etc), however, due to errors in communication and Indomitable still out of range the crew of Tiger assumed that all targets were “taken care of” and joined Lion in shooting up Seydlitz, leaving Moltke unharmed and unengaged. To make matters worse, the crew of Tiger mistook the shellsplashes of Lion for her own, making her own shells to overshoot the Seydlitz by no less than 2,000 yards. The German ships, on the other hand, were all focussing on Lion and did not make the mistakes their British counterparts did. Around 09:40am Lion scored a critical hit. One of her 13.5” shells hit and penetrated the barbette of Seydlitz’s rear turret, causing some of the shell propellant to catch fire. The fire quickly spread to the turret and through a bulkhead door (which should have been closed) to the second turret, killing all 159 men crewing those turrets. Hipper was lucky that the magazines of both turrets were quickly flooded before the fire could spread any further, otherwise it would have cost him his ship, something the British experienced a year later during the Battle of Jutland. Seydlitz on fire Lion wasn’t without damage herself though, as the German gunnery proved to be very accurate she was quickly hit multiple times, including hits from Seydlitz in an effort to return the favour. Derfflinger’s 12” rounds hit Lion so hard under the waterline that her captain thought they had been torpedoed. These hits from Derfflinger had the side effect of contaminating the port condensers water supply with salt water. As turbines can only run on steam generated from clean, sweet water the port engines had to be shut down thirty minutes later and causing her to drop out of the battle line. Blücher was taking a heavy beating though, as the British thought that she was another battlecruiser instead of a very large armoured cruiser (infact, Blücher was only 10 meters shorter than the average German battlecruiser) and while she was valiantly fighting off her British pursuer’s, her speed had dropped to just 17 knots and fell out of the German battleline. Meanwhile, onboard of Lion, one of the crewmembers reported a possible sighting of a periscope. Thinking it was a German sub, Beatty ordered his fleet to a 90 degree turn to port at 10:58am and once he was “clear” of the danger (there was no sub) he ordered a course of north-east. It was around this time that a major communication error took place, which saved the German battlecruisers…and doomed the Blücher. As Lion had taken a very heavy beating the only way she was able to communicate was by flags. Her radio antenna was destroyed, her signal lamps were without power (as the generators were destroyed) and all but two of her signalling halyards were shot to bits. British postcard of the battle Believing himself to be a new version of Nelson, he ordered his flag-lieutenant (Lieutenant-Commander Seymour) to signal the famous command from Nelson “Engage the enemy more closely”. As this command was not in the signal book, Seymour altered this to “Attack the rear of the enemy”, which is…slightly different. To make matters worse, he put the flags of this order up with those of the previous one (the order to sail north-east) making it read “Attack the rear of the enemy, bearing north-east”…which was Blücher. Beatty had to watch helplessly as his whole force broke off the pursuit of the German fleet and ganged up on the lonely Blücher. Alone, outgunned, outnumbered and completely outclassed, Blücher fought on to the bitter end. She took the destroyer HMS Meteor out of action and managed to score to hits with her 8.2” guns…but at the same time the British ships scored no less than 50 hits on her. After being hit by a total of 70 (!!) rounds of various sizes, two torpedo hits took her out of commission. She capsized at 13:13pm with the loss of 792 men. The famous photo of Blücher capsizing with her crew scrambling to get off the ship Meanwhile, Beatty had transferred to HMS New Zealand in an attempt to restore control over his fleet, but by that time Hipper’s remaining ships had already escaped. Aftermath Both sides limped home, to various reactions: Beatty was hailed a hero and was a great boost to British morale. On the other side of the North sea, Kaiser Wilhelm II was furious. In order to “protect” his precious fleet, he ordered them confined to port unless he gave his personal permission for them to set sail. Admiral Ingenohl took personal responsibility for the failure of the fleet and loss of the Blücher and resigned, to be replaced by Admiral Pohl. However, the Germans took the lessons learned with the fire in Seydlitz to heart and from then on paid close attention to the closing of bulkheads, while the British did not...which would cost them two battlecruisers at the Battle of Jutland. Also, flag lieutenant Seymour remained at his post, which made further, costly, communication errors during the Battle of Jutland. Another photo of Blücher sinking To finish this off, a fun quote from one of my sources (no guarantee that it’s true):As Arethusa was rescuing survivors ([edit] from Blücher [/edit]) a British stoker called 'Nobby' Clark was helping to haul German sailors up over the side he was surprised to be greeted by a German with 'Hello Nobby! Fancy meeting you here!' - it turned out that the German sailor had been his next door neighbour in Hull before the start of world War 1. Sources Worldwar1.co.uk Firstworldwar.com Navweaps.com Wikipedia

I had a good laugh, thank you sir!

There is actually a model-based game called Seekrieg where you can play this scenario (backed with a pile of rulebooks on armor penetration, damage etc), even in the originally intended German fleet setup including SMS Von Der Tann instead of SMS Blücher. It makes for an interesting battle, to say the least. I totally agree with you that the advantages do appear to be with the British, but there is a good possibility that it would hurt the British as much as it would the Germans. Even though in the end the Germans would still be in a losing position, given that it's a reasonable assumption that the British would scramble the Home Fleet if their BCs would get in a hairy situation. But still, assumptions assumptions.

I may not totally understand you here...but my apologies if my post caused offense. Historynerd, on 16 February 2015 - 06:41 PM, said: There is no doubt that luck, together with ineptness at handling the signals, played a large part in the outcome of this battle, as all the German battlecruisers managed to reach home, while it is conceivable that some could have been damaged or sunk had the enemy not concentrated on their unfortunate companion. Actaully, this is an interesting point of debate. During the battle, while especially Seydlitz suffered serious damage, the German BCs proved to be considerably more capable of soaking up damage than their British counterparts. While it is certainly true that the British ships were faster, they had significantly less armor, shells of inferior quality (as further proven during the battle of Jutland and being the cause of the introduction of the Greenboy shells) and managed to get a significantly lower to-hit ratio than their German counterparts. And as one of their most powerful BCs had been taken out of the battle, and the cruiser escort lagging behind I wouldn't right out say that it was "in the bag" for the British. It would have gotten "interesting", in every sense of the word.

Fritz-X OP, nerf plox.

The Kaiserliche Marine...second largest navy in the world, yet always forgotten...

Yes, the game admin was apparently slacking.

If only one of those 500 shells hit the target...oh, wait, they were shooting at their own ships!

Well, some Russian ships fighting a "glorious battle" against fishing ships can hardly be called a battle.. And, yes, there is some serious bad luck linked with certain names for German ships. Both Blüchers were sunk, same goes for Scharnhorst and Gneisenau.

Well, to be fair, Beatty wasn't the incompetent one in this battle, that would be his flag officer. Beatty had to push his battlecruisers to the limit in order to catch the Germans, as there was the risk of German reinforcements and that his flagship was crippled/disabled by Derfflinger didn't help either. But messing up those flag signals were what messed things up for the British. Then again, it would've been an interesting battle of the battlecruisers kept going at eachother, while the British had bigger guns, the German ships were far more capable of sucking up that damage, while the British ships weren't as durable.

I am pleased that my writing skill has made a dent in your otherwise flawless and wonderful day.

[offtopic] Jutland by Stormpowered seems pretty nice. [/offtopic] Anyway, German guns in general had a higher muzzle velocity, which was somewhat "their thing" since WW1. British guns tended to fire heavier shells at a lower velocity.

Looks more like a model of an island to me.

I...might have some more...

WW1 parameters are usually semi-close range combat with little to no incoming fire hitting the armored deck. This means very thick vertical protection (= belt armor) Torpedo tubes were usually on the broadside under the waterline, but even during WW1 these were considered to be a weakness in the ship's protection and were removed on quite a few ship classes.

Yes, the WW2-era German DDs were pretty terrible. They were rushed through the design process, were bad seaboats and were very top heavy. Their weaponry is also meh, with up to eight 12.8cm guns and eight 53.3cm torp tubes....and pretty much nonexistant AA defences. So, yes, pretty terrible. One thing that has no infuence in game (so far at least, as stated by the devs in the Q&As) is seakeeping, so there might be some advantages there. Otherwise...no idea hw to balance these ships.