Feel free to Beatty bash. I don't have a single nice thing to say about him, and I am a huge fan of the British BCs.
Earlier on in this thread, the OP posted "The Germans had the better ships". I used to agree with this, but the more I think on it, the more I am starting to disagree. I think the German battleships had a rather anemic main battery; while the rest of the world was moving to 13.5" 14" and 15", the Germans moved up to 12. I think this is a pretty huge difference too, as the biggest problem of the British was shell reliability, not gun power. They could fix the shells (and did), but you generally can't increase gun caliber, and thus armor penetration. German ships were short ranged and this limited the kind of operations they were suitable for. Habitability on the German ships wasn't as good as it was on British ships. Four shafts provides more redundancy then the 3 shafted German arrangement which also assisted in maneuverability. So all things being equal, I am not convinced that the German battleships were "better" then their British counterparts.
A lot of that had to do with how they were designed. They were intended to fight close to home in the poor visibility of the North Sea areas. Hence a higher velocity, smaller caliber weapon still made some sense. RN ships had to be habitable anywhere in the empire so more space spent on crew requirements. More space = more weight and since warship design is a trade off... I think the German battleships were uninspired, but the battle cruisers were world class (with the afore mentioned caveats)
I agree with you, the BC's were excellent, and had weapons easily capable of defeating the armor of the counterparts (British BCs). I agree with part of your statement about the higher velocity shells as well, but I disagree with the part about smaller caliber. It's true that the German ships were designed for shorter range fights in the North Sea. At short range, you're going to be trying to penetrate belt armor as opposed to deck armor. You don't need small caliber to do that, in fact it's almost detrimental as you need the shell weight to help penetrate that armor, not to mention to have a greater bursting charge. The Germans could have easily jumped to the 13.8" weapon they had designed for the Mackensen class BCs, which would have nicely countered the British introduction of the 13.5" weapon, and would would have given those battleships the kind of firepower needed to punch through the British 12" belts on the IDs and the 13" belts on the QEs. Everything I have read tends to indicate that belt penetration tends to get a bit iffy when belt thickness becomes = to shell diameter, and often even if a shell penetrates, the shell will be damaged to the extent that failure to detonate is to be expected. Bottom line is, while the British were caliber jumping the Germans (much like the Americans) remained chained to the 12" gun for far too long. The 12" gun simply had no room for growth as displacement and protection schemes improved.
I seem to remember reading that the Baden's 15" were considered to be far less effective than the British one.
A lot of that was do to shell weight and muzzle velocity. The Germans used a lighter, higher velocity shell. The British 15 inch was heavier and lower velocity, and thus a better deck penetrator, which at ranges of better then about 9,000 yards IIRC is what you want.
The reason why people say the German ships were better is because they were much more robust. They had better compartmentalization, vastly superior torpedo protection, and overall better damage control. British ships, on the other hand, tended to blow up if you looked at them funny. "eggshells armed with sledgehammers" is a fairly accurate description of the British capital ships. They could take a few hits, and a few of their latest ships could take a lot of hits, but they were much more fragile than their German counterparts. Overall, the big guns on the British ships could whack their targets pretty hard, but their targets could survive the beating, while the British ships could not survive what the German guns did to them.
For the British battlecruisers that might be a fair description. It is not a fair description of the British battleships. How many British battleships were sunk during ww1 by gunfire? It's inherently unfair to judge the British capital ships on the merits or debits of only the battlecruisers...which were never designed to stand up to capital ship gunfire. The bottom line is, the German battleships were far more highly flawed then the British battleships were, but it's the battlecruisers who get all the attention.
The British battleships were just as susceptible to catastrophic explosion as the BCs were. That was due to the unstable nature of their cordite, not poor handling procedures. As far as overall robustness, the German ships were better compartmentalized, and their torpedo protection was better suited for the warheads the British were actually using. They also had larger crews, on average, which means more helping hands for damage control once the shells start landing.
IIRC the Royal Navy lost 3 ships during the war due to cordite explosions. Natal, Bulwark and Vanguard.
None of this has to do with the design of the British battleships. Unstable cordite can be fixed. Too small guns can't.
If small guns are a design flaw in German ships, then so are the fragile British AP shells that break up on impact rather than properly penetrate and explode and the British cordite that blows ships up instead of simply burning. A small shell that bounces off is just as useless as a fragile shell that breaks up on impact: neither penetrated the armor. They all are part of the weapons systems used at Jutland and other battles, so you can't say one is a design flaw and the other isn't. You're right: unstable cordite can be corrected. IIRC, The British did so after the war when they could examine German cordite. The AP shells were fixed "during" the war, but not in time for the Green Boy shells to see much active use, if any. Small guns certainly can be fixed also. The Mogami, Gneisenau, and the modernized Italian dreadnoughts are a testament to this. During the war, the Germans actually modified the mountings of many cannons to increase the elevation and range of the guns. If anything, the differences in the design and performance of the two fleets illustrate the differences in the command structure of the two navies and the manufacturing capability of their respective nations. There must have been a flaw in the command structure that allowed the British fleet to use fragile AP shells that are likely to fail, just as there must have been a flaw somewhere in the German command structure that prevented them from changing codes after the British had deciphered them. You can also see German over-engineering and British emphasis on building large numbers of ships.
I fully agree with that. The British shells/cordite were an unmitigated disaster. I seem to recall that as early as Falkland Islands in 1914, the Invincible's gunnery officer was trying to bring attention to the fact that there might be problems with the shells. Much like the problems with American torpedoes in the second world war, he was ignored. I'd imagine that the primary reason for the issues was funding. The British have always tried to do things "on the cheap" as much as possible. There were definitely issues with the British command structure. Jackie Fisher was doing pretty much anything he wanted, Beatty was a bloody bum more interested in his cocktail parties then he was in commanding his fleet, THEN he tried to make Jellicoe look bad for his own advancement, etc. I should probably not get started on Beatty. I'll just leave it at "I'm less then impressed".
Ship construction.... Seems that a lot of the German battleships could take a beating and keep on ticking... But the same could be said for ships like Warspite. It is one thing for flash to cause a massive internal explosion... but that wasn't because British Ships were horribly constructed, it was because the crews were breaking procedures put in place to prevent catastrophe... in the hope of lobbing more shells at the enemy faster... Perhaps we will never truly know the answer... The German Fleet didn't stick around to finish the fight. It is like a Rocky fight but they didn't make it to round 15... A few punches were thrown... a few broken noses.... but in the end no decisively horrible damage. I say that because neither fleet was knocked out.
My vote? I tip my hat at the British Navy. Why? We are hobbists who love to see big ships duke it out in a prize fight. But winning that prize fight is really not that important. The key to naval battle was to open shipping lanes and protect the flow of goods and comerce. If the German Navy was stuck in port out of fear... or for whatever reason... it must have meant that the British had a huge advantage over them in protecting their own shipping lanes... and perhaps picking off German supply convoys. Just my thoughts.
