"Ship problems, quirks, mishaps and famous bungles 1898-1906" Topic

"I meant turn to PORT!"

"Whose splashes are those?"

There was a famous incident involving the Med Fleet, circa 1898 where during maneuvers, at least a couple of large vessels crashed into each other and I think one (at least the flagship???) sunk.

HMS Victoria, flagship of Vice Admiral Tyron, Commander-in-Chief of the Mediterranean Fleet, and HMS Camperdown flagship of Rear Admiral Markham collided on June 22nd, 1893 during maneuvers off Beirut, Lebanon.

Vice Admiral Tyron went down with his flagship.

That WAS the story behind "I meant turn to PORT!"

You read the orders, you look at the plotted maneuvers, you just have to cringe…

Yes, Tryon seems to have had a "senior" moment and forgotten that 2 lines turning towards each other are going to need twice the distance. The mad thing was that nobody tried to persuade him he was wrong.
Still, it proved the ram bows on Camperdown worked, even if she was only prevented from following the Victoria by rapid work by the ship's crew in building a cofferdam.
Big red faces at the Admiralty all round!

How about Manila Bay 1898? If I remember right:

The (superior) German fleet arrives after the defeat of the Spanish. After days of posturing and trying to intimidate Dewey, the Germans resolve to attack Dewey's fleet. Upon steaming into the part of the bay where the Americans are anchored, the Germans find a powerful British cruiser anchored behind the American fleet in such a manner that she will be hit by stray German shells. Upon the approach of the Germans the band on the British ship plays the Star Spangled Banner. The Germans haul off.

Later, when the German Admiral meets the British Commander for tea, the German Admiral asks the British Captain regarding the British intentions. The Captain responds "Why don't you ask Dewey?"

How about the French battleship Iena in dry dock. "Lets turn these magazine cooling fans off. We don't need them on while we are not moving."

A variety from the Russo-Japanese War…
The sinking of the Petropavlosk (complete with most of the crew and Admiral Makarov). The Japanese mines seem to have been pretty far apart, but she managed to hit one. From the descriptions, it seems that the mine detonated either directly beside/under one of her magazines or at the submerged torpedo tube (which likely had a reload or two next to it). Boom, smoke, gone in seconds. From the later examples of the Japanese battleships, this was an unlikely result…both took quite a while to sink (different designs, of course).

Same incident (and the cause of the sally by Makarov), the destroyer Strashni got confused during the night and tagged on to the end of a Japanese destroyer division thinking it was her consorts. When dawn broke she discovered her error, and a running gun battle ensued, with Strashni heading for Port Arthur. Makarov's sally was to rescue her.

Battle of Round Island, later in '04…reports indicated that the Russians were about to cut through the Japanese line and were possibly shooting better than the Japanese when a shell (I don't remember what size, but would have to be at least 6"-8"-10"-12") landed in the quite narrow space between the armored conning tower and its rear blast shield, killing Admiral Witgeft, the helmsman, and various other command staff on the battleship Tsarevitch (which was leading the battle line). The ship then turned in a circle, disordering and confusing the Russian line so that they sheered off from the Japanese…Tsarevitch goes out of the battle, off to internment in China and Rear Admiral Prince Ukhtomski gives up and leads most of the rest of the fleet back to Port Arthur to be sunk by the Japanese siege guns.

Battle of Tsushima; the hospital ship Orel (if I am remembering correctly) suddenly sends a bunch of sparks out of her funnels. These are spotted by the Japanese, giving them significantly more time to react and position themselves tactically. Of course, in a campaign game the panic that caused the Baltic Fleet to shoot up the British Dogger Bank fishing fleet almost caused the UK to go to war with Russia.

I am sure that a scan of the British Official history, the US reports, and the German history would yield more…the Russians seemed particularly plagued with bad luck oddities, although the Japanese losing two of their six battleships to mines (probably laid by the Russian Amur) certainly was bad luck and iffy command decisions.

Looking at some of the pictures from Jane's and Brassey's, there also seem to have been a pretty fair number of hits directly on gun tubes, which is pretty unlikely. Several instances of rudder/steering hits and/or malfunctions (more on cruisers and below, but not completely).

Hope that all helps! +

Ashurman

One of my favorites involves the small Russian coastal defence battlsehip, Gangut. Most histories have her as having sunk after hitting an uncharted rock in the Baltic (after all, the Baltic is so rarely charted). In reality, the ship was so badly built than on her first go at firing practive, the recoil of the ship's single 12" gun opened up some seams and she foundered.

And let us no forget the two round Russian Black Sea gunboats (Popov & Novgorod?), which if they fired a gun would start spining in circles.

There was a Turkish warship that was once built without engines "due to an oversight."

Big Martin

"The mad thing was that nobody tried to persuade him he was wrong."

when Admiral Tryon issued the order for a 6 cable separation, the Staff Commander, Commander Hawkins-Smith told him it would require 8 cables, he agreed. However when the Flag Lieutenant, Lord Gifford, was given the order Tryon changed it back to six cables. So someone did try to stop him.

Let's not forget the fall back 'shell bursts in gun breech', ' recoil at full charge sheers the mounting bolts'-( only ever trained with half charge for economy), 'engage the enemy to port…but aren't they ours?'…..
'Whilst the magazine fans are off ( dreadful whining)- let's turn off the noisy engine room ventilators too……'
On the China station, all the menial tasks were carried out by Chinese workers leading to overcrowding below decks as more senior coolies also had hirelings of their own……..'delay in response from "make full speed" as the gang debate whose turn to start at the bunker--chinese parliament.'

Let's not forget the fall back 'shell bursts in gun breech', ' recoil at full charge sheers the mounting bolts'-( only trained with half charge for economy), 'engage the enemy to port……or did you order starboard?'…..
'Whilst the magazine fans are off ( dreadful whining)- let's turn off the noisy engine room ventilators too……'

Also in the RJW, the Japanese lost three 12" guns to internal explosions during the Battle of the Yellow sea. Japanese shimose-filled shells became unstable and began bursting inside the 12" gun barrels during intense gunnery.

They corrected the problem in time for the Battle of Tsushima.

Good overview of technical issues affecting gunnery in the RJW: gwpda.org/naval/rjwargun.htm

- Ix

The Russian fleet support ship "Kamchatka" contributed greatly to the Dogger Bank Incident where the Russian 2nd Pacific Squadron fired on British trawlers by reporting she had been was being attacked on all sides. Needless to say she hadn't.

Britain almost went to war over the incident.

link

Or how about "magazine explosion from coal dust fire sinks visiting warship and starts war"?

Probably need to consider ships not being able to see the enemy. A prime example for pre-dreadnoughts is the Battle of Cape Sarych, where the gunnery master ship, which was supposed to coordinate the fire of the lead 3 ships in the Russian Black Sea pre-dreadnought squadron, couldn't see the Goeben:

gwpda.org/naval/csayrch1.htm