"British v. German naval gunnery? Other powers?" Topic

Which author/book are you reading, if I may ask?

There's already a special rule in FAI:

Initial British Salvos [Pre-July 1916] Royal Navy gunnery attacks are restricted to one D12 (or D20) for each ship's initial gunnery attack at ranges exceeding 12ooo yds. Thereafter, attacks are made normally as described in Section 7.5.6. This reflects slow and deliberate Royal Navy ranging procedures for getting on target. After Jutland, the Grand Fleet adopted ranging ladders similar to those already employed by the High Seas Fleet.

Page 7-12, Section 7.5.7, right column, halfway down the page, last modifier listed.

This illustrates one of the reasons I keep coming back to the G3 system – everything is covered already. In fact, I have borrowed rules from GQ3/FAI to use in GQ2 campaigns.

- Ix

Obviously the rate of fire comes in only after you have found the range, or if you need to check it again with diverging courses or speeds. Ironically the British habit of leaving flash hatches open to speed loading lead to several losses!

In the Seas of War WWI supplement bracket ranging and ladder ranging are defined. The number of guns participating per unit time is halved for bracket ranging.

One thing to keep in mind when reading these rates of fire is that those are generally the optimal rates. In combat, things are a lot slower. There are always breaks in the firing due to a multitude of things (target or firer changes course requiring a new firing solution, some interruption in the supply of shells (shell hoists seemed notorious for that), etc). So the actually rate of fire (after acquiring the target) over several minutes will be lower. And the author of FAI has already factored this into the CRTs.

As for the the differences in fire control equipment and doctrine, most nations had some differences. The final determinant, however, was training. It doesn't matter how good your equipment is if your training is bad (Beatty's BCF is an example of this). In game terms (FAI), however, the differences were not that significant and have been already factored into the CRTs (and the aforementioned rule).

Sparker- The problem with the RN BCs was due to lax training in the Battlecruiser Force (Beatty's Own); the same problems were not present in the Grand Fleet BB and BC squadrons (where they actually trained for gunnery combat and rigidly followed the appropriate safety protocols).

The problem with the RN BCs was due to lax training in the Battlecruiser Force (Beatty's Own); the same problems were not present in the Grand Fleet BB and BC squadrons (where they actually trained for gunnery combat and rigidly followed the appropriate safety protocols).

Just so happens that the ones that had lax safety training were the ones that were hit in critical areas and flash fires set off. It's a little too convenient to be believed.

IIRC, the major problem with the gunnery of Beatty's BCF was that they lacked a safe place (from U-boats) to do gunnery training. The main portion of the Grand Fleet was able to do gunnery training in Scapa Flow (which was a very large protected anchorage). The reason that Hood's 3rd BCS shot well at Jutland is that they had just finished their Scapa Flow gunnery training rotation.

BTW, Norman Friedman suggests on page 32 of his "Naval Weapons of World War One" that the Jutland explosions were not so much due to lax safety training, as to a deliberate attempt to increase the rate of fire, based on perceived "lessons" of Dogger Bank (where the Germans got away). These deliberate practices apparently included flash-tight doors locked open, extra charges stored in turrets, handling rooms, and hoists, etc. He suggests that documentation of the decisions behind this was mostly suppressed for "morale" reasons. It may not only have been the BCF who did this either. Unfortunately, it was the BCF which was most heavily engaged, and which had generally thinner turret and barbette armor.

Mark

According to more recent research, the lax practices were restricted to the BCF. The GF BSs did not engage in the same practices. (BTW, Friedman's treatment of Campbell's original research has come in for some criticism. And his fire control book has been given very mixed reviews from academics in the know due to several major gaffes).

Mobius- Believe it. It's been confirmed in multiple sources.

coastal2

Any links to these criticisms as it would be useful to know them whilst reading the book.

Thanks

coastal2:

I would be interested in specifically which portion of Friedman's analysis on page 32 you disagree with, and what sources you consider to be "more recent" than a book published last year. Since I'm sure you read a lot of history, I'm sure you know that criticizing one academic because other academics (those "in the know" according to you) disagree with him, is kind of silly. Thus, the mere fact that there are people critical of Friedman's writing is not very significant; it all depends on the particular details in question.

Anyway, IMHO, the term "lax practices" is a bit deceptive, as it implies incompetence or laziness, perhaps due to inadequate training. I don't think that applies here. Instead, I think that the dangerous ammunition handling procedures almost certainly were authorized by the command chain in the BCF at minimum. Thus it would appear to be a case of bad doctrine, motivated in part by perceived war experience to that point. Furthermore, given that the perceptions of the Dogger Bank battle and earlier experience would presumably have been shared beyond the BCF, it seems plausible to consider that these dangerous ammunition handling procedures may have extended beyond the BCF as well. Of course, all conclusions are temporary and based on current knowledge.

BTW, according to Friedman, most of the book is his, and not "Campbell's original research". He specifies which portions are Campbell's on page 9.

Mark

(EDIT 10:15am CST)

These deliberate practices apparently included flash-tight doors locked open, extra charges stored in turrets, handling rooms, and hoists, etc. He suggests that documentation of the decisions behind this was mostly suppressed for "morale" reasons. It may not only have been the BCF who did this either. Unfortunately, it was the BCF which was most heavily engaged, and which had generally thinner turret and barbette armor.

Exactly! Until the units is heavily engaged it's saftey methods are fine. Once they want to increase their rate of fire that may go out the window. We will never know.

Mobius,

When I mentioned "heavily engaged", I was suggesting that because the battlecruisers were under fire longer, they were more likely to receive hits in bad places. I wasn't referring to a hypothetical temporary state reached during a battle when a ship would impulsively decide to violate safe ammo handling procedures in hopes of increasing their rate of fire. I have no reason to believe that they behaved in this way (which would seem to be unprofessional).

Mark

Mark-

You're correct in that the relaxing of the shell handling protocols were a deliberate policy change (call it a calculated risk) put in place in the BCF. According to contemporary documents from the GF, that doctrine was not apparently embraced by the GF BB squadrons.

And you correctly nailed the problem that the BCF had with its gunnery training. Lack of an appropriate range, plus the inability to schedule training at Scapa (not of of their doing, mind you. More due to the press of operations) negatively impacted their gunnery.

As for Friedman/Campbell debate: The major question among the professional historians was the handling of Campbell's material by Friedman. Some, who had access to Campbell's original material, contend that Friedman should have done better. Of course, this may well be more an issue of unfulfilled expectations, than anything else. That said, my own view is that Friedman did a serviceable job. And, in the final analysis, if he had not taken on the job, we might never have seen Campbell's research at all.

QC-

Keep in mind, when the minor powers went shopping for fire control equipment, they invariably bought from the major powers (Britain, US, Italy, France and, to a lesser degree Germany). And with that equipment came trainers and support. So your minor powers are going to be pretty much on par with whoever they bought the goods from.

As for Italy, France, Russia and Austria: All of these powers had their own robust fire control systems. In fact, the Russians were conspicuously competent in the area. In game terms, the differences are not significant enough to justify a plethora of 'special' rules. For a more highly detailed game, possibly, but not in FAI. (And in those rare cases where the differences were significant, they were worked into the relevant CRT. That's why you have separate CRTs for each nation).

As for applying the special acquisition rule to other powers, that MAY be appropriate if there is information to support it. As it stands now, however, there isn't. In any case, just about everybody adopted the ladder method of ranging fairly quickly, so the issue becomes moot.

Coastal2,

I have no problem with your very conciliatory last post :-)

However, I *would* seriously be interested in reading any serious criticisms by professional historians of Friedman's "Naval Firepower" book. Of course, I read the Amazon reviews, including the less favorable ones. Unfortunately, the latter mostly didn't impress me, and seemed to be more a indication of the emotional state of the reviewers than of the quality of the book. I did agree with some of their concerns of course, but given the huge amount of information in the book, and given the lack of other similar comprehensive treatments, I found it difficult to understand giving it less than 4 stars (which is the current average rating of the book).

BTW, ditto for the "Naval Weapons of WWI" book (which so far has a 5 star average rating).

You can PM me if you want.

Mark

Quote from "Naval Weapons of World War One" by Norman Friedman, page 150:

"Despite the sophisticated systems the US Navy Adopted, in 1917 it found to its profund surprise and shock that its gunnery was far inferior to that of the Grand Fleet. The conclusion was that the basic system designed by the US Navy was good, but that the execution was poor, and enormous effort went into fixing US wartime fire control. That included dealing with excessive patterns of the 12in and 14in guns of ships assigned to the Grand Fleet."

MH

I read Campbell some years ago, but what I remember is his assertion that British ammo handling practices were not really that much different than the Germans. Rather the difference was chemical, British propellant could ignite from flash and German did not. So if flash traveled through the hatches or conduits or whatever and ignited more propellant, soon the HE would go too.

Comments?

Dan Gao,

My understanding is that yes the British propellant was probably more energetic than that of say Germany, but that there were also other factors which at times were more significant. I was favorably impressed by the suggestion made by Friedman in "Naval Weapons of World War One (and in other books which slip my mind) that after Dogger Bank and through Jutland, Beatty's BCF at least circumvented their anti-flash protections in the interests of greater rate of fire. It has been suggested that had they not done this, they wouldn't have lost any BCs at Jutland, regardless of their lighter armor, more energetic propellant, pre-Jutland anti flash hardware, etc.

If you re-read this thread, you will see other relevant comments.

Over the years, my perceptions on this issue have evolved through at least 4 stages. (1) It was primarily due to inadequate armor, including deck armor. (2) It was primarily due to inadequate anti-flash hardware. (3) It was primarily due to more energetic propellant and its "packaging". (4) It was primarily due to temporary doctrinal changes which emphasized rate of fire over safety.

MH

"Despite the sophisticated systems the US Navy Adopted, in 1917 it found to its profund surprise and shock that its gunnery was far inferior to that of the Grand Fleet. The conclusion was that the basic system designed by the US Navy was good, but that the execution was poor, and enormous effort went into fixing US wartime fire control. That included dealing with excessive patterns of the 12in and 14in guns of ships assigned to the Grand Fleet."

The US equipment was adequate. What was not was their training. Reading reports from the US 9th BatDiv and the RN officers assigned to the US ships, it becomes clear that the major problem lay in the unrealistic training the USN engaged in prior to their assignment to the GF. Time spent on the Scapa range, plus a reassessment of their procedures, brought the US ships near to (if not up to) the GF standards. Like many such things, it's the training that is paramount.

As for the dispersion problem; that would continue to plague the USN (in varying degrees) throughout the interwar years. It was remedied to a large extent, but never completely resolved (at least to the satisfaction of the Navy).

What's that worth? Personally, I'd say it's worth about "up 1" IMHO.

BTW, QC, I posted that paragraph about the 1917 USN in support of your suggestion. Even the USA, which apparently had pretty sophisticated fire control hardware (allegedly influenced by Pollen's "synthetic" FCS), wasn't worth much until they were forced to practice in realistic conditions. So from our gamers' 100-year-later perspective, those navies who didn't get much chance to use their battleships in action, might well have been less effective in their initial fights, with the USN being an example which we have historical evidence for.

MH

(EDIT: After reading coastal2's subsequent comment, I will backpedal a bit. I mostly play GQ1 and 2; I own GQ3, but not FAI. So I am not really qualified to comment on the game effects of a 1-row upshift in FAI. I guess I support QC's idea in principle, though.)

If you feel the need to adjust the gunnery, you might consider replacing the D12 with a D20. This would provide a smoother reduction as opposed to 'up 1 row' with is more brute force solution.

That said, I for one do not see justification for such a draconian adjustment. But if you feel so inclined, as they say, 'it's your game…'

QC-

A bit of clarification re: the use of a D20 in lieu of a D12. The rules specify using the D20s as a one-for-one replacement for the D12s when using Beatty's BCF. This reduction in accuracy is to reflect the BCF's lower gunnery quality. It is NOT meant as a 'one die per tube' replacement (and nowhere in the rules is that implied). To do that has two major impacts: 1) it negates the differences in the RoF of the different gun mounts (single vs double vs triple) that the rules reflect and 2) it effectively increases the accuracy of ALL gunnery 20%.

However, if in your analysis that's desirable for your game table, then so be it….

QC-

As for the accuracy of the US BBs assigned to the GF: The reports from the RN officers assigned indicate that the US ships attained a level of accuracy on par with the GF BBs after a very short course of training on the Scapa range. So the impact, while in effect when they first arrived, was negated quite quickly with training.

….. This is a complicated issue.

Speaking of the period up to and including Jutland, I think it is fair to say that the IGN did enjoy an advantage in gunnery. IMO, this was born from two basic factors. The German range-finding system (better r/f hardware, better training of r/f operators, use of a a more or less "real time" range averaging system (Mittlungsapparat) able to electro-mechanically process inputs from multiple (up to 7) r/fs simultaneously and provide a continually updated averaged range value for entry into the fire control process. This gave r/f data approx 2.5-3.0x more accurate than the single electro-mechanical r/f data feed and gave good results up to 20,000 meters according to contemporary German reports.

By comparison, the British effectively relied upon range data from a single r/f (the aloft r/f in gunnery control position). That was the only r/f position with a "real time" electro-mechanical data feed (courtesy of Pollen's Argo r/f mounting technology) connecting the r/f to the plotting room. Range readings from other r/fs mounted in the main battery turrets, as and when they could be taken, had to be manually transcribed and passed down by phone. The British conceptually understood the superior accuracy of an averaged range derived from multiple r/f measurement (they deemed it "range-finder control"), but did not go forward with the necessary technical development.

The real culprit on the British side IMO was the retention of the 9ft Barr & Stroud coincidence r/f in capital ships. Under service conditions, it was simply not up to the task beyond about 12,000 yards. British post-Jutland action reports reveal the inability of the 9tft r/fs to reliably provide useful data at battle ranges; many comments can be found to the effect that "the gun was used as its own range-finder". This inadequacy of the 9ft r/f was convincingly driven home by the terrific shooting results at ranges up to 20,000 yards delivered by 5BS, fitted with the new 15ft B & S rangefinder. In the post-Jutland "wash up", it was recommended that all capital ships be fitted with at least one 15ft range-finder as soon as possible.

Doctrinally, the Germans focused upon getting a quick fire control solution and opening a rapid fire immediately, then repeating the process after the target had ceased any evading maneuvers. They did not put much stock in the more elaborate plotting scheme which drove British fire control doctrine. Events arguably proved the German approach correct, as the British ultimately concluded that random weaving evasive maneuvers practiced by the Germans altogether negated their plotting method.

Rate of fire differences between German and British guns were meager. The only case where German guns displayed a rate of fire superiority was when rapid fire was ordered. In that case, from von Hase's account at least, Derfflinger was capable of firing a (4 gun) salvo every 20 seconds for a very brief period of time (a few minutes) before the turret crews became exhausted. This was only 1 rpgpm every 40 seconds. Where the Germans created an impression of superior rate of fire was in their use of a form of ladder fire. The first salvo would be fired and the second fired with a pre-selected range bracket interval as soon as the first was seen to fall. Mahrholz (gunnery officer of von der Tann) opened his fire upon Indefatigable with a pre-selected 800m range interval. No time was spent analyzing the fall of the first salvo. British observers described German ranging fire as rapid and "mechanical" in nature.

The gunnery of the BCF is a complete conundrum compared to the rest of the GF. I suspect that there was a lot more to that story than has so far emerged. But that is a topic for another post.

Hope the above is helpful.

B

Hey, what's wrong with fat, drunk and stupid? It got me elected to the US Senate and married to the head cheerleader @ Faber College!

One aside on the flash protection versus cordite issue. The 1914 Grand Fleet Battle Orders (GFBOs) made it clear that the official policy was to accept an increased risk of ammunition fires in exchange for maximum possible rate of fire. Of course, this policy decision was based upon the belief that the newly developed cordite was a "safe" propellant (i.e. – would burn but not explode); limited pre-war tests with small quantities of cordite suggested this was the case, but, as we know, the testing was insufficient. I'm raising the point because it is arguably the case that the GF battle line may well have been no less at risk than the BCF. The case was never put to the test, because none of the British dreadnoughts suffered a turret or barbette hit. And, to a circumstantial degree. we can point to the fact that Defence and Black Prince, both serving with the GF, were lost to cordite explosions.

B

Well. this gets us into the dreaded 'battle of primary sources' (and don't ya just hate that…).

As you correctly stated, the GFBOs did allow a relaxation of the ammo handling protocols. However, according to contemporary documents, this was not universally applied (nor to the same extent). Some degree of latitude was evidently allowed. So some units were liberal in their interpretation while others were more conservative. Of course, post Jutland, the rules were changed again. Nailing down the exact status for a particular unit (or ship) is can be a task filled with contradictions, ably aided by the lack of crucial data. (Ain't research fun….)

Now as for Wilson's assertion of 1% hitting for the British and 1.5% for the Germans. One must be VERY cautious with statements such as these. Consider: The most engaged unit of the RN was the BCF; which we already know had problems with their gunnery. The RN used a slower method of fire acquisition, which adversely affected their quickly 'getting on target'. We do know that Hood's BCs had marked better accuracy, which points to their time on the Scapa range. So can we apply Wilson's 1% across the entire GF? I don't think so. There's much more involved than this simple, overarching statement.

Hi coastal2,

Quite agree. I tried to be circumspect in my remarks about ammunition handling standards within the GF. I was not arguing that BCF-like standards were definitely the case, only that it might be present. To take it a step further and to be more precise in language, the situation would indeed likely have varied on a ship-by-ship basis. Dreyer wrote that, through the Battle of Jutland period, there were really no standardized rules and within the GF every gunnery officer pretty much ran his own shop as he saw fit. And that was apparently true not only of ammunition handling but also of gunnery and spotting methods. One thing is for certain, though: the GF ships got a great deal more practice.

As for the differences in gunnery abilities between the GF and the BCF, I think there is a great doctoral dissertation to be written on this topic ….. if the long missing BCF gunnery committee records are ever unearthed.

B

I'm raising the point because it is arguably the case that the GF battle line may well have been no less at risk than the BCF. The case was never put to the test, because none of the British dreadnoughts suffered a turret or barbette hit. And, to a circumstantial degree. we can point to the fact that Defence and Black Prince, both serving with the GF, were lost to cordite explosions.

We might find circumstantial evidence where the rate of fire by particular ship was unusually high. That may indicate the safety measures were relaxed.

….. I have studied this issue in some depth and the culprit IMO was the cordite itself Those with an interest can search the Battleship versus Battleship archive under "cordite" and find a very lengthy thread in which I presented and defended my views on the subject.

B

….. I have studied this issue in some depth and the culprit IMO was the cordite itself Those with an interest can search the Battleship versus Battleship archive under "cordite" and find a very lengthy thread in which I presented and defended my views on the subject.

How about a link???

Search Results For: cordite

Showing Results 0 to 0 of 0 ( secs)

Last Indexed: 2-Aug-2014 00:48:48
Last Post: 2-Aug-2014 00:41:54
Results

There are no results that match your search. Please try another search term.

I guess we can argue that circumstantial evidence indicates that ammo handling was improved after Jutland?

QC, secondary sources from at least as far back as Peter Padfield's "Guns at Sea" (p. 275, etc.) indicate that there is much more than "circumstantial evidence" of this.

Whether bad ammo handling practices were the primary reason for the loss of 3 BCs at Jutland is still debated, but it does seem to be the preferred theory in my extensive library. It is my own preferred theory, at the moment, although I also recall that British propellant (and its packaging) seemed to be somewhat less resistant to explosion than that of the Germans.

MH

Go here -

link

The BvB Forum search engine is a bit wonky nowadays (as is the rest of the website). The thread ("The Admiralty papers on cordite and the B.C.F.") was originated on 12 August 2012 by Simon Harley.

B

Whether bad ammo handling practices were the primary reason for the loss of 3 BCs at Jutland is still debated, but it does seem to be the preferred theory…

Admiralty parlance for "Nothing to see here folks, move along."