"Seekrieg 5 – North Sea Encounter" Topic

This weekend the local HMGS-South group played a WWI naval game using the Seekrieg 5 rules. The British had two Iron Duke class battleships and the Germans had the Baden and a Konig class.

link

With this result, the Seekrieg rules must be assuming the bad ammunition handling procedures common in between Dogger Bank and Jutland. Because of the above, during this period, a turret penetration often meant the loss of the ship.

MH

And the ammo handling thing was more of a battle cruiser practice as opposed to the nail battlefield who did things properly and thus far less prone to such events

what is nail battlefield?

Possibly means 'main battlefleet'.

I do not view the scenario outcome as being so outre'.

As regards GF ammunition handling practices, fully conclusive evidence is not to be had. But absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. IIRC, no ship of Jellicoe's battle-line proper suffered a turret, barbette or secondary battery hit at Jutland to test the case. On the other hand, what limited evidence there is – the eye-witness observation of HMS Agincourt's gun crew behavior at Jutland; Dreyer's comments as to the non-uniform "do you own thing" state of gunnery within the fleet at the time of Jutland; MALAYA's close-call with the hit in her secondary battery – suggest that the GF was not necessarily immune to lax or over-aggressive ammunition handling practices.

And both the BCF and the GF had the same dangerously unstable cordite propellant shipped aboard.

Strictly my opinion, of course.

B

Also this from Steel, Nigel and Hart, Peter, Jutland 1916, page 223:
(paraphrased) on HMS Conqueror, dozens of cordite cases are opened to avoid slowing the rate of fire.

"nail battlefield"

Yup, main battlefleet. The perils of posting from a phone with a highly developed sense of autocorrection :)

"Strictly my opinion, of course."

This is a subject that was done to death several months ago :) The main issue was what happened at the bottom of the barbette, where the doors between the magazines and the handling rooms were left open on the BCs and generally not in the battleships. The removal of anti flash arrangements within the barbettes themselves proved to be something of a red herring, since it didn't seem to make tat much difference whether t(a) they were there or (b) how many charges were stored in the turret (as evidenced by the two turret hits aft on Seydlitz in 1915 and 1916 – IIRC something like 60 charges, limited flash protection, turret destroyed and all killed in 1915, a similar hit in 1916, 4 charges, improved flash protection, turret destroyed and all killed (the big difference in Seydlitz's case being the lower doors open in 1915, shut in 1915 so the communication into the second turret that happened in 1915 wasn't repeated)..
For my WW1 games I tend to limit "regular" catastrophic magazine events arising from turret hits to the BCs in 1915 and 1916. Of course penetrating hits to a magazine are likely to be catastrophic anyway regardless of who is driving the ship.

Hi David. Hope all is well with you, the wife, the kids and the moggies. Can't belie it has been so long since we visited you.

Quite agree that the ultimate distinction between a burnt out turret and loss of the ship depends upon what happens in the magazine. In this respect, the experience of HMS LION (as I understand the historical accounts) is relevant with regard to Grant's assertion that he had re-introduced careful anti-flash measures. Yet, despite the fact that the magazine doors were closed and dogged, flash was still found to have penetrated; arguably, only the prior flooding of the magazine saved the ship. Peter Hodge comments that anti-flash measures were suspect/inadequate even when in place. These turret designs were used by both BCs and BBs.

While there is no firm and conclusive evidence that the ships of the GF circumvented anti-flash systems in the manner practiced within the BCF, there is not evidence that they did not do so either. What we do know is that a few named ships, AGINCOURT and CONQUEROR (thanks NCC1717), did take liberties with the handling of propellant.

At the end of the day, it is a judgment call as to whether or not the GF faced a degree of propellant explosion risk similar to that found in the BCF. My personal opinion is that it is possible that they did.

Happy Holidays / B