"Was Beatty really to blame?" Topic

This fascinating thread was recently resurrected:

TMP link

And on reading it again something occurred to me.

The poor ammunition discipline within the battle cruiser fleet is, I understand, generally accepted to be a reaction to the fleet's experience at Dogger Bank. In this I know that the finger has been pointed at Beatty, although no evidence exists, so far as I'm aware, of Beatty telling his captains to 'cut corners' to achieve a greater rate of fire.

This could be because any order may have been in the form of verbal 'advice' and therefore not officially recorded, and of course, as Beatty was later to become Admiral of the Fleet and First Sea Lord, he was in a position to ensure that any evidence that did exist would not come to light – I know he did have (or try to have) the official plots of Jutland altered to hide some of his tactical decisions and also ordered the official post-war Rosslyn Wemyss report to be altered because it was critical.

I'll be honest – I'm a Jellicoe man and I don't like Beatty, but here we come to what occurred to me:

Beatty's flagship was HMS Lion, under the command of Captain Sir Ernle Chatfield. It was Lion that survived the hit on Q Turret precisely because ammunition was being handled correctly. If Beatty had made it known that it was his desire that shortcuts should be found to increase rate of fire, how is it that his own Flag Captain had not implemented such procedures?

I'm then drawn to his remark, made to Chatfield, "There seems to be something wrong with a bloody ships". What I am curious about is what he said next, which is not usually quoted: "And something wrong with our system".

Did he know? Was he referring to ammunition handling or something else?

As I say, I've always been a Jellicoe man and I'm very critical of Beatty, but I am genuinely curious as to why the Lion, of all ships, seems to have followed the correct process when the blame is usually laid at Beatty's door.

Nick

A book I recently read said that the man in charge of loading procedures on board "Lion" had recently transferred from the Grand Fleet where things were much tighter than the BCF.

Yes.

Yes I'd also like to find out why British gunnery was so bad at Jutland and Dogger Bank.
I have got a small and growing library on this period and I have not yet found many references to gunnery training.
It seems to be accepted that Queen Mary was a good gunnery ship at Jutland.
But why were the rest of Battle Crusiers so bad? was there no competitive spriit amongst the ships?
How often did they have gunnery target practice.
This must have been expensive in terms of shells and gun barrel life.
Also it has been proved the the British shells often broke up on impact and failed to penetrate the German armour.
Did the British gun manufacturers test the shells against armour, in front of naval experts?

Digby Green,

Considering that the RN's battleships were equipped with electromechanical fire tables that were supposed to give the turret officers the range and direction of fire, one would have expected the shooting to be more accurate than it was. The problem may have been to do with the inputs. For example, the rangefinders in use were not as accurate as those used by the Germans. Likewise accurate spotting might have been impaired by the visibility and several ships firing at the same target.

Beatty was a great believer in high rates of fire, hence the pressure to speed up loading by some gun crews who ignored proper safety procedures.

The Grand Fleet did conduct target practice, but not usually under anything approaching battle conditions. As to the shell situation … well the sheer number of shells being manufactured in the UK would have inevitably led to quality control problems. (I live near Woolwich Arsenal, one of the main manufacturers of shells, and local records indicate that such problems existed.) Shells would have been tested against armour when a new gun was introduced into service, but once the war was underway, such 'luxuries' were no longer the norm. Output was vital, and no doubt faulty shells, fillings, and fuzes were missed by the quality controllers.

As a patriotic Englishman I am always disappointed with the poor quality of our military equipment.
I think it goes back to the mid 19th century.
I read anecdotally that German school and universities etc concentrated on three areas.
Whereas British universities may have concentrated on literature, poetry and finance?
Metallurgy
Optics
Chemicals
And their export industries benefited for this at the end of the 20th century when their exports exceeded Britains.
This enable them to be superior in:
Armour plating
Binoculars, and range finders
Explosives
Three key areas of naval performance
I am going to try to find some research on this subject.

well the sheer number of shells being manufactured in the UK would have inevitably led to quality control problems.

Wasn't that a problem early on with the British army's artillery? If so it could have also been true with the Navy's shells. And since they didn't fire as many as the Army, it might not have been apparent by the time of Jutland.

Jim

@Bob Temple
I am only interested in facts and original references.
"Shells would have been tested" ?
Where are the test results?
And why did most of the British hits on German ships do so little damage.
And if shell production was sped up resulting in poor quality, surely the same would have happened in Germany.
British shells on the western front in 1915 and 1916 were of very poor quality and the fuses were badly designed.

As Shagnasty wrote there is a book about this and, online, chapter 14 which is Jutland. I don't recall where I found it online and I can't seem to bring it up but this is the first part… nervermind I found it worldwar1.co.uk/grant.htm

Battle of Jutland – World War 1 Naval Combat

Below is Chapter 14 from "Through the Hawse Pipe" which are the unpublished memoirs of Captain Alexander Grant CBE DSC. He was gunner on HMS Lion during the Battle of Jutland and the chapter is of interest both for his comments on what happened on Lion during the battle but also for some interesting comment on the safety procedures for cordite on HMS Lion. The original document is held by the Imperial War Museum in London.
___

I traveled overnight from London and then got the first train from Edinburgh to Dalmony, which brought back memories of ""CALEDONIA" days. Here I found a railway porter of old acquaintance who soon arranged transport for my luggage to Hawse Pier. As I walked down the narrow footpath leading to the Pier, my thoughts went back to the many tames I trod that path and how often on reaching the crest I found the Port Edgar Flag at the mast head of "CALEDONIA".

And it goes on describing the action as seen by Captain Alexander Grant CBE DSC but Lion's gunner at that time.

A fellow I know who is about as much a gunnery expert as I am likely to ever meet (retired USN fire control Senior Chief) told me the problem was in the British maintenance system.

On a US warship, the ship is under the control of the captain, but responsibility, ownership if you will, of the guns resided with the Bureau of Ordnance. If a weapon broke, or wore out, and the fix was beyond shipboard resources, the captain alerted BoO who assumed responsibility for repair or replacement.

On a British ship the guns belonged to the ship. If repairs or replacements were needed, the ship and squadron had to sort out how to get it done. It either came out of the ships budget, or a special allotment from the Admiralty. Captains were never eager to go up the ladder, hat in hand.

Apparently, at Jutland, many of the 13.5 gun liners were worn out. That's why the shells tumbled instead of spinning. That's why so many broke up on impact.

According to him, one BC had a gun that was so far gone the ship fought the action with only 7 firing.

Hardly an ideal situation.

British lack of centralized leadership in all phases from tactics to command to logistics resulted in prima donnas like Beatty who constantly challenged orders and got away with it.

Placing Battle cruisers in battle against German dreadnoughts was a stupid thing to do in the first place,. This stupidity increased by giving command of these ships to a fool like Beatty who knew only one thing charge charge charge . Yes there were things wrong with the ships that day but the commander only aggravated the problem TheRoyal Navy would have been better off that day and the rest of the war if Beatty had gone down on one of the battle cruisers he squandered away.

Digby Green,

We used to have examples of test armour plates in Woolwich, albeit from the 1880s. Any test results will either be in the National Archives or the archives of the Royal Navy Museum. Some might have been placed in the archives belonging to many fractures, such as Vickers Armstrong. These are often in local archives.

As to why British shells apparently did less damage than German shells, I'd pose the question that perhaps they didn't. If you look at the damage suffered by some German ships (SMS Seydlitz comes to mind),they were seriously damaged. I think that has been a shot by-shot analysis of the battle damage inflicted at Jutland, and it indicates that sometimes heavy shells did less damage than lighter ones, and that it was more to do with what was hit. For example, a 6-inch shell penetrating the armour of a casemate and exploding inside could cause serious damage, whereas a 13.5-inch shell skimming the armoured roof of a gun house might not explode and merely caused minor splinter damage.

There have been several interesting articles in WARSHIP annual about the British shell problem, as well as ones about British fire control systems. If you haven't already read them, they'd be a good place to start.

Thanks Shagnasty, the point about Grant's transfer from the Grand Fleet to the BCF is fascinating.

Dragon – brilliant, thank you; that memoir is a superb insight – "The magazine crew full of enthusiasm, and determined that the guns should not have to wait for cordite, had removed practically every lid from all the cases, piling up the handling room with charges. In addition they filled the narrow passage in the four magazines with more charges."

There does seem to have been a general slackness and complacency at Rosyth.

Oh, and as a bit of RN trivia for anyone who has not heard the expression before, an officer who has come "through the hawse pipe" has been commissioned from the "lower decks" (i.e. from being a rating).

Nick

Hi Digby – I've responded to a couple of your questions below, but it is 10pm here and I have an early plane to catch tomw. I have in the past posted some lengthy essays regarding problems with British AP projectiles. Search the archive in WW1 Naval for "Blutarski" posts. Or ….. Wolfhag may be able to point you to the right place.

I'll get back to this when I return, but it will be about two weeks.

- – -

Digby Green wrote –
Yes I'd also like to find out why British gunnery was so bad at Jutland and Dogger Bank.
I have got a small and growing library on this period and I have not yet found many references to gunnery training.

Dogger Bank –
1 – This was the very first engagement of dreadnought type capital ships in the history of mankind; so there was really no prior experience upon which to have drawn.
2 – HMS TIGER was the only BC at Dogger Bank fitted with a director; in the ships lacking directors, the individual turret gunlayers were responsible for aiming and firing, which was a much less efficient method of gunnery control..
3 – The battle was opened at a range of ~20,000 yds and much of it was fought at 15,000+ yds – ranges at which the BCF had never before practiced.
4 – Dogger Bank was a high speed pursuit action; the BCF was fighting from the lee berth and spray proved a great hindrance to the above-mentioned turret gunlayers.
5 – When fire drew close, the German ships would weave slightly back and forth about their base course in order to mislead their opponent's fire control.
6 – There was an Admiralty order in effect at the time of this battle dictating conservation of ammunition (early 1915 ammunition shortage).
7 – Pre-war Battle Practices were generally artificially orchestrated affairs conducted in good weather conditions at modest speeds and ranges (8,000 – 10,000 yds), with comparatively little maneuvering by either sthe firing hip or the target raft. The BCF (IIRC) conducted only one pre-war (1914) high speed squadron practice at long range (14,000 yds) and that only after special one-time permission had been pried out of the Admiralty.

- – -

Digby Green wrote –
It seems to be accepted that Queen Mary was a good gunnery ship at Jutland.
But why were the rest of Battle Cruisers so bad? Was there no competitive spriit amongst the ships?

Jutland –
Assessing the efficiency of British gunnery at Jutland is a complicated matter: the BCF shot poorly; 5th BS shot extremely well at long range (15,000 to 20,000 yds) and diminished visibility; 3rd BCS shot very well at short range (under 10,000 yds); the dreadnought Battle Fleet overall shot well at 10,000 to 14,000 yds, keeping in mind that the British battleships were for all intents and purposes under zero effective counter fire.

The BCF's gunnery was notably poor, especially during "the Run to the South". This, IMO, was too early in the battle for poor visibility conditions to have hindered BCF's shooting.

B