Jutland Doco

I just watched a 2 part doco on Jutland where they extensively surveyed the wrecks of the British ships and found out what was "wrong with their bloody ships today" to quote I think it was Beatty's words.
It did not go to heavily into the tactics but more of how the Brittish set up the German fleet for the encounter the ensuing bungles which they blamed Jellicoe for.
This information I have in books on Jutland about Jellicoe whom they said lost the war in a single afternoon but the doco proves he did the right thing in turning away from all those torpedoes.
There was one thing they pointed out though most of the battle cruisers which Beatty was commanding all except one of that group engaged the same target.
Meaning some British Battle cruisers were targeting the same ship along the German line making it very hard to plot the ships individual shell splashes from under/overs then correcting the shot.

They found out the following;

What it boils down to is the gunnery training of the High Seas Fleet and that was (in that era) to swamp the target with a deluge of shells.
So they discovered in the wrecks that the stowage of extra shells in cases 50% more than allowed and its associated cordite charges.
Normal load for BL 12" Mk X guns(HMS Indefatigable) was 40 rounds per gun each round took something like 4 x 65Lb bags of cordite per charge to fire the projectile.
That class had 8 - 12" so a normal load of cordite would have been 1,280 65lb bags of cordite they were carrying 50% more for a total 1,980 65lb bags of cordite. :eek:
Leaving it stacked in areas that should not have seen it there whilst the shells did not really pose a explosion risk the cordite certainly did.
The result of those ships losses was due to poor storage of this extra cordite that saw the those ships just disintegrate, it certainly was a "Somme" day on the ocean that day.
The brits though hampered early by poor visuals very grey background for some reason closed to within the German kill zone before opening up on the Germans.
When they with their more powerful guns and longer range could have stood off and started to extract a toll on the Grand fleet.

They missed out one bit which is in my books that the Warspite at a critical moment of the battle had her steering gear jam hard over and started and completed a full 360.
The Germans seeing a Super Dreadnaught seemingly doing something stupid gave her a right pasting without to much injury before steering was resumed.
The observers witnessing the volume of fire enveloping her were glad she extracted herself from that debacle and called that episode "Windy Corner"

Off the top of my head 'cause I cannot be bothered getting my books out on it but there was something like 8000+ deaths that day combined, the Brittish came off worse though.
Its well worth a look about the greatest naval battle of the modern era which involved Battle Cruisers and Battleships together. :thup:

What channel is it on? Youtube?

Yes 30three it was on you tube

The Germans won the PR battle, getting their version halfway around the world before the Admiralty got their boots on. It took some months before more perceptive commentators observed that a fleet which quit the field, fled back to its bases and stayed there, was not the winner.

"...the doco proves..." How old is it?
The whole issue was caused by faulty intel on the RN's part. Read a recently published(like 2014ish) book about Brit W.W. I spooks (I forget the title. I'll have to look.) that said the RN knew where the Imperial Fleet was and what it was doing but didn't tell Beatty or Jellicoe in order to keep Room 40 secrets secret. Along the lines of not talking about Ultra.

Very interesting documentary. Watched it today.
The wreckage seems to clarify the poor handling of the cordite charges as the reason the ships effectively blew themselves up after being hit.

The intelligence was there but commanders didn't make proper use of it. Knowing that Scheer's flagship had exchanged call-signs with the guardship in the Jade, but failing to pass it on to the analysts - not good.

It was not what was and what wasn't passed on as far as who was where etc it was proven that the Brit's has laid the foundations for the swift demise of their ships due to p*ss poor storage of the cordite and plus the fact they went past what could be safely stored on the ships. And it proved costly in the lives of all those poor bl**dy sailors lives.
There was nothing wrong with the ships they could have probably withstood hits but having explosive material poorly stored just negated their survive-ability in that encounter.
Why they closed in when they could have stood off to begin with no one knows only reason could be the visual assessment of the targets, we had a similar thing in WWII why did Capt Burnett close on the Kormoran who knows why it went down with him and the ship!

Scheer did an awesome thing saving the fleet from what would have been a slaughter, and Jelicoe the same by turning away from those torpedoes as if he turned into them then the closing speed of them would have been doubled by going away he halved the rate the torpedoes gained on them better to comb them.

Hind sights great on what should have been done but in reality on the day those ships should not have had unsafe storage of cordite and carrying well 50% more than they were supposed to have anyway.

I have a 1908 photo of my Great Uncle Richard H. Jose, Petty Officer 236246 who died on the HMS Defence at Jutland in 1916. He was born at The Lizard in Cornwall in 1890.

The photo shows him on his first ship, the HMS Hogue in 1908. He was promoted to Petty Officer in 1915.Attachment 103859

Published in 2014.
Secret Warriors
By Taylor Downing
Little Brown Book Group
100 Victoria Embankment
London, England
EC4AY ODY
ISBN: 978-1-4087-0421-9
Seems there were a lot of new books published around the 100th Anniversary of W.W. I. No idea if this is still in print. Totally different POV of the War though. Much like 'Ultra goes to war'.
Max Aiken(Lord Beaverbrook. Minister of Aircraft Production for Winston.) was who Conrad Black tried to emulate before he got caught and sent to jail. Conrad didn't seem to get that Max earned the knighthood and the peerage he got.

This was first revealed in a paper called "Our Bloody Ships or Our Bloody System" published about twenty years ago IIRC. Jellicoe seems to have made pretty good choices on the day, but Beatty needlessly exposed his less armoured battlecruisers by approaching far too close to the Germans and giving up his gun and fire control advantage.

We couldn't very well admit it was a cock-up so Jellicoe was made First Sea Lord and Beatty was made commander of the Grand Fleet as though it was all a glorious victory. Jellicoe immediately suppressed the report written by the 3rd Sea Lord Rear Admiral Turner which correctly identified the sloppy ammunition handling as the problem. And just to make sure, he sent Turner off to command the China Squadron next!