Jutland Doco

[CINDERS]

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.
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.

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