[EN] Armchair Admirals - Battle of Dogger Bank, the clash of the Battlecruisers and the end of Blucher.

Doggerbank 1915: Schlachtkreuzer-Duell und das Ende der 'Blücher' im Fokus

WorldofWarships
- 24.01.25 - 02:03:46 - 15.153 - World of Warships

• Zusammenfassung
• Original

Die Analyse der Schlacht auf der Doggerbank 1915 beleuchtet die erste Konfrontation von Schlachtkreuzern. Im Fokus stehen die britische Code-Entschlüsselung, taktische Fehlentscheidungen und das Schicksal der 'Blücher'. Die Rolle der Royal Navy, Feuerleittaktiken und die Bedeutung der Kohlequalität werden erörtert. Die Nachwirkungen und Lehren aus der Schlacht werden bewertet.

World of Warships

00:00:00

00:06:09 Hello, everyone, and welcome to our first Armchair Admiral stream of 2025. Tonight we'll be going over the Battle of the Dogger Bank, the first major clash of the battlecruisers, and the end of the German cruiser Blücher. I'm not alone tonight. I am joined by my good friend, and I'm also apparently in Russian. Oh. Excellent. Taki, who I'm sure many of you know. Hello, everyone, and good evening.

00:06:36 And it's not just us two rambling on, we are joined by three noted guests, Drakinafel, Dr. Clark and Fleet of Oceans. Welcome, gentlemen. Hello, greetings. Well, I thought if anyone would have a monopoly on rambling, it would be me, but hey ho, there you go. There is no such thing as monopoly on rambling. This is a rambling, rambling atone, rambling section, rambling about rambling.

00:07:04 We could ramble about the ramblings. Oh, that's just... Oh, there we go. That's where I hoped that joke would go. So glad you got the hint. Yes, so the reason that we're using this streamers to focus on the Battle of Dogobank is because in-game we've just released some in-game content where you can finally get Admiral Sir David Beatty as a commander in-game and he doesn't increase your chance to detonate. There is nothing wrong with our bloody ships today.

00:07:34 Excuse me, why are you making it so ahistorical then? Yeah, shouldn't be to give debuffs. You're not completely abandoning the history. Yeah, shouldn't there be debuffs? Your ships should be firing faster, but not hitting anything. And they should be twice the more likely to blow up. Your messages in chat should be confused, because debuffs made the wrong signals. Basically, all your messages in chat, no matter what you type, should come up as hashtags and stars, as if you're swearing the whole time. Yeah.

Hintergrund zur Doggerbank und die Rolle der Royal Navy

00:08:04

00:08:04 So, on today, we are talking about the Battle of Dogger Bank, the one fought in 1915. There are a couple later battles, but when most people refer to the Dogger Bank, they are referring to this battle, which is, I believe, correct me, the first actual engagement of battlecruisers versus enemy battlecruisers. And the last. Kinder. Yeah, they fight at Jutland, but that's about it.

00:08:35 So we do actually have... But where is the Doggerbank? Because it has a funny name. Yes, so there is a map. But let's start with the ancient history. Once upon a time, there was a land called Doggerland. Yes, there was. It's how everything got to the UK. And then it flooded. Yeah, but basically the... They like to go dogging through Doggerland. That's the thing. They like to go dogging through Doggerland. Don't Google that. Yes.

00:09:02 Unless you google fascinating Ida. Anyway, so people got to England, then they managed to flood the area so that nobody can get behind them and they forgot that there are such things as boats. And the North Sea was created and born when the icebergs melted. But for some time an island lingered on and when sea levels rose even more.

00:09:30 die island vanished, aber es ist eine große, große, shallowe Raum, und ich will, ja, ich will fragen, ob wir die Schreie können. Not yet. Ah, okay, so, once wir können die Schreie, aber da ist, like, ich meine, die entire southern part der Nordsee ist kind of shallow, right? Es ist, like, du hast eine...

00:09:56 There are many sea wrecks that you can simply look down off the side of a ship and see. Yeah, it's not the screen to share. Well done, chat. Chat, you can see yourself. My goodness, they exist. They think, therefore they are. So the Dogger Bank historically was, and I believe it still is to an extent, though not a major fishing ground, for particularly...

00:10:24 um the eastern coast of england also it's uh known for uh hiding japanese torpedo boots yes this is where that happened yeah poor ross svensky yes a lot of good binoculars were lost that day yeah but uh in any case there there are uh shallows which means that i mean navigation is not necessarily that tricky because it's not that shallow but uh

00:10:52 Es ist ein sehr guter Platz zu planten, aber es ist auch ein sehr guter Platz für Fisch. Ja. Das heißt, wenn man ein paar Fisch essen kann, man nicht mehr wollen, weil dann nichts zu essen. So, in World War I, wenn, obviously, der Krieg ist, die Royal Navy's plan ist zu blockade, blockade die North Sea, so dass enemy...

00:11:20 cannot get to Germany from outside of Europe. So they block between Scotland and Norway and obviously the English Channel, which ends up doing significant damage to the German war economy in the long run, but it also means that the High Seas Fleet can operate inside this blockade, which means it can go after these British fishing fleets that operate in and around the Dogger Bank, which are vital for Britain's food supply.

00:11:49 Because you think how much, like everyone jokes about British food and fish and chips and all that, like a lot of that comes from this area in this period. So the Germans are constantly trying to disrupt it and attack it and even go so far as to actually attack mainland England. And we'll get there. Which is what kicks off the series of events that leads to this battle.

00:12:15 Well, I would argue, actually, yes, let me just make a slight change here. One thing that, ah, yeah, so now we can share the map. So here is the Dogger Bank, formerly Doggerland. Here is a smaller bank called Jutland Bank, but I just put it there so that the map isn't so empty. But before we get to the bedland, even to the raids and fishing,

00:12:46 Already in 1914, there were some big mishaps happening to the German Navy. And that is codes. First, at the beginning of the war, well in August, there was a cruiser Magdeburg that in the confused foggy Baltic Sea managed to run aground.

00:13:12 Es wurde verabundet, wurde verabundet von der russischen Navy und es gab einige interessantes Codebooks, die dort gefunden wurden.

00:13:23 Which one was it? Which one was Magdeburg carrying? Which one could you read that that one had? I can never remember because there's three huge German code totals. It was the S.A.M. book. Which was the actual specific German Imperial Navy code book. Yes. The second hit was in, actually, of all places...

00:13:50 Es war in Australien, in Melbourne. Die船 war Austro-Hungerien und wurde Hobart. Das macht es Sinn. Nein. Aber es war Austro-Hungerien, aber aus dem Austro-Hungerien war mit Deutschland, hat es noch andere Sachen von deutschen Kodepüren.

00:14:16 And the last of these was in, oh wait, here, in October, 17 October 1914, there was a Battle of Texel where four German torpedo boats were jumped by a Royal Navy light cruiser and four destroyers and were utterly destroyed.

00:14:47 Und als Teil davon...

00:14:52 Obviously, the German sailors did the sensible thing and thrown sensitive materials overboard as they were supposed to. But a trawler fishing boat managed to fish a box of codebooks in late November. Yes, if I remember correctly, the German codebooks were written with an ink that should dissolve in water. So if the book touches the water, the book should become worthless.

00:15:21 So they threw the safe with all the codebooks overboard, only for the British to discover when a trawler pulled up a particularly heavy net that had this safe in, that the safe was watertight. Yes. So all the books were fine. This is a small issue, but it's an understandable issue, because you see, of course you'd want to specify for a watertight safe.

00:15:48 Weil das würde mean, wenn die Schiff die Wasser kommen, dann die Code-Bücher würde es gut sein. Das ist der Grund, dass sie es in der Lage sind, so dass sie einfach nur durch eine stormkrise sind. In fact, dass niemand die Leute der Code-Bücher oder der Procedure hat, dass sie das für die Code-Bücher hat, dass sie das für die Code-Bücher hat, das nicht kommt. Die beiden Teams, die Inhalte in das waren, waren die richtige Sache und die absolute Besten Sie können.

00:16:14 You told a German safe manufacturer to make a watertight safe. They made a watertight safe. Exactly. Plus, I guess, even if it was considered while designing the safe and while designing the procedures, for one, it's not necessarily easy to stick to the procedures when you are being shot at. Exactly. In their defense, they were getting shot at.

00:16:37 In theory it would be better to just grab all your codebooks and just chuck them into the sea because that'll do the job very well. But that's a whole lot of additional steps as opposed to here is safe, safe goes in sea, job done. Exactly, plus like the chance of someone finding the safe was pretty small. So right at the start of the wall... The possibility here that...

00:17:03 The British were escorting Trawler Force at this point, and the Trawler Forces just managed to heavily trawl through the area. Yes, very, very, very coincidental. Am I the only one who would find that mildly suspicious of the British Army? No. It might be a case of on the off chance.

00:17:23 Oh, I see that the chat is now discussing what was the IP rating of the safe. Apparently either IP55 or IP67. Yeah, so at the end of all of this, you end up in a situation where the Royal Navy has access to all the current German codes. Yeah. But the Royal Navy has no code-breaking group officially.

Britische Code-Entschlüsselung und Angriffe auf die englische Küste

00:17:51

00:17:51 Obviously, Room 40, the beginnings of what becomes Room 40 start around this time, but it's teachers on holiday because the schools are off.

00:18:04 It's not a formal group. They haven't got their own space. When the guy in charge of them has to have his proper meetings, they all have to leave his offices and go wait outside. It is the most slapdash, inner-shed intelligence operation you can think of. So, typical for Britain? Yeah, pretty much. You have to remember, we're talking about an AP which actually had had a bit of an intelligence group.

00:18:33 Und dann haben sie die Ammeraltyst-Staff-Reorganisation. Und wenn sie tatsächlich wurden, die Ammeraltyst-Staff-Reorganisation wurden, was sie den Intelligenz-People haben, dann haben sie die Ammeraltyst-Staff und die Intelligenz-Organisation getötet. Das ist warum sie die Leute, die die Leute, die zu setzen, wenn sie um Room 40 waren, aber sie haben die entsprechenden Spaces apply. Es ist also die erste, you know, multi-nation international war.

00:19:02 Where there's even really all that much need for that kind of department. Because prior, when you look at prior to World War I, you've got a few small naval conflicts going on in the very late 19th, very, very late 19th century and early 20th century. But bearing in mind just how recent the implementation of radio is on ships.

00:19:25 Pretty much every major naval conflict up until that point. Yes, you had occasional messages captured that were encrypted that you had to decrypt, but you're talking about intercepting ships that physically have papers on board that have been encrypted that you would then need to take back to your home country and then get someone to decrypt them. So it could be done on a lot smaller scale and it can only ever be a kind of strategic thing because if you've...

00:19:49 ...eventually receive the orders that were telling this ship to go there, but by the time you've decoded them, that's three months ago, and it doesn't matter. It's sort of worth remembering that Admiral Henry Jackson, who becomes 1st Sea Lord during World War I, and who in 1905-1908 was the Rear Admiral, who was 3rd Sea Lord of the Royal Navy, had actually made a name for himself and got a...

00:20:14 Er war die erste Person zu erreichen ship-to-ship Wireless-Technologie in 1896. Its original experiments were over a distance of 3 miles. And they managed to work up to over a period of 18 months to 140 miles. Think about that. We're talking about a period which is less than 20 years previously. Less than 20 years. And in 3 months they got from 3 miles to 140. 18 months.

00:20:41 Okay, that's still impressive. It is, when you consider you're starting off. And, you know, he was also the guy who was working with Marconi. And it's one of the fun things, and I discussed this a bit last night on the video I did last night on my own channel. They were working out with Marconi and a few others.

00:21:03 die Ideen, die Ideen, die Ideen, die Ideen, die Ideen, die Ideen, die Ideen, die Ideen, die Ideen, die Ideen, die Ideen, die Ideen, die Ideen, die Ideen, die Ideen, die Ideen, die Ideen, die Ideen, die Ideen, die Ideen, die Ideen, die Ideen, die Ideen, die Ideen, die Ideen, die Ideen, die Ideen, die Ideen, die Ideen, die Ideen, die Ideen, die Ideen, die Ideen, die Ideen, die Ideen, die Ideen, die Ideen,

00:21:30 World War I, which had been quite fun, because they were pushing radios so far. But the trouble is, Jackson was very good at radios. He was very bad at politics, which is why he didn't make a great First Sea Lord when he was later in that job. He was very good, though, at the electrical engineering side. And it's often forgotten, because he was quite bad at First Sea Lord, how good he was as an engineer and how good he was at pushing forward. And I assume he sits between Fisher and Jellico as First Sea Lord? Yes.

00:21:58 Difficult to stand out among that level of character. Yeah, and also he's not really got the opportunity to do... People often critique him for going, well, he wasn't directing and strategically directing the war, but how do you strategically direct the war at that point? You've got the Grand Fleet set up, you've got everything going on, but appointees in charge. Elder Forces are where they are, they're all fighting. There's nothing to do, move around. It's just basically the first seal at that point is an admin role.

00:22:27 So, we got through the... Back to the map. Yeah, back to the map. So the Royal Navy could theoretically read the German messages and read them they did. But then something happened that was kind of embarrassing for everyone. Yes. And those are those three little explosions. It was raids on the Scarborough, Hartlepool and Whitby.

00:22:55 They blew up our fish and chips. Yes. I mean, Scarborough and Hartlepool I can understand, but Whitby? Well, this, everyone who's not sure, is why me and Drac have asked and wanted Fleet here this evening, because he can make so many more jokes about North England than we can.

00:23:15 Well, to be fair, my granddad's from up that area. And he always used to say the joke his mother always used to tell him is there's that famous wartime poster that came out after that raid that says, remember Scarborough. And she always used to say, I'd really rather not. I have to admit, when I was looking where Willby is, I had to use the search. I wasn't able to zoom in close enough on the map to see it quickly.

00:23:43 So I've had fish and chips in all three places. Oh, and I will honestly say the fish and chips in Newcastle is better. Yeah, I went to Whitby by train last year. So I have been there for, well, I was there for all of 10 minutes, but then I returned still. The point is of these attacks is that obviously these three ports are not vital to Britain's war effort.

00:24:12 They're important for Britain's domestic food infrastructure because they are the receiving ports of most of these large fishing fleets that fish in the North Sea. But because the Royal Navy in the late 19th and early 20th century is seen as so powerful, there's very little funding for what you'd call sort of coastal defence. There are gun batteries along the English coast, but they're generally smaller guns and they're older guns.

00:24:41 And they are probably around ports that have a military significance, right? There were some in this area, but an early 1900 6-inch gun is not something that can deter a 12-inch battlecruiser. No. So the Germans were able to attack these harbors, and I guess it's...

00:25:06 Probably the first example of what Jutland becomes in a lot of narratives of if you can make God bleed, people will stop believing in him. Like if you can raid the British coast and the Royal Navy doesn't immediately wipe you off the face of the earth, is the Royal Navy as powerful as everyone thinks it is?

00:25:25 Well, that's the trouble. It's a perception of the Royal Navy from the Age of Sail and the Polonic here, rather than the reality, when there were raids, there were issues. There was a full-on French invasion of Wales, which got defeated by the Welsh ladies. We'll leave that to one side. That's an entirely different discussion and a fun one. If you want to do a random Age of Sail stream on Armchair Admords, we should really do that battle, because it is the most hilarious slapstick battle you will ever do, the invasion of Wales. And the fact it all ends in a pub...

00:25:55 in wales which is a pub you can still go to you can still see and is actually a pub which is older than the united states is always a fun thing to a fun thing for me to put in there you have these tidbits of knowledge dr clark it's amazing but leaving that to one side that what you have is a similar thing going on with the uh defenses around the uk the whole uh the whole idea of putting in

00:26:16 We base all our air defence in the UK around having fighters in the Royal Air Force and we don't have any really any area defence or anything capability. We have short range service-faring missiles and that's it to point defence things to protect things locally. And also the Royal Navy destroyers are also apparently supposed to provide some protection for the UK.

00:26:45 Basically, the argument always seems to be, well, our strategic depth is to see, so we've got to engage the enemy over there, and therefore they'll never reach us. And realistically, that's stupid. But the idea is always, well, if you have one, you don't want to pay for the other. And realistically, you do need both, because as me and Drac will regularly talk about on Bilge Pumps when we do that...

00:27:10 Wenn Leute sagen, dieses Weapon System versus dieses Ding equals Death, wir sagen, no, es gibt layers of Weapon Systems und layers of Sensors. Es hat sich zu werden, und vielleicht kann es das, aber wird es das, das und das? Und das ist das, wie man das approachen Dinge. Es ist Combined Arms, es ist Layered. Es ist nicht eine Single-Stop-Solution zu Problemen. Aber das ist ein schweres Case zu machen gegen Treasuries, gegen Leute, Politiker, die nicht mehr Geld haben, gegen...

00:27:39 People who are looking at a historical image, which has created a narrative of Britain as a sea power, of Britain as this, and going, well, of course we don't need this because we have the Royal Navy.

00:27:50 Ja. Und es funktioniert das nicht. Und so, die Germans pull off diese Raids, und British Propaganda, und ich weiß nicht, wo ich gehört, das Quote, aber es ist, »You can't outwork the Germans, und you can't out-slander the British«. Und so, die British press ist, was as vitriolic back then as it was today.

00:28:17 And a lot of public and political pressure is then put on the Royal Navy to do something about this. Because people have been killed. British civilians have been killed by a foreign power that nothing... And there was no immediate hammer of Damocles against them. It's a sort of Damocles. Either or. And so...

00:28:42 What ends up happening is the battlecruisers, the rockstars of the fleet at this point, especially given how BT thinks he's the second coming of Nelson. No, that's a bit low. He thinks he's the second coming of God. Yeah.

00:29:01 And so these ships are deployed further south so that if the Germans attempt this again, the battlecruisers should in theory be in a position not necessarily to intercept them on the way in, but almost certainly be able to catch them on the way out.

00:29:16 Yes. At the same time... It puts the British battlecruisers at a roughly speaking equidistant steaming point from what appears to be the German targets on the northeastern coast of England as the German battlecruisers have coming out from Wilhelmshaven. So at that point it's largely down to intelligence.

00:29:45 Ja, und mit der Intelligenz gab es auch interessante Dinge auf beiden Seiten passiert, weil die Royal Navy überprüft die Messungen und versucht zu tun, was zu tun, dass die Präsidenten, glaube ich, dass die Briten informiert sind, über die Bewegung, aber die Sorge war komplett anders.

00:30:13 They believed it was either spy ships operating integrated into British and Dutch fishing boats near the German Bytendogger Bank, or it was some form of spy actually in Germany proper. You know, that sounds like the first round of the same thing happening in World War II. The Germans do like to repeat themselves, let's be honest. It is the same thing. They're absolutely sure their codes cannot be broken.

00:30:41 And they also, I'm going to say this quickly, but Drack can cover this far better than me because he has a whole great spiel about it, which I enjoy listening to every time. The Germans don't understand the power dial on their radios. Yes. They think full power is on or off. They do not have, we can modulate this power just a tad. Yeah, the German radio.

00:31:09 The German radios are either completely off or they're broadcasting so powerfully you could probably hear them in Iceland. And also, shades of actually a problem would get even worse in the Second World War. On some operations, there's also a requirement to regularly signal back your position and the temperature and the weather conditions and stuff, which would really come to bite the U-boats in the Second World War.

00:31:37 But it essentially means that unless the Germans are maintaining complete radio silence, the minute you've worked out how to do high-frequency direction finding, which isn't that difficult when you consider that the long edge of the North Sea is the British coast, any German radio signals they send, the British are going to know what's going on.

00:32:02 Und auch, weil sie so loud sind, sie sind auch sehr klar, das bedeutet, dass die Decode-Efforts sind viel, viel einfacher als wenn es ein kleines, unkompletter Signal wurde. Es ist nicht, wie Dreck sagt. Sie sagen, hier sind wir! Translate das! Ja, du sagst, dass die Dreck brauchen?

00:32:30 No, because Beatty would have just made things even louder. Beatty loved talking to people. Although he'd have been signaling the completely wrong thing, so no one would have known what he was doing. Yeah, no, the Germans needed co-discipline and exercise in actually dealing with their radio messages, which is kind of funny when you consider that the whole plan for German commerce warfare was only made possible by massive radio stations all across the German Empire. So you'd think...

00:32:58 You know, with them being a little bit up on the cuff with signaling to their ships overseas by radio, they'd be a little bit more cognizant of the idea that maybe just we could turn the knob a little bit. Exactly. But it's during one of these plans that the Germans have that the Brits basically get prior notice.

Seeschlacht Doggerbank: Kräfteverhältnisse und Strategien

00:33:25

00:33:25 German radio transmissions confirm that a German force will sail with intention to attack the British Isles. And so what at the time consisted first and second battlecruiser squadrons consisting of the ships Lion, Tiger, Princess Royal, New Zealand and Indomitable, along with escorting lighter vessels.

00:33:52 are ordered to intercept because this is the chance the Brits have been looking for to catch the German battlecruisers where they know they're going to be and in theory defeat them which is what leads to this battle and on the German side you have first scouting group which is de Flinger, Moltke, Sleiditz, von der Tan and Blücher

00:34:17 Und von der Tann ist nicht present. Von der Tann ist nicht present, das ist gut. So die Brits haben eine Numbers-Advantage und eine Firepower-Advantage. Ja, das muss man sagen. Poor Blücher. Es ist ein Kurses-Ship, Kurses-Name. Probably General von Blücher war so glücklich, dass er all das Glück siphoned aus. Weil ich meine, der erste Blücher hier...

00:34:46 Sie war nicht ein schlechtes Land. Sie war eine sehr, sehr gute Armored Cruiser. Sie war arguably die beste Armored Cruiser ever, obwohl, ehrlich gesagt, das ist die Titel, die sie mit den letzten Briten und Russischen Armored Cruiser Rurig gemacht hat. Aber sie wurde unter ein sehr, sehr schlechtes Land.

00:35:14 British battlecruisers will be also just large armoured cruisers, right? Well, this was a bit of a misinformation game by the British in that it was one of those classic ways of lying to your enemy without actually saying anything. So when word began to reach the press that Fisher was going to be building a dreadnought armoured cruiser.

00:35:40 Everybody went into, oh, what could this possibly be? And Vision was like, well, I'm not telling you what it's going to be. And everyone went, oh, well, okay, Dreadnought Armour Cruiser. Well, Dreadnought Battleship is, our previous Battleships have 12-inch guns, and Dreadnought just has more of them. So, therefore, our Armoured Cruisers have 9.2-inch guns. So, logically, a Dreadnought-style Armour Cruiser will have lots of 9.2-inch guns. And they all started talking about that.

00:36:08 And Fisher just kind of sat back and was like, well, I'm not going to correct anybody. And I will also point out that technically he wasn't lying. The Invincibles are larger armoured cruisers. The fact they have 12-inch guns is a surprise, but it doesn't change what they are. And I believe even some of the designs that lead up to the final are 9.2-inch armed ships.

00:36:34 Ja, da gibt es auch Plenty of Designs, die sie können spread out. Ja, da gibt es auch Plenty of Designs. Ja, da gibt es auch Plenty of Designs. Ja, da gibt es auch Plenty of Designs, Plenty of Designs, Plenty of Designs, Plenty of Designs, Plenty of Designs, Plenty of Designs, Plenty of Designs, Plenty of Designs, Plenty of Designs, Plenty of Designs, Plenty of Designs, Plenty of Designs, Plenty of Designs, Plenty of Designs, Plenty of Designs.

00:37:01 Sie wissen, dass sie in den letzten Jahren, wenn man pressen Speculation hat, dass sie oft auf der Marken haben, hat sie gesagt, dass das nicht wirklich was wir tun. Und so sie assume, dass die pressen Speculation muss, und so die besten Weg, in ihrer Meinung, zu counteren, was sozusagen ein Minotaur mit 9.2-inch instead of 7.5-inch guns ist zu machen.

00:37:30 Blücher, which uses their standard armoured cruiser guns, and just put a lot of them and make it bigger. Although I would say, when you look back at the history of those corrections, what the gems are missing...

00:37:48 ... ... ... ... ...

00:38:11 Nothing, no debate of this will come into Parliament at all, or I will commit Harry Keery on you. A well-known Royal Navy technique of threatening politicians with violence to try and make sure they keep their mouths shut. Unfortunately, it works on politicians, not always on BBC, but that's the fault. To be fair, the other thing is that everyone understood that Dreadnought would cost a lot more than the Lord Nelsons, because it was a big step change.

00:38:37 So the idea that whatever a Dreadnought Armacruiser was going to be would be considerably more expensive than the Minotaur, you know, that wasn't surprising to anybody. What eventually came out was a surprise. But the idea that it was going to be big and expensive wasn't exactly an unknown factor. And the point is they are prepared to pay for big and expensive because you have to remember...

00:39:01 Es geht um die Qualität der Qualität der Qualität der Qualität der Qualität der Qualität der Qualität der Qualität der Qualität der Qualität der Qualität der Qualität

00:39:19 They have ideas to be, but they haven't yet enjoyed it. And it's kind of like France. They will be, would be part of the qualitative race. If the Drenot race had gone on longer and the war hadn't held, World War I had held off a few more years, France would definitely be part of the qualitative race. But like to the tune of coal, they're not able to build enough, add space enough to be part of it. Yeah, but then that changes literally in 1914 when they say, you know what?

00:39:44 14 capital ships in parallel. Let's go. Yeah. The reason the Germans aren't part of the qualitative race, and people often think when you talk about this, the first national reaction is that you're being anti-German or you're putting the Germans out. No, it's not. It's literally because Tirpitz has to judge very carefully how much money he's spending vis-à-vis the army. Because if he starts to cause conflict with the army's budget, he will lose all funding. Because in a political battle between the Kaiser der Karin and the Heer, the Heer will always win.

00:40:13 They will always win. So he always has to be very careful. So he doesn't want battleships to get more expensive. If he's going to try and compete for numbers with the British, he cannot afford for battleships to get more expensive. Ideally, he wants them to stay at 12 inches and 11 inches for the entirety of the building race, because he can maintain that. Because it's a slow evolution improvement. Whereas the moment the British start jumping up, and this is what you have, of course, at this battle, you have the 13.5-inch gunships, you have 15-inch gunships coming, etc.

00:40:44 The Germans are in trouble. Yeah. Because that means the cost of the individual ships are going up, which first thing they sacrifice, and to try and compete with the 13 1⁄2-inch ships, they sacrifice their cruiser build. That's why you have the German fleet in this scouting group, et cetera, in this scenario. You're looking at their force structure and you're going, you don't have many crews and torpedo boats out with you. And then you look at the Battle of Jutland and they have even less of a proportion of crews and torpedo boats out with them.

00:41:08 versus the british with their cruise and destroyers and you go what's happened here well they've sacrificed cruisers and building cruisers so they would have enough money to try and build the capital ships they want to build so they can keep in that quantitative race and once you have the 15-inch gunships that's when of course they lost the race because at that point they had to turn around and go right then we need to raise our budget and the eye went no what and they went yes we need more money this is going to affect our realm program we know but we need more money you're not getting it

00:41:35 Ja, das war basically das. So, das ist wie Sie gewinnen die Anglo-German-Naval-Race. Sie machen eine politische Krieg zwischen dem German Army und der German Navy überfunding, die die German Navy will lose. Ja, und so... So, die Brits sail, weil sie die Germans sind auf der Weg. Und sie sehen sich in der Doggerbank. Ja. Hier, auf der... Wenn wir jetzt auf die Map gehen. Just zu...

00:42:02 Also in perspective, these little orange things are major bindfields that were already placed around that time, so they kind of restricted movement. This big yellow thing here is then the North Sea Barrage that was built, I believe, late 1916 to basically end of the war.

00:42:26 So the German approach to the coast was already kind of limited but anyway the German main official target in this operation was not again shelling the coast but sinking fishing ships so

00:42:44 Hit the British where it hurts, at the dinner plate. Just realized fishing ships, fish and chips. Oh no, I knew that was coming. That's why we call them fishing boats.

00:42:58 I'm surprised he didn't say that they're trying to, you know, avenge a certain Russian vessel from a few years earlier. At least they went there with the intention. I don't wish to use the name because I realise it gives at least one of my colleagues very, very much bad flashbacks and emotional flashbacks to saying the name. But, you know, that shit, you know, the Germans were trying to avenge it by going after the real aggressors of that incident, the British fishing boats.

00:43:26 So the both fleets encounter each other, as was planned, and the Germans discover that they've got a bit of a problem because three of the British battlecruisers are the new ones, the Splendid Cats. Tiger is in fact brand spanking new at this point. Here we have one of them, the Tiger.

00:43:50 Oh, Tiger. Yes, the best of the World War I British battlecruisers. If it reminds you of some World War II ships, then this is basically Congo but original. Congo but British. Yeah. Or the 1912, 1913 offer of a battlecruiser and then you can swap components as you see fit. Yeah.

00:44:14 The main swaps were really the secondary and primary battery. So obviously the Japanese opted for 14-inch guns in their own quasi-6-inch armament. But apart from that, Tiger's very similar. And for anything, is she nearly less until the Second World War, until Second London put pay to her? Or was it First London? I can't remember. Second London. Because she's kept around while Hood gets refitted. She had to be gone by Second London.

00:44:42 But what ends up happening is the fleets encounter each other, the Germans realise that they're outnumbered, they identify that there are more British large warships than what they have, and so they do what you would expect to do, and they begin to withdraw. The problems they have is that the British 13.5-inch battlecruises, like Tiger, like Lion, can outrange the Germans. And so...

00:45:09 While the Royal Navy had been practicing shooting at further and further distances, the British opened fire at a range they've never practiced at.

Britische Taktik und Probleme

00:45:19

00:45:20 And as you can probably expect from that, British Gunnery at Dogger Bank is woeful until right at the end, for a reason that we will get to. It is atrocious. Yeah. It's also a reflection of, and I'm just about to make someone in the chat very, very happy, of the crews involved and the lives they've been forced to live, because their advantage and disadvantage.

00:45:45 Wenn du in Scarpa Flow bist, kannst du mehr regularer Gunnery practice machen. Aber es ist nichts für dich zu tun, außer dem Patrol und Gunnery practice. Es ist eine Golf Course, die so klein und krampig ist, dass sogar Jellico macht es als Sprint. Und ich meine, literally macht es als Sprint. Für den Sailen, es ist sogar weniger. Wenn wir sprechen über Recife, es gibt mehr.

00:46:11 But there's no space for gunnery. So it's a case of they can get shore leave, they can have limited access to go and the town of Recife, for what it was worth at that time. Anyone who's visited Recife and I've got family from Glasgow and quite a lot of Scotland, so I can say this quite happily. Recife has never been a place which I would particularly pick for a night out.

00:46:37 Aber mit dem Skarpur-Flo, ist es positiv angeblich. Ich meine, es hat wirklich Menschen, es hat nicht nur Seagull. Es gibt viele Vorteile, es gibt Dinge, es gibt Dinge zu tun. Nur um es in Perspektive zu sagen, das ist Rosythe hier. Ja. Klosz zu Edinburgh, wenn die Radfahrt nicht verlassen, ist alles gut.

00:47:01 The Forthbridge will never collapse. It's a marvellous piece of Victorian engineering held together by the sheer will of the men who designed it. If the Victorian engineering starts collapsing, then Britain will collapse very quickly because our governments haven't invested much in infrastructure since then. And here's Scapa Flow. Yes, the top end of the arse end of nowhere. Yes!

00:47:25 Actually, no. Arthlend ist es ein bisschen hoch. Ich bin da. Es ist ein schönes Ort. Es ist wirklich schön. Es ist eine schöne Natur. Ich würde nicht gerne in der Mitte der Winter in eine große Steele-Box, das ist nicht gut. Und die Frage, dass die Grand Fleet at Scarpa can leave Scarpa, ist relativ safe in World War I. Und sie kann head into die Atlantik oder in die Irish Sea.

00:47:53 when there's not a lot going on that they're not intimately aware of, and do fleet-size gunnery practice. So the battleships are good shooters. As soon as the battlecruisers go south, their gunnery quality starts to degrade. There's also the problem of the fact that, well, they're at Scarpa Flow.

00:48:18 B.T. was a very good captain, and he's a pretty good first sea lord, because he's very good at politics. He's terrible as an admiral in between. He's one of those personalities where he has the political connections to be a great first sea lord. Okay, that's fine. He's good at that stuff. He's a good captain. He's good leading an individual ship. He can't seem to work out how to coordinate multiple ships and how to work with them. And he can't seem to work out their needs and their different issues.

00:48:47 One of the first things you get is concentrating on speed of fire and rate of fire, and we're going to do these dry drills. The thing is, when you're doing that, that sounds great, but it has two consequences. One, you're not practicing aiming your guns. Even rudimentally, you're not practicing, in theory, you're not practicing aiming your guns. So that means when you do get limited chances, you get to fire great, but you...

00:49:09 You've not been practicing properly firing of guns. And secondly, you've not been practicing with the squadron and working firing of guns. And at multiple times, he's offered the chance of, do you want to rotate ships through Scarpa Flow? Do you want to rotate a couple of ships through Scarpa Flow? But the trouble is...

00:49:24 There isn't 3rd Battlecruiser Squadron, there isn't 5th Battle Squadron set up, you know, they don't have enough of the forces that they use eventually to rotate it through, because they need a certain force with the Battlecruiser fleet, because the worry of Jellicoe is that what will happen is that whatever forces sent out there will get captured by, well, get ensnared by the German high seas fleet somehow.

00:49:48 und in Detail, weil es komplett outnumbered wird. Es braucht genug Feuer, genug Kraft, um es zu werden, um es zu werden.

00:49:57 It might get itself into, but not so much that if it gets destroyed, he's fundamentally weakened. And these are the whole sort of levels of conversation which are going on, all the battles which are going on and discussions which are going on about where and how to position these ships. And, you know, this is an often thing. Geography is a factor. If we consider World War II, the good example we've talked about before is 4C and its deployment to the Far East.

00:50:24 The Admiralty and some of the Navy wanted it deployed to Ceylon, to Trim Connolly. But Churchill thought deploying them more forward to Singapore would act as a greater deterrence and they would be less likely to have war. The Admiralty thought if they were held back, then they could respond to problems and they wouldn't be so likely to be drawn in without preparation. You can argue the force and against of both, but...

00:50:48 In the end, it's a decision of strategy, it's a decision of politics, where you're going to put them. And it's the same with the ships being put in Recythe. It's a politically expedient thing to put them in, but actually, because of the arrangements you can make there, especially with gunnery training, you have fundamentally undermined a part of your force.

00:51:09 Yeah, it's worth pointing out that one of the key factors and the reason why they are so vulnerable is, yes, it's not only about weakening position. It's about whomever has the stronger, fast wing of capital ships in the North Sea has a greater ability to dictate the cause of the battle on the spot by controlling the flow of scouting information much more appropriately. That's the thing at play here. That's really what matters.

00:51:37 Ja, das funktioniert nur wenn die Gruppe kommuniziert mit ihren Freunden. Ja, ich spreche in einer idealen Welt. Ja, in einer idealen Welt, ja, aber trotzdem haben wir eine stärkere Gruppe, und besonders backed by Battlecruisers, ist ein Vorteil in sich, weil, wenn sie gut kommunizieren können, sie können zumindest die Augen aus der Gruppe kommunizieren. Ja.

00:52:06 So the Brits start shooting, and I think it's 21,000 yards, I think, is when the first of the 13 and a half ships start firing. 20,000 yards, apparently. The interesting thing about it is, of course, that this is just at the very, very edge of the theoretical range of the guns on the British ships at maximum elevation. But part of the reason that the gunnery is so bad initially...

00:52:35 ist nicht nur weil es lang range ist, es gibt noch mehr Variables für die Schellen als sie über die Range gehen. Es ist auch weil die British Fire Control Equipment nicht eigentlich haben die Settings für das Distanz. So, wenn sie auf die Fire auf die Range öffnen, sie haben sie tatsächlich zu inventen Settings auf die Fire Control Equipment. Literally, alles geht über das.

00:53:02 wo die readings geht. Es ist auf der Skale, Captain. So, sie sind kind of ballparking es. Und es ist sehr, sehr, sehr guesswork in den Early Stages. Als die range starten zu drop, es starten zu... A, sie werden mehr für die Gunnery getrennt, und also, es starten zu dropen in die Aufer-Relms, was die Fire-Control-Computer eigentlich weiß.

00:53:28 But at the same time, that's when the Germans start getting into their own gun range and start shooting back. Yeah, and I think that's also one point that needs to be stressed. It's basically the same thing as with the radios we discussed earlier. Again, the gunnery, the long-range gunnery was basically a very, very new thing, right? Because basically before the HMS Dreadnought came, it was assumed that the...

00:53:55 dass die Battles in ein paar Tausend Yards passieren würde. Ja, 10 Jahre ago hatten wir die Battle von Tsushima und alle waren schockt, dass das bei 5,000 bis 6,000 Yards war. Ja, und beide Seiten waren tatsächlich auf die Tausend Runde. Including die Russen. Ja, und dann, in 10 Jahren, plötzlich haben wir einen Fall von 5,000 Yards zu 20,000 Yards. Ja.

00:54:23 Basically, I'm not surprised that nobody was ready for that. No, exactly. This is right on the cusp of what we would consider integrated fire control systems being worked into ships.

00:54:38 The real divide between capital ships in World War I is, do you have a director or do you not? And then it's like, how wide are your rangefinders? Because one of the big things that a lot of these ships, they commission with a rangefinder of X width, and then they keep getting refitted with bigger and bigger ones because they get used to the gunnery and figure like, no, we can actually hit at these sorts of distances. How far can we go? Yeah. And then, of course, you hit the other stop.

00:55:05 which isn't remedied until the interwar period, which is the actual elevation of the guns. Yeah. Which then sees a lot of ships retrofitted. I'm not sure if some get it during the war, but a lot get it after the war of, you know, increased elevation for the guns. Several ships on both sides are modified, particularly sort of pre-Jutland to increase gun range. Yeah.

00:55:25 Speaking of gun range and ships, I would like to bring attention to the most powerful unit on the German side. That's their first 12-inch battlecruiser, der Flinger. We have it on screen right now. You got it on screen.

00:55:39 So, der Flinge is the German response to things like the big cats. She's very similar in the way she is laid out. So she's got superfiring turrets for an aft, although her superfiring is a little bit staggered like it is on Tiger. The thing that sets her apart from her British counterparts is she's slightly slower, about a knot and a half slower, but she is much more heavily protected than, well, obviously all German battlecruisers are.

00:56:07 but Deflinger takes it to another level again. Yes, her armour is in theory and is demonstrated at points in the battle that it can take a 13.5-inch hit if she takes it on the belt. And she also proves herself at Doggerbank, what she would demonstrate at Jutland, that she's a very good gunnery ship. After all, it is her that clobbers Lion with several 12-inch hits.

00:56:34 Ich meine, es hilft, dass sie eine 12-Inch-On-Ship hat, sie hat ein bisschen mehr von einer Rage-Advantage über die anderen Schicks mit 11-Inch-Guns. Und als die Flagship hat, sie hat mehr an impetus für ihre Crew zu excel. Ja. So eine interessante Sache, die ich hier habe, hier, ist die Unterschiede, ich würde sagen, zwischen den Crews, in der die...

00:56:58 Oh, yeah.

00:57:18 I guess it depends on that real. Every dirty trick in the book. I mean, there is literally... Drac knows this as well as I do, but it's something we've got to compare stories from Tiger's Captain, because then at one point he claimed that they didn't have a working toiletry facilities in the flag, in the flag course or something, and that's why he couldn't have BT.

00:57:40 Er hat all sorts of reasons, we have no bathtub, we have yet to be fitted with our bathtub, so we cannot accommodate an Admiral, sir. I'm awfully sorry, sir, but I'm afraid the facilities are not up to snuff. The list of reasons he came up with to keep him off the ship is just amazing. I think we can switch to the photos now. Do I have a photo of Deathlinger?

00:58:08 Ja. Ja. Ja. Ja. Ja. Ja. Ja. Ja. Ja. Ja. Ja. Ja.

00:58:26 She is a very handsome ship, definitely. Well, I would say she's very, very handsome right up until the Germans completely ruin her by replacing the relatively delicate Palmas with the world's biggest and ugliest tripod ever. Ah, yes. Have you sent me Tripod de Flinger? No, I didn't, because I can't bring myself to inflict that on you. Very, very good.

00:58:50 But when she's heading out to this battle, she's still pole-mastered. The Germans looked at her book, War of the Worlds, and said, ah, yes, that's our ship, please. Tookie, we've done our best to keep the hosch out of tonight's discussion. We don't need the tripod-mastered. No, Tuckie, I've just seen on Tuckie's monitor tripod. Good lord.

00:59:15 Ja, aber es geht wieder an, was wir bereits über die Rangefinders und auch die Radio Antenna. Weil ich meine, wenn du einen Rangefinder möchtest, ist es auf der Mast. Ja. Aber es ist groß und schwer. Ja. Also, du kannst du dein Dainty, Elegant Pole-Mast haben, aber du kannst keine Rangefinder auf da.

00:59:41 put an ugly abomination on your ship and completely spoil it but get a rangefinder yes and that's why the british account the queen anne's mansions the japanese the pagoda system because literally that's them getting the rangefinders as high as they physically can so that's why the littorios look like it when if you could if you compared their sights they're you know that the rangefinders to cameras would

01:00:08 look like a floating big brother house yes how many rangefinders do you want yes and in the end it's also why the british battleships interwar got this huge castle like the queen and mansions why the american fast battleships had this weird like the pyramid thingy the fast battleships when everything's built onto them every time i see the side profile of them i think of the tiki heads from christmas island

01:00:37 Ja. Ja, true, true. So the forces engage each other. The Brits start shooting first. The Germans can't shoot back, which is obviously one of those things where it's like how terrifying it must be to be particularly in Blücher, because as the slowest ship in the German main sort of capital line, she is at the back. Simply because she can't go as fast as the other ships.

01:01:05 Und so Hipper has this quandary. Does he stand and fight and hope that his ships can get lucky against the superior British force? Or does he cut his losses and run, knowing that by doing so he'll condemn a thousand or so men to death if he allows Blücher to be ran down by the British battlecruisers? So Hipper orders his forces to adjust course and return fire. And you end up with...

01:01:33 with the lines shooting at each other as you would expect in a classic line of battle style engagement but because there are more british ships than german in beatys mind lead ships will target each other second ship will target second ship third ship will target their opposite number fourth will target that and then the rear british ships will engage the rear of the german line and then essentially work their way forward

01:01:59 Which is interesting because it's completely counter to everything that the Royal Navy has said up until that point in terms of their tactics if they outnumber the enemy. Because the Royal Navy's tactics before and indeed after this engagement have always been concentrate fire on the lead enemy ship. Because if you knock out the lead enemy ship, then it disrupts and slows down everybody else, which makes them A disrupts their gunnery and B makes it much easier to overhaul and gun down in turn.

01:02:28 But BT's just sitting there going, no, I'm going to assume a complete inverse of all of these tactics, but I'm not actually going to tell anybody about this assumption. Yeah, exactly. And so you end up in the situation where Tiger's captain is acting on what he's been trained to do. So Tiger starts shooting at De Flinger as well, which causes its own problems with gunnery that we'll get to in a moment. But it means that the second German battlecruiser, which is Moltke, if I'm remembering correctly,

01:02:56 I think so, yeah. ...is not getting shot at. And if you ever read her battle logs, her battle logs remark that they were amazed that they weren't getting shot at, but they can see Tigers firing away as quick as she can. And they're like, what's going on? And then they realise that what's going on is both these British battlecruisers are shooting at De Flinger, but they're not hitting her because...

Feuerleitung und Farbkennzeichnung von Granaten

01:03:24

01:03:24 Fire control, as we discussed, is still in its infancy at this point, and how do you know that that splash is a shell from Lion or Tiger? Unless you've got someone trying to time broadsides, but if both ships happen to fire at the same time, how do you know? So you end up with Lion shooting long and Tiger shooting short, and then I think they swap at one point, and a couple shells hit Deflinger, but nothing that's serious.

01:03:54 ...to damage her fighting capability. One of the things, it's actually from this battle, the idea for giving different coloured shells to ships comes out of. So that when each of the shells, when they sort of go off, they have different colours in them. And the idea was, of course, so you could track your own shells. Now, that was an incredibly long process to actually make it so they would have the colours come up and they'd be visible at the range they're talking about.

01:04:22 Aber ja, es ist eigentlich Disbattlers, Observe Disbattlers starten mit der Idee, dass man die Idee muss, um die Differenzierung zu können, um das zu verhindern. Weil Humans sind Humans, sie werden Fehler machen, sie werden Fehler machen. So man muss es so, dass sie das Fehler machen können, so dass sie das Fehler machen können, schnell wie möglich. Kommt zu denken, dass das Beteilige Idee von Splitting Fire war nicht wirklich so schlecht.

01:04:50 If it was implemented properly. If Beattie had told the other ships that that's what his orders were, Lion likely comes out not as battered as she does. The point I was making earlier, Beattie is a very good captain. He's not a very good admiral. He's acting like he's in command of one ship, not in command of all of them. He's not explaining himself.

01:05:15 Er ist wie er der Kapitän in den Schiff, wenn er kann, wenn er zu tun, dass er so viele Dinge ist, weil er zu den Schiff ist, weil er zu den Schiff ist, was er ist. Er hat sich nicht zu den Kapitännen, was er zu tun. Von einem purellen Objektiv-Standpoint, ich meine, es wäre, es wäre besser, wenn B.T. beschleunigt was er, was er zu tun hat, aber seine Taktik, als ich sage, als auch zu den Royal Navy-Taktik, bevor und nach, also...

01:05:39 ist die weniger optimal choice. Indomitable und New Zealand sind die Weaksten der British-Battlecruisers. Aber auch in diesem Bereich, alle wissen, dass Blücher ist die Rear-Most-Ship in der German-Line. Blücher ist die Least-Powerful-Ship in der German-Line. So B.T.'s Idee ist, dass wir die Least-Power-Ship in der German-Line sind.

01:06:06 und haben honor-duells mit dem anderen mit dem anderen. Wobei die mehr logicale Sache, was was was, wie wir auf den Most Powerful-Ship haben. Ja, doch mal der Flinger. Ja, und alle anderen können ihre kleine ein-on-1s haben. Weil, wenn du Killing der Flinger bist, wäre es exceptional. Du endest killing Hipper.

01:06:34 Ja, und auch, wenn der Dierflinge aus der Linie rauskommt, selbst wenn es eine seamless Transition des Kommandes ist, das ist nicht so möglich, aber wir sagen für einen Moment, dass es ist. Es bedeutet, dass die anderen Germanen Schenzen zu entdecken, dass sie zum Beispiel auf der Porte, die sich um die Ereignisse zu ändern, um die Ereignisse zu ändern.

01:06:57 oder Nord-East, um die Dörflinge zu erreichen. Das wird die Briten zu breiten zwischen dem und Hohen. Oder sie würden zu breiten nach Starboarden, die nach Süd, oder Süd oder Süd. Das würde sie auf einen mehreren Weg nach Hohen, aber das würde also bedeuten, dass die Range sehr schnell wäre, das würde die Briten zu breiten. Das würde die Briten zu breiten.

01:07:21 Was der Flinger? Basically, they'd be presenting their bowels, so that they'd be presenting their bowels to be raked. Was der Flinger the Flagship? I thought it was Seidelitz. No, it's der Flinger. I'm fairly certain Hipper's flying his flag in der Flinger. Yeah. I'll quickly double check, but I also think so. Speaking of Seidelitz, I can never pronounce her name. Seidelitz. Seidelitz. Thank you. Again, name for a Prussian army officer, because the Germans have no navy names. Uh-huh.

01:07:48 um she is number three in the german line and it's at this battle where she begins to create her reputation for the german battlecruiser that in spite of everything just won't die yeah because she takes a hit to her rearmost super firing turret which causes it's not a magazine fire it's a deflagration

01:08:17 Yeah. Which is a fancy word for essentially a bunch of flammable material in an enclosed space ignites, but it's not an explosion. Because there's not the oxygen in the room. Yeah, because the initial ignition takes all the oxygen. Well, it's also just the fact that it's also to do with the relative amount of combustible material versus the available volume, because you have...

01:08:46 Ultimately, you have actually a similar situation with British Cordite. If you set fire to Cordite in the open air, it just kind of burns. If you set fire to Cordite in a confined space, the pressure builds up and you get an explosion. And with Seidelitz's hit, as you can see from the diagram, because it's a hit to the barbette, and therefore a relatively small number of charges are ignited,

01:09:14 Relative to the space that they are in within the barbette and the ammunition handling system, there is enough volume for them to burn off very rapidly, hence deflagration, which gets more and more intense because of course as it spreads it finds other charges that get set on fire and they start to burn. And the thing you've got to remember is that yes the brass case German charges are harder to burn but they're not impossible.

01:09:39 Also, die Brass Casing ist nur für die Aft-Most Charge in der Sequenz. Die anderen Chargers sind nur in Silke Bags, wie alle anderen. So, als sie starten zu verkaufen, die Aft-Most Turret wirklich starten zu gehen. Und dann, wie Sie sehen, eine Unterprizende Person hat ein paar Pulk-Hit-Doors open, die wahrscheinlich nicht mehr haben, und es sehr schnell wird, und so die Super-Viring Turret starten zu verkaufen.

01:10:08 But it's one of those sort of, their but for the grace of God go they, a very, very brave and fortunately still vaguely alive at this stage German officer realizes that they're a matter of maybe 10, 15 seconds away from this deflagration reaching the magazines. And when it reaches the magazines, it's not going to be a deflagration anymore. You get Jutland. Yeah.

01:10:36 He slams the door shut. Wilhelm Heidkamp, wasn't it? He slams the door shut on the fire, and that buys enough time, both in terms of physically delaying the fire and allowing flooding measures, etc., to take place. If I remember the account correctly, by the time he's finished closing up that hatchway...

01:11:03 Es ist so hot, er wirklich, wirklich, wirklich, wirklich, wirklich, wirklich, wirklich, wirklich, wirklich, wirklich, wirklich, wirklich, wirklich, wirklich, wirklich, wirklich, wirklich, wirklich, wirklich, wirklich, wirklich, wirklich, wirklich, wirklich, wirklich, wirklich, wirklich, wirklich, wirklich, wirklich, wirklich, wirklich, wirklich, wirklich, wirklich,

Fehlentscheidungen und Glück bei der Seidlitz

01:11:32

01:11:32 Princes Royal decided to take on the Flinger, and New Zealand and Natin Damadol would take you on Bluka, and Moltke, of course, was left unattended. So we had a collective brain fart then. I was right that Moltke wasn't the one getting shot at. Yeah. Yes, you were right about that. It's always worth one meeting. When we marked up, we couldn't lose our time. The problem is that there's a bunch of different maps that were drawn up. There's the official British map of the engagement, the official German map of the engagement, and...

01:12:00 der official Postwar History map of the Engagement, and they all agreed the line order of the British ships, and they disagreed on the line order of the German ships. Yeah, I basically went to look up at the German map just to check the German one, because I was checking it. I had the British one in front of me from that period, and it was raw. I went to check the German one. I went, the Germans probably are right about what order their ships are in. You'd hope so. And I checked an account and went, yeah, okay, yeah. So, sorry about that.

01:12:27 And this was a fairly small daylight engagement, nighttime engagements that are completely hopeless. Yeah. Yeah. They were over there somewhere. And so we have Wilhelm L. Heidkamp, who gets a German destroyer named after him, actually, which is lost off at Narvik, if I remember correctly. Ah, well, poor guy. Yeah. And so she suffers this, like, within...

01:12:54 Ten seconds of a magazine detonation akin to what happens at Jutland and what happens at Denmark Strait. And the only thing that really stops it is this guy managing to buy just enough time to close the doors and get the magazine flooded so it can't detonate. Yeah. So, and the photo we have up now is when she's back in port and you can see the rear exit holes on the turret are blackened.

01:13:23 where flame has come out the back. Yeah, that's paddling right there. And it's like, there were, what, 80, 60-something men in these turrets when this happens? Yeah, and the British, rather understandably, initially think she's gone. Yeah, because they see a fireball. Yeah, there's just this massive column of flame coming up from her aft turrets, which usually doesn't presage anything good. No, but she maintains her line position.

01:13:53 Like, she's not in a great shape, and her captain, when I did read her logs, was more the kin of like, we need to go now, because I'm not sure how much battering the girl can take after that. And I think we also have a photo of her, that's the inside of one of her turrets.

01:14:16 Ja, das ist wo der Schell kam. Ja, das ist ungefähr als zu hell on earth als ich kann. Ja, das ist nicht hell on earth, denn das wird nicht so weit sein, weil das nicht so weit ist, dass jemand von der anderen Seite dieser Runde geht, ist nicht so weit, dass es für sehr lange ist. Ja, aber das ist also, basically, bei dem Moment, der Kapitän nicht mehr haben, wie es zu wissen.

01:14:43 Even the extent of the damage, right? Because nobody can get, well, let alone inside the turret, but even close to them. At that point, all he knows is that he hasn't exploded and steam pressure hasn't dropped off. In the captain's diary, it's like the whole ship shook. They thought they were done for. Then the ship stopped shaking. They could see the column of fire.

01:15:13 And the ship kept going, and so the captain was essentially, at that point, trying to figure out what had just happened, why they were still all alive, and could his ship keep actually fighting with the remaining turrets? I'm possibly going to commit a bit of a faux pas here, but please bear with me. So, in my experience, I've never managed to make this happen on World of Warships, playing it, but if you've played Ultimate Admiral Dreadnoughts,

01:15:42 You'll notice that sometimes, if you hit a shit enemy ship just right, the turret decides to join the space program. Yes. It literally flies off and looks like it's a rocket going off. Yes. And I've had many people comment to me going, oh, that's just artistic effects. No, that's really what it's like. If a turret cooks off, that is what it looks like. They are in many ways actually downplaying it.

01:16:07 I've never seen it happen in World of Warships. The fact it doesn't, I think, is losing something, because that would definitely be a challenge. We can ask the art team. Yes, ask the art team. Very, very nicely to have turrets join the turret-tossing competition. I'll rate it. So she takes this horrific hit, which is, other than Blooper, it's the worst hit any ship takes in the battle.

01:16:36 This is one shell does this. Yeah. This is a single 13 1⁄2 inch shell, which given British shell quality at this period of the war, might not have even worked fully. It might have detonated too early. And given the projected fall of where the shell should have gone, it might have supposed to have actually gotten into the magazines.

01:16:59 But it's essentially exploding after it defeated the first armour plate. It's probably exploded while it's partway through the barbette and then basically shotgunned the aft part of the barbette in a spray of superheated shrapnel into the rest of it, which at least one of them has caught something that was flammable. Yeah. And so she gets incredibly lucky and...

01:17:25 was this battle this as this is the first proper capital ship slugging fest when the germans get back to port and they're reviewing the damage she's taken it scares the shit out of them because she came that close to going yeah and uh one thing here is that basically this sort of damage is something that you can't really like defend against because for the magazine you

01:17:53 Sie können die Schutzhäden zu verbessern. Sie sind tief in der船. Aber die Barbetten müssen sich aufbauen. Das ist ein Risiko, der immer da sein wird. Und ich meine, es war da während der World War II auch. Zum Beispiel, wie war es das? Boise lost zwei Turrette in der Battle of Cape Aspernz. Also sehr glücklich, dass es nicht die船 verletzt.

01:18:20 Even in 1980s, basically, this was what happened by accident on the USS Iowa, right? A fire in the Barbette. Well, on Iowa, it was in the turret itself. Yeah. This is all happening fairly high. It's initiating fairly high up in the ammunition chain. This isn't actually very deep in the ship at all. Yeah. You've got time. It's seconds, but you've got time to...

01:18:49 das attempt to save the ship if someone happens to be standing in the right place at the right time and isn't immediately overcome with just complete fear these are the sort of hits that ships can and do survive it's not fear they will die yeah it's it they're not overcome with their own mortality and they think for other people first because if you look at the men who saved the ships in in balagirl and they're here they they flipped the switches they did what was necessary to save the ships but they died

01:19:18 Ja. Es ist, es ist, es ist, es ist, es ist, es ist, es ist, es ist, es ist, es ist, es ist, es ist, es ist, es ist, es ist, es ist, es ist, es ist, es ist, es ist, es ist, es ist, es ist, es ist, es ist, es ist, es ist, es ist, es ist, es ist, es ist, es ist, es ist, es ist, es ist, es ist, es ist,

01:19:47 Look, there are few things which illustrate as well to my mind the reasons of why Victoria Cross' Congressional Medal of Honor, those sort of levels of medals, are not only justified, but are needed, because there are some things which are just...

Britische Kommunikationsprobleme und das Schicksal der Blücher

01:20:05

01:20:05 Ja, absolut. Ja, absolut. Es ist sehr schwierig zu imagine, den Scenario du bist, wo das passiert, wo das passiert, wo das für dich, weil du will wissen. Anyone die smart genug zu wissen, dass sie das in der Situation haben, ist smart genug zu wissen, dass sie dead sind. Ja, absolut. Und so, wenn die Germans rollen ein Natural 20 mit Sleiditz und sie surviving...

01:20:33 Miraculously. On the other side, Lion is being battered. She's taking numerous 11- and 12-inch hits. Her Q-Tarret, if I remember correctly, basically has its roof blown off. No, that's Jutland. Fair enough. So she's taking hits, she's slowing down, she's listening. And so BT knows that his flagship is becoming combat ineffective.

01:21:02 He can see, well, he assumes that one of the German battlecruisers is out of the fight because giant column of flame tends to indicate that. And he knows, and he assumes that his two older battlecruisers are dealing with Glücher. And so, and I will admit right now, I cannot remember the exact direction order he gives because the Germans are trying to break off.

01:21:28 um they're getting the rough of it keep nearer to the enemy yeah keep nearer to the enemy but he also signals course northeast oh yeah so the two orders he gives at this moment is course northeast to limit the turn to 45 degrees and then engage the enemy's rear the engage the enemy more closely comes after he thinks his orders have been misunderstood by rear admiral more yes so more sees so lion the signals go up lion's mast

01:21:57 The rest of the British fleet acknowledges them and executes the orders. And the enemy rear course northeast is Blücher. Yes. Just Blücher. The rest of the German ships that can run are running. They're kind of east by northeast or even east at that point. But because of BT's signaling issues, partially due to the fact that his signals officer isn't a signals officer.

01:22:24 und so he is he's online as the rest of the fleet goes charging by and they're not doing what he thinks he told them to do

01:22:34 But it's also kind of gauche, let's be honest. When you consider Admiral Cunningham, when he was introduced to an Italian admiral prior to World War II, and the admiral said, I sleep with a copy of The Life of Nelson by my bedside. Cunningham remarked in his diary that he was surprised that anyone who's an admiral needs to keep studying Nelson, as they surely should know it. The idea that...

01:22:59 Das ist ein bisschen sad. Es ist opposing. Er ist nicht commanding a fleet. Er ist posing.

01:23:23 Looking for that signal in the first place, so he could put in the papers, he flew the signal, engaged the enemy more closely, and then they destroyed the German fleet. You can see and hear the headline in your head he's looking for. And he's more worried about that than he is about commanding his fleet. Yeah. And so poor Blücher gets the entire combined attention of four British battlecruisers. And they're attached cruisers and destroyers as well.

01:23:52 German ships of this period are well built. They are tough ships. They can take an absolute hammering. No ship can survive what happens to Blücher. It's a absurd waste of shells. At the end of the day, once you have compromised a ship's ability to stay afloat, short of triggering an actual magazine explosion, there is a physical limit to how fast a ship can sink.

01:24:22 Ultimately, a shell hole is a relatively speaking small gap in a ship, even of Blücher's size. So you can poke it with lots and lots of tiny holes and it will eventually go down. But poking a bunch more holes, especially considering most of them are going to be above the water, isn't going to make it sink any faster.

01:24:47 Ja. Blücher, wenn sie sie allein haben, nach den ersten fünf Torpedos hits oder so, sie würde es einfach sinken. Ja, die finalen Stroke ist an der zwei Torpedos fired von Arathusa. Tucki, wie viele times sie war hit? 70 shells, apparently. Ja, roughly. Aber, look, nobody weiß.

01:25:16 Es ist ein bisschen ein Peppapot. Ja, es ist ein Exekution. Es ist quasi die gleiche Frage, wie viele Schäden hat Bismarck, richtig? Ja, genau. Exekution ist viel neerer und besser als was wir sprechen. Wir sprechen über die Schäden, die sich auf und mit genug Feuer zu machen, dass sie ein paar Land-Battles von World War I aussehen würden, wie ein Picnics.

01:25:45 The sheer amount of high explosives of a shell slamming into her is just...

01:25:50 So the battle essentially ends with the sinking of Blücher. How many of her crew are rescued? 234 are rescued and made prisoner. More would have been rescued apart from the minor interlude of a Zeppelin, that is the Zeppelin L5, and a seaplane showing up and trying to drop bombs on things. Because, you know, that's what Zeppelins do. They show up and try to drop bombs on things.

01:26:18 Isn't this also the battle where one of the British battlecruisers attempts to engage a Zeppelin with a 13.5-inch gun? Yeah, Tiger, on the way home, Tiger takes a pot shot with her main battery. How smug do you think Tiger's gunnery officer would have been for the rest of his life if he could claim, I shot down a Zeppelin?

01:26:40 It would depend entirely on where he hit the airship. If he hit anywhere that wasn't any of the skeleton, the shell would likely not have fused and it would have been a clean pass-through and the airship would probably have made it home. But if he had hit anywhere that was actually solid metal in the way, that would have been, oh, there's a new star in the sky for a brief moment. I mean, to be fair, though, given that the...

01:27:06 wie hot die Schnells werden, wenn sie sind. Wenn sie passen durch eine der Hydrogen ist, dann wäre es unmöglich, dass es einfach nur das Schnellen wäre. Ja, wahrscheinlich. Ja. Und da gibt es auch die ganze Sparks und die ganze Disturbanse zu gehen durch die Space. Ich glaube nicht, dass es so viele Chance gibt. Also, die Trouble ist, wenn man das in World War 1 hat,

01:27:33 then everyone will be investing in AA shells for their battleships by World War II. Yes, and everyone will be very surprised when they didn't work. Anyway, speaking of... Well, no, let's be honest. HMS Nelson does do it against an Italian torpedo bomber in World War II. Yeah, well, the torpedo bombers come down to a fairly lower altitude. Yeah, but the thing is, if you've got the specialist shells...

01:28:01 If you can put a proxy fuse on a 3-inch round, you can fit it on a 16. Yeah! Proximity fuse 16-inch round? Which were a thing in World War II, and the Iowas do have range tables for 16-inch use in barrage mode. Yes. But to return to Blücher...

Analyse der Blücher und Kohlequalität

01:28:24

01:28:24 Sie war nicht bedroht, nicht nur die Battlecruisers, sondern auch die Aretuza, die Cruiser und Destroyer, die mit der Harwich-Force kam. Und in der Situation, sie war in, sie still managed, um einen der Destroyer auszutauschen zu machen. Oh, sie ging down zu kämpfen? Ja. As lange sie hatte die Möglichkeit, sie war zu kämpfen.

01:28:50 Und ich will pointe out, es ist ein impressiver Feat von Gunnery für einen Schiff aus diesem perioden, zu hit einem kleinen Destroyer mit seinen Primary Batterie. Ja. Especially mit zwei von den Schellen. Es ist ja, Blücher war ein guter Schiff mit einer guten Crew, dass, bei dinten Politik ist, es ist die wronge Schiff auf die wronge Zeit. Ja.

01:29:12 Honestly, if she should have been anywhere, she should have been off with Grosse, with Von Spee. When she's built, she does scream foreign station flagship. Yeah, she does. Alternatively, she should have been in the Baltic, staring at the Russians who have no battlecruisers, but do have Rurik, which is very active. Yeah, in Baltic, she would be quite the monster, I think. And would probably...

01:29:37 save the Kaiserliche Marina need to station there some of the Dreadnought battleships because... But because she's fast enough she gets assigned to fair scouting. The other thing you've got to remember is that the Germans are at quite a disadvantage in terms of battlecruiser or battlecruiser-like vessels at this stage because...

01:30:01 In this battle, for example, they've got three battlecruisers out there. The one they're missing is von der Tann. And of course, they've lost the services of Goeben right at the start of the war. But in terms of battlecruisers we have built, at this stage, they're only down one. Whereas the British have a one-ship advantage. And if we count Blücher as not a battlecruiser...

01:30:30 they have a two-ship advantage, while still being downed by four other battlecruisers. Yeah. Because you've got Invincible, Inflexible, Indefatigable are all off doing other things, and Australia is off being the flagship of the Royal Australian Navy, at which point, well, there's two ways of looking at it. You could argue, on the one hand,

01:30:56 Der 1st Scouting Group hat vielleicht keine Arbeit in den Britten, weil die Britten so viel auslöscht sie. Oder man könnte auch die andere Art, das wäre, wenn sie das machen, müssen sie absolut alles, was sie können. Und ja, okay, Blücher, wir sah mit der Battle der Falkland Islands, dass die Scharnhorst, die haben genau die gleichen Guns, nur ein paar von ihnen, können sogar ein Invincible an in den langen Rangeln.

01:31:24 Aber wenn Blücher mit den Germanen Battlecruisern und sie zusammenfassen können, dann die 8.3-Inch-Gunnen können, die Invincibles und Indefatigables werden. Die Invincibles ist ein schade, aber die Indefatigables, glaube ich, sind in Ordnung. Ja, ja. Ich meine, das wäre das gleiche, was Admiral Kalaghan hatte vor der ersten Night Battle von Guerdalkanal.

01:31:54 Two heavy cruisers at close range should be able to seriously damage a Kongo, which was based on the interwar Naval college calculations. So those calculations had to be based on something, right? They knew something.

01:32:12 Of course, let's not forget the fact that no matter what Blücher does, and no matter what German shells are thrown at the Royal Navy's direction, one ship, no matter what, is emerging from this without a scratch on her, and that is New Zealand. You cannot hurt New Zealand. This is just... Okay, look, there are two ships like this in history. Guilio-Chesury and New Zealand. Yep.

01:32:39 If you look at the Battle of Taranto and you try and run it so that you actually launch a strike against the Gileo Cesare, you cannot. Every angle you come from, you will hit a different battleship. Every battle that ship is ever in, whatever's with it, ends up getting hurt and it comes along quite happily. Well, she does take a 15-inch shell through a funnel.

01:33:03 Ja. Ja. Ja. Ja. Ja. Ja. Ja. Ja. Ja.

01:33:25 oder ihre eigene Seite. Und das passiert, wenn sie von einer alten Soviets-Mine ist in der Partik. Oder, alternativlich, sabotage von Italien-Frogman, depending auf... Ja, genau. Ja, definitiv, beware the Ides of March. Ich will zurück zum Chat, zu der alten Frage, aber ich glaube, wir sind da.

01:33:50 Dangerous Dave asks, is it true that German coal had a very high bitumen content so was quite inefficient? Yes. It's true that it wasn't, it was not as efficient but what is worse it was very let's say dirty burning and that was the problem because obviously when you need to sail fast you need to burn a lot a lot of fuel I believe like with Yamato

01:34:16 Ich habe diese Charte nur für Yamato gesehen, also werde ich auf Yamato erwähnen.

01:34:22 20% der Fahrzeugen braucht für halbe Geschwindigkeit und 100% für full Geschwindigkeit. So, wenn du, besonders in ein Battle wie dieser, die Battlecruisers auf einer Seite würden würden für ihre Leben fahren und auf der anderen Seite würden würden würden würden würden würden würden viel Kohle verbrüßt und die hohe Bitumen und Kohle verbrüßt würden würden würde sehr grosses Dinge für die Boilers und alles.

01:34:51 We talked about this before the stream started. I think we determined, we were figuring that the German ships have a four-hour sprint option. Kind of, yeah. And then they have to slow down because they literally have to unclog their boilers before they can do another sprint for about three to four hours. And then at that point, you're in dire need of getting back to port where you can basically...

01:35:18 Quench the boilers and clean them, because German coal... Germany has a lot of coal. It's one of the reasons why they got industrialized so quickly, because they had a lot of the raw materials. But not all coal is the same. No, it is not. So a lot of German coal is brown coal, which in very, very basic terms, and I'm not a geologist, though I do know one, is that the coal that Germany has in abundance isn't compressed as much.

01:35:48 So it's looser, and so it doesn't burn as cleanly. Whereas Britain, the first industrialised nation on Earth, is incredibly lucky that we had a bunch of the really dense coal. We had basically all coal for all needs. So we had the cheap brown stuff for general use. We had decent coal.

01:36:12 for use in stuff like locomotives and power stations. And then we had the really good stuff going out of Wales. Welsh Valley coal is what fuelled the Royal Navy in World War I. There's a reason why the Royal Navy ran mile-long trains running at about five miles an hour all the way up the country, pulled by these...

01:36:38 massive 080 tender engines that had priority over literally everything else. Yeah, because each of these battlecruisers is going to take several thousand tons of coal to fill their bundles. Yeah, and this is one of the things, because Germany does in theory have access to a relatively small amount of anthracite coal in some of its mines, which is the really good stuff.

01:37:04 But it is available at the time in such small amounts that it's just not used in the Navy because there's nowhere near enough of it being produced to actually stock any meaningful number of warships. And instead it's being diverted to their steel industry to help, because obviously they're burning coal. And the world of coal is so good that pre-war...

01:37:30 der High Seas Fleet, ist importet British Coal. Und es ist nicht nur über die Kloggen-Issues, sondern auch die andere, die Energie-Density der Coal ist. So, wenn man diese Lignite-Type-Rubbish-Cole hat, wenn man ein Pound oder Kilo oder ein Kilo hat, was man macht.

01:37:55 Das wird eine bestimmte Menge Energie geben. Wenn man die gleiche Anthrocyte Coal wird, dann wird es viel mehr Energie geben. Und das bedeutet, dass, wenn Ihr Boilers sind identisch, wenn man sie mit Anthrocyte Coal wird, dann wird es mehr Energie geben.

01:38:17 It's one of the reasons why you get the differences between German battlecruiser trial speeds and German battlecruiser in service speeds. Because on trials, they're burning imported anthracite, most of them. Yeah, they're burning imported anthracite with hand-picked engineering crews over shallow depth, running distances, lightly loaded with some of the more important equipment not yet installed. And shockingly, they go very, very fast. Like the Italians, there's a picture in the 1930s.

01:38:46 Ich denke, es ist in der Torium. Ja, so sie ist in der Secondary Batterie, was in der Beldammer. Ja, und die Superstruktur. Und es ist wie, sie hat 37 Knots. Es ist wie, wow. Ja, es ist 15,000 Tonnen Leiter als sie ist.

01:39:05 It does get sort of worse when you realise the Germans are also dealing with the reality that quite a lot of their ships, which had turbines earlier, actually had to have Parsons turbines. And so they are, to keep them going, they're either having to, if they need to replace anything, they're turbines, because you do throw blades, you have to carefully manage turbines, because they're still in the early generation. So not as like the turbines we deal with today, which are fairly...

01:39:34 und ein bisschen hart als Dammage, aber wenn sie ein Specialist sind, sie sind einfach vernünftig. Sie müssen die Weihre und Teare auf die Turbine machen, weil sie sie entweder haben sie oder sie haben sie komplett. Das ist ein langer Job, das bedeutet, dass sie sich aus dem Wasser für eine lange Zeit haben, wenn sie sie mit einem Germanen Turbine machen, das die AG etc. sind jetzt um...

01:40:00 They're not actually running them at high speed that often. They're not practicing their gunnery at high speed. They're not practicing their things at high speed, even with the ships which are turbine powered. And this also means you don't have practice of managing the boilers at high speed. Yeah. And that's an issue because German boilers, well, we know what they were like in World War II. Let me put it this way. In World War I, they are no less...

01:40:29 temperamental finicky i was i was gonna say specialist i was gonna be nice um they they they have a personality and you'll know about it and if you forget their personality good luck so they're basically kids yeah yeah yeah goblin has a

01:40:52 Goben hat eine Reihe von Issues in Ottoman Service und dann in Turkish Service, nach der Germans all go home. Basically, German Machinery works incredibly well, als long you have an Engineering Crew that is made up of sort of people, the kind of people who have multiple PhDs, and ideally three arms apiece.

01:41:14 And as long as you leave them to their business, they can, you know, conduct the Grand Symphony that is keeping highly complicated German machinery running. The minute something breaks or you're forced to rely on people who aren't quite so elite, it all goes very badly wrong very quickly.

01:41:34 Sergeant Sully, am I describing boilers like Mavrin laws? No, because Mavrin laws are more understandable and predictable from what I hear and are more easy to pacify with chocolate. Boilers don't accept chocolate. They don't accept chocolate or flowers. Yeah, but speaking of the coal, I will just quickly return because I did a quick search on the site and just to...

01:42:02 und unterliegen, wie wichtig eine sehr gute Welche Kohl war. Currently, die Antracite, die höchste Qualität Kohl ist ungefähr 1% der totalen Kohlmining weltweit. Es ist sehr rar. Und ja, eine große Anzahl von Antracite war wirklich...

01:42:29 Very important. It's 1% of global world coal and we had mountains of the stuff. We still do, we just don't buy it anymore. We got all the easy to get to anthracite and that went into the navy basically. Navy and steel making. I just want to now circle back to the chocolate. While you cannot feed the chocolate to the boilers, you can feed chocolate to the crews that are taking care of the boilers.

01:42:56 Ja, das Problem ist, dass die Schokolade nicht die Schokolade, weil sie nicht die Hand aus der Boiler können, um die Schokolade aus der Box zu nehmen. Und jetzt ist es Deutschland, es ist Spezial Schokolade. Ah, ja. Mit anderen Sachen in es. Ich wusste, dass wir uns zu haben.

01:43:16 Panzership Chocolata? Oh no, not Panzership. Oh no, not again. So, yes. If you ever see someone at like a military history sort of event and they claim to have real, actual World War II German era special chocolate, don't eat it. Avoid it. It will most likely kill you now. It tastes foul. Yes. Or if it's...

01:43:45 That kind of chocolate might get you into problems with the law. Indeed. So don't eat it. You can get the replica of it today that doesn't have the fun stuff in it. People say you look particularly British, Killer Bin, when you are discussing British naval power. Quite so. Wait for it, you will see him even more British. Yes, we'll see about that.

01:44:13 But the point is... How many Drat looks like he's in the bath? That's impressive. Why? A bath in a library with the designer models of Warships in the background and the emblem of HMS Thunderschild and a Ship of the Lion, I think, in the background as well. Three and a half tons of literature. Yeah. And so...

Nachwirkungen der Schlacht und Lehren

01:44:37

01:44:37 After the battle is over and both fleets get back to the UK, obviously the Brits can claim a victory because they fought the Germans off and they sunk a major German warship. But Lion's battered and for silly reasons, Fisher orders that Lion cannot be dry docked. She must be repaired while she's still in the water. Why?

01:45:05 I haven't been able to figure that out. Partly because he gets involved in the debate between Jellicoe and BT. Because Jellicoe is less than impressed with the battle because he's getting all sorts of reports. He's also getting the reports from Thrit and the Harwich Force who have what they've seen of the battle. And so Jellicoe's impression of the battle is that BT has much things up.

01:45:32 Which, to be fair, Jellico is right. BT is trying to present it as a great victory. And as such, Fisher says, well, because of the great victory, you obviously won't need to dry dock any of your ships.

01:45:47 Und so I think... Which is special, but ultimately stupid and petty. Yep. Those ships should have been dried up immediately. Yes. And I think Lion's Repair takes like three times as long as it should have. Because they can't... Yeah. They can't get to her hull as easily to patch some of the hits that cause her listing. Yeah. So they're essentially waiting for the tide to go out so more of the hull appears so they can fix things. They essentially have to semi-beach her.

01:46:16 Yeah. In Rosythe, in the estuary. And luckily it's a bit of a tidal estuary and they have to base it. And you sit there and go, oh, for frigging sake, just dry dock the ship. Especially when you think that Rosythe and Edinburgh and the Tyne is like where half the Royal Navy is built. There is a place where you can put her. It's not like the Brits are lacking the facilities to take. There are dry dock facilities.

01:46:42 One of the jokes is at one point, there's actually literally a dry dock which is empty 400 yards from where she is. Exactly. Which could have fit her. Because of the politics of how certain actors want to present the battle, Lion just has to wait for basically the tides to go in and out long enough for them to fix her. The Germans on the other side, as we discussed earlier, they're inspecting sidelets.

01:47:11 They're terrified of what they discover. They take measures with regards to basically all of their capital ships to improve flash protection as much as they can. So later German ships who take similar hits don't suffer the same fate. The Brits, on the other hand, don't have this experience. Lion is just battered in the conventional naval sense.

01:47:39 She doesn't take any almost fatal hits. So there's no institutional learning on the Royal Navy side that their ships are potentially vulnerable to this sort of hit. Combine that with, because the battlecruisers can't train in Rossi, so Jellico is like a rate of fire. If we just fire more, statistically we'll hit more. And then you start seeing measures where flash doors are removed.

01:48:07 Extra ammunition is being carried where it shouldn't be. The ships go into Jutland carrying more ammo than they are designed to take safely. And so you end up with the losses that happen at Jutland. They're not caused by the British victory at Dogger Bank, but Dogger Bank doesn't teach the Royal Navy the same lessons it teaches the High Seas Fleet, which is why the only British battlecruiser that's going into both Dogger Bank and Jutland...

01:48:36 Unless it's a direct shell-into-magazine hit that it's going to get away with, it's Tiger. Because Tiger's captain hates Beatty and just doesn't listen to him when he's sending out these directives. He sails with the fleet, he does everything he's supposed to do, but if Beatty goes, oh, I have this idea, Tiger's captain's like, great, never got it.

01:49:01 cool no tiger's captain is almost worse than that because there's actually at one point during the battle of dogabank where he continued apparently considered chasing the rest of the germans alone on the idea that if he did it no one would tell him off but he decided that actually tiger alone couldn't take on the remaining german ships

01:49:30 Would Princess Royal have followed him? Exactly. It's like the theory is Lion's fallen out of line. And in theory, if Tiger does chase the Germans, she's actually doing what BT wants them to do.

01:49:45 Und auch, mehr zu dem Punkt, er war blammer, nach der Battle, für nicht das. Ja, so Tiger's Captain, hätte er auf seine eigene Initiative gemacht, hätte er eigentlich gemacht, was B.T. hatte ihn zu tun, aber B.T.'s actual orders indicated er zu tun, was er zu tun. Ja, es wäre die große Sache, dass er eigentlich gemacht hat, was B.T. hatte ihn zu tun, was B.T. hatte ihn zu tun, was B.T. hatte ihn zu tun, was B.T. hatte ihn zu tun.

01:50:14 Exactly. So it's a bizarre set of situation where it is the first clash of battlecruisers. The only ship sunk isn't a battlecruiser. And so you end up in this bizarre situation where the Brits think they've won, they think everything's working. Okay, Gunnery could use a bit of tweaking and Jellicoe is able to basically...

01:50:40 Order battlecruisers back to the Grand Fleet to do gunnery practice.

01:50:46 Which is why 3rd Battlecruiser at Jutland are shooting very well, which is how you end up in the weird situation where the oldest Battlecruiser present sinks the newest. Yeah, Invincible versus Lutzow. Yeah. Because they're fresh from gunnery practice. So they're shooting quite well, along with the rest of the Grand Fleet. But the core of BT is force that doesn't really go up to do gunnery practice because BT...

Schießübungen und die Auswirkungen von Kanonenfeuer

01:51:14

01:51:14 He doesn't think it's as important, and he doesn't want to leave Rosythe, and there's politics and such involved, and so had they had more time to properly practice. And a couple of people were asking in chat why they're not doing gunnery practice. Rosythe is next to Edinburgh. It's like on the other side of the estuary. If you fire 13.5-inch guns in battle practice, you are shattering every window in 15 miles.

01:51:40 And the problem with sorting to battle practice is either you sorted the whole force, which is expensive. And runs the risk of running over U-boats. Yeah. And also, and if you don't sorted the whole force, A, you still have the risk of running to U-boats, but you've basically gone, oh, that's a single or a pair of battlecruisers out doing gunnery practice. That's an ideal target for the first scouting group to jump on as ever that's going to be.

01:52:08 Obviously, because the Royal Navy's gunnery practice ranges are north of Ireland. So it's essentially, you have to leave Rossithe, hug the coast of Scotland, past the top, into the gunnery ranges, do your practice and come back. And if there are German spies in the UK, which there were, they weren't great, but they were there, they can sit there in a pub in Edinburgh and count them as they leave.

01:52:32 And go, two battlecruisers have left, therefore the Royal Navy's battlecruiser force is down two ships. So if you're going to do anything, do it now, because the force is weakened.

01:52:45 I would say the scenario you've got, and this is one of the interesting things, where someone actually had a discussion of if they had shore batteries set up, if they had a shore battery set up along the way, away from a bit further down the coast, which used the same, broadly speaking, the same gun, you could have sent the crew, rotated the crews to the battery to go and do firing practice of the battery. Yes, you could do. It wouldn't have been as good.

01:53:12 But it would be better than what they got. Yes. True. Yeah. And so, meanwhile, Jellicoe and the Grand Fleet, they're practicing as often as they can because you're at the top of Scotland. Who's going to tell him no? In the nicest way, they did gunning practice in the middle of Scarpa Flow. They go off to a different position in the anchorage and fire over the island. It's big enough and you're not going to hit anything. Well, you'll hit...

01:53:37 Well, you're not going to hit anything important. You're not going to drop a 13.5-inch shell into Edinburgh train station. Yeah, and just keep in mind that it's not only the shells hitting something, but even just the muzzle blasts of the gun can be quite disturbing to the civilian way of life. I mean, like, we in Wargaming have an example of that. During one of the big game's announcements, it was inquired, could they fire?

01:54:05 a full charge broadside from iowa and they were told sure you can but you'll have to replace every light bulb and window and initially the thought was on the ship sure why not it's like no every ship in every window in light bulb in la yeah because that's that's the blast effect and so like you can't

01:54:27 There's a reason why, when you're reading these sort of actions, like the crews are stuffing cotton in their ears, they're doing all these kind of tricks, because the human body isn't set up to deal with the kind of pressures that firing a battleship-grade gun imparts. Even if you're at the breach end, when, in theory, if everything's working properly, there shouldn't be much of a pressure spike, because that's all gone out the barrel. And so, like, it's...

01:54:56 Yeah, don't be on deck, unless you are New Zealand's finance officer who had his trousers blown off at Jutland. Well, that's the least embarrassing thing you could have had blown off if his legs had gone. If his legs had gone, that would have been it. That's why some of the... Again, back to Yamato, when the Japanese were trying to figure out where they could put anti-aircraft guns.

01:55:21 They put animals on the deck and fired the guns, and if they weren't turned to jam, you can probably put an AA gun there. If they are turned to jam, put some steel between them. Frankly, the muzzle blast is also a reason why the Yamato has so many weird things, like the tunnels for the ship's boats on the aft, and why half of the anti-aircraft gun batteries have a kind of turret, which was not really a...

01:55:50 Es ist auch warum, wenn man die amerikanischen Disturzungen in den Warschips hat, kann man sehen die kleinen Hutschen auf die Torpedo-Tubes sehen, auf die meisten der World War II Disturzungen. Das ist, wieder, das ist ein Blast-Shield für die Leute, die die Torpedo-Torpeedos sind, weil die 5-Inch-Gunsten sind.

01:56:19 So basically, even small guns can be very annoying when they are firing over your head. While I'm all for the expedient Japanese approach of firing their big 18-inch guns to see where they can fit anti-aircraft guns, bearing in mind the short barrel life of those weapons, I am questioning their sanity.

01:56:42 Was I doing that? I mean, this will be an easy poll. Anyone here, an American, or has experience with firearms, have you ever been next to a guy on a range with a muzzle brake on an AR-15 or any sort of infantry rifle? If you're next to a guy with a muzzle brake, it sucks standing next to it, doesn't it?

01:57:05 Or I can go slightly in terms of calibre of the experience of standing behind a Browning 50 cal while it's firing compared to the experience of standing next to the barrel compared to the experience of standing about two, three yards to the left, but slightly ahead of the barrel. Yeah, it's like take that feeling of just like having your inside shook and scale it up from a 5.56.

01:57:31 To a 13.5-inch shell or a 15-inch shell, because we had so many in the UK, if you go to any pseudo-navally related place in the UK, there's usually just a 15-inch shell there that you can stand next to, and they're as tall as people. Yeah. And you've got to think, like, how much powder and pressure is needed to get this hunk of metal to do...

01:57:55 20 miles. Ja, das ist eigentlich was mit dem US South Dakota in der 2nd Naval Battle auf Guadalcanal. Also, reading the AFT AA gun crew testimony. Before the firing comments, they were told to get into shelter, which was standard practice, right, for the 16-inch guns firing. The first Salvo managed to shatter and set on fire the planes that were on the Catapult's AFT.

01:58:20 And luckily for the ship, the second Salvo managed to blow the burning debris overboard, so everything was good. The South Dakotas, though, are particularly bad for it, given how they were known for it their entire careers. They really are stretching the absolute limits of how compact you can make a ship before the blast of your own gun starts causing real proper damage. Exactly, but the point is that...

01:58:46 These blast effects are why, because people often ask, what happens if you're an AA gunner and the main guns fire? Well, if you're an AA gunner and you're at your post, chances are you're not shooting. If the main guns are firing, chances are you don't need to stand there. Or it's why you can see how all the arrangement, especially on battleships, where all the open positions are. There's a lot of science. A lot of science goes into, where can I put a gun?

01:59:15 Ja, das ist auch ein Bild von der US-Washington in der gleichen Battle. Und du kannst sehen, dass alle 20mm guns in der Front Thread sind in stowed position. Sie sind aufsides. Sie sind aufsides. Sie sind aufwärts. Sie haben die Fabrik Cover auf dem, weil es nicht so ist. Warum würden Sie?

01:59:44 And the bigger the gun, the more blast effect it's going to produce, even if the barrel is shorter. I mean, in theory, Furious' gun will be particularly blasty, because it's a lot of powder firing a heavy shell out of a short barrel. And that's, again, that also influenced a lot of development of the turret design in the battleship and battlecruiser design before World War I, because there was this...

02:00:10 Diese Diskussion und diese Veränderung zwischen Open Sighting Hoots und Closed Sighting Hoots, und wenn man wirklich die Closed Sighting Hoots braucht, denn dann gibt es die Risik, dass man die Verwürfe von Wasser und was nicht. Aber dann, wenn man in den Turret stand und Superfiring Turret fires und man findet, dass man nicht wirklich Superfiring Turrets mit den Open Sighting Hoots braucht. Congratulations, du bist in der Bellen.

02:00:39 Also, I've just looked at the viewers. We're nearly up to 3,000. That is impressive. It's a good start to the year. And just noticing the time, and we were hoping to keep this within two hours for once. Otherwise, we'll be here all evening, and Drax got to go hit someone with a sword. Yeah, I actually need to go in the next couple of minutes. Yes. I just saw the time, and I figured we should...

02:01:03 I think we've comprehensively covered the Battle of Booker Bank and we also went on a couple tangents as we always do. And so all in all, I think hopefully you all enjoyed it. Please do. I think we've planned out most of the year for these topics. Yeah, we have. So keep an eye out for when we announce the next one. I think it is February, isn't it? Or is it March? Should be, yeah. Yes, we have a February one.

02:01:28 Our producer in the background, Elfruchtini. A shout out to Elfruchtini here for completely dismantling and reassembling our streaming room in two days. Not only dismantling and reassembling it, but also turning it sideways and turning it upside down. Everything works. He's a miracle worker. The only thing that's gone wrong today is that I'm apparently Russian. By goodness. Thank you everyone for joining us. Thank you to Dr. Clark, Drac and Fleet of Oceans for joining us tonight. Thank you very much.

02:01:57 We hope you all have a pleasant weekend. Always happy to be here, folks, as you know. And enjoy hitting people with SORT. Don't get hit. Take care, everyone. Thank you. And good night. Nighty night. Bye-bye.