Alternative I-class BCs

[JAG88]

No doubt there seems to be a significant overload trial on KM ships but at Jutland despite overloading none reached in game speeds infact three lost engines trying. Nowhere does Campbell state the VdT did 26 knts he states it did revolutions and revolutions do not transend to speed, that depends on loading, sea state draught and a whole host of other features. Campbell is pretty vague when it comes to speeds and Gordon is slightly dismissive of some of his claims. It is more than likely that if a ship was only carrying 1/4 of its fuel load it is nowhere near its operational load. The fact remains no one has provided me with the source that proves German ships did any of the speeds operationally that they are credited with in game or on trials. The RN ships are well documented and many exceeded their in game speed on operations

It seems you have a habit of forgeting things... again, at Jutland, only once was the 1st SG ordered to go to best speed and that was when chasing the fleeing 5th BS, they didnt need to do that before, 23-24kn was the fastest they went before, why? Because of the vibrations, if you want to shoot accurately you do not go around full throttle. Hipper accepted battle and reduced his ships speed in order to improve gunnery and allow Beatty to close the range. You have read about this Jutland battle, havent you?

When chasing the QEs 2 ships could not sustain the required speed, exactly two of the three ships that suffered underwater damage and were shipping water. Of course, in view of your previous stubborness this will be of little importance and mean that they couldnt do it anyway just because you say so. Btw, Jutland was fought at deep water so draught is irrelevant, sea state was also a non-factor as was wind, loading always is but we have to assume that the German captain was not incompetent and knew the current loading of his ships and therefore, the RPM needed to achieve 26kn at that loading, otherwise his statement is meaningles and we would have to conclude that he was utterly ignorant in seamanship.

Instead of believing that, I rather conclude that you are trolling, again, as you have done before, specially considering that you began your most recent outburst by calling the people that disagreed with you, fanboys. But dont worry, every forum needs a troll and since you are our only one I would rather keep you, so, relax.

About the speed, I think max speed should be allowed with precision penalized accordingly, if that is not already implemented.

Oh, and about Gordon, I'll take Campbell over Gordon every day, one is a huge source of data on the technical side of the battle, the type of fource a game needs, the other is an account from a British perspective of mainly the issues of RN command and control. Simply not comparable... unless Campell's data is somewhat inconvinient to you which often appears to be the case.

 

[Coypus]

Yes I understand why Hipper kept his speed sensible very shrewd unlike Beatty, glad to have you on board with the vibration modifier been posting about that quite a few times. I have no trouble using Campbell despite his mendacity as a source because even he at his evasive best reinforces what I said, I apologise if you took offense but did not think my statement could insult anyone, as Campbell states exhausted trimmers, stokers, oil running out and stoney coal meant top speeds were unobtainable, he specifically mentions the VdT and the Moltke.(page 102). Also on the page is reference to revolutions. So here we have ships 2 hours into combat albeit some with battle damage unable to do their "theorectical" top speed. As I have posted from Campbell (page 103) the Konigs were not at deepload which leads me to believe 1SG were not either therefore draught becomes an important factor vis a vis performance. I would have thought this important information would have been available in an analysis of the fighting. I know 3 British BC's flashed, I knew British shells were crap and would have liked him to tell me something I did not know. As for the revolutions he uses the term in relation to other German Battleships Westfalen and Hannover in his book, would their actual speed not just clear it up?

Nope I am not trolling I am trying to find out certain things about the history of warship design for some research and like I said Campbells data is far from inconvient despite his omissions and boasts. Gordon, like Campbell has to sell books. Gordon gives a convoluted narrative to get us to a personality clash in the greatest sea battle in history, personally I would rather his skill and deductions were confined to the battle. As for Campbell there is absolutley no need for him to put a grass a skirt on to sell books.

Ok for the 1SG were pretty quick group treat this as a hypothethtical question so as I'm not accused of trolling, for eveyone else,; What effect would crossing Dogger bank have on speed? would it lower it by a knot and if so why were the British ships not effected.

 

[delcyros]

Thanks for the input with regards to max trial speeds of the INVINCIBLE´s. With them and my books I have been able to make some approximations with regards to displacement and power. It seems that the INVINCIBLE´s were rated at 41,000 SHP but I have also found evidence to suggest that 38,000 SHP & 25,0 kts were guaranteed by the manufacturers (acceptance minimum imposed on them). The additional 3,000 SHP were a measure of design safety margin. The "I"´s carried their trials out at a the relatively light construction displacement (17,250ts to 17,450 ts for the ships of this class), recorded are 17,120ts to 17,620ts from the trials as opposed to their maximum overload displacement which is 19,940 ts without fuel oil and 20,640ts with full oil complement (700ts). Later wartime additions and outfits grewed the displacement to ca. 21,000ts but I don´t consider them here.
INVINCIBLE was slightly faster than INFLEXIBLE (0.1 kts) and half a kt faster than INDOMITABLE in the all out trials. This is interesting because the former used less power to achieve slightly more speed at quite a heavy wind.



No attempt was made to draw multiple lines for different displacements, owing to the lack of data for heavier displacements. The trials were conducted at different places with a deep measured mile: Chase Beach and close to the Polperro peninsula.
It is appearent that INVINCIBLE could have hit 27 kts at 50,000 SHP had this power been possible at the given displacement. Note that VON DER TANN measured in excess of 27kts in forced 6 hour trials and 28.124 kts in all-out trials under identic conditions.
The circumstances of these trials are in good agreement with general conditions before the outbreak of the war in many nations, including the UK and Germany. It appears that only Germany -forced by the geographical situation and the lack of safe measured deep miles- changed to very rigid conditions in wartime trials.

Ok for the 1SG were pretty quick group treat this as a hypothethtical question so as I'm not accused of trolling, for eveyone else,; What effect would crossing Dogger bank have on speed? would it lower it by a knot and if so why were the British ships not effected.

The effect of shallow water should be able to reduce speed appreciably depending on deepness in relation to the ships length and the resulting "natural speed" of the design. I am pretty certain that it DID reduce the speed of all ships involved. When Beatty calls for 29 kts, and the ships made revolutions for 28, don´t expect this speed to be seriously achieved or aclosed by any of the ships exposed to wave interference from the ground. The critical range for a 180m long ship is v=18 to 25 kts if the seabed is only 35 m below the surface, for a 200m long ship it would be v= 20 to 28 kts if the water is only 35m below the surface and so on. Depending on speed and waterdeepness this requires 15 to 25% more power to achieve the same speed according to contemporaneous calculations of the K-office after systematic trials carried out 1914-17.

 

[Coypus]

Sea state 9 are you sure? that is over 25ft waves, thats truly incredible

 

[delcyros]

I may quote my source here for the nov.7th trial of INVINCIBLE:

там же при бурном со*стоянии моря и ветре в 9 баллов провели хо*довые испытания "Инвинсибла" на полную мощ*ность энергетической установки. Крейсер про*извел шесть пробегов и оказался самым быст*роходным, развив форсированную мощность турбин 46500 л.с. (увеличение на 13,4%), что при частоте вращения гребных валов в среднем 295,2 об/мин., осадке 7,67 м носом и 8,16 м кормой обеспечило кораблю скорость 26,64 уз.

State 9 and turbulent seastate is mentioned explecitely but no source is given here for this. I consider this very remarkable to the very least.
Maybe someone else can shed more light on this. In all-out trials, no I-class ever reached this speed and all other trials were at good weather. It could be a misprint, but if so, it must origin in the prime source and repeated later. Whish I knew the answer...

 

[Coypus]

If I'm reading DK Browns graph right she could not be going head to wind "a modern well designed ship" 600ft would be doing 10 knts in those conditions.

 

[delcyros]

Thats right on Brown. Whether or not this applies here is questionable, agreed.
However, it doesn´t detract from the speed curve as it is normalized by many more points from known and better conditions. The I´s were able to make 26.1 to 26.4 kts in trial conditions (ignoring the doubtful high speed trial result from INVINCIBLE), in service condition it would be 1.0 to 1.5 kts less than that (more if shallow water factors in).

 

[Coypus]

Did you do the graph for Invincible yourself?

 

[JAG88]

Yes I understand why Hipper kept his speed sensible very shrewd unlike Beatty, glad to have you on board with the vibration modifier been posting about that quite a few times.

You say it like as if someone disagreed with this very obvious fact, a fact that you seem to conveniently ignore when demanding proof of the GKs operational speed...

I have no trouble using Campbell despite his mendacity as a source because even he at his evasive best reinforces what I said, I apologise if you took offense but did not think my statement could insult anyone, as Campbell states exhausted trimmers, stokers, oil running out and stoney coal meant top speeds were unobtainable, he specifically mentions the VdT and the Moltke.(page 102).

And you somehow seem to keep forgetting that I actually quoted those paragraphs to you...

Also on the page is reference to revolutions. So here we have ships 2 hours into combat albeit some with battle damage unable to do their "theorectical" top speed. As I have posted from Campbell (page 103) the Konigs were not at deepload which leads me to believe 1SG were not either therefore draught becomes an important factor vis a vis performance.

Not theoretical, if the ships records state that those were the RPM REQUIRED to reach X speed I have no reason to believe it was not possible for them to reach save for external factors NOT RELEVANT TO YOUR OWN POINT, such as battle damage which was the great modifier here. The other factors you mentioned that affect steam generation are irrelevant since we are already talking about RPM, power output, a point were steam is no longer an issue.

I would have thought this important information would have been available in an analysis of the fighting. I know 3 British BC's flashed, I knew British shells were crap and would have liked him to tell me something I did not know. As for the revolutions he uses the term in relation to other German Battleships Westfalen and Hannover in his book, would their actual speed not just clear it up?

Records were lost after two world wars, Campbell provides far more detail than other sources, which is why is so valuable and relevant, other sources just fail to provide real information often relying on the RN guesses and speculation on the matter. Simply put, if Campell didnt have the data on it he didnt fill it out with guesses as other autors, hence the "omissions" or lack of made up "facts".

Nope I am not trolling I am trying to find out certain things about the history of warship design for some research and like I said Campbells data is far from inconvient despite his omissions and boasts. Gordon, like Campbell has to sell books. Gordon gives a convoluted narrative to get us to a personality clash in the greatest sea battle in history, personally I would rather his skill and deductions were confined to the battle. As for Campbell there is absolutley no need for him to put a grass a skirt on to sell books.

Omissions and boasts? Well I shouldnt be surprised after what I read on your review of Campbell, simply put, you don't like anything that doesn't match your preconceptions.

Ok for the 1SG were pretty quick group treat this as a hypothethtical question so as I'm not accused of trolling, for eveyone else,; What effect would crossing Dogger bank have on speed? would it lower it by a knot and if so why were the British ships not effected.

Since physics don't affect wishful thinking, the British ships were in no way affected.

Oh, and please do tell, how and where is Campbell stating falsehoods?

Or where did Tirpitz say that the HSF was a coastal force for that matter, a statement that you have yet to sustain in any form.

 

[Coypus]

At Dogger they never seemed to go above 24 knts even without Blutcher despite great danger to themselves Scheer himself says the BCF had superior speed. I have to wonder were there extraneous circumstances? All empirical evidence points to German capital ships being slower on operations than listed speeds. Take Scheer on Jutland

"The fighting which now ensued developed into a stern chase; our reconnaissance forces pressed on the heels of the enemy battlecruisers, and our Main Fleet gave chase to the Queen Elizabeth and the ships with her. Our ships in Squadron III attained a speed of over 20 knots, which was also kept up on board the Kaiserin. Just before fire was opened she had succeeded in repairing damage to one of her condensers. By the Friedrich der Grosse, the Fleet Flagship, 20 knots was achieved and maintained. In spite of this, the enemy battle-cruisers succeeded soon after 7 o'clock in escaping from the fire of Scouting Division I"

"Owing to the superior speed of Beatty's cruisers, our own, when the order came to give chase, were already out-distanced by the enemy battle-cruisers and light craft, and were thus forced, in order not to lose touch"

I dont know about you but personally I would like to have proper analysis, not selective selling bibles to christians.

 

[saddletank]

I believe Campbell also records that the visibility which an hour to two hours earlier had so favoured Hipper from E to W (during the run to the south) had very much changed for various reasons and the direction of favourable visibility had switched much more from W to E, thus Hipper had trouble getting ranges on fleeting observations on Beatty and Evan-Thomas.

I consider the inference from Campbell to be not so much that Beatty was faster but was harder to see and shoot at. Scheer's record could not take into account the RN's track charts and so his comment that 'the range was now too great' could well really be a 'we lost sight of them' issue: reducing visibility is easily misinterpreted as increasing range.

 

[delcyros]

From what I understand at Doggerbank, Hipper deliberately eased speed for the reason to stay in company with the other forces. That is not just BLÜCHER trailing behind but also a good number of old coal fired torpedoboats which experienced troubles in a prolonged high speed chase to keep up the speed in the seas. There was a point in the battle that Hipper had to decide either to break action or accept a circular battle.
As Campbell pointed out is was probably as fortunate for the germans (ammunition status) as it was for the british (poor gunnery record & ammunition status) that he decided to break off.
Everything was done deliberately at Doggerbank.
Where does SCHEER state that the german ships were slower than their listed speed? This is a false meaning You put in his words. He never said that these ships did not reach 23 kts, in fact, he said that they exceeded and had no trouble maintening more than 20 kts. This is a big difference, my friend.
If You want a meaningful analysis then I suggest to check the speed of the 5th BS and KÖNIG´s in the run to the north. Both squadrons used forced power in this chase. Plot the fighting distances versus the time into the run to the north for the ships involved. Detract angle factors by some trigonometry and compare the corrected change in range per minute. This way You get the speed difference for both units for a meaningful time in action.

 

[Coypus]

Scheer does not state anywhere they are slower than there listed speed but listed speed I assume 22 knts for the Kaisers in game, and the term maintaining 20 knts which he makes sounds like a bit of an achievement. 16.45 most likely start of engagement before turn Barham began turn at 16.54 (Scheer confirms this as does German official history apparently) (17.10 Campbell,after turn seems to be well out of step) and 17.30-40 approximately the engagement ended. At 17.45 Scheer orders units back into formation slowing to 15knts. So it is hard to call in the run to the North because the RN ships were coming out of a turn which would naturely slow the ships and dramtically close the range because your VMG is lateral to the approaching enemy. Scheers comments,

" The Queen Elizabeth and her sister ships also made such good way that they were only under fire from the ships of Scouting Division I and of the Fifth Division (First Half of Squadron III)"

I think I have enough on my plate without debating the distance beteewn 5bs and III Squadron out of that turn (that debate seems like bits of the cross) but it seems that only two ships in that squadron were able to make 22knts (see campbell)

To complicate things further a British knot is 1.3 metres longer than an international knt. pleasure to debate with you BTW Mr. Delcyros.


( Interestingly a British knt is 1.3 metres longer than an international knot)

 

[Zakalwe]

This is what Mr. Jellicoe thinks:

"I learned later, as an unpleasant surprise, that the 5th Battle Squadron, when going at its utmost speed found considerable difficulty in increasing its distance from the enemy`s 3rd Battle Squadron, consisting of ships of the König class, and on return to Scapa I recieved a report from the Admiralty which credited this enemy squadron with a speed of 23 knots for a short period of time..... "

Source:

"The Battle of Jutland" Monograph No. 1, Naval War College, Newport, R.I., December 1920

 

[grayst]

For me its a question of logical process, if you made a 9.2 inch gun cruiser the obvious thing pre aircraft would have been would have been trump it with a battlecruiser.

Sure. The logical successor to a 9.2" Invincible would probably be a 12" Lion. At which point, however, battleships would be toting 13.5"s. In short, a world in which BCs (for a few generations at least) would carry a calibre smaller than contemporary BBs. Just as ACs did.

As I have shown with the problem of water resistance for 27 knots your 9.2 inch cruiser would have be as long as the Lion in 1906

I've given up on the 27 kts; but you can't tell me that an 8 x 9.2" Invincible wouldn't have space and weight for more speed and/or protection than the historic ship.

 

[grayst]

Well... at the risk of sounding like a broken record I did inform you weeks ago that you CANNOT get ANY fair testing results between a 9.2" armed ship and an I-Class battlecruiser in the 'Jutland' simulation. This is because the simulation rates the BCF's gunnery as being of very poor quality.

At under 10k yards? Are you sure?

There is of course also the small matter of about double the range the larger calibre gunned ship will enjoy. If you conduct the same tests at 15000m which is the more useful design then? :laugh:

"Double the range"?

The 9.2" (and 7.5") ranged out to 14k, the 12" to 17k. It's an advantage to the 12", but hardly double.

 

[grayst]

Better yet, use Bellerophon instead of Lutzow. Same guns as Invincible, standard GF accuracy.

Good idea, I'll try it. Only thing is Billy Ruffian has an 8-gun broadside so can only be directly compared with Indefatigable, not Invincible.

 

[saddletank]

At under 10k yards? Are you sure?

I'm pretty confident, yes. As BH suggested after my suggestion, do a few runs with a Bellerophon. I think the difference will be apparent once you get a decently big sample.

 

[Coypus]

Sure. The logical successor to a 9.2" Invincible would probably be a 12" Lion. At which point, however, battleships would be toting 13.5"s. In short, a world in which BCs (for a few generations at least) would carry a calibre smaller than contemporary BBs. Just as ACs did.



I've given up on the 27 kts; but you can't tell me that an 8 x 9.2" Invincible wouldn't have space and weight for more speed and/or protection than the historic ship.

I'm not sure your following the evolutionary process, why would you put more armour on the Invincible in 1906? Its job was to destroy armoured cruisers , armour does not destroy armoured cruisers. 12 inch guns do that at a greater range and with a bigger thump than 9.2 inch guns. It did not need armour to keep out anything bigger than 8 inch. The Invincible did what it said on the tin at Hegoland and the Falkland Islands. Once it was known the Germans were building battlecruisers themselves the jump to 13.5 inch guns should have been quicker. I cant fault the Invincibles as a design on mis application certainly but not design.

 

[JAG88]

At Dogger they never seemed to go above 24 knts even without Blutcher despite great danger to themselves Scheer himself says the BCF had superior speed. I have to wonder were there extraneous circumstances? All empirical evidence points to German capital ships being slower on operations than listed speeds. Take Scheer on Jutland

"The fighting which now ensued developed into a stern chase; our reconnaissance forces pressed on the heels of the enemy battlecruisers, and our Main Fleet gave chase to the Queen Elizabeth and the ships with her. Our ships in Squadron III attained a speed of over 20 knots, which was also kept up on board the Kaiserin. Just before fire was opened she had succeeded in repairing damage to one of her condensers. By the Friedrich der Grosse, the Fleet Flagship, 20 knots was achieved and maintained. In spite of this, the enemy battle-cruisers succeeded soon after 7 o'clock in escaping from the fire of Scouting Division I"

"Owing to the superior speed of Beatty's cruisers, our own, when the order came to give chase, were already out-distanced by the enemy battle-cruisers and light craft, and were thus forced, in order not to lose touch"

I dont know about you but personally I would like to have proper analysis, not selective selling bibles to christians.

So, basically, since they didnt do it then... they couldnt do it, right? Nice logic!

At Dogger Bank they were hampered by both Blücher and the coal fueled TBs, that is why Hipper couldn't just order his ships to go to 27kn and leave all the BCs but Lion and Tiger behind, you just dont do that unless strictly necessary as it became with Blücher. If you doubt it, the KM afterwards modified their OOB transfering the old TBs out of the 1st SG and adding only modern and fast TBs, it was a consequence of orders forbidding the inclusion of units that may in any way reduce the tactical speed of the force as a whole as it did in Dogger Bank.

The lesson was learned, you are not understanding what happened then.

Regarding the danger you mentioned, you fail to grasp that save for the lucky consequences of one of only 6 hits on the GKs, they were undamaged, meanwhile after 16 of a total 22 KM hits Lion was mission killed and dead on the water, Tiger was ineffective and the Is were inferior ships. After Lion dropped out, the main issue for Hipper was ammunition, otherwise a 3v3 encounter would leave little doubt regarding its outcome, so danger is a tricky thing...

You quote Scheer trying to imply that speed barely over 20kts were achieved when the ships records indicate that speeds over 23kts were attained, an impression that is shared by Jellicoe and Beatty who never again detached the QEs in such a way.