Alternative I-class BCs

Coypus

Member
Joined
Mar 27, 2009
Messages
393
Reaction score
1
Location
Belfast
Country
ll
That is the most creative recounting of the Battle of the Dogger Bank I have ever read. Beatty once he had caught Hipper and the Blutcher was "yawing away to the North" was able to slow to 24knts which was Hipper Squadron speed without Blutcher and let the Indomintable and New Zealand bunch up as he had strung out his own formation at 27-28 knots on an stern chase nothing to do with their relation to the German ships which he believed were in his grasp
 

saddletank

Forum Conscript
Joined
Jul 3, 2006
Messages
1,461
Reaction score
3
Location
UK
Country
ll
I believe that nothing Delcyros wrote contradicts that.

Lion, Princess Royal and Tiger were catching Hipper's squadron because Hipper was maintaining 24-25 knots in order to keep in company with Blucher. During this chase Indefatigable and Indomitable both fell astern but shooting from the leading two British BCs disabled Blucher which then 'yawed to the north'. Only by cutting corners and leaving formation could the Indefatigable and Indomitable catch up and then they engaged Blucher which everyone else mistakenly did as well following the famous signal screw up by Beatty and Seymour.

Yes, Beatty ordered his lead ships to slow at that point, but that does not of itself prove that the trailing ships were exceeding that speed. And why did he slow? So Indefatigable and Indomitable could close up.

Note that Hipper did not use the full speed of his fastest ships as that would have strung out his formation and would have clearly sacrificed Blucher. Compare with how Beatty crammed on all speed and left his two slowest ships many miles astern. The facts of the engagement only bear out that Blucher at something in excess of 24 knots was faster or at least as fast as both Indefatigable and Indomitable.
 

Bullethead

Storm Eagle Studios
Joined
Feb 18, 2006
Messages
3,890
Reaction score
3
Location
Wakefield, LA
Country
llUnited States
IThe facts of the engagement only bear out that Blucher at something in excess of 24 knots was faster or at least as fast as both Indefatigable and Indomitable.
As best I can tell, German machinery of WW1 was designed wtih a large safety margin. IOW, their "designed" powers and therefore speeds were rather conservative and well within safe areas. However, they could exceed their "red lines" for quite a few hours if need be, and get away with it, although the longer this went on and the higher the power was pushed, the longer the ship would be laid up afterwards. Boiler tubes would split, turbine blades would erode, etc. There were enough excess of both to take some casualties and keep on chugging, but there was still a price to be paid in the end.
 

saddletank

Forum Conscript
Joined
Jul 3, 2006
Messages
1,461
Reaction score
3
Location
UK
Country
ll
Of course, but overhauling a powerplant for a few months is better that having to cross that ship off your OOB permanently.
 

Coypus

Member
Joined
Mar 27, 2009
Messages
393
Reaction score
1
Location
Belfast
Country
ll
. For balance however, accounts of Invincible at the Falklands would indicate that the amounts of smoke she was generating and the vibrations that occurred at 25kts largely precluded effective shooting.
.
Was looking into that quite interesting stuff depending on the length of a hull a ship reaches a point where the bow and stern wave cause resistance. Interestingly Invincibles speed is around 23.8 knts when this resistance occurs, I would imagine restance causes vibration. She slowed to 22 knts and started to get hits. Hull efficency seems to play a part on how well a ship performs beyond that point. What is interesting was it was a light following sea so practically lab conditions.
 

delcyros

Member
Joined
Mar 15, 2010
Messages
48
Reaction score
4
Location
kreuzberg
Country
llGermany
Are there sets for trial runs of the INVINCIBLE-class ships aviable? I would be interested to see INVINCIBLE´s datas. British trial runs were on a deep measured mile and should well reflect the top speed of these ships when in a good condition with regards to bottom fouling and machinery. For a long time, I had the impression that british ships would foten fall short of the expected performance in speed trials until I realised that this isn´t the case. In fact, the Admiral´s expectation included an overload figure( 120-130%), which these ships were hard pressed to achieve. THE QUEEN ELIZABETH´s for example were designed with 58,000 SHP and 23 kts rated contract speed. Initially, hope was expressed that 25 kts could be made at 130% rated power but subsequent weight increase made this and the original contract speed at 100% rated power problematic.
This points towards different definitions used in both nations. The german design speed (100% rated) is not identic with british design speed (which included a subtantial overload figure). To further complicate things, the german trial speed prewar uses somehow comparable displacements and all out performance like the british trial speed, while the german wartrials are using more displacement and shallow water miles, both of which cuts down the speed. But You can´t seriously take the german prewartrial speed because it uses high quality Whelsh steaming coal (hardly aviable after outbreak of the war). Definitions are important.
 

Coypus

Member
Joined
Mar 27, 2009
Messages
393
Reaction score
1
Location
Belfast
Country
ll
The Invincible made 25.3 at only 2700 shp overload and averaged 24.8 over 3 days in the North Atlantic. In the Falklands her bottom scrubbed before she left England she had little difficullty maintaining 25knts during the battle. Invincible had an excellent hull design when you consider that her prismatic hump was 23.8 knots. According to Conways Indomitable had machinery problems at Dogger and made 25, Massie has her at 26 for part of the chase , at Hegoland the Invincible made 25 . As for the Queens according to Campbell, at Jutland the Barham at nearly full load with 80% fuel load and 3ft over their draught into a head sea for a time averaged 23.8 whilst if you compare to the Konigs which had only 60% her fuel load oil burners and a following sea only managed at times over 22 knts. With Grosser managing 22knts top speed and Markgraf managing only 20 knts though the Markgraf did have about 500 tons more coal onboard. Weight was an important consideration it seems. The Bluchers impressive 25.7 over a mile was achieved on 1/4 its fuel load and 10000 shp overload, her compliment, amunition load and stores arnt mentioned in my source if you can point in that direction TIA. Since those figures she also got a tripod mast, her prismatic hump was around 22.3 knots. Von der Tann hit the wall at slightly less than the Invincible at 23.7 Motlke at 24.7 Sedlitz at 25.6 and Derflinger at 26.2 in comparison the Lion had to dig deep at 26.4. Once these speeds were approached it was overload time and probably unable to hit a barn door time also. I'm beginning to think Lutjens did not refuel the Bismarck when he had the chance in Norway so as he could have his best speed for the dangerous part of the breakout.
 
Last edited:

barkhauer

Member
Joined
Jun 28, 2008
Messages
356
Reaction score
2
Location
Ohio
Guys, this is an awesome thread. I would request, however, that you include paragraphs every so often, it would make the text blocks more readable.
 

martin worsey

Member
Joined
Jul 18, 2010
Messages
115
Reaction score
1
Location
ripley
Country
ll
Are there sets for trial runs of the INVINCIBLE-class ships aviable? .
Invincible 26.6 kts
Inflexible 26.5 kts
Indomitable 26.1 kts

This should be the mean of 4 runs at full power for the measured mile. Successive runs should be in the oposite direction.

I am unable to cross reference sources so please treat with caution.
 

grayst

Member
Joined
Dec 24, 2009
Messages
70
Reaction score
0
Location
Edinburgh
Country
ll
Well, I'm impressed and surprised that a thread I started has led to such an erudite and informed / informative debate.

I'm going to go back to my original point.

Having done lots more in-game testing, I'm still convinced the RN would have been better to go for some sort of 9.2"-armed I-class. Anything with an 8x9.2" broadside seems to be capable of doing more damage faster to German capital ships of the period than the historic I-classes. I don't think ship-specific gunnery factors are an issue, since I've been testing at under 10k yards.

And the 9.2" ships are infinitely better when it comes to dealing with lighter forces - the doubled ROF easily trumps the difference in shell weight.

I know my initial ideas on gains in speed and armour were unrealistic, but come on - a ship with (say) 8x9.2" in Indefatigable layout (so a genuine 8-gun broadside) could surely include significant increases in speed and/or armour on the same displacement.

And it would be more capable of infliciting damage on enemy opponents of all types.

Should have been done.
 

Coypus

Member
Joined
Mar 27, 2009
Messages
393
Reaction score
1
Location
Belfast
Country
ll
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. 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 and try armouring that. The efficent shp just was not there to drive it past the hump at 23.8kn of the Invincible to the 27 knts you envisage. (Kents were around 600 ft, and generated 80,000 shp which is 30ft longer than Invincible and double the SHP to get it to 31knts ). Sticking 9.2 inch guns on a ship as big as the Lion in 1906 makes no sense especially no economic sense. Nope the Invincible was a radical game changer and the logical conclusion for a maritime Empire. The Design was successful at Falklands, Hegoland and even Dogger. At Jutland when it was battleline v battleline it was always going to come of second best.
 
Last edited:

saddletank

Forum Conscript
Joined
Jul 3, 2006
Messages
1,461
Reaction score
3
Location
UK
Country
ll
Having done lots more in-game testing, I'm still convinced the RN would have been better to go for some sort of 9.2"-armed I-class. Anything with an 8x9.2" broadside seems to be capable of doing more damage faster to German capital ships of the period than the historic I-classes. I don't think ship-specific gunnery factors are an issue, since I've been testing at under 10k yards.
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. Thus all your test results are biased heavily against the I-Class.

Instead of an I-Class, place a Lutzow on the British side and shoot with her in comparison to the Minotaur class, or whatever 9.2" gunned ship you are using. This will avoid the hopeless gunnery skills the I-Class is hamstrung with in the sim.

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:
 
Last edited:

Bullethead

Storm Eagle Studios
Joined
Feb 18, 2006
Messages
3,890
Reaction score
3
Location
Wakefield, LA
Country
llUnited States
Instead of an I-Class, place a Lutzow on the British side and shoot with her in comparison to the Minotaur class, or whatever 9.2" gunned ship you are using. This will avoid the hopeless gunnery skills the I-Class is hamstrung with in the sim.
Better yet, use Bellerophon instead of Lutzow. Same guns as Invincible, standard GF accuracy.
 

JAG88

Member
Joined
Jul 14, 2010
Messages
65
Reaction score
1
Location
Santiago
Country
llChile
Invincible 26.6 kts
Inflexible 26.5 kts
Indomitable 26.1 kts

This should be the mean of 4 runs at full power for the measured mile. Successive runs should be in the oposite direction.

I am unable to cross reference sources so please treat with caution.
I have the same numbers but, I do not have the tonnage at which the ships ran the test. I do however know the draught they did it at and that should give us a better idea of how heavy they were on that day.

Invincible, for example, got the aforementioned results at 25ft 2in fore and 27ft aft for a mean of 26ft 1in, if we take into account that her mean deep loaded was 29ft 9in we can easily conclude that she was nowhere near her max and very lightly loaded (N. Campbell). In fact according to Conways her mean at normal is actually 26ft 2in, so she would have been slightly (80 or so tons) under her normal displacement on the date of the trial.

So it is likely that the conditions for the trails in the RN and KM (as delcyros indicated) were similar until the start of the war, that is, normal displacement using Welsh coal which, of course skews the results of the KM ships requiring a reasessment.

Anyone has and idea of how much the coal difference would affect that speed? We know that the 27,4kn Von der Tann could at least raise the steam required for 26kn with very bad coal, so that would be her bottom line. If 26kn is indeed VdTs max, then she would be slightly faster in service than the first batch of Is and probably evenly matched with the second (longer hulls and more shp).

Regarding the 9,2in gunned ship, well, what if then someone made an Invincible-like ship then? The RN was trying to jump a generation and make the best AC possible in order to preempt such a move, they failed only because the KM made a much better ship than they believed possible just a year later; that and the appearance of hard capped shells which rendered the Is protection obsolete.
 
Last edited:

Coypus

Member
Joined
Mar 27, 2009
Messages
393
Reaction score
1
Location
Belfast
Country
ll
We know the Invincible ran 25 knts on operations, Hegoland, Falklands and Jutland. All those at not far of full tonnage of equipment. We know that the VdT was 9ft broader than the Invincible and has the same average draught and the VdT displaced 1,700 more tons at deep load and 2,000 more normal load . We have seen with the Blucher that the trial speeds reported are with likely no stores, ammo and little fuel. I have never seen any source that has the VdT doing 26 knts on operations, revolutions is different from actually doing the speed as a whole swathe of factors testify to including the exponential rise in water resistance. It is incomprehensible that the VdT could push 9ft extra beam and 2000 tons more through the sea faster than the Invincible.
 

rgreat

Member
Joined
Oct 15, 2007
Messages
1,003
Reaction score
0
Location
Moscow
Country
llRussia
I think it is safe to assume that VdT have been designed for a bit lower speeds then Invincible, but it can gain more speed in overload.
 

saddletank

Forum Conscript
Joined
Jul 3, 2006
Messages
1,461
Reaction score
3
Location
UK
Country
ll
Yes, I think the overload conditions are significant in that the German ships' machinery was designed to be driven at 120% to 140% loads for long periods without undue stresses. I'm of the view that a 25kn I Class vs a 26kn Von der Tann is a fair replication of reality as far as the simulation goes.
 

JAG88

Member
Joined
Jul 14, 2010
Messages
65
Reaction score
1
Location
Santiago
Country
llChile
We know the Invincible ran 25 knts on operations, Hegoland, Falklands and Jutland. All those at not far of full tonnage of equipment. We know that the VdT was 9ft broader than the Invincible and has the same average draught and the VdT displaced 1,700 more tons at deep load and 2,000 more normal load . We have seen with the Blucher that the trial speeds reported are with likely no stores, ammo and little fuel. I have never seen any source that has the VdT doing 26 knts on operations, revolutions is different from actually doing the speed as a whole swathe of factors testify to including the exponential rise in water resistance. It is incomprehensible that the VdT could push 9ft extra beam and 2000 tons more through the sea faster than the Invincible.
The KM ships designed their turbines to withstand high overpressures and always understated their shp, that is why they could always stress the machinery to a higher point than the RN ones without much risk. Th RN presents a different story as the trials of Princess Royal indicate.

VdT heavier? Sure. But she could also obtain a significantly higher output from her machinery when required and reach, at least, 26kn as indicated by Campbell, a well known source that for some reason you refuse to accept. Remember that we are talking about the RPM REQUIRED to drive VdT at 26kn, the power KNOWN by its captain to be needed for such a speed and not some speculative number. Clear enough?

You refusing the believe that based only in wishful thinking is just amusing at this point, but not surprising after doing a little reading on past threads.

Regarding Blücher and your "likely" insinuations, well, with no sources there is no reason to address that, is there?

And I agree with saddletank here, the speeds are an accurate representation of the actual ones.
 

Coypus

Member
Joined
Mar 27, 2009
Messages
393
Reaction score
1
Location
Belfast
Country
ll
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
 
Last edited:

saddletank

Forum Conscript
Joined
Jul 3, 2006
Messages
1,461
Reaction score
3
Location
UK
Country
ll
In battle it is extremely rare to thrash your ships as fast as they will go... only wargamers do that. ;)

At Jutland both Hipper and Beatty steamed at relatively slow speeds of around 23 to 24 knots so that formations could be maintained and cohesion within squadrons would not be lost. A lower speed may also reduce vibrations and certainly reduces funnel smoke - both conditions being aids to gunnery. This is not to say that the ships could not make faster speeds than they did on that day, just that for tactical reasons faster speeds were not asked of them.

While Evan-Thomas' squadron was steamed very hard and managed 24 knots and cut off some significant corners with respect to Beatty's track, he did manage to close the range significantly with Hipper and Beatty during this phase of the action, since 5BS' maximum possible speed is a knot slower than the known maximum speed of Beatty's slowest ships it follows by logical deduction that Beatty was either making very severe course changes (which we know from the track charts was not the case) or 2BCS was making speeds either not much in excess of Evan-Thomas or possibly a little slower.

During the battlecruiser action Hipper did not significantly draw ahead of Beatty so we can say with some certainty that both battle cruiser formations were only making around 24 knots and possibly less.

Using one's extreme maximum speed isn't always desirable and sometimes can actually be a significant handicap in tactical terms.

The problem really arises only for wargamers. Since the simulation must be truthful and as correct as the designers can make it, they must supply the true maximum speeds the ships were capable of and therefore some wargamers feel a need to use them. 'Jutland' makes an attempt at forestalling this by having the formation speed slider but I personally think that slider should only allow "maximum speed of slowest ship minus 2 knots" since that is what it would appear Admirals mostly used.
 
Last edited:
Top