Die Hochseeflotte

Graf von Spee

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Re: Geheim! German battle damage in WWI

Well, here's what NJM Campbells says about that hit. Page 138 of Jutland: An Analysis of the Fighting:

At 1710, the starboard wing turret was hit by a third 15in shell at a range of c19,000yds. This struck the turret face to the right of the right gun and holed the 10in armour, although the shell burst in so doing, and the effect of the explosion was mostly outwards. The hole measured 14in x 10in with concentric cracks , as well as some spalling above the hole on the outside, and below it on the inside. The plate was apparently not displaced, but the whole turret, trained right aft, was violently shaken, and fragments of armour, a piece of the shell body, and part of the driving band entered the turret, striking the elevating gear of the right cradle carrier of the right gun. The right elevation and training mechanisms were wrecked and the right cradle carrier and trunnion damaged, but it was possible to move the right gun by coupling it to the other. Fragments of armour plate thrown sideways struck the casemate range-finder, and others which entered the turret, seriously wounded one man, the only casualty apart from one slightly burned. Large amounts of gas entered the turret, but the gun-house crew put on gas-masks and were ordered to leave the turret for about 3 minutes until the gas had dispersed. No inconvenience was experienced in the working-chamber.

The hole, therefore, was not big enough for the shell to have penetrated completely. Depending on which navy you were in, that might or might not be counted as a penetration--some navies only considered shells to have penetrated if they got completely through the armor intact, and would call this at best a partial penetration. Other navies considered a shell to have penetrated if it made a hole like this, even if the shell itself couldn't fit through the hole ;).
Imagine being the officer to order the men back into the turret after a hole like that!

"Come on, men! It's not so bad! Why this is nothing, compared to what the poor lads on the Blucher had to go through. So, Three Cheers for Kaiser and the Blucher and back in the turret! "

:nuts:
 

Bullethead

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Re: Geheim! German battle damage in WWI

Imagine being the officer to order the men back into the turret after a hole like that!
Being an old sergeant, I myself always pictured that as being done some grizzled senior petty officer, clothing in rags, covered with soot, and splattered with blood, doing his best John Wayne act:

"Is that all you got? I've been hit harder than that in a Shanghai bordello! Now it's my turn!"
 

Von der Tann

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Don't know if this has appeared here already, but just found a nice link for high-quality scans of a book dealing with ships and uniforms of the Imperial Navy and the colonial troops.

Link
 

saddletank

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In the photographs in the post above the last one, I found it curious that the ship in the image captioned 'Griechifcher Dampfer "India" von "U 35" angehalten' is not the same ship shown sinking in the picture captioned ' "India" fintt.'
 

saddletank

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Yes, that was my thinking too. Not being critical of TBR's wonderful posts at all, just thought it was interesting to note.
 

nathanokun

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That 15" shell exploding on the 10" KC n/A plate and making a 10"x14" hole did rather little damage inside the turret (one man killed; one slightly wounded; some damage to one gun, which still could be used if jury-rigged). In my studies, I use a caliber-wide hole (15" wide in all directions or larger in this case) without the shell itself penetrating (other than a few pieces if it breaks up) as the minimum size to do massive damage. I expected smaller holes to do less damage, but this result confirms that the damage drops off very rapidly with hole size, so even a medium-size hole can have rather little effect, if less than full-shell-diameter in size. Very interesting!

Nathan Okun
 

Bullethead

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I expected smaller holes to do less damage, but this result confirms that the damage drops off very rapidly with hole size, so even a medium-size hole can have rather little effect, if less than full-shell-diameter in size. Very interesting!
Wow, a real celebrity! Welcome aboard! It's an honor to have you here, sir, so I'll buy your "new guy" drink for you :toast:

If you don't mind, I'd like to discuss this a bit more. I'll start a new thread on this subject because this one's all about photos.
 

nathanokun

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How do I find your new thread? I am not familiar with how you navigate on this Web Sute. What questions do you have? If I know the answer or can hazard a guess, I will try to answer anything in my area of expertise.
 

Bullethead

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How do I find your new thread?
Well, the main page for this forum is http://forums.gamesquad.com/forumdisplay.php?f=245.

At that page, you can see all the threads in this forum. Somewhere you'll find a thread called "Shell Hole Size vs. Interior Damage", or you can go right there via http://forums.gamesquad.com/showthread.php?t=85389. To navigate from that thread back to the main forum page to see the other threads, look up at the top of the browser and click on the "Distant Guns! & Jutland" link just below the upper ad.

Again, a pleasure to have you aboard.
 
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