Why did the doomed ships fight to the death?

saddletank

Forum Conscript
Joined
Jul 3, 2006
Messages
1,461
Reaction score
3
Location
UK
Country
ll
Yes, in the 1920s Beatty became quite a bitter man. Jellicoe somewhat also but less than Beatty. Beatty was not afraid to keep attacking in order to defend his actions as Adm BCF for long after the war while Jellicoe's 'corner' was more strongly fought by his supporters and cronies. There was a lot of unjust treatment going on behind closed Admiralty doors for many years after WWI. It's a sad episode that reflects badly on most of the protagonists.
 

Clive Dunn

Recruit
Joined
Aug 3, 2008
Messages
15
Reaction score
1
Location
Midlands
Country
ll
Craddock went to fight, even though he clearly felt it was a hopeless battle, because he felt it was his duty to do so, even more so because the Admiratly communications had effectively told him they considered his force sufficient to engage S+G.

We know now that anything short of a battlecruiser was clearly insufficent to take the two German AC's down, and we can guess that Craddock felt the same ( although perhaps a British AC may have evened the odds slightly ). But he clearly felt it wasn't his place to push the Admiralty anymore than he did at the time.

In a strange way both Craddock obeying orders and ships fighting to the death are a product of the same thing. The military relies on command structure on a macro level to carry through strategic decisions by people on the ground who will have little idea of the "big picture", and on a micro level discipline and routine help the men fighting to concentrate on their roles and rely on their training to feel they are in control of a situation that is by definition uncontrollable.

So, in an unwinnable fight, with the Captain most likely dead or not in control of the situation, who would take the decision to strike colours ? These battles are quick, they didn't have the luxury of waiting around for the captains orders to filter down as would have happened 50 years previously.

Craddock went to his death because he was told to. Colours were rarely struck because no-one was told to strike them. It's all about the military mindset of the time. Evan-Thomas would probably still be sailing south today if Lion hadn't executed that signal.
 

Slider6

Member
Joined
Jan 16, 2008
Messages
329
Reaction score
5
Location
Rural
Country
llUnited States
I think the distinction of fighting with what you were given regardless of nationality or arm of military might be a point made. It goes to a military tradition (discipline and duty) in general. I don't see Craddock as doing anything he wasn't expected to do by his culture and command structure. I think there is many relevent analogies within world war II alone. You don't surrender because you don't have the best AT gun, or a P-47 to take out the machine gun nest. That is just not what is expected, which I think is part of BH point. Craddock had a job to do and in his time and reality that is what was expected. An extreme example, how many japanese airmen died doing what was expected of them in kamakaze attacks?

Dreadnoughts of this day and age were a HUGE investment of a country. I can't imagine any military man taking that lightly. I think you can safely say, when the equipment (guns/ship) were gone that the sinking side had no issue being plucked from the water (except for those captains). There is several examples of when the guns or hope was gone of the crew sinking the ship itself to prevent enemy capture. There is many examples when the ill-fated ship stopped firing itself, the attackers stop firing (unspoken striking of colors-but winner doesn't get ship).

Though constantly belittled far...far too much, pre-dreadnoughts are not the useless hunks of metal too many portray :) No way do they compare to a dreadnought...but they were not useless. Britian deployed them all over the world in second line duties. No navy in WW1 got rid of them as soon as a the dreadnought was built. If Jutland game is an indicator, I don't see the S+G doing well in a toe to toe with a pre-dreadnought battleship with the common 12inch gun and much heavier armour? (go ahead and try it with the Roon) Someone mentioned a pre-dreadnought was on the way, I didn't realize that. It makes you wonder what would have happened if Craddock would have had the ability to retreat under the umbrella and range of the much slower pre-dreadnought? Would he have escaped anniliation?
 
Last edited:

Bullethead

Storm Eagle Studios
Joined
Feb 18, 2006
Messages
3,890
Reaction score
3
Location
Wakefield, LA
Country
llUnited States
I'm struggling to see the relevance in BHs analogies. Civilian society has always thought that way and if there is one similarity we can draw, it is from the times of the 1700s and 1800s and early 1900s when men died in thousands building canals, railways and working in terrible conditions in mines, shipyards and factories. The fact that they did is a stamp of the social values of their time - today that level of deaths would be unacceptable - for example had the Channel Tunnel between Folkestone and Calais been built by Stephenson or Brunel in the 1850s, we could expect several hundred men to have died; inside big engineering works of those days they simply did because no-one had any concept of safe working conditions, nor, more importantly, the social awareness to implement them. That the Channel Tunnel was built in modern times without one single serious injury speaks volumes for that and, I think, sets aside as not relevant the analogies BH used.
I mentioned the concept of "acceptable casualties" because IMHO it makes Cradock's thought process perfectly understandable. He was, after all, a life-time member of a profession that used that term on a daily basis. You said his thinking was difficult to imagine today, but I say it isn't. In his position, I wager that most military folks today would do the same thing.

A key point I haven't seen made by others so far (if it's been made, please forgive me) is that Cradock and the Admiralty were playing telegraph tag. Cradock started out as the boss of NAWI and was chasing Dresden and Karlsruhe, both of which started the war in his jurisdiction. Up in that part of the world, with numerous British colonies on direct cables to home, communications with the Admiralty were like both parties were checking their email every few hours or at least daily, so they both were on the same page and up-to-date. Part of this communication was for Cradock to pursue southwards, so he became the boss of the eastern South America area as he progressed.

But the further south he went, the worse his communications got. No British colonies, very few direct cables. And all this made worse by Cradock being at sea for a week or so at a time and visiting places with limited communications, all because he was hunting hiding places. So, by this point, there were considerable delays in communications both ways. It was like both parties were only checking their voicemail every week or so, combined with lag on any given message measured in weeks. Thus, Cradock was usually a week or 2 behind what the Admiralty was thinking, plus usually hadn't gotten everything they'd said even then. On top of this, the Admiralty wasn't telling him everything it knew, only what it thought he needed to know.

As a result, Cradock and the Admiralty soon came to very different ideas about what he was supposed to be doing. Cradock thought he was chasing just Dresden, and was supposed to follow her around the Horn. For this purpose, Canopus was useless except for guarding his supply ships. He was, of course, aware that von Spee was probably headed that way but, due to the lag in communications, wasn't expecting him there yet. Thus, he never understood why Canopus had come his way instead of the AC he'd been promised but hadn't heard wasn't coming.

So, Cradock went up the Chilean coast and picked up Leipzig's radio in the vicinity. Not knowing von Spee was in the neighborhood due to the lag in communications, he went looking for Leipzig, which his squadron was quite capable of doing. But unfortunately for him, he found all the Germans. The Admiralty, meanwhile, had gotten (after some delay) Cradock's last batch of messages, realized his danger, and sent more clear instructions. However, Cradock had left in pursuit of Leipzig long before they arrived, so never received them.

Now picture yourself in Cradock's sea boots. You think you're about to come to grips with 1, maybe 2 old PCs, which your squadron is quite capable of handling. But oops, there's von Spee and all his posse. Not only is he more powerful than you are, he's also faster, so you can't escape. Not only do you have to fight, you're probably going to get your ass kicked. However, for the next couple of hours, the sun favors you, but this will reverse thereafter. You also know that the Germans have nowhere closer than Wilhelmshaven where they can make any meaninful repairs or reammunition, so anything you do to them now is really going to hurt them in the long run.

So, what do you do?

IMHO, here's where the question of acceptable casualties comes in. You basically have 2 options: run away while scattering your force, or attacking now while you have the sun in your favor. If you run and scatter, it's likely at least 1, probably 2 of your ships are doomed before it gets too dark to fight, and they will go down individually so have little chance of inflicting much damage in return. That's not acceptable casualties. But if you attack now, while you might lose everything, you might also inflict telling damage on von Spee. If that happens, then you've taken acceptable casualites because you will probably put von Spee into internment due to irreparable damage. You're dead, he's alive, but to the people who sign your paychecks, it's a fair exchange of casualties. Spee is just as out of the game whether he's interned or sunk.

As I said above, sometimes there's nothing for it but to charge uphill into entrenched machineguns. IMHO, Cradock faced one of those situations. But anything he managed to do to von Spee was potentially a game-ender, and the only way to achieve that was to go all-out. Unfortunately for him, von Spee wasn't stupid and could tell what the sun was doing just as well as Cradock. So von Spee used his superior speed to stay out of reach until conditions shifted to his favor.

Thus, in the end, Cradock lost 2 ships and did insignificant damage on von Spee. That's the same result as if Cradock had run and scattered, but at least doing things as he did, he had a chance of accomplishing more. But chances don't always pan out--that's why they're called chances instead of certainties. Still, I can't fault the man for taking them, nor do I see anything remote or alien in his weighing of the odds.

IOW, I see no reason whatsoever to invoke concepts of honor or memories of Troubridge to explain Cradock. Given the hand he was dealt, logically he shouldn't have played it any other way. And who among us here hasn't done the same thing in the games? You've got Koreyets and run into the Chitose group, or Atago and run into Askold. Or a 30-knotter on patrol meeting I.SG. Don't tell me you don't try to inflict as much damage on the enemy as possible before you're blown to bits, in the knowledge that this MIGHT make things easier for your other units tomorrow.
 

Cradock

Recruit
Joined
Apr 7, 2011
Messages
6
Reaction score
0
Location
London
Country
ll
Feel compelled to reply given my username! We know Cradock had Troubridge in mind - he left a letter for a friend saying that was exactly what he was thinking about.

Cradock thought Canopus was useless and he was better placed to judge than anyone. With her he would have been completely unable to bring von Spee to battle given how slow she was. Canopus was useless - her 12 inch guns were an old type outranged by both Good Hope's 9.2's and the German 8.2's. Scharnhorst and Gneisenau were both champion gunnery ships. Canopus' main belt was no thicker than the AC's present. She was manned by reservists like Monmouth and Good Hope.

Apparently von Spee thought the battleship Cradock had was a Queen class - markedly better than a Canopus (much heavier armour and a more modern type 12 inch guns). He apparently commented that had Cradock had his battleship with him the result would have been different. This says something interesting about the mentality of many naval officers of the time - why would he have lost? Whether it was a Queen or a Canopus he could easily have run away!

With hindsight I think had Canopus been present she would also have been sunk or badly battered and her 12 inch guns (lucky hit aside) would not have helped things much - their shooting would have been slow and inaccurate, and if I remember rightly were mounted in open topped barbettes(?). But might be interesting to model in the DG engine - as long as the facts were properly modelled - all but Glasgow manned by reservists, Monmouth barely able to use her main armament due to the heavy sea, Canopus' guns being old type, S&G being excellent shooting ships
 

saddletank

Forum Conscript
Joined
Jul 3, 2006
Messages
1,461
Reaction score
3
Location
UK
Country
ll
Canopus had turrets. I also think her armour would have been very hard for the S&G's 8.2's to defeat and 1 hit from her 12" could hjave made von Spee's life very difficult so far from any base of repair. They were no slower firing than any other pre-dreadnought the RN had and 8 of them stood in the front line fleet at this time. Von Spee used up nearly half of S&Gs ammunition sinking Monmouth and Good Hope, if he had stayed out of range of Canopus' guns and tried to engage he would have fired off much more and possibly with little effect.

I think if Cradock had gathered his squadron around Canopus then von Spee would not have sought battle.

This however brings up the question - what then? Von Spee would have steamed around Cradock+Canopus and Cradock would have failed in his duty, barring sending Glasgow in pursuit and Otranto into the nearest port to telegraph dispatches to London.
 

Cradock

Recruit
Joined
Apr 7, 2011
Messages
6
Reaction score
0
Location
London
Country
ll
Canopus can't be compared to the Wobbly Eight - they were much more heavily armoured and had Mark IX 12 inch guns. These had much greater reach and did have a greater rate of fire - Canopus' guns needed returning to a fixed elevation for loading - I believe all the Canopus class other than the last one had this limitation - quoted rate of fire for Canopus' main guns in practice conditions something like 3 rounds every four mins - later pre-dreads something between 4 and 6?
 

saddletank

Forum Conscript
Joined
Jul 3, 2006
Messages
1,461
Reaction score
3
Location
UK
Country
ll
I don't think von Spee would take such facts into consideration, especially when he had no idea ANY battleship was there. It was a battleship. He had ACs, ergo, bug out. Go round and avoid. His job was to sink/capture/disrupt British trade and if posible get back home to Germany, not fight battleships.

Canopus, even if she could do only a few knots would, I think, have been enough for von Spee to have avoided her and saved the livess of several hundred RN reservists in Cradock's squadron.

The question is, what would Cradock have done seeing von Spee turn away and make a speed away that Canopus could not match?

Remember, hindsight, we need to set that aside.
 

Clive Dunn

Recruit
Joined
Aug 3, 2008
Messages
15
Reaction score
1
Location
Midlands
Country
ll
Canopus wasn't a WW1 "battleship", she was an obsolete pile of junk that had no reason to be anywhere near a proper fight, other than to make the OOB look a bit more even for a politician and then to be a useful excuse to justify Admiralty failings after the event.

I totally fail to see how an old battleship with 20 year old armour, low speed, low ROF and poor range on her main battery was any match for S+G. We'll never know if Spee would have declined a battle vs a British battleline including a Queen class ( from his perspective ), but we can guess the result if he'd accepted battle.
 

saddletank

Forum Conscript
Joined
Jul 3, 2006
Messages
1,461
Reaction score
3
Location
UK
Country
ll
My point remains. Why on earth would von Spee want to engage any big gunned ship when just one hit from her big guns could cripple one of his ships? He was a commerce raider, thousands of miles from home and any repair base, not Hipper in the North Sea.

It would have been folly to engage such a vessel. He would have avoided her.
 
Last edited:

By_The_Danube

Recruit
Joined
Nov 12, 2010
Messages
25
Reaction score
0
Location
Bucharest
Country
llRomania
I don't think he could. The winner of the battle - Coronel or Falklands, it doesn't matter - was the side with the higher speed.
 

PongoDeMer

Member
Joined
Feb 20, 2010
Messages
49
Reaction score
0
Location
Brentford
Country
llUnited States
Thus, in the end, Cradock lost 2 ships and did insignificant damage on von Spee.
Damage insignificant - agreed; however it is very significant that Von Spee's force expended half of their main gun ammunition at Coronel and as a result, S. and G. actually ran out of ammo in the battle of the Falklands. To all Cradock bashers, I woud contend that his sacrifice was not in vain. He was a truly gallant man.

De mortuis nil nisi bonum.

Pongo
 

Slider6

Member
Joined
Jan 16, 2008
Messages
329
Reaction score
5
Location
Rural
Country
llUnited States
I don't think he could. The winner of the battle - Coronel or Falklands, it doesn't matter - was the side with the higher speed.
Ah, the logic trap of the failed battlecruiser :) I do know what you mean, but it always seems to end up more complex than that.

Speed is great for sure. The ability to chose the time/place/conditions is the assumption.

Playing what if now, no matter the range of Canopus guns (my docs show a substantial 13,750 yards), I'm sure it would have been a comfort to Craddock to retreat his battered ships under. Thus german ammunition expended without the horific result?
 
Last edited:

Paladinus

Recruit
Joined
Mar 10, 2011
Messages
14
Reaction score
0
Location
Ruda Pabianicka
Country
llPoland
I totally fail to see how an old battleship with 20 year old armour, low speed, low ROF and poor range on her main battery was any match for S+G.
Just look here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sutduBL601w ;)

However during the II WW Royal Navy used slow, obsolete Revenge class battleships as protection against german raiders, so actually this might have worked with Canopus as well...
 

HMSWarspite

Member
Joined
Aug 13, 2006
Messages
650
Reaction score
1
Location
Bristol
Country
ll
Slightly different situation - the R class were guarding convoys, and you would have had to disable it to get uninterrupted access to the merchants. Even Bismark/Tirpitz would probably have shied away from engaging one, both due to orders and the risk of a lucky hit. Anything smaller would have legged it. Thus the R class does its job without firing a shot If Von Spee had any sense whatsoever, he would have realised that he was more valuable as a fleet in being, and getting any damage at all would finish his cruise for good. He achieves little concrete (other than PR - but see on) by defeating Cradock. I cannot see him risking it - it would have been a stalemate. He should have taken one look and legged it. Thus, Canopus could not do its job (assist in destroying Spee) like the R class could (protect the convoy), by just being there.

In addition, would 2 I class BC have been released quite so quickly had the 2 ACs not been lost? Thus I could constuct a situation where Canopus being there actually helps Spee... He sees her, and disappears off in to the Pacific (or even the Altantic), with no immediate risk of I class BCs in the area.
 

Bullethead

Storm Eagle Studios
Joined
Feb 18, 2006
Messages
3,890
Reaction score
3
Location
Wakefield, LA
Country
llUnited States
Damage insignificant - agreed; however it is very significant that Von Spee's force expended half of their main gun ammunition at Coronel and as a result, S. and G. actually ran out of ammo in the battle of the Falklands. To all Cradock bashers, I woud contend that his sacrifice was not in vain. He was a truly gallant man.
De mortuis nil nisi bonum.
Yup, I believe I mentioned reammunitioning :).

I myself don't fault Cradock at all. He got caught bringing a knife to a gunfight he didn't kinow was in the offing due to lagged communications and the misunderstandings that caused. Once he saw what he was up against, he realized he only had 1 chance, although small, and it didn't pan out. However, at the very least every German shell he absorbed was 1 less to be aimed at whoever came after him. It turned out to be Sturdee in ships designed specifically to smash things like von Spee's squadron, but a repeat of Coronel without Sturdeel would still have put von Spee into internment.

The question of Canopus' effect on von Spee, however, is a bit complicated. The only way Cradock would have had her with him is if he and Their Lordships had been on the same page. In that case, he'd have been aware of the master plan, which was for Cradock (backed up by Festung Canopus) to block the Horn and keep von Spee in the Pacific. This would have given von Spee 3 choices:
  • Be ground to dust between several converging RN-RAN-IJN units each rather more powerful than Cradock + Canopus;
  • Realize the game was over and seek internment without a fight somewhere in Chile; or
  • Try to force his way into the Atlantic through Cradock, Canopus and all, without his necessary refueling stop in the vicinity of the Horn due to Cradock having taken care of that in advance.
And all this accomplished without having to dispatch Sturdee at all. He only went because of Coronel.

I think this is what von Spee meant when he said things would have been different if Cradock had had Canopus with him. Actually, due to the latter's slow speed, Canopus would have had Cradock with her and the whole strategic situation would have been different, being rather dubious for von Spee's prospects no matter what he did. I figure von Spee would have just called it a war (which was supposed to be over by Christmas anyway) and taken a siesta in Chile.
 

Cradock

Recruit
Joined
Apr 7, 2011
Messages
6
Reaction score
0
Location
London
Country
ll
Just look here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sutduBL601w ;)

However during the II WW Royal Navy used slow, obsolete Revenge class battleships as protection against german raiders, so actually this might have worked with Canopus as well...
Nice piece of footage from You Tube but not particularly an argument for Canopus - Renown was still clearly a "big bad" for the WW2 S&G - professionally manned, more seaworthy in the heavy seas, armed with the absolute design classic Mark I 15" guns vs the German 11" guns. No idea how good German intelligence was but also with the RN having Repulse and four battleships, 3 aircraft carriers etc. all operating in Norwegian waters and given German naval tactical doctrine in WW2 absolutely no surprise they scarpered.

We might suspect that a sensible von Spee would have also withdrawn faced with Cradock having Canopus, but WW1 was full of what maybe today looks like lunacy, on land, sea and in the air.

Coming back more firmly to topic, with duty done and battle lost, one Royal Navy officer that day did decide better to live to fight another day, John Luce, commanding the only professionally manned RN ship that day, it's a nice twist to the story that she was then present at the Battle of the Falklands and nearly 6 months after Coronel was also present when the last of von Spee's light cruisers was run to ground.
 

saddletank

Forum Conscript
Joined
Jul 3, 2006
Messages
1,461
Reaction score
3
Location
UK
Country
ll
Luce of course was ordered away, by Cradock himself, as was Otranto.
 
Top