The combat path of the "big" cruiser "Blucher" was very short - the shells of the British battlecruisers quickly put an end to his not-so-bright career. A small episode in the Baltic Sea, when Blucher managed to fire several volleys at Bayan and Pallas, return to Wilhelmshaven, shelling of Yarmouth, raids on Whitby, Hartpool and Skarbro and, finally, a sortie to Dogger Bank, which became fatal for German cruiser.
Let's start with the Baltic, or rather, with an unsuccessful attempt by the Blucher to intercept two Russian armored cruisers, which took place on August 24, 1914. Bayan and Pallada were on patrol at Daguerort, finding there the German light cruiser Augsburg, which traditionally tried to captivate behind them the Russian ships are trapped. Nevertheless, "Bayan" and "Pallada" did not accept such a kind "invitation", and, as it soon became clear, they did the right thing, because at 16.30 at a distance of 220 cables a German detachment, led by the cruiser "Blucher", was discovered. It must be said that the Russian signalmen mistook him for "Molke", which is not surprising due to the well-known similarity of their silhouettes, but there was no difference for "Bayan" and "Pallada".
With eight 210-mm guns in an onboard salvo, Blucher was twice as large as both Russian cruisers combined (four 203-mm guns) at a long distance, especially since it is easier to control the fire of one ship than a combination of two ships. Of course, having a very solid booking, the Pallada and Bayan could have been under the Blucher fire for some time, but they could not defeat him, and there was no point in getting involved with him in battle for the Russian cruisers.
Therefore, "Bayan" and "Pallada" turned towards the throat of the Gulf of Finland, and "Blucher" rushed in pursuit. All sources note the high speed of the Blucher, which he demonstrated not only on the measured mile, but also in daily operation, and this Baltic episode is a good confirmation of this. Judging by the descriptions, it was like this - At 16.30 the Russians, following at a speed of 15 knots, saw the Germans. For some time the ships continued to approach each other, and then, when the enemy was identified on the Pallas and Bayan, the Russian detachment turned to retreat. At the same time, "Blucher" developed full speed (it is indicated that this happened at 4:45 pm) and turned in the direction of the Russians. The distance between the opponents was rapidly shortening, and after 15 minutes (by 17.00) the distance between the ships was 115 cables. Realizing the danger of further rapprochement, the Russian cruisers increased their speed to 19 catch, but at 17.22 Blucher nevertheless approached them by 95 kbt and opened fire.
"Blucher" operated very close to the bases of the Russian fleet, which could well go to sea, and its commander, in any case, expected to meet Russian patrol cruisers. This suggests that "Blucher" followed in full readiness to give full speed, which, however, still takes some time on a steam ship. Therefore, it is not surprising that the Blucher, according to Russian observers, went full speed 15 minutes after eye contact, although it cannot be ruled out that it took him a little longer. But in any case, in 22 minutes (from 17.00 to 17.22), it approached the Russian cruisers at 19 knots by about 2 miles, which required a speed of 24 knots or even more from the Blucher (in order to accurately calculate the speed of the Blucher ", Requires plotting ship courses during this episode).
However, the high speed "Blucher" did not help - the Russian cruisers managed to retreat.
The raids on Yarmouth and Hartlepool are of little interest for the simple reason that no serious military clashes occurred during these operations. An exception is the episode of the confrontation of the Hartlepool coastal battery, which was armed with as many as three 152-mm guns. Fighting the Moltke, Seydlitz and Blucher, the battery used up 123 shells, achieving 8 hits, which was 6.5% of the total number of spent shells! Of course, this brilliant result had no practical significance, since the six-inch guns could only scratch the German cruisers, but they did it anyway. Six of the eight hits fell on the Blucher, killing nine people and injuring three.
And then the Battle of Dogger Bank took place.
In principle, if we briefly summarize the bulk of domestic publications, this clash of battlecruisers from Germany and England looks like this. The Germans, after Yarmouth and Hartlepool, planned a raid on the Furd of Forth, Scotland, but canceled it due to bad weather. Due to this, the German fleet in the North Sea was greatly weakened, because the Von der Tann, taking this opportunity, was docked for repairs, which it needed, and the main power of the Hochseeflot was the 3rd line squadron, which consisted of the latest dreadnoughts of the "Koenig" and "Kaiser" types were sent to undergo a combat training course in the Baltic.
But suddenly the weather cleared up, and the command of the hochseeflotte nevertheless took the risk of making a sortie to Dogger Bank. This was dangerous, because against the five British battlecruisers, whose presence the Germans knew, the 1st reconnaissance group of Rear Admiral Hipper had only three, and also the Blucher, which was completely unsuitable for battle with the British battlecruisers. Nevertheless, the commander of the German High Seas Fleet, Rear Admiral Ingenol, considered the sortie possible, because he knew that the British fleet was out to sea on the eve of the German raid, and now, obviously, needed bunkering, i.e. replenishment of fuel supplies. Ingenol did not consider it necessary to withdraw the main forces of the fleet to provide long-range cover for his battle cruisers, since he believed that the large-scale exit of the fleet would not go unnoticed and would alert the British.
The German plan became known in England through the work of "room 40", which was the British radio intelligence service. This was all the easier because the British at the beginning of the war received from the Russians copies of cipher tables, codes and signal books from the cruiser Magdeburg, which had an accident on the rocks off the island of Odensholm. But in any case, the British knew about German intentions and prepared a trap - at Dogger Banka, Rear Admiral Hipper's squadron was awaiting the very five battle cruisers with which he feared, but so far successfully avoided.
Hipper did not accept the battle - finding the enemy, he began to retreat, recklessly placing the most weakly defended "Blucher" at the rear of the column of German battle cruisers. Here, as a rule, they recall the Japanese, who knew that in battle both the head and the end battleship or the cruiser of the column always had a good chance of being hit by strong enemy fire, and therefore, in the battles of the Russo-Japanese War, they tried to put the trailing arms sufficiently powerful and well protected ships. Rear Admiral Hipper did not do this, which means he made a big and difficult to explain mistake.
As a result, the fire of British ships focused on the Blucher, it received a fatal hit, fell behind and was doomed to death. However, Beatty's flagship, battlecruiser Lion, was damaged and out of action. Due to a misunderstood signal from the flagship, the British battlecruisers, instead of pursuing the retreating Derflinger, Seidlitz and Moltke, attacked the lagging Blucher with all their might, and that, receiving 70-100 shell hits and 7 torpedoes, went to the bottom without lowering the flag. As a result, the last battle of "Blucher" became evidence not only of the heroism of the German sailors, which is absolutely indisputable, because the cruiser, left alone, fought to the last opportunity and died without lowering the flag in front of the enemy, but also the highest professionalism of the German shipbuilders who designed and built such a tenacious ship.
It seems that everything is simple and logical, but in fact, the battle at the Dogger Bank is replete with many questions that can hardly be expected to be answered, including in this article. To begin with, consider the decision of Rear Admiral Hipper to put the Blucher as the rearmost, ie. at the end of the line. On the one hand, it seems to be stupidity, but on the other …
The fact is that "Blucher", wherever you put it, did not work well from the word "absolutely". In a naval battle, both the British and the Germans did not seek to concentrate the fire of all ships on one target, but preferred to fight "one-on-one," that is, their lead ship fought against the lead enemy, the next one after the lead was to fight the second ship in the enemy line, etc. The concentration of fire from two or more ships was usually carried out when the enemy was outnumbered or in case of poor visibility. The British had four battlecruisers with 343-mm artillery, and in the event of a "correct" battle, "Blucher" had to fight against one of the "Lyons", which should have ended in the most deplorable way for him.
In other words, the only role that Blucher could play in the line of battle cruisers is to pull off the fire of one of them for a while, thereby making the battle easier for the rest of the German ships. On the other hand, ships sometimes need to undergo repairs, the author of this article does not know whether the Germans knew that Queen Mary could not participate in the battle, but if suddenly Hipper's detachment turns out to be not four, but only three British 343-mm "Battle cruisers, then" Blucher "will have to" duel "with a ship with 305-mm artillery, which may allow him to live a little longer. But the most important thing is that it is not the place in the ranks that is important, but the position relative to the enemy, and in this respect the actions of Rear Admiral Hipper are very interesting.
To conduct a decisive battle with three battle cruisers against five was completely out of hand for the commander of the 1st reconnaissance group. This is all the more true since Hipper could not know who was following Beatty's ships, while he knew for sure that Ingenol's battleships did not cover him himself. On the other hand, it made sense to retreat exactly in the direction from which the dreadnoughts of the open sea could have come from, which, in general, predetermined Hipper's tactics. Finding the enemy, he turned away, seemingly putting the Blucher under the fire of British cruisers, but … without going into the details of maneuvering, let us pay attention to the configuration in which the detachments of Beatty and Hipper entered the battle.
Well, yes, Hipper turned home, but, having done so, he turned in a formation of bearing. As a result of this, indeed, in the outset of the battle, the fire of the leading British ships had to concentrate on the Blucher. However, the fact is that with a reduction in distance (and that the British cruisers are faster, Hipper hardly doubted) Beatty's most dangerous 343-mm head cruisers would transfer fire to Derflinger, Moltke and Seidlitz. In other words, Hipper really put the Blucher under the focus of enemy fire, but not for long and from extreme distances, then the fire of the most terrible British "Lion", "Tiger" and "Princess Royal" was supposed to focus on his battlecruisers. In addition, there was a certain hope that the smoke of Hipper's lead ships, as the 1st squadron of Beatty's battlecruisers approached, would at least slightly shield the Blucher from the intrusive attention of the British gunners.
Now let's remember the actions of the British in that battle. At 0730, Beatty's battlecruisers discovered Hipper's main forces, while they were on the port side of the British. Theoretically, nothing prevented the British admiral from "turning on the afterburner" and getting closer to the terminal German "Blucher", after which the latter would not have saved any ledge formation performed by Hipper. But the British did not. Instead, they, in fact, went on a course parallel to the Germans and added speed, as if accepting the rules of the game proposed by the German rear admiral. Why is that? Was the British commander, Rear Admiral David Beatty, struck by a sudden clouding of his mind?
Not at all, Beatty did it perfectly right. Following a parallel course to the German detachment and realizing his superiority in speed, Beatty had the hope of cutting off Hipper from his base, and in addition, the direction of the wind with such a maneuver would provide the best shooting conditions for the battle cruisers of the British - and all these considerations were much more significant than the opportunity "Roll out" the German terminal. Therefore, approaching the German detachment of 100 cables, at 08.52 Beatty also rebuilt his cruisers in ledge formation - thus the smoke of his ships drifted to where he could not interfere with the next British ship.
And here is the result - at 09.05 the British flagship Lion began to fire at the Blucher, but after a quarter of an hour (at 09.20), when the distance was reduced to 90 cables, he shifted fire to the Derflinger following it. The next Tiger, the second in the British formation, began firing at the Blucher and was joined by the Princess Royal shortly thereafter. However, after only a few minutes (the author does not know the exact time, but the distance was reduced to 87 kabs, which probably corresponds to 5-7, but no more than 10 minutes), Beatty gave the order "to fire the corresponding ships of the enemy column", that is, now the Lion was firing at Rear Admiral Hipper's flagship Seydlitz, the Tiger was to fire at the Moltke, and the Princess Royal concentrated on the Derflinger. Blucher was supposed to be fired by New Zealand, but they and Indomiteble lagged behind the faster Admiral Fischer's cats, and besides, their guns and rangefinders did not allow effective long-range combat. As a result, the end ship of the Germans was in the best position of all four "big cruisers" of Rear Admiral Hipper.
The thing is that under the intense fire of the British "Blucher" was only a short period of time, from 09.05 to approximately 09.25-09.27, after which the "343-mm" cruisers Beatty transferred fire to other German ships, and the lagging Indomiteable "And" New Zealand "did not reach the" Blucher ". Thus, during the battle, "Blucher", in spite of the fact that it closed the formation, remained almost the most unprotected German ship - it was "paid attention" to it only if some German battle cruiser was hiding in the smoke like this that it became impossible to direct on it. And, of course, as soon as the opportunity arose, the fire was again transferred to the Derflinger or Seydlitz. The only ship that was in an even more advantageous position was the Moltke, but this is not Hipper's merit, but a consequence of an English mistake - when Beatty ordered the appropriate ships to be fired on, he meant that the bill came from the lead ship: Lyon should shoot at Seydlitz, Tiger at Moltke, etc., but Tiger decided that the score was from the end of the column, ie. the rear Indomiteable should concentrate fire on Blucher, New Zeeland on Dreflinger, and so on, while Tiger and Lyon focus their fire on Seidlitz. But "Seydlitz" from the "Tiger" was poorly visible, so the newest English battle cruiser did not shoot at it for long, transferring fire to the Derflinger, then to the Blucher.
Judging by the descriptions of the battle, until the moment when the three "343-mm" battlecruisers of the British concentrated their fire on the "Derflinger" and "Seidlitz", "Blucher" received only one hit - in the stern, probably from the "Lion". Some sources indicate that this hit did not cause significant damage, but others (such as von Haase) write that the Blucher after that noticeably sat down aft - most likely, the explosion of a 343-mm projectile caused flooding. But in any case, the ship kept its course and combat effectiveness, so that the specified hit did not solve anything.
It is absolutely impossible to say whether the German commander was guided by the above considerations, or whether it happened on its own, but as a result of the tactics he chose, starting from about 09.27 to 10.48, i.e. for nearly an hour and a half, the Blucher was out of focus of British fire. As you can imagine, he was periodically shot at by "Tiger" and "Princess Royal", while the "Princess" probably achieved one hit. Accordingly, there is no reason to believe that Hipper's decision to place the Blucher at the rear of the column was wrong.
Nevertheless, a battle is a battle, and sometimes the Blucher still came under fire. As a result, at 10.48 the ship had its third hit, which became fatal for it. A heavy 343-mm projectile pierced the armored deck in the center of the ship, or perhaps (very similar to this) exploded at the moment the armor passed. And here is the result - as a result of a single hit in the "miracle of German technology" on "Blucher":
1) A strong fire broke out, the personnel of the two front side towers died (similar to the damage to the aft towers of the Seydlitz in the same battle;
2) Steering control, machine telegraph, fire control system are out of order;
3) The main steam line of the boiler room No. 3 is damaged, causing the cruiser's speed to drop to 17 knots.
Why did this happen? In order for the cruiser to develop 25 knots, it was necessary to install a super-powerful steam engine on it, but it took up a large volume, leaving too little space for the other premises of the ship. As a result, "Blucher" received a highly original arrangement of the cellars of the main caliber turrets located on the sides.
Typically, ammunition stores are located directly at the tower feed pipes (barbets), deep inside the ship's hull and below the waterline. However, such a placement on the Blucher could not be realized, as a result of the four towers located in the middle of the hull, the two bow ones did not have artillery cellars, and shells and charges for them were fed from the cellars of the aft towers through a special corridor located directly under the armored deck. According to sources, at the time of the hit of the British shell in the corridor was and caught fire from 35 to 40 charges, which caused a huge fire that spread to the bow towers and destroyed their personnel.
Why did the machine telegraph, steering and OMS fail? Yes, for the simple reason that they were all laid along the same corridor along which the delivery of ammunition to the two "side-bow" towers was organized. In other words, the Blucher designers managed to create an extremely vulnerable spot, hitting which led to the immediate failure of the ship's main systems, and the Germans paid for this in the battle at Dogger Bank. A single British shell reduced the Blucher's combat effectiveness by 70 percent, if not more, and actually doomed it to death, because with the loss of speed, the ship was doomed. He fell out of order and went north - the lack of progress and the failed steering prevented the ship from returning to service.
So, at 10.48 the British knocked out of the German line "Blucher", but after some four minutes, another hit in the flagship "Lion" put it out of action - its speed dropped to 15 knots. And here a number of events took place, important for understanding what happened to Blucher afterwards.
Two minutes after the impact of the knocked-out Lion, Rear Admiral Beatty personally "saw" the submarine's periscope to the right of the flagship, although, of course, there was no submarine. But to avoid her torpedoes, Beatty ordered to raise the signal "turn 8 points () to the left." Following the new course, Beatty's ships would pass under the stern of Hipper's column, while the German battlecruisers would move away from the British. However, this signal was not noticed on the Tiger and other British ships, and they continued to move forward, catching up with Hipper's battle cruisers.
At this moment, the German rear admiral made an attempt to save the Blucher, or perhaps, noticing the damage to the lead British ship, he considered this moment appropriate for a torpedo attack. He turns a few points in the direction of the British battle cruisers catching up with him, and gives the appropriate order to his destroyers.
The British admiral is completely satisfied with this behavior of the Germans. By 11.03 Beatty already knows that the damage to his flagship cannot be repaired quickly, and he must move to another ship. Therefore, he orders to raise flag signals (the radio had already gone out of order by that time): "attack the tail of the enemy column" and "get closer to the enemy", and then, in order to avoid misunderstandings, also a third signal, clarifying the course of the British battle cruisers (north East). Thus, Beatty orders his squadron to go directly to the battlecruisers Hipper, who have turned their backs on its course.
Well, then the oxymoron begins. Before raising new signals, flagship signalman Beatty had to lower the previous one ("turn 8 points to the left"), but he forgot to do it. As a result, on the Tiger and other battle cruisers of the British they saw signals: "Turn 8 points to the left", "Attack the tail of the enemy column" and "Get closer to the enemy", but the order for a new course to the northeast (towards Hipper) did not saw. The first order moves the British ships away from Hipper's battlecruisers, but brings them closer to the Blucher, which by this time was able to somehow cope with problems in the steering and was trying to follow the rest of the German ships. How else could the battlecruiser commanders and Admiral Moore interpret Beatty's order? Probably not. Although … there are still nuances, but it makes sense to analyze them in a separate series of articles devoted to the battle at the Dogger Bank, but here we are still considering the combat stability of the Blucher.
And now, having misinterpreted the intentions of their flagship, four English battle cruisers go to finish off the Blucher - this happens already at the beginning of twelve o'clock. The British new course separates them from the main forces of Hipper and makes a pointless attempt at a torpedo attack, so Hipper, seeing that he can do nothing more to help the Blucher, lays down on the opposite course and leaves the battle.
The fire of British ships concentrates on the Blucher from about 11.10, and at 12.13 the Blucher goes to the bottom. In fact, it is doubtful that the British continued to shoot at the already capsized ship, so we can say that the intense fire of the British ships continued, probably from 11.10 to 12.05 or about an hour. At the same time, the British were catching up with "Blucher" - at 11.10 the distance to it was 80 cables, what it was before the death of "Blucher", unfortunately, is unknown.
And here it turns out quite interesting. For more than an hour and a half, three British battlecruisers fired primarily on the Seydlitz and Derflinger and achieved three hits each, in addition, the Princess Royal hit the Blucher twice. And then, four British cruisers, shooting at one target, achieve 67-97 hits in 55 minutes ?!
In the battle of Dogger Bank, two British battlecruisers armed with 305-mm guns practically did not take part, because they could not maintain the speed available to the Lyon, Tiger and Princess Royal, and fell behind. In fact, they entered the battle only when the Blucher had already received its fatal hit and fell behind, that is, not long before all the British battle cruisers rushed to the Blucher. At the same time, New Zealand used 147 305-mm shells, and Indomiteable - 134 shells. It is not known for certain how much the Princess Royal and Tiger spent between 11.10 and 12.05, but for the entire three-hour battle, the Princess Royal spent 271 shells, and the Tiger - 355 shells, and in total, it turns out 628 shells. Assuming that in the period from 11.10 to 12.05, i.e. in 55 minutes they used up a maximum of 40% of the total shell consumption, we get about 125 shells for each ship.
Then it turns out that during the concentration of fire on the "Blucher" four British battle cruisers used up 531 shells. We are more or less reliably aware of three hits on the Blucher, made before 11.10, taking into account the real effectiveness of the firing of British ships at the Derflinger and Seidlitz, this number looks realistic - the battle cruisers of the Germans received the same amount each. It is possible, of course, that another two or three British shells hit the Blucher, but this is doubtful. Accordingly, in order to ensure the very same 70-100 hits, wandering from source to source, in the period from 11.10 to 12.05 it was necessary to hit the Blucher at least 65-95 times. The percentage of hits in this case should have been completely unrealistic 12, 24 - 17, 89%! Do I need to remind you that the Royal Navy never demonstrated such results in battle?
In the battle with the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, the British battle cruisers used up 1,174,305-mm shells and achieved, perhaps, 64-69 hits (nevertheless, no one dived to the skeletons of the German armored cruisers and did not count the hits). Even if we assume that all these hits were exactly 305-mm, and taking into account the fact that at the very beginning of the battle the battlecruisers fired at Leipzig, the percentage of hits does not exceed 5.5-6%. But there, in the end, the same situation developed as with the "Blucher" - the British from short distances shot the helpless "Gneisenau". In the Battle of Jutland, the best "command" result was demonstrated by the British 3rd battle cruiser squadron - 4, 56%. In the "individual standings", the British battleship "Royal Oak" is probably leading with 7, 89% of hits, but here you need to understand that this result may be incorrect, because it is very difficult to guess from which battleship the heavy "gift" came - it may well be that some of the hits did not belong to the Royal Oak, but to other British battleships.
But in any case, no British battleship or cruiser achieved a hit rate of 12-18% in battle.
Now let's remember that foreign sources do not have a common opinion on this matter and along with "70-100 hits + 7 torpedoes" there are much more balanced estimates - for example, Conway writes about 50 hits and two torpedoes. Let's check these figures according to our method - if we assume that Blucher received only 3 shells before 11.10, it turns out that in the next 55 minutes it received 47 hits, which is 8, 85% of the 531 shells we calculated. In other words, even this number sets an absolute record for the accuracy of shooting of the Royal Navy, despite the fact that it was Beatty's cruisers in all other cases (Jutland, shooting at the Dogger Bank at Derflinger and Seidlitz) showed many times worse results.
The personal opinion of the author of this article (which he, of course, does not impose on anyone) - most likely, the British got into the Blucher before 11.10 three times, and later, when they finished off the cruiser, they achieved an accuracy of 5-6%, which gives another 27-32 hits, i.e. the total number of shells hitting Blucher does not exceed 30-35. He rolled over from the consequences of flooding caused by the first 343-mm projectile hitting him in the stern (after which the ship sat astern) and hit by two torpedoes. But even if we take an intermediate estimate of 50 hits (Conway), then the reconstruction of the last battle of the Blucher still looks like this - in the first 20-25 minutes of the battle, all three 343-mm British cruisers in turn fired at it, having achieved one hit, then, for an hour and a half, the cruiser was not a priority target for the British and only one shell hit it. By the way, it will be said that shortly before the decisive, third hit, Blucher reported to Seydlitz about a malfunction in the car. Is this a consequence of the second hit? At 10.48, the Blucher hits a projectile from the Princess Royal, which knocks out everything that is possible (machine telegraph, control system, rudders, two main turrets) and reduces its speed to 17 knots. At 11.10 am, the attack on the Blucher by four British battlecruisers begins from a distance of about 80 cables, which lasts about 55 minutes, while at least half of this time, while the distance has not decreased, the number of hits on the Blucher is hardly amazing. But then the enemies nevertheless approach each other and in the last 20-25 minutes of the battle from small distances they literally stuff the German cruiser with shells, as a result of which it dies.
And if the author is right in his assumptions, then we have to admit that the German "big" cruiser "Blucher" did not demonstrate any amazing "super-survivability" in its last battle - it fought and died as one would expect from a large armored cruiser in 15,000 tons displacement. The English cruisers, of course, lacked a smaller one, but they were let down by the British cordite, which is prone to detonation when ignited, and besides, one should never forget that the Germans had excellent armor-piercing shells, but the British did not.
