In the last article, we examined in detail the technical characteristics of the cruisers of the Invincible project, and now we will figure out how they showed themselves in battle, and finally summarize the results of this cycle.
The first battle, near the Falklands, with the German squadron of Maximilian von Spee, is described in sufficient detail in numerous sources, and today we will not dwell on it in detail (especially since the author of this article plans to make a cycle on the history of the raiding squadron of von Spee), but let's note some of the nuances.
Oddly enough, despite the advantage in the caliber of guns, neither the Invincible nor the Inflexible had an advantage in firing range over the German cruisers. As we have already said, the firing range of the 305-mm artillery of the first British battle cruisers was about 80, 7 cables. At the same time, the German turret mounts of 210 mm guns had about 10% more - 88 cables. True, the casemate 210-mm cannons of the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau had a lower elevation angle and could only fire at 67 cables.
Therefore, with all the inequality of forces, the battle still did not become a "one-sided game". This is evidenced by the fact that the British commander Sturdy considered himself compelled to break the distance and go beyond the reach of German guns just 19 minutes after the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau opened fire on the British battle cruisers. Of course, he came back later …
In general, during the battle of the German armored and British battle cruisers, the following became clear.
First, the British were bad at shooting at distances close to the limit. In the first hour, Inflexible used 150 shells at a distance of 70-80 cables, of which at least 4, but hardly more than 6-8 were fired at the light cruiser Leipzig, which closed the German column, and the rest at Gneisenau. At the same time, in the opinion of the British, 3 hits in the "Gneisenau" were achieved - whether it is or not is difficult to judge, because in battle you often see what you want, and not what actually happens. On the other hand, Infelxible's senior artillery officer, Commander Werner, kept detailed records of the hits on the Gneisenau, and then, after the battle, interrogated the rescued officers from the Gneisenau. But it should be understood that this method did not guarantee any complete reliability, since the German officers, accepting mortal combat, experienced severe stress, and yet they still had to fulfill their official duties. At the same time, they, of course, could not keep track of the effectiveness of British shooting. Assuming that during this period of the battle, the British still managed to achieve 2-3 hits in the "Gneisenau" with a consumption of 142-146 shells on it, we have a percentage of hits equal to 1, 37-2, 11, and this, in general, is almost in ideal shooting conditions.
Secondly, we are forced to state the disgusting quality of the British shells. According to the British, they achieved 29 hits at Gneisenau and 35-40 hits at Scharnhorst. In the Battle of Jutland (according to Puzyrevsky's data), 7 hits of large-caliber shells were needed to destroy the Defense, the Black Prince - 15, and the Warrior, having received 15 305-mm and 6 150-mm shells, eventually died too, although the team fought for the cruiser for another 13 hours. It is also worth noting that the Scharnhorst-class armored cruisers had armor protection, even slightly weaker than the Invincible-class battlecruisers, and the Germans did not spend as many shells on a single British battle cruiser that died in Jutland as on the ships of the squadron von Spee. And finally, you can remember Tsushima. Although the number of 12-inch Japanese "suitcases" hitting Russian ships is unknown, the Japanese used up a 446,305-mm projectile in that battle, and even if we assume a record 20% of hits, even then their total number does not exceed 90 - but for the whole squadron, despite the fact that the battleships of the "Borodino" type were protected by armor much better than the German armored cruisers.
Apparently, the reason for the low effectiveness of the British shells was their filling. According to the peacetime state, the Invincible relied on 80 shells per 305-mm gun, of which there were 24 armor-piercing, 40 semi-armor-piercing and 16 high-explosive, and only high-explosive shells were equipped with liddite, and the rest with black powder. In wartime, the number of shells per gun increased to 110, but the proportion between the types of shells remained the same. Of the total of 1,174 shells that the British used up on German ships, there were only 200 high-explosive shells (39 shells from the Invincible and 161 shells from the Inflexible). At the same time, each fleet sought to use high-explosive shells from the maximum distance, from where they did not expect to pierce the armor, and as they approached, they switched to armor-piercing, and it can be assumed (although this is not known for sure) that the British used up their land mines in the first phase of the battle, when the accuracy of their hits left much to be desired, and the bulk of the hits were given by shells equipped with black powder.
Thirdly, once again it became clear that a warship is a fusion of defensive and offensive qualities, the competent combination of which allows it (or does not allow) to successfully solve the assigned tasks. The Germans in their last battle fired very accurately, having achieved 22 (or, according to other sources, 23) hits in the Invincible and 3 hits in the Inflexible - this, of course, is less than that of the British, but, unlike the British, the Germans this battle was lost, and it is impossible to demand from the German ships, beaten in the trash, the effectiveness of the almost unharmed English ships. Of the 22 hits in the Invincible, 12 were made by 210-mm shells, another 6 - 150-mm, in another 4 (or five) cases, the caliber of the shells could not be determined. In this case, 11 shells hit the deck, 4 - side armor, 3 - unarmored side, 2 hit below the waterline, one hit the frontal plate of the 305-mm turret (the turret remained in service) and another shell interrupted one of the three "legs" of the British mast … Nevertheless, the Invincible did not receive any damage that threatened the ship's combat capability. Thus, the battlecruisers of the Invincible demonstrated the ability to effectively destroy the armored cruisers of the old type, inflicting decisive damage on them with their 305-mm shells at distances from which the latter's artillery was not dangerous for the battlecruisers.
The battles at Dogger Bank and Heligoland Bight add nothing to the fighting qualities of the first British battlecruisers. The Indomiteable fought at Dogger Bank
But he failed to prove himself. It turned out that the speed of 25.5 knots was already insufficient for full participation in the operations of battlecruisers, so in battle both he and the second "twelve-inch" battlecruiser New Zealand lagged behind the main forces of Admiral Beatty. Accordingly, the Indomiteble did not cause any harm to the newest battle cruisers of the Germans, but only took part in the shooting of the Blucher, which was knocked out by 343-mm shells. Who also managed to respond with one 210-mm projectile, which did not cause any damage to the English cruiser (ricochet). The Invincible took part in the battle in Heligoland Bay, but that time the British battlecruisers did not face an equal enemy.
The battle of Jutland is a different matter.
All three ships of this type took part in this battle, as part of the 3rd battlecruiser squadron under the command of Rear Admiral O. Hood, who commanded the forces entrusted to him with skill and valor.
Having received the order to link up with the cruisers of David Beatty, O. Hood led his squadron forward. The light cruisers of the 2nd Reconnaissance Group were the first to come across, and at 17.50 from a distance of 49 cables Invincible and Inflexible opened fire and inflicted heavy damage on Wiesbaden and Pillau. The light cruisers were turned away, in order to let them escape, the Germans threw destroyers into the attack. At 18.05 O. Hood turned away, because with very poor visibility, such an attack really had a chance of success. Nevertheless, "Invincible" managed to damage "Wiesbaden" so that the latter lost its speed, which, subsequently, predetermined its death.
Then, at 18.10, the ships of D. Beatty were found on the 3rd squadron of battle cruisers, and at 18.21, O. Hood led his ships to the vanguard, taking a position in front of the flagship Lion. And at 18.20, German battlecruisers were discovered, and the 3rd squadron of battlecruisers opened fire on the Lyuttsov and Derflinger.
Here we need to make a small digression - the fact is that already during the war, the British fleet re-equipped with shells stuffed with liddite and the same "Invincible", according to the state, would have to carry 33 armor-piercing, 38 semi-armor-piercing and 39 high-explosive shells, and by the middle 1916 (but it is not clear whether they managed to reach Jutland), a new ammunition load of 44 armor-piercing, 33 semi-armor-piercing and 33 high-explosive shells was installed per gun. Nevertheless, according to the memoirs of the Germans (yes, that same Haase), the British also used shells filled with black powder in Jutland, that is, it can be assumed that not all British ships received liddite shells, and what exactly the 3rd squadron of battle cruisers fired with the author of this article does not know.
But on the other hand, the Germans noted that the British shells, as a rule, did not have armor-piercing qualities, since they exploded either at the moment of penetration of the armor, or immediately after the breakdown of the armor plate, without going deep into the hull. At the same time, the bursting force of the shells was large enough, and they made large holes in the sides of the German ships. However, since they did not penetrate into the hull, their impact was not as dangerous as that of classic armor-piercing shells.
At the same time, what is liddit? This is trinitrophenol, the very substance that was called melinitis in Russia and France, and shimose in Japan. This explosive is very susceptible to physical impact and could well detonate on its own at the moment of armor breakdown, even if the fuse of the armor-piercing projectile was set to the appropriate delay. For these reasons, liddite does not seem like a good solution for equipping it with armor-piercing shells, and therefore, no matter what the 3rd battle cruiser squadron in Jutland fired, there were no good armor-piercing shells among its ammunition.
But if the British had them, the final score of the Battle of Jutland might turn out to be somewhat different. The fact is that, having entered the battle with the German battle cruisers at a distance of no more than 54 cables, the British quickly reduced it and at some point were no further than 35 cables from the Germans, although then the distances increased. In fact, the question of the distances in this episode of the battle remains open, since the British started it (according to the British) at 42-54 cables, then (according to the Germans) the distances were reduced to 30-40 cables, but later, when the Germans saw “Invincible "he was 49 cables from them. It can be assumed that there was no rapprochement, but maybe it did exist. The fact is that O. Hood took an excellent position in relation to the German ships - due to the fact that visibility towards the British was much worse than towards the Germans, he could see the Lutzov and Derflinger well, but they did not. Therefore, it cannot be ruled out that O. Hood maneuvered so as to get as close as possible to the enemy, remaining invisible to him. To tell the truth, it is not entirely clear how he could determine whether the Germans saw him or not … In any case, one can state one thing - for some time the 3rd squadron of battle cruisers fought "with one goal." Here is how the senior artilleryman of the Derflinger von Haase describes the episode:
At 1824 hours I fired at the enemy battleships in the direction of the northeast. The distances were very small - 6000 - 7000 m (30-40 cab.), And, despite this, the ships disappeared in strips of fog, which slowly stretched interspersed with gunpowder smoke and smoke from chimneys.
Observing the falling shells was almost impossible. In general, only undershoots were visible. The enemy saw us much better than we saw him. I switched to shooting at range, but because of the fog it did not help much. Thus began an unequal, stubborn battle. Several large shells hit us and exploded inside the cruiser. The entire ship cracked at the seams and broke down several times to get away from the covers. It was not easy to shoot under such circumstances."
Under these conditions, in 9 minutes O. Hood's ships achieved excellent success, hitting the Lutzov with eight 305-mm shells, and the Derflinger with three. At the same time, it was at this time that "Luttsov" received blows, which, in the end, became fatal for him.
British shells hit the bow of the "Lyuttsov" under the armor belt, causing flooding of all bow compartments, water filtered into the artillery cellars of the bow towers. The ship almost immediately took over 2,000 tons of water, landed with a bow at 2.4 m and, due to the indicated damage, was soon forced to leave the system. Subsequently, it was these floods, which became uncontrollable, that caused the death of "Lyuttsov".
At the same time, one of the British shells that hit the Derflinger exploded in the water in front of 150mm gun # 1, causing deformation of the skin under the armor belt at a distance of 12 meters and filtering water into the coal bunker. But if this English projectile had exploded not in the water, but in the hull of a German battle cruiser (which could well have happened if the British had normal armor-piercing shells), then the flooding would have been much more serious. Of course, this hit in itself could not lead to the death of the "Derflinger", but remember that he received other damage and during the Battle of Jutland took 3,400 tons of water inside the hull. Under these conditions, an additional hole under the waterline could well have been fatal for the ship.
However, after 9 minutes of such a war, fortune turned to face the Germans. Suddenly there was a gap in the fog, in which, unfortunately, the Invincible found itself and, of course, the German artillerymen made full use of the opportunity presented to them. It is not entirely clear who exactly and how many hit the Invincible - it is believed that he received 3 shells from the Derflinger and two from the Lyuttsov, or four from the Derflinger and one from the Lyuttsov, but it may be and not so. It is only more or less reliable that at first the Invincible received two shells twice, which did not cause fatal damage, and the next, fifth shell hit the third tower (the traverse tower of the starboard side), which became fatal for the ship. A 305-mm German shell penetrated the turret's armor at 18:33 and exploded inside, causing the cordite to ignite inside it. An explosion followed, tossing the roof of the tower, shortly after which, at 18.34, the cellars detonated, splitting the Invincible in two.
Perhaps there were more than five hits on the Invincible, because, for example, Wilson notes that German ships observed hits near the tower that received the fatal blow, and in addition, it is possible that the shell hit the bow tower of the Invincible, above which, according to eyewitnesses, a column of fire rose. On the other hand, mistakes in descriptions cannot be ruled out - in battle, one often sees not what is actually happening. Perhaps the force of the explosion of the ammunition of the middle tower was so strong that it detonated the bow cellars?
In any case, the battle cruiser Invincible, which became the ancestor of its class of ships, perished under the concentrated fire of German ships in less than five minutes, taking with it the lives of 1,026 sailors. Only six were saved, including the senior artillery officer Danreiter, who was at the time of the catastrophe on the foremast in the central aiming fire control post.
In all fairness, it must be said that no reservation would have saved the Invincible from death. At a distance of just under 50 kbt, even 12-inch armor would hardly become an insurmountable obstacle against the German 305-mm / 50 guns. The tragedy was caused by:
1) An unsuccessful arrangement of turret compartments, which, when exploded inside the tower, passed the energy of the explosion directly into the artillery cellars. The Germans had the same thing, but after the battle at Dogger Bank, they modernized the design of the turret branches, but the British did not.
2) The disgusting qualities of the British cordite, which tended to detonate, while the Germanic gunpowder simply burned out. If the charges of the "Invincible" were German gunpowder, then there would be a strong fire, and the flame from the doomed tower would rise to many tens of meters. Of course, everyone in the tower died, but no detonation occurred and the ship would have remained intact.
However, let us assume for a second that the German projectile did not hit the turret, or the British would have used the "correct" gunpowder and no detonation occurred. But the Invincible was fired upon by two German battlecruisers, and the König joined them. Under these conditions, we have to admit that the Invincible, in any case, even without the "golden shell" (the so-called highly successful hits that inflict fatal damage on the enemy) was doomed to death or to a complete loss of combat capability, and only very powerful armor would give him any chance of survival.
The second "twelve-inch" battle cruiser to die in Jutland was the Indefatigable. This was the ship of the next series, but the armor of the main caliber artillery and the protection of the cellars were very similar to the battle cruisers of the Invincible class. Like the Invincible, the Indefatigebla's towers and barbets had 178mm armor up to the upper deck. Between the armor and the upper deck, the Indefatigebla barbets were protected even slightly better than their predecessor - 76 mm versus 50, 8.
It was the "Indefatigeblu" who was destined to demonstrate how vulnerable the protection of the first battlecruisers of Britain was at long distances. At 15.49, the German battle cruiser Von der Tann opened fire on the Indefatigeblu - both ships were end-to-end in their columns and were to fight each other. The battle between them lasted no more than 15 minutes, the distance between the cruisers increased from 66 to 79 cables. The English ship, having spent 40 shells, did not achieve a single hit, but at 16.02 (that is, 13 minutes after the order to open fire) the Von der Tann hit the Indefatigeble with three 280-mm shells that hit it at the level of the upper deck in the area of the aft tower and mainmast. "Indefatigable" went out of order to the right, with a clearly visible roll to the port side, while a thick cloud of smoke rose above it - in addition, according to eyewitnesses, the battle cruiser landed astern. Shortly thereafter, the Indefatigable was hit by two more shells, both hitting almost simultaneously, into the forecastle and into the bow turret of the main battery. Shortly thereafter, a high column of fire rose in the bow of the ship, and it was enveloped in smoke, in which large fragments of a battle cruiser could be seen, so-and-so - a 15-meter steam boat flying upwards with its bottom. The smoke rose to a height of 100 meters, and when it cleared, the "Indefatigable" was gone. 1,017 crew members were killed, only four were rescued.
Although, of course, nothing can be said for sure, but judging by the descriptions of the damage, the first shells hitting the area of the aft tower inflicted a fatal blow on the Indefatigeblu. German semi-armor-piercing shells of 280-mm cannons "Von der Tann" contained 2, 88 kg of explosives, high-explosive - 8, 95 kg (the data may be inaccurate, since there are contradictions in the sources on this score). But in any case, the rupture of even three shells weighing 302 kg, hitting at the level of the upper deck, could in no way lead to the appearance of a noticeable roll to the left side, and damage to the steering system looks somewhat doubtful. In order to cause such a sharp roll and trim, the shells had to hit below the waterline, hitting the side of the ship below the armor belt, but eyewitness descriptions directly contradict this scenario. In addition, observers note the appearance of thick smoke over the ship - a phenomenon uncharacteristic for the hit of three shells.
Most likely, one of the shells, breaking the upper deck, hit the 76 mm barbet of the aft tower, pierced it, exploded and caused the detonation of the aft artillery cellar. As a result, the steering control was turned around, and water quickly began to flow into the ship through the bottom pierced by the explosion, which is why both the roll and the trim arose. But the aft tower itself survived, so the observers saw only thick smoke, but not the bursting flame. If this assumption is correct, then the fourth and fifth shells simply finished off the already doomed ship.
The question of which of them caused the detonation of the bow tower cellars remains open. In principle, the 178 mm turret or barbet armor on 80 cables could withstand the impact of a 280 mm projectile, then the explosion caused a second projectile that hit the 76 mm barbet inside the hull, but this cannot be said for sure. At the same time, even if there were not British cordite, but German gunpowder in the Inflexible's cellars, and detonation would not have occurred, all the same, two severe fires in the bow and stern of the battle cruiser would have led to a complete loss of its combat capability and, probably, it would still be destroyed. Therefore, the death of "Indefatigebla" should be entirely attributed to the lack of its armor protection, and especially in the area of the artillery cellars.
The series of articles presented to your attention is entitled "Errors of British Shipbuilding", and now, summing up, we will list the main missteps of the British Admiralty, made in the design and construction of battle cruisers of the "Invincible" class:
The first mistake made by the British was that they missed the moment when their armored cruisers, in their defense, ceased to satisfy their task of participating in a squadron battle. Instead, the British preferred to strengthen their artillery and speed: in defense, the unfounded tendency "it will go away" prevailed.
Their second mistake was that, while designing the Invincible, they did not realize that they were creating a ship of a new class and did not bother at all to determine the range of tasks for it, or to find out the necessary tactical and technical characteristics to meet these tasks. Simply put, instead of answering the question: "What do we want from the new cruiser?" and after that: "What should be the new cruiser to give us what we want from it?" the position prevailed: "Let's create the same armored cruiser as we built before, only with more powerful cannons, so that it would correspond not to the old battleships, but to the newest" Dreadnought ""
The consequence of this mistake was that the British not only duplicated the shortcomings of their armored cruisers in ships of the Invincible class, but also added new ones. Of course, neither the Duke of Edinburgh, nor the Warrior, nor even the Minotaur were suitable for a squadron battle, where they could come under fire from 280-305-mm battleship artillery. But the British armored cruisers were quite capable of fighting against their "classmates". The German "Scharnhorst", the French "Waldeck Russo", the American "Tennessee", the Russian "Rurik II" did not have any decisive advantage over the British ships, even the best of them were roughly equivalent to the British armored cruisers.
Thus, English armored cruisers could fight against ships of their class, but the first battle cruisers of Great Britain could not. And what's interesting is that such a mistake could be understood (but not excused), if the British were sure that the opponents of their battle cruisers, like in the old days, would carry 194-254-mm artillery, the shells of which could still be protected by the Invincibles. then resist. But the era of 305-mm cruisers was opened not by the British with their Invincibles, but by the Japanese with their Tsukubas. The British were not the pioneers here, they, in fact, were pushed to the introduction of twelve-inch cannons on large cruisers. Accordingly, for the British it was not at all a revelation that the Invincibles would have to face enemy cruisers armed with heavy weapons, which the defense “like the Minotaur” obviously could not resist.
The third mistake of the British is to try to make a "good face on a bad game." The fact is that, in the open press of those years, the Invincibles looked much more balanced and better protected ships than they actually were. As Muzhenikov writes:
"… naval reference books, even in 1914, attributed the battle cruisers of the" Invincible "type to armor protection along the entire waterline of the ship with a 178-mm main armor belt, and 254-mm armor plates to the gun turrets."
And this led to the fact that the admirals and designers of Germany, the main enemy of Great Britain at sea, selected the performance characteristics for their battle cruisers so as to resist not real, but fictitious ships by the British. Oddly enough, perhaps the British should have stopped exaggeration in the bud, and made public the true characteristics of their cruisers. In this case, there was a small, but still different from zero probability that the Germans would become "monkey", and, following the British, also began to build "eggshells armed with hammers." This would not, of course, strengthen the protection of the British, but at least equalize the chances in the confrontation with the German battlecruisers.
In fact, it is precisely the inability of the British battlecruisers of the first series to fight on equal terms with ships of their class that should be considered a key mistake of the Invincible project. The weakness of their protection made ships of this type a dead end branch of naval evolution.
When creating the first battle cruisers, other, less noticeable mistakes were made that could be corrected if desired. For example, the main caliber of the Invincibles received a small elevation angle, as a result of which the range of the 305-mm guns was artificially lowered. As a result, in terms of firing range, the Invincibles were inferior even to the 210-mm turret guns of the last German armored cruisers. To determine the distance, even in the First World War, relatively weak, "9-foot" rangefinders were used, which did not do very well with their "duties" at a distance of 6-7 miles and beyond. The attempt to "electrify" the 305-mm turrets of the head "Invincible" turned out to be a mistake - at that time this technology was too tough for the British.
In addition, the weakness of the British shells should be noted, although this is not an exclusive drawback of the Invincibles - it was inherent in the entire Royal Navy. English shells were equipped with either liddite (that is, the same shimosa), or black (not even smokeless!) Gunpowder. As a matter of fact, the Russo-Japanese War showed that gunpowder as an explosive for projectiles had clearly exhausted itself, at the same time, shimosa turned out to be overly unreliable and prone to detonation. The British were able to bring liddite to an acceptable state, avoiding problems with shells bursting in the barrels and spontaneous detonation in the cellars, but nevertheless, liddite was of little use for armor-piercing shells.
The German and Russian fleets found a way out, filling the shells with trinitrotoluene, which showed high reliability and unpretentiousness in operation, and in its qualities was not much inferior to the famous "shimose". As a result, by 1914 the Kaiserlichmarin had excellent armor-piercing shells for their 280-mm and 305-mm guns, but the British had good "armor-piercing" after the war. But, we repeat, the weak and destructive quality of British shells was then a common problem for the entire British fleet, and not an "exclusive" design flaw of the Invincible-class ships.
It would certainly be wrong to think that the first English battlecruisers consisted of nothing but shortcomings. The "Invincibles" also had advantages, the main of which was a super-powerful for its time, but quite reliable power plant, which provided the "Invincibles" with previously unthinkable speed. Or recall the high "three-legged" mast, which made it possible to place a command and rangefinder post at a very high altitude. Yet their merits did not make the Invincible-class battlecruisers successful ships.
And what was happening at that time on the opposite coast of the North Sea?
Thank you for the attention!
Previous articles in the series:
Errors of British shipbuilding. Battle cruiser Invincible
Errors of British shipbuilding. Battle cruiser Invincible. Part 2
Errors of British shipbuilding. Battle cruiser Invincible. Part 3
List of used literature
1. Muzhenikov VB Battlecruisers of England. Part 1.
2. Parks O. Battleships of the British Empire. Part 6. Firepower and speed.
3. Parks O. Battleships of the British Empire Part 5. At the turn of the century.
4. Ropp T. Creation of a modern fleet: French naval policy 1871-1904.
5. Fetter A. Yu. Invincible-class battlecruisers.
6. Materials of the site
