Naval History Forums

I'm in the process of rereading "Castles of Steel" -- I can't help myself as I really enjoy this book.

Apparently the aft magazines of Seydlitz were flooded with some 600-tons of sea water during Dogger Bank. What sort of effect might this have on the speed of the ship? 600-tons seems like a lot of additional weight. But is it -- I mean relative to the inherent weight of the ship and such? I presume the ship would be slightly lower in the water and the sectional area presented would be greater. So more drag. But is it a lot or a little?

I can´t find any data about the speed reduction, but 600 tons doesn´t seem much for a 25000 tons 200 mtrs ship that carried 3500 tons of coal. I think that if a significant speed reduction had been caused, it would be mentioned by the authors, and neither Campbell nor Bennett mention any.

Thanks. That makes sense.

Did Campbell write something about the Battle of Dogger Bank?

The first chapter of "Jutland: An analysis of the fighting" has a small description of the battle, the damage received being analyzed. You have it online at http://webpages.charter.net/abacus/news/jutland/.

Ok.. Thanks. I actually have it on my bookshelf, but have only read snippets of it. I thought perhaps he had written an article on Dogger Bank for Warship, or Warship International.

The complete listing of the articles of Warship is here http://www.dreadnoughtproject.org/periodicals/warship/. The list of the issues still for sale of WI is here http://www.warship.org/backis.htm. None about Dogger Bank.

Hi,
possible a little underestimation. At Jutland Seydlitz with 5329t water can do up to 20-21 kts (24'4"aft 46'1" forward) - i.e sinkage approximately 100t/in. Also after mine hit in 1916 the draught increased by 4.5' forward that mentioned as equivalent of 1400t water in it. As mentioned in Campbell's Battlecruisers, Seydlitz was with draught 34'6" aft against a normal fighting draught at 30'6". With same rate, probably she had more then 600t after Dogger bank. I think close to 1500t.

Thanks Serg. Why do you think Seydlitz ended up flooding with 1500tons rather than the 600ton indicated by R. Massie in "Castles of Steel"? I realize the book cover a lot of ground and may include some errors on such vagaries -- but where is the 1500ton thing coming from?

What effects might a list have on speed?

Guessing, it's from the fact that draft increased four and a half feet aft due to progressive flooding from the magazines (cf four feet forward when 1400 tons taken from the 1916 mine hit).

Mike

I suppose. But there is still an unknown in that he didn't state how much the aft draught increased as a result of the magazine flooding at Dogger Bank. I mean I can back calculate it from the 1500t or the 600t, but to know it was either water volume\weight and using the same ratio of increase in draught per unit weight of water, one would need to know draught after flooding.

marty

It would be great to have plans of the ship to calculate the volume of the magazines. Anyone can help?

Hi guys.

Whilst we are talking about Dogger Bank, why did the Germans send Blucher along instead of the faster and better armed Von Der Tann?

According to Campbell, Von Der Tann was "repairing defects".

Does anyone know if the magazines were dewatered en route back to the Jade or did the crew wait for the ship to be docked for repairs. At ay rate, the amount of flooding in the after magazines does not appear to have prevented her from keeping up with the rest of the squadron, unlike the poor Bluecher.

Hi Tommy.

You are correct but we should remember that Blucher was slower than Moltke, Derfflinger and Seydlitz even in an undamaged condition.
She was almost a liability to begin with.
Mind you, Seydlitz was some 10,000 tons larger.

Ironically, at Dogger Bank the German shooting was probably better than the British.
Apart from the doomed Blucher (which just became target practice at the end), the British only managed 6 hits (3 on Seydlitz and 3 on Derfflinger).
The hit on Seydlitzs aft turrets was the only hit of any signifigance.

In Return, Tiger was hit about 6 times and Lion hit about 17 times (according to Roberts battlecruisers book) and had to be towed home by Indomitable.
The nasty aft turrets hit on Seydlitz taught the Germans a lesson which they learned...................The British did not and found out the hard way at Jutland.

The WW1 battlecruisers (British and German) are intresting ships to discuss