On 05Jun2020 0125, Thomas RUX wrote:
> Hello all,
>
> This reminds me of the Battle of Jutland. Reading about the battle and
> seeing a couple of documentaries one conclusion for the loss of so
> many RN ships was the gun crews failed to follow Standard Operating
> Procedures (SOP) leaving hatches open to the powder magazines. Then we
> have WW II when the USN carriers went to sea with unarmored flight
> decks even though there was good evidence from both the British and
> Japanese that armored filght decks were a good idea.
Yep. German fire had proven to be ineffective at Dogger Bank, and there
was a feeling that the reason the RN's fire was also not as effective as
it should've been was they weren't firing fast enough. So the crews of
many ships, with the knowledge (even encouragement) of their captains
and the fleet's admirals, took short cuts. At Jutland these proved fatal
to many battlecruisers. Note that ships that did not cheat on the safety
drills took hits that sank ships that had, and didn't sink.

Friedman suggests that post-Jutland blame on faulty powder, faulty ammo
feed design, and finally on too thin horizontal protection were all
misdirection because it would've meant the careers of a lot of senior
officers if the primary cause was identified as being unsafe ammo handling.

--

Rupert Boleyn <xxxxxx@gmail.com>