On 6/19/2014 3:04 PM, Phil Pugliese (via tml list) wrote:
>
>   Except that it wasn't as design flaw that caused
>   Indefatigable, Queen Mary, and Invincible to
>   catastrophically explode and sink, it was extremely bad
>   ammunition handling that should have seen everyone involved
>   cashiered and beached.
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Well, I do recall that something similar happened to at least one german BC at the Dogger Bank & it survived 'cuz it had decent armor. After which the german navy changed their designs/procedures to prevent it from happening again.
> Also, as I recall, the 'fix' involved hardware installation (flash suppressors) as well as procedural modifications, so I think it could be classified as a design flaw.
> Everything I've read labels it as such & I don't think I've read anyone that thinks those ships were good designs.
> Heck, I even read somewhere that the first RN BC's were assigned as flagships to CL squadrons!
> Even then it seems that they were never meant to be placed in the 'line-of-battle'.
> But, as more than one author has written, those big 12" guns were just too tempting.

Recent visits to the wrecks (within the last 8-10 years) by wreck
investigators have pretty much proven conclusively that it was the gun
crews' practice of storing cordite in the turrets and keeping all the
anti-flash doors and hatches open to facilitate faster followup shots
that was the root cause of the three ships catastrophically exploding.
Had the doors and hatches been closed and no cordite stored in the
gunnery spaces then it's highly likely that the ships would not have
been put out of action.

A good example of this is HMS Lion, Beatty's own flagship. She, too,
received a turret hit but because of the fast thinking of the turret
commander, Royal Marine Major Francis Harvey, who flooded the magazines
she didn't explode. Lion followed the same practices as the other three
battlecruisers that sank that day, but Major Harvey's actions saved the
ship.

--
Kurt Feltenberger
kurt@thepaw.org/kfeltenberger@yahoo.com
“Before today, I was scared to live, after today, I'm scared I'm not
living enough." - Me