Strange Intelligence: Memoirs of Naval Secret Service (8 page)

Here it may be asserted on the best authority that our leading armament firms were prepared, long before the war, to turn out armour-piercing shells that were fully equal to the German type. They were not invited to do so, and the result was that
much of the work of our Grand Fleet gunners at Jutland was rendered abortive by the indifferent penetrative and explosive properties of the shells they had to use. Many of the 15-inch projectiles fired at the German ships were actually filled with ordinary gunpowder, which gave a comparatively feeble detonation. Had they been charged with lyddite, or, better still, with TNT, every hit we made would have been twice as destructive. In view of the number of hits scored during the battle by our heaviest guns, it may be confidently affirmed that only the inferior quality of our shells saved the German fleet from partial destruction.

To attempt to fix the responsibility for this grave defect in our naval material would be futile. How easily it might have been remedied is made clear by Lord Jellicoe, who has related in his book on the Grand Fleet how, soon after Jutland, a committee was appointed to investigate the shell question. Owing to the recommendations of this committee, a new and thoroughly efficient type of armour-piercing projectile was developed, which would penetrate thick armour even when striking it at an oblique angle, pass through intact, and, thanks to a reliable delay-action fuse, detonate inside with most destructive results.

The failure to provide such a shell before the war was probably due to want of practical experience of heavy gunfire against targets representing well-armoured ships. This could only be gained by experiments such as the Germans conducted. They spent large sums in building targets that reproduced sections of the armoured hull of a modern battleship, and attacked them at sea with various types of projectiles, fired under the most realistic conditions possible. By this method they secured data that enabled them to produce a shell that could be relied upon to
function with maximum efficiency. There was no reason why we should not have carried out similar experiments. That we did not do so is a serious reflection on the pre-war Boards of Admiralty. This neglect almost certainly cost us a decisive victory at Jutland, and on other occasions largely neutralised our advantage in heavy artillery.

The North Sea skirmish of 17 November 1917 furnished a glaring example. In a running fight with enemy light cruisers HMS
Repulse
scored a raking hit on the
Königsberg
. A 15-inch shell, weighing 1,920 lb, passed through the bases of all three funnels and burst in one of the forward coal bunkers. So feeble was the detonation that the shell fell apart in a few large fragments, and caused only local damage that in no wise impaired the efficiency of the ship. Had this projectile been filled with TNT it would probably have blown the bottom out of the
Königsberg
, or at least have disabled her.

Apart from the material evidence furnished by the summary destruction of five large British ships, the efficacy of the German shells is attested by many witnesses. As a rule they passed through strong armour and burst with terrific violence, causing widespread damage and very severe casualties.

By way of contrast we may cite a German witness on the behaviour of the British projectiles. Herr Betzhold, writing in ‘
Die Technik im Weltkriege
’, offers the following comment:

Herr Betzhold’s claim as to the superiority of the German armour was not borne out by experiments made after the war. Plates taken from the surrendered battleship
Baden
were found, when subjected to tests, to be definitely inferior in resisting power to British armour of the same thickness; but these tests, it is to be assumed, were made with the post-Jutland type of British armour-piercing projectiles.

Since the war full details have been released of the German type of shell used at Jutland. As the agency directly responsible for the sinking of our three battlecruisers –
Queen Mary, Indefatigable, Invincible
– not to mention the destruction of three armoured cruisers and the heavy damage inflicted on other vessels, this deadly projectile deserves some notice. For the following particulars we are indebted to Commander Kinzel, an officer who served before the war in the ordnance department of the German Navy Office.

Long before the war, he states, his department had realised the importance of improving armour-piercing projectiles, and had devoted endless thought and experiment to the subject. In collaboration with the Krupp firm, the work had gone on for many years, regardless of difficulties and disappointments, and
was eventually crowned with such success that by the outbreak of war a comparatively perfect AP shell had been evolved.

The body of the shell consisted of Krupp’s crucible, nickel-chrome steel, unsurpassed in toughness and hardness. The shell tapered at the nose to a long and fine point, which would have broken off when impacting on armour but for the protection afforded by the cap, made of softer material.

The discovery of the most favourable form and the most suitable material for this cap was only made after numerous experiments that cost a great deal of money. At the base of the shell an opening was provided for the introduction of the bursting-charge, the weight of which was about 3 per cent of that of the entire projectile. To obtain the maximum effect from the burst it was necessary to employ a highly explosive aromatic composition; but since substances of this nature were liable to detonate immediately upon impact against armour, there arose for solution the difficult problem of so ‘phlegmatising’ the charge that it could be brought safely through the thickest armour, though without in any way impairing the violence of its disruption.

‘The severity of this problem,’ writes Commander Kinzel,

The fuse has been aptly described as the ‘soul’ of the shell. To design a delay-action fuse that will function perfectly in an AP projectile is in itself a most difficult problem. It must occupy the
minimum of weight and space. The minute elements of which it is composed must be proof against the sudden shock of discharge, for the premature detonation of a shell within the bore would wreck the gun, kill the turret crew, and, by probably igniting the ready cartridges inside the turret, gravely imperil the ship.

It is further essential that those elements should withstand the tremendous concussion that results when the shell impinges on the armoured target. This is the instant at which the fuse becomes active and, in due course, causes the charge to explode.

After due allowance has been made for the patriotic exuberance of Commander Kinzel, it must be acknowledged that the German projectiles were more effective than our own. But as soon as one begins to inquire into the cause of this deficiency on our part, many contradictory statements are encountered.

It is asserted, for example, that the admiralty insisted on using, or trying to use, lyddite as a filling for armour-piercing shells, and that, as this compound was found to be too sensitive for the purpose, black powder had to be substituted. Other, and more technical reasons, have been advanced to account for the comparative failure of our projectiles against German armour.

From naval officers, however, a simpler explanation has been forthcoming, which tends to confirm the observations already made as to the principles that governed the admiralty’s ordnance policy down to the date of Jutland. One of these officers has been quoted as saying:

Apart from the ammunition question, the test of war revealed further shortcomings in British naval equipment. Our rangefinders and other optical instruments necessary for fire-control purposes were inferior to those used in the German fleet, as has been officially admitted. Why they were inferior has still to be explained. In the early part of the Jutland action, at any rate, the German fire was more accurate than our own. The rapidity with which the enemy’s ships found the range and began hitting was a painful surprise to Admiral Jellicoe himself. It was the more astonishing because, at the date of Jutland, the Germans
had not installed a director-control system, such as most of our capital ships already possessed, that was supposed to increase very considerably the accuracy of gunfire.

The effects of the German shooting were enhanced by their method of ‘bunching’ salvoes. Their guns were so calibrated that all the shots from a broadside pitched in a very small area. If, therefore, the aim were accurate, the target was liable to be struck by several shells at once. This happened to the
Queen Mary
and other ships we lost, and serves to explain the appalling suddenness with which they were obliterated.

On the other hand, unless the aim were absolutely correct, ‘bunched’ salvoes missed the target clean.

British guns were not so closely calibrated, and by comparison with the German broadsides ours appeared to be ‘ragged’, some shots pitching short of, and others over, the target. This method of firing was deliberate, the idea being to increase the chances of hitting by giving each salvo a fairly wide spread, a single hit being rightly adjudged better than none at all.

Each system had its merits and disadvantages so well balanced that there was little to choose between the two methods. The Germans, however, might well claim to have profited by Lord Fisher’s metaphor: if you are insulted at the dinner-table, don’t throw the decanter stopper at the offender: throw the decanter. They certainly threw with deadly effect in the battlecruiser action at Jutland.

Irrespective of calibre, there were notable differences between the British and German big guns. The former, built on the wire-wound system, were exceedingly heavy for their bore, our 15-inch weighing nearly 100 tonnes unmounted. The German guns were of the all-steel pattern, and very much lighter, their
15-inch weighing little more than 70 tonnes; yet in accuracy they were by no means inferior to our weapons, and were much longer lived.

On the outbreak of war the ships of both navies had inadequate protection against the risk of shell-flash reaching the magazines. Luckily for the Germans, they discovered this grave danger sixteen months before Jutland, and were able to take the necessary precautions in time. In the Dogger Bank action of January 1915, the two after-turrets of the battlecruiser
Seydlitz
were converted into raging furnaces by a single British shell that fractured the base of the aftermost turret and sent white-hot splinters into the ammunition hoist, igniting several cartridges.

Nitro-cellulose powder burns with intense fury. The flames shot up and down the hoist, found their way through a communicating trap to the second turret, and started a similar blaze there. One hundred and sixty men perished in this holocaust, and only the heroic action of a petty officer, who closed a hatch in the nick of time, prevented the fire from reaching the magazines. Following this experience, anti-flash doors were fitted to all important ships, and other measures taken went far towards eliminating the danger.

Another safety factor on the German side was represented by the brass cartridge cases in which the main powder charges for the big guns were contained, only the secondary charges being packed in silk bags. Thus, when shell flashes entered a turret or an ammunition hoist, the main charges, being sheathed in brass, rarely caught fire. In the British Navy, all powder charges were enclosed in silk, and were therefore much more liable to be touched off by a flash.

The poor quality of our pre-war mines has been mentioned in
a previous chapter. Although the characteristics of the German mine were well known to the admiralty, no attempt was made to produce an equally efficient weapon, and so, for the first half of the war, our elaborate minelaying operations were to a great extent wasted energy.