Re: U-Boat Snorkel RAM



Henry Spencer wrote:

The interesting thing was that the Royal Navy had a similar policy, but
better thought out and actually fairly sensible. :-) The RN had a
deliberate and conscious policy of following rather than leading in
technical innovation for warships. The theory was that most proposed
innovations were worthless and pursuing them would be a waste of effort,
and when a good one *did* appear in someone else's navy, its importance
would soon become clear, and Britain could use its superior industry to
outbuild the other navy and regain the lead.



How they finally decided to abandon huge muzzle-loading guns for their warships is a fascinating story.
They had stuck with the concept after all the other major navies had gone over to breech-loading cannons, even though it meant that the turret had to be turned away from the target to align itself with loading gear located within the hull and then depress its guns so that ramming gear could first drive home the powder charges and then the shells.
It made for a far simpler interior turret arrangement, but as they found out had one terrible flaw. which they found out about the hard way.
The ironclad HMS Thunderer was firing her guns on exercise; during the actual firing the turret crew would cover their ears and close their eyes. What the turret crew didn't realize was that only one of the two guns had fired, so they rotated the turret and reloaded. Now one of the guns had a powder charge, a shell, another powder charge, and another shell in it. And unfortunately the next time they fired, _both_ guns fired.
The end result of that was this: http://www.ilnprints.co.uk/images/M/MILNG002206.jpg
http://web.ukonline.co.uk/aj.cashmore/britain/battleships/devastation/thunderer.html
The double-charged gun exploded, destroying the turret. If they had been using breech-loading guns, the loaders would have immediately noticed the problem when they opened the breech and were confronted with a unignited powder bag, so the RN finally decided to switch to breech-loaders.

This actually worked quite well for a long time, until Britain's world
industrial dominance began to slide. Jackie Fisher fortunately had the
foresight to ram through some instances of design leadership, notably
the construction of HMS Dreadnought.



He is one amazing character... always reminded me of Hyman Rickover, who he actually resembled a bit.
Although I doubt Jackie Fisher used to jump around his office screaming obscenities and hurling furniture at his captains-to-be to see if they had the right stuff. :-)

Pat
.

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