And it's rather sad that one can actually become used to them
My grandmother had a dozen or so and while the feathers were nice, the birds.... Not so much Randy
The Rainbow. A World War One on Canada's West Coast Timeline
- Thread starter YYJ
- Start date
And it's rather sad that one can actually become used to them
My grandmother had a dozen or so and while the feathers were nice, the birds.... Not so much Randy
Spant 68
Aug 21, 1525 hours. SMS Nürnberg, Juan de Fuca Strait.
“The torpedo struck at spant 68, frame 68,” reported the engineering officer.
Von Schönberg racked his memory for details of Nürnberg’s structural plans, to locate the damage in his mind. His ears were still ringing from the torpedo explosion. He could hear the roar of venting steam from the funnels. The boilers?
“That is directly on the bulkhead between boiler rooms three and four,” continued the engineer. “Both boiler rooms are open to the sea. The officers in charge acted quickly to vent the steam, so as to prevent an explosion. I am not sure how many survivors we have from those compartments, but I don’t imagine there will be many.”
“Are we sinking?” asked Von Schönberg. “I would prefer not to abandon ship right here.”
“I do not think so sir,” replied the engineer. “Compartments 8 and 9 are flooding. That is a lot of water, but the weight is amidships, so we should have enough buoyancy to remain afloat.”
“I would like a more complete damage report,” ordered Von Schönberg. “But if we are sinking none of it matters. And if we are not sinking, get me some steam. This is a bad place to be sitting.”
“Very soon sir,” said the engineering officer. “We need to secure any open steam lines. Then we will be able to bring power to the engines.” He ducked out or the conning tower.
The din of rapid firing cannon sounded close by. Leipzig was circling Nürnberg, and raking the water with her pom-poms, harrassing the Canadian submarine. “Those submarines have been a menace,” Von Schönberg said to himself. “The one we rammed is certainly sunk. No submarine submerges like that. But the other could be anywhere.” He felt like he was about to jump out of his skin, sitting helpless like this in sight of the enemy coast. The presumed 23 cm shore battery had ceased firing a while ago now. The slow firing 15 cm guns of the other coastal defence batteries were aiming at his stationary ship, but did not have the range to reach him, thankfully. Waterspouts rose from the sea, 1000 meters closer to shore. The tide seemed to be taking them westward as Nürnberg drifted, further away from the guns.
The engine telegraph rang. “We have steam, sir,” announced a voice from the engineering spaces, through a voice tube.
“Full ahead,” ordered Von Schönberg. “How many knots can you give me?” he asked, down the voice tube.
“We shall see,” answered the voice. “Perhaps ten or twelve.”
“I want a more comprehensive damage report,” ordered Von Schönberg. He felt the engines receive power, and the ship begin to make headway. “Take us west, up the Strait of Juan de Fuca.” Nürnberg responded to the helm, and turned into the wind. She set a course back towards the black and white striped lighthouse.
“That old Canadian cruiser had more fight in her than I ever imagined,” said Von Schönberg, with a note of appreciation in his voice. “Good for them. Bad for us.” And an ominous note for future actions, where His Majesties forces have to fight against the British Empire Dominions, he thought.
HMCS Rainbow was now well astern, and on fire for her whole length.
His own ship was also on fire. Ironically, the torpedo impact seemed to have put out the fire behind the conning tower in the armoury deckhouse. Firefighting efforts would be continuing further aft, with the gun crews handling the hoses. Through damage and casualties, Nürnberg was not a functional ship of war any more. Leipzig had taken the lead, and Haun would be champing at the bit, thought Von Schönberg, to get out to open water. Although Leipzig’s triple expansion engines would appreciate the rest after being run at near full speed for the whole day.
Nürnberg rounded Race Rocks light, and he was able to look west down Juan de Fuca Strait towards the Pacific. No ships were visible in the Strait. However, on the American side of the line a giant armoured cruiser and a pair of destroyers were following, matching speed with the German squadron. Von Schönberg considered that it was safe to leave the armoured box of the conning tower, and stepped out into the fresh breeze on the foredeck. The planks were pitted, and empty brass shell cases rolled about the deck. He looked up at his bridge, and one glace told him that he would be handling Nürnberg from the conning tower for the remainder of her voyage. The walls of the wheelhouse were blackened and splayed. The window frames were empty, and he could see the sky through them. The port bridge wing sagged down to the main deck.
The hit on the wheelhouse had showered the foredeck with shell splinters, killing or wounding the gun crews, and the forward pair of main battery guns had not fired since, but the guns themselves did not look to have taken much damage. Further aft the smoke of active fires rose from various parts of the ship. He could not really see past the third funnel. The spray of hoses arced up into the clear air, but the operators were lost in smoke. The forward funnel was producing no smoke at all, but the after two produced the expected plume of black coal smoke, although some was escaping through rents in the funnels’ sides.
He noticed, with some shock, that the main mast was nowhere to be seen, even the aft searchlight platform was missing. He looked up, to make sure an Imperial Ensign was still flying, and was relieved to see the Kaiser’s flag stretched out high on the foremast, albeit riddled with holes. No mainmast would mean no wireless antenna. The signal deck atop the wheelhouse had fallen into the Strait, so flags and Morse lights were also gone. He would be hard pressed to improvise semaphore flags from scrounged materials. This was going to make Nürnberg’s role as flagship difficult.
A sensation that had been growing within Von Schönberg since Rainbow landed her first catastrophic hit, and that he had been suppressing for the last half of an hour, was finally forcing its way to the surface. Nürnberg had sustained damage that could not be repaired outside of a Kaiserliche Werft, half a world away. The loss of his ship was now not an abstract event, inevitable because of the East Asiatic Squadron’s difficult starting position, but able to be forever pushed into the future by his stubbornness and élan. No. The loss of his ship was a real event that had already happened.
Von Schönberg was fixed to the spot, suddenly aware of his breath, the breeze on his face, every smell of the ship, and sensation of her movement on the sea. If he was going to remain an effective leader, he was going to have to drop attachment to his identity as captain of the cruiser Nürnberg, and step into the role of commander of this detached squadron of Admiral Von Spee’s fleet. He had to make that shift immediately. Nürnberg might be finished, but he still had another cruiser and 6 auxiliary prizes under his command, both armed and unarmed. Nürnberg might be exhausted as a ship of war, but she was still a resource that contained armament, ammunition, and, most important of all, officers and men of the Kaiserliche Marine.
He realized that he had been negligent in his focus on his own ship, and not the wider picture. He had no idea where Lieutenant Von Spee was in Princess Charlotte, or Krüger in Galiano. The fleet of supply auxiliaries: Desalba, Bengrove and the giant Niagara, were just over the horizon awaiting recall. Princess Sophia was further afield, but it was time to call the ships in now, so as to be ready to regroup and redistribute his forces. And here he was without a wireless.
Von Schönberg was just starting to put the pieces together, when he was approached by the engineering officer.
“Sir!” the engineer saluted and began his damage report. “We are maintaining 12 knots. The engines themselves are in undamaged condition. The flooding is mostly contained to boiler rooms 3 and 4. I have had men inspect the damage from above. The coal bunkers have been stoved in to both of the affected boiler rooms, on the impact side, and coal has slumped into the compartments. This makes patching the holes from inside impossible. However, the coal is making a kind of matrix that is slowing the seawater ingress, and I think we should be able to keep speed without risk of progressive flooding.”
“You said the flooding is mostly contained to those compartments,” said Von Schönberg.
“There is some water leaking into the torpedo flat from Boiler Room 4, but the pumps are keeping up, and we have bigger problems to attend to, sir. Firefighting is occupying most of the available crew. We are making progress, and most of the contents of the compartments involved are burning out. The officers’ quarters astern have been heavily damaged by fire, and several of the hammock storage bins in the well deck are consumed.”
“I suppose now we will all have to stay awake forever,” said Von Schönberg.
“That 23 cm shell that hit us astern caused extensive damage, sir. The shell struck at the base of the mainmast, by gun number 7, penetrated the armoured deck, hit the port dynamo, and then went through the port condenser and boiler feed water generator. Presently we are without electrical power, but the electrician tells me he can make that good with the starboard and auxiliary dynamos given time. The condenser and feed water damage is more serious. We can keep going for a while, but I was told we will have to devote the drinking water condenser to keep the boilers working, so we only have what fresh water in the tanks now. The demand on the condensers is actually made easier by us only having six boilers operational. The shell itself is lodged in the double bottom, and is not accessible. It did not explode. We are unsure if the shell is a dud, or if it is a solid shot. I would expect the shell would have gone clean through the ships bottom, if it had not struck so many solid pieces of machinery on the way.”
“If that shell had struck one compartment to sternward, sir,” the engineer said solemnly, “it would have passed through the after magazine.”
Von Schönberg frowned, and nodded. “Please, do you know the number of casualties?”
“I do not know the number,” said the engineer. “I know the infirmary has flowed over into the Between Deck accommodations. We have been lucky to have been spared hits forward below decks, where the wounded are laid out. We have 3 firefighting crews working. Each fire crew is a conscripted gun crew. The men from the magazines and shell handling rooms are fighting fires as well. So we have enough able bodied men to serve 3 guns, should we need to, feed the two boiler rooms, keep the engines running, and steer the ship. Barely. A few men are plugging leaks or effecting other repairs, but that is pretty much it, sir.”
“That sounds like less than a hundred men still on their feet,” said Von Schönberg.
“That does sound right sir,” said the engineer.
“How many of our main battery guns are undamaged?” Von Schönberg asked.
“Guns 2, 4, 7, and 8 are clearly damaged or destroyed,” answered the engineer. “I did not see damage to the remainder of aft and midships guns, but then gunnery is not my specialty, sir.”
“Thank you,” replied Von Schönberg. “You may go. I have kept you from your other duties long enough.”
Von Schönberg managed to find and direct a regular seaman away from other urgent tasks, and had him quickly improvise semaphore flags.
“Send a message to Leipzig,” Von Schönberg ordered. “Recall the auxiliaries to Barclay Sound.”
Message sent, the captain stood just outside the conning tower with the breeze blowing across his face, and the sun warming him. The smells of his burnt ship were being blown behind him. Sooke Harbour passed by to port, and whatever fishing boats were present remained in the harbor. The American Navy continued to match his speed, on their side of the boundary, their oversized Stars and Stripes fluttering from the mast tops.
He still had his pair of binoculars around his neck, and inspected Leipzig, 1000 meters ahead. Her aft auxiliary bridge deckhouse was burned out, and she had lost most of her boats, but Haun’s cruiser looked to be in no worse shape than she had been when the two cruisers had reconnected off Howe Sound at 1230 hours.
His eyes roamed over Nürnberg’s unattended pair of 10.5 cm forward battery guns. Their surfaces had some scratches, and the gun shields were pockmarked, but they looked to be fully operational to his trained eye. “Up to six main battery guns,” he said to himself. “Half of our ammunition. Two torpedoes.” He watched the green wilderness and jagged mountain tops scroll by. American to port. Canadian to starboard. “Half of our ammunition…”
Again, plans of SMS Emden
The setting
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“The torpedo struck at spant 68, frame 68,” reported the engineering officer.
Von Schönberg racked his memory for details of Nürnberg’s structural plans, to locate the damage in his mind. His ears were still ringing from the torpedo explosion. He could hear the roar of venting steam from the funnels. The boilers?
“That is directly on the bulkhead between boiler rooms three and four,” continued the engineer. “Both boiler rooms are open to the sea. The officers in charge acted quickly to vent the steam, so as to prevent an explosion. I am not sure how many survivors we have from those compartments, but I don’t imagine there will be many.”
“Are we sinking?” asked Von Schönberg. “I would prefer not to abandon ship right here.”
“I do not think so sir,” replied the engineer. “Compartments 8 and 9 are flooding. That is a lot of water, but the weight is amidships, so we should have enough buoyancy to remain afloat.”
“I would like a more complete damage report,” ordered Von Schönberg. “But if we are sinking none of it matters. And if we are not sinking, get me some steam. This is a bad place to be sitting.”
“Very soon sir,” said the engineering officer. “We need to secure any open steam lines. Then we will be able to bring power to the engines.” He ducked out or the conning tower.
The din of rapid firing cannon sounded close by. Leipzig was circling Nürnberg, and raking the water with her pom-poms, harrassing the Canadian submarine. “Those submarines have been a menace,” Von Schönberg said to himself. “The one we rammed is certainly sunk. No submarine submerges like that. But the other could be anywhere.” He felt like he was about to jump out of his skin, sitting helpless like this in sight of the enemy coast. The presumed 23 cm shore battery had ceased firing a while ago now. The slow firing 15 cm guns of the other coastal defence batteries were aiming at his stationary ship, but did not have the range to reach him, thankfully. Waterspouts rose from the sea, 1000 meters closer to shore. The tide seemed to be taking them westward as Nürnberg drifted, further away from the guns.
The engine telegraph rang. “We have steam, sir,” announced a voice from the engineering spaces, through a voice tube.
“Full ahead,” ordered Von Schönberg. “How many knots can you give me?” he asked, down the voice tube.
“We shall see,” answered the voice. “Perhaps ten or twelve.”
“I want a more comprehensive damage report,” ordered Von Schönberg. He felt the engines receive power, and the ship begin to make headway. “Take us west, up the Strait of Juan de Fuca.” Nürnberg responded to the helm, and turned into the wind. She set a course back towards the black and white striped lighthouse.
“That old Canadian cruiser had more fight in her than I ever imagined,” said Von Schönberg, with a note of appreciation in his voice. “Good for them. Bad for us.” And an ominous note for future actions, where His Majesties forces have to fight against the British Empire Dominions, he thought.
HMCS Rainbow was now well astern, and on fire for her whole length.
His own ship was also on fire. Ironically, the torpedo impact seemed to have put out the fire behind the conning tower in the armoury deckhouse. Firefighting efforts would be continuing further aft, with the gun crews handling the hoses. Through damage and casualties, Nürnberg was not a functional ship of war any more. Leipzig had taken the lead, and Haun would be champing at the bit, thought Von Schönberg, to get out to open water. Although Leipzig’s triple expansion engines would appreciate the rest after being run at near full speed for the whole day.
Nürnberg rounded Race Rocks light, and he was able to look west down Juan de Fuca Strait towards the Pacific. No ships were visible in the Strait. However, on the American side of the line a giant armoured cruiser and a pair of destroyers were following, matching speed with the German squadron. Von Schönberg considered that it was safe to leave the armoured box of the conning tower, and stepped out into the fresh breeze on the foredeck. The planks were pitted, and empty brass shell cases rolled about the deck. He looked up at his bridge, and one glace told him that he would be handling Nürnberg from the conning tower for the remainder of her voyage. The walls of the wheelhouse were blackened and splayed. The window frames were empty, and he could see the sky through them. The port bridge wing sagged down to the main deck.
The hit on the wheelhouse had showered the foredeck with shell splinters, killing or wounding the gun crews, and the forward pair of main battery guns had not fired since, but the guns themselves did not look to have taken much damage. Further aft the smoke of active fires rose from various parts of the ship. He could not really see past the third funnel. The spray of hoses arced up into the clear air, but the operators were lost in smoke. The forward funnel was producing no smoke at all, but the after two produced the expected plume of black coal smoke, although some was escaping through rents in the funnels’ sides.
He noticed, with some shock, that the main mast was nowhere to be seen, even the aft searchlight platform was missing. He looked up, to make sure an Imperial Ensign was still flying, and was relieved to see the Kaiser’s flag stretched out high on the foremast, albeit riddled with holes. No mainmast would mean no wireless antenna. The signal deck atop the wheelhouse had fallen into the Strait, so flags and Morse lights were also gone. He would be hard pressed to improvise semaphore flags from scrounged materials. This was going to make Nürnberg’s role as flagship difficult.
A sensation that had been growing within Von Schönberg since Rainbow landed her first catastrophic hit, and that he had been suppressing for the last half of an hour, was finally forcing its way to the surface. Nürnberg had sustained damage that could not be repaired outside of a Kaiserliche Werft, half a world away. The loss of his ship was now not an abstract event, inevitable because of the East Asiatic Squadron’s difficult starting position, but able to be forever pushed into the future by his stubbornness and élan. No. The loss of his ship was a real event that had already happened.
Von Schönberg was fixed to the spot, suddenly aware of his breath, the breeze on his face, every smell of the ship, and sensation of her movement on the sea. If he was going to remain an effective leader, he was going to have to drop attachment to his identity as captain of the cruiser Nürnberg, and step into the role of commander of this detached squadron of Admiral Von Spee’s fleet. He had to make that shift immediately. Nürnberg might be finished, but he still had another cruiser and 6 auxiliary prizes under his command, both armed and unarmed. Nürnberg might be exhausted as a ship of war, but she was still a resource that contained armament, ammunition, and, most important of all, officers and men of the Kaiserliche Marine.
He realized that he had been negligent in his focus on his own ship, and not the wider picture. He had no idea where Lieutenant Von Spee was in Princess Charlotte, or Krüger in Galiano. The fleet of supply auxiliaries: Desalba, Bengrove and the giant Niagara, were just over the horizon awaiting recall. Princess Sophia was further afield, but it was time to call the ships in now, so as to be ready to regroup and redistribute his forces. And here he was without a wireless.
Von Schönberg was just starting to put the pieces together, when he was approached by the engineering officer.
“Sir!” the engineer saluted and began his damage report. “We are maintaining 12 knots. The engines themselves are in undamaged condition. The flooding is mostly contained to boiler rooms 3 and 4. I have had men inspect the damage from above. The coal bunkers have been stoved in to both of the affected boiler rooms, on the impact side, and coal has slumped into the compartments. This makes patching the holes from inside impossible. However, the coal is making a kind of matrix that is slowing the seawater ingress, and I think we should be able to keep speed without risk of progressive flooding.”
“You said the flooding is mostly contained to those compartments,” said Von Schönberg.
“There is some water leaking into the torpedo flat from Boiler Room 4, but the pumps are keeping up, and we have bigger problems to attend to, sir. Firefighting is occupying most of the available crew. We are making progress, and most of the contents of the compartments involved are burning out. The officers’ quarters astern have been heavily damaged by fire, and several of the hammock storage bins in the well deck are consumed.”
“I suppose now we will all have to stay awake forever,” said Von Schönberg.
“That 23 cm shell that hit us astern caused extensive damage, sir. The shell struck at the base of the mainmast, by gun number 7, penetrated the armoured deck, hit the port dynamo, and then went through the port condenser and boiler feed water generator. Presently we are without electrical power, but the electrician tells me he can make that good with the starboard and auxiliary dynamos given time. The condenser and feed water damage is more serious. We can keep going for a while, but I was told we will have to devote the drinking water condenser to keep the boilers working, so we only have what fresh water in the tanks now. The demand on the condensers is actually made easier by us only having six boilers operational. The shell itself is lodged in the double bottom, and is not accessible. It did not explode. We are unsure if the shell is a dud, or if it is a solid shot. I would expect the shell would have gone clean through the ships bottom, if it had not struck so many solid pieces of machinery on the way.”
“If that shell had struck one compartment to sternward, sir,” the engineer said solemnly, “it would have passed through the after magazine.”
Von Schönberg frowned, and nodded. “Please, do you know the number of casualties?”
“I do not know the number,” said the engineer. “I know the infirmary has flowed over into the Between Deck accommodations. We have been lucky to have been spared hits forward below decks, where the wounded are laid out. We have 3 firefighting crews working. Each fire crew is a conscripted gun crew. The men from the magazines and shell handling rooms are fighting fires as well. So we have enough able bodied men to serve 3 guns, should we need to, feed the two boiler rooms, keep the engines running, and steer the ship. Barely. A few men are plugging leaks or effecting other repairs, but that is pretty much it, sir.”
“That sounds like less than a hundred men still on their feet,” said Von Schönberg.
“That does sound right sir,” said the engineer.
“How many of our main battery guns are undamaged?” Von Schönberg asked.
“Guns 2, 4, 7, and 8 are clearly damaged or destroyed,” answered the engineer. “I did not see damage to the remainder of aft and midships guns, but then gunnery is not my specialty, sir.”
“Thank you,” replied Von Schönberg. “You may go. I have kept you from your other duties long enough.”
Von Schönberg managed to find and direct a regular seaman away from other urgent tasks, and had him quickly improvise semaphore flags.
“Send a message to Leipzig,” Von Schönberg ordered. “Recall the auxiliaries to Barclay Sound.”
Message sent, the captain stood just outside the conning tower with the breeze blowing across his face, and the sun warming him. The smells of his burnt ship were being blown behind him. Sooke Harbour passed by to port, and whatever fishing boats were present remained in the harbor. The American Navy continued to match his speed, on their side of the boundary, their oversized Stars and Stripes fluttering from the mast tops.
He still had his pair of binoculars around his neck, and inspected Leipzig, 1000 meters ahead. Her aft auxiliary bridge deckhouse was burned out, and she had lost most of her boats, but Haun’s cruiser looked to be in no worse shape than she had been when the two cruisers had reconnected off Howe Sound at 1230 hours.
His eyes roamed over Nürnberg’s unattended pair of 10.5 cm forward battery guns. Their surfaces had some scratches, and the gun shields were pockmarked, but they looked to be fully operational to his trained eye. “Up to six main battery guns,” he said to himself. “Half of our ammunition. Two torpedoes.” He watched the green wilderness and jagged mountain tops scroll by. American to port. Canadian to starboard. “Half of our ammunition…”
Again, plans of SMS Emden
The setting
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Great chapter. So they need to find some quiet cove, strip Nurnberg, and scuttle her.
How Nurnberg survived being hit by a 9.2." shell and a torpedo boggles the mind
I agree on the torpedo part, but it appears the 9.2" didn't explode, if it had Nurnberg might be in the process of evacuation.
Driftless
Donor
Small torpedo (14"?) with a smaller explosive charge and a solid shot practice round from the shore battery
Even so that should be enough to at least prevent her from moving when combined with the damage the Rainbow inflicted or result in her not having enough crew to fight the fires and flooding at the same time since she was already severely undermanned before this battle
I think the best option, given that Japanese ships will be coming, would be to evacuate Nurnberg ASAP. Collecting her ammunition and guns would be nice, but risky.
Once that's done, scuttle, or sail the wreck into American waters to intern, with a skeleton crew of walking wounded and all the seriously wounded; the sooner they get treatment, the more survive.
Once that's done, scuttle, or sail the wreck into American waters to intern, with a skeleton crew of walking wounded and all the seriously wounded; the sooner they get treatment, the more survive.
A hit too far? I intended this chapter to be "Nürnberg's luck finally runs out," rather than "Curses, the devilish Hun rolls a 20 again."
I would not say that the Nürnberg survived. She did not sink on the spot. Fictional captain Von Schönberg does not think his ship survived.
I described the weapons involved earlier, buried in text, but the torpedo was described hundreds of pages ago. Recap:
The 9.2" shell was indeed a solid practice round, as the Signal Hill Battery dredged the very bottom of their magazine. That hit all by itself could be said to have mission killed the Nürnberg, with the list of machinery it destroyed, in the way that the PB Admiral Graf Spee was mission killed a war later. This hit was ridiculously lucky, given that it was scarcely able to be aimed with the poor fire control equipment as OTL. I seem to want to give the Canadians a single hit with each of their "we'll never hit anything with this" artillery. Like the 60 pounder field gun firing from point Grey.
The Torpedo was an 18" Mark 4, which does not appear in Nav Weapons, as it seems to have been an intermediate type that was not used a lot. Warhead 200lb wet gun cotton. That would obviously blow a nice hole in the side of the ship, but I think the smaller warhead would not deliver the kind of shock effect through the structure of the ship as a later bigger warhead. Only 2 watertight compartments were opened. I am using the plans I have of Emden for Nurnberg and Leipzig, because they were of very similar design. Nürnberg's boilers were in four separate watertight compartments. The front two were flooded.
18-in Mark IV Torpedo (UK) - The Dreadnought Project
I have an idea in my head that since the torpedo hit was on the fullish coal bunker, (see cross-section at frame 55 on page one of the plans), and since the coal would tend to fall with gravity and vibration once the torpedo opened up a path for it to go, and since the water pressure would force it inward, that the coal would flow into the flooding boiler room and kind of jam up the compartment. There is not a lot of free space in the boiler rooms, just boilers and paths to stoke them. I have a further idea in my head that this coal in the boiler space would mitigate the effects of the water pressure from the sea on the internal bulkheads, and would help prevent the adjoining bulkheads from collapsing. This idea does not come from other historical examples, and could be completely wrong.
At the battle of Jutland, the Wiesbaden, a newer light cruiser of roughly the same design but 25% larger, took a 12" shell in her engine room that exploded, bringing her to a standstill, but she did not sink for another 7-8 hours, and just sat there being shot at by the whole Grand Fleet.
Well written chapter as always, although I am somewhat inclined to agree that it's a bit questionable that Nurnberg isn't at least actively sinking at the moment from the torpedo hit. The 9.2" shell hit is another thing, a solid slug passing through even the vitals of your ship can be recovered from but an 18" torpedo strike against the very limited underwater defenses of a ship launched in 1906 is basically a death sentence. It's immediately survivable if the ship is at action stations however with the reduced crew that Nurnberg has, I'd imagine she would be working against the clock in regards to the flooding. I will say though the rest of the damage is fine and basically kills Nurnberg as an active vessel at sea although personally, I think it might be a bit more interesting from a dramatic point of view if the Germans were forced to work against the clock of even a very slowly sinking ship.
Keep it up, it's going to be very interesting in regards to what happens next given the state of the German's little auxiliary fleet.
Keep it up, it's going to be very interesting in regards to what happens next given the state of the German's little auxiliary fleet.
If this was an old Whitehead 14" from the 1800's, I'd say it's survivable, but a decent 18" fish is going to put that cruiser on the bottom. We have seen cases of Treaty Cruisers being sunk by a hit from a single 21" torpedo in WW2, and while this is a much weaker torpedo, Nurnberg is also much smaller than Treaty Cruisers, and has no TDS to speak of unless you count the coal bunkers and double bottom. She also is extremely thin on crew, which is further stretched by the major fire topside. I don't see how she can stay afloat much longer before the crew gives up.
I may depend on how many leaks there were outside of the two compartments that were flooded, the damage from the various fires etc, A major storm or sustained heavy seas might also turn some minor issues into bigger issues, and it appears the pumps are already having to deal with various minor leaks. Does anyone know if the pumps were steam or electric powered ?
Hmm. Looking at other historical torpedo sinkings. The German 45 cm (17.7") C/06 had a 270 lb warhead. It sank HMS Pathfinder (one hit, detonated magazine), Aboukir (one hit), Cressy (2 hits), Hogue (2 hits, watertight doors open) Hawke (one hit), in the early months of the war.
The passage is written. The points of view shift about between characters, following a sort of narrative structure. You will see.
marathag
Banned
Type 93 had a 1000 pound warhead of far more power than wet guncotton, 60%TNT and 40%HND,Hexanite, while the late war 21" had up to 1200 pounds in the Type 95
The cruisers fighting surface actions during WW2 were mostly 10,000 tonners, far more durable than a 3500 ton cruiser built using techniques from 30 years earlier, I'd say they are roughly comparable given that the superior durability of the Treaty Cruisers to a cruiser launched in 1906 offsets the superiority of WW2 torpedoes to pre-WW1 torpedoes.
Driftless
Donor
What is left of the Auxialliaries? Without going back through the search function, I believe a number have either been sunk, interned, or retaken. (It won't be the first or last time if I'm mistaken.....) Galliano, is sunk I believe up at the Telegraph station. Princess Charlotte ate a torpedo and crept across the line into US waters (I think). Wasn't Niagara retaken?
I think Rainbow bagged an auxiliary that Nurnberg didn't capture and that's what delayed her arrival (Saxonia was the name I think), I believe beyond Galiano(sunk), Charlotte(beached) and the one ship scuttled a while ago, the fleet is still intact.