Interesting close-up of Invincible's main bridge. Photo taken in January 1915 when Invincible was in Gibraltar's dry dock undergoing repairs to damage sustained during Falklands battle.
Arrangement of Invincible's 1915 bridge are not shown correctly in any of the drawings of this ship that I have seen so far.
Last edited by DariusP on Thu Jun 13, 2013 9:43 am, edited 2 times in total.
"On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron." H. L. Mencken
Gathering info to build Comberg 1/350 Indefatigable. Does anyone know whether she still had torpedo nets rigged at Jutland and was her upper hull and superstructure light grey, colorcoats GW01 or medium grey GW02?
DariusP wrote:Arrangement of Invincible's 1915 bridge are not shown correctly in any of the drawings of this ship that I have seen so far.
I had an e-mail correspondence with John Roberts about this back when I built my Invincible. He indicated that he had missed that in his post Falklands drawings of the ship. Thanks to a revised drawing he made for me, I added it:
nigel999 wrote:This famous photo of INVINCIBLE was taken from Capt Luce's GLASGOW , and shows her chasing Spee's squadron after exiting Port Stanley harbour.
Cannot see any evidence of torpedo nets.
Cheers, Nigel
They were reattached by Jutland, at least on Invincible. I have seen a photo in a book on Jutland that shows this, after being told about it on another forum.
Martin
"Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. Comes into us at midnight very clean. It's perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands. It hopes we've learned something from yesterday." John Wayne
MartinJQuinn wrote:
They were reattached by Jutland, at least on Invincible. I have seen a photo in a book on Jutland that shows this, after being told about it on another forum.
I would be interested in seeing that photo , if you could post it.
So for battlecruisers at Jutland, with or without nets:
Lion -no
Princess Royal -no
Queen Mary -yes
Tiger -never had them
New Zealand - no
Indefatigable -?
Invincible - yes
Indomitable -no
Inflexible -no
MartinJQuinn wrote:They were reattached by Jutland, at least on Invincible. I have seen a photo in a book on Jutland that shows this, after being told about it on another forum.
I think the photo must be incorrectly dated.
The gunnery officer of Derfflinger (the ship which destroyed Invincible, and the man responsible for dealing the blow) mentioned later:
"The [Derfflinger's] after torpedo net had been shot away and was hanging over the port screw' the ship had to stop for several minutes at the height of the battle 'How many times had were cursed at not having rid ourselves of these heavy steel torpedo nets, weighing several hundred tons. As we hardly ever anchored at sea they were useless, and in any case, they only protected part of the ship against torpedo fire. On the other hand, they were a serious source of danger, as they reduced the ship's speed considerably and were bound sooner or later to foul the propellers, which meant the loss of the ship. For these reasons the English had scrapped their torpedo nets shortly before the war - we did not do so until after the battle of Skagerrak (Jutland) and only then as a result of our experience."
I've seen no evidence for photos of Invincible with her net defences from 1914, and video footage of the wreckage of the Invincible does not apparently show net debris.
In "Warships of WW1 " by HM Le Fleming, there is an IWM creditied photo of INDEFATIGABLE "in 1916" . No Torpedo nets apparent.
There is also a published photo, of either 1st or 2nd BCS steaming out to meet the HSF on the mornin g of the Jutland action , Thus would show QUEEN MARY or INDEFATIGABLE .
I cannot recall which , but certain it is one of the 2. I know I have it, but cannot for the life of me recall in which book.
I think the same photo of Indefatigable with no nets and shortened top-masts is in "The Battle of Jutland 1916" by Lawrence Philips on pg#147. Also on the same page is a picture of Lion ? steaming at high speed with Q turret smoking. If you look close she has nets. Other pictures of her after the battle with Q turret removed are with no nets. Maybe they were taken off when she was in for repair? I also don't think Invincible had nets at Jutland, you can't see any trace of them from the photos of her bow and stern sticking out of the water after she was destroyed, and none of the wreck pictures show any evidence of nets. Granted, these are not very clear, but she is the one ship, that because she still exists, we should be able to find out for sure.
MartinJQuinn wrote:
They were reattached by Jutland, at least on Invincible. I have seen a photo in a book on Jutland that shows this, after being told about it on another forum.
I would be interested in seeing that photo , if you could post it.
I wrote myself a note to scan it.
Martin
"Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. Comes into us at midnight very clean. It's perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands. It hopes we've learned something from yesterday." John Wayne
Lion -no
Princess Royal -no
Queen Mary -yes ...This photo is of her, taken from HMS Tiger, steaming at Jutland.
Tiger -never had them
New Zealand - no
Indefatigable -no
Invincible - probably not. There's a photo of her here, in the act of exploding
Indomitable -no
Inflexible -no
Here is the photo I was speaking of. It's from "The Fighting at Jutland, Abridged Edition", published by MacMillan and Co LTD, September 1921. The copy I have looks every bit it's 92 years.
The photo is one of three on a page of photos
Close up with caption
Only the photo in question - note the torpedo net davits.
Also in the book is the same picture posted in the post above. Here is a larger version of it:
Martin
"Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. Comes into us at midnight very clean. It's perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands. It hopes we've learned something from yesterday." John Wayne
Burt's Battleships of the Grand Fleet has photos captioned:
"Invincible with her funnel bands as painted up 1909/1910. This photo was taken sometime between 1910/1912 and shows the rangefinder drums..." (torpedo net defences are fitted, all funnels are the same height.)
"Invincible at Malta in 1913/1914. As will be seen, the anti-torpedo nets have been removed and the wings of the forward bridge extended..."
"Inflexible and Indomitable on North Sea Patrol c. 1915. Note that Inflexiblestill has her anti-torpedo nets."
(My emphasis)
Invincible's fore funnel height was only raised to match that of her sisters while in Gibraltar (during Jan/Feb 1915) after the Battle of the Falklands, December 1914.
NJM Campbell's Battlecruisers (Warship Special #1) follows the pattern above.
John Robert's Battlecruisers has a great photo of Invincible "entering Malta Harbour in October 1913" with equal-height funnels and no net booms. It would seem strange to put nets back on in wartime: Scapa and Rosyth were believed to be pretty safe from submarine attack, and the nets are only a hindrance at sea and in action.
What I need to convince me is a photo of Invincible with the raised forward funnel and net booms. I doubt there is one.
If this post passes the forum's censors I'll wade in with my thoughts on Martin's pictures.
It could be just about any large vessel with torpedo nets making smoke/steaming fast. But is it Invincible at Jutland? (I suspect it isn't: I've never seen the image before, and I think I have a pretty good handle on most of the images taken during the action.) Is it taken during wartime speed trials? Maybe it's Inflexible in the North Sea in 1915/1916?
This could be the Indefatigable blowing up. It's a cloud very similar in shape to a more famous photo from a different angle taken at the same sort of time. The natural location for the photographer would be onboard HMS New Zealand, looking aft. And onboard NZ, there's an eye-witness who says:
"While we were still looking at her (Indefatigable), she was hit again by two shells / both shells appeared to explode on impact. There was an interval of about thirty seconds and then the ship completely blew up. The main explosion / immediately followed by a dense dark smoke cloud which obscured the ship from view."
Thirty seconds = plenty of time to get a camera ready.
I've looked for that several times but didn't know the name of the actual ship to google under. Much appreciated.
