HMS Audacious' Wreck

[Mark Chirnside]

Hi!

I was researching more deeply into the Audacious again today:

quote:

HMS Audacious was a 24,000-ton battleship of the ‘King George V’ class, ranked third in terms of her tonnage and armament as a British warship. Fractionally under six hundred feet in length, her armament consisted of ten 18.5-inch guns, sixteen 4-inch guns, four three-pound guns and three twenty-one-inch torpedo tubes. A sister of the King George V, Centurion and Ajax, all had been commissioned between 1911 and 1912…

As I am sure many people know, she was sunk by a mine roughly twenty miles out of Lough Swilly on the North-Eastern Irish coast on October 27th 1914, and before she sank she blew up — an explosion which was seen twenty miles away! — which indicates that her wreck’s condition will not be good. Olympic was one of the vessels assisting in the rescue of her crew and an attempted tow. However, I was wondering if anybody knew whether Audacious had been explored or even located?

As always, any help offered would be much appreciated.

Best regards,

Mark.

 

[Michael H. Standart]

Mark, I did a Google.com search and found this link which you may find of interest. Apparently, the ship lies in 66 meters of water and is virtually undisturbed. It's not a dive to be undertaken lightly for obvious reasons. Not only is the ocean out to get you, there is quite a bit of live ammunition lying about. One little goof and you're fish food! Go to;

http://www.ukdiving.co.uk/cgi-bin/wreck4.pl?8443802405

Cordially,
Michael H. Standart

 

[Joshua Gulch]

Mark,
You might try the Battleship vs. Battleship forum at Warships1 if you need more info. Someone might know more specifics on the Audacious' wreck.

http://pub49.ezboard.com/fwarships1discussionboardsfrm1

Just a thought, anyhow.

Josh.

 

[Mark Chirnside]

Hi Mike!

Thanks very much for the link; I had searched before but come up with nothing, so obviously I didn't search hard enough!

Hi Josh!

Thanks for the warship forum url, I'll try there for more information. I'm not so much into warships, but there's lots of juicy info there. Thanks.

I'll let you both know by e-mail how I get on.

Best regards,

Mark.

 

[Michael H. Standart]

Got questions on warships Mark? Ask me. If I don't have the info, it's a good bet I can find it, especially if it's on the net somewhere. If you don't have the Google search engine and tool bar in your machine, you might want to consider downloading and installing the thing. It's one of the very best search engines going.

Go to http://www.goggle.com/

Cordially,
Michael H. Standart

 

[Joshua Gulch]

Mark,
I managed to come across a bit of information about Audacious. Hope you find it useful.
Loss of Audacious: http://www.geocities.com/darrenmilford/audacious.htm (Part of http://www.worldwar1.co.uk/)
Technical specs: http://web.ukonline.co.uk/aj.cashmore/britain/british-dread.html (Under King George V Class, 6th down page)

I'm left wondering why the Royal N. would commission two different King George V Class battleships? That doesn't seem to make much sense.

Josh.

 

[Mark Chirnside]

Hi Mike!

Thanks for that google link and your offer.

Hi Josh!

Thanks for those links -- especially the sinking one. It gives a little more detail than I had, with regard to flooding; pretty much all I knew of 10 a.m. was that the firemen had to draw the fires!

As to the commissioning of those different battleships, I don't know; at a guess, for an experiment with design? An expensive one though!

Best regards,

Mark.

 

[Michael H. Standart]

A class of ship is named after the first one commissioned/built in the series. By the time the second King George V class was commissioned, the older vessels that had the name were long gone.

Cordially,
Michael H. Standart

 

[Mark Chirnside]

Hi Mike, Josh!

One other thought struck me: according to an account I have used, Audacious initially steamed around in circles for a while after the explosion in an attempt to prevent her settling any further. Would this have worked do you think? And, if so, how? I’ll confess to being confused.

By the time the second King George V class was commissioned, the older vessels that had the name were long gone.

Oh! (Blushing here.) I misunderstood -- I was thinking you mean the different propulsion system specifications.

Best regards,

Mark.

 

[X----- X-------]

Mark, Michael and Joshua.


May I interrupt and bring to your attention gentlemen that a book which does exsist and was published in the early 90's. The last time I sat down and had a damn good read and absorbed all the pages was years ago. The book in question is called:- Dreadnought, Britain, Germany, and the coming of the First World War, by Robert K. Massie.

Only a genius like Massie could produce a high quality book, of excellence!

I can't find any fault, the pages are full of compulsive reading an unveil some of those unusal and dark-secrets between the Politicians and the Royal Houses of Imperial Germany, and Great Britain.

My only sound advice is that this book is definitely a MUST for your library beyond any shadow of doubt.

Best wishes

Andrew W.

 

[Joshua Gulch]

Michael,
I just kinda thought that it would be sensical not to have two classes of the same name, even if they were decades apart. The KGV class of 1937 needn't carry the name of the KGV class of 1911. There were four other ships in the '37 class to choose from. The USN had two South Dakota classes, but I figured that the exception to that was that the SD class of 1916 never got past a couple keel plates, while the SD of 1934 actually did get commissioned.

Mark,
I'm not sure how it would have helped. I'd have to read more into the accounts of the sinking to form an opinion. My first thought would be to question how well sailing might have worked. It didn't fare so well with Titanic.

Josh.

 

[Michael H. Standart]

Andrew, I have that book in my stack of stuff to read. It's nice and thick, so I expect it'll take me awhile to get through.

JoshuaThe way ships are named and classes are named don't always make a lot of sense. With the old class long out of the way, there was no reason not to assign it to another. Quite a bit of politics may have been involved too. In any event, it's not unusual for a new ship to be named in honour of an old one, especially if she had a destinguished history. An example is the USS Yorktown. Two aircraft carriers have had the name. Currently, it's assigned to a guided missile cruiser which is in active commission

Mark I can't see how manuevering a damaged ship would help matters at all. With a bloody huge hole in the bottom courtesy of a mine, I would think that movement would tend to force water in.

Cordially,
Michael H. Standart

 

[David G. Brown]

Steaming in a circle could create a low pressure over the hole, depending on dozens of other circumstances. In general, if the circle was tight toward the direction of the wound, and the speed high, some de-watering might occur. This is one technique that is either going to be the ship's salvation or destruction. If it doesn't work, the forward motion would tend to push water into the opening. Also, even if it works, turning at a high rate of speed can't continue forever. If nothing else, the ship will run out of fuel. And, while it's steaming there is no possibility of evacuating the crew using suface methods such as lifeboats. Better not to get a hole in the first place.

-- David G. Brown

 

[Mark Chirnside]

Hi Andrew!

Thanks very much Andrew for the recommendation. I'll look in at it.

Hi Josh, Michael, David;

It doesn't seem to have worked for Audacious either.

Still, a Senior Naval Officer at the time clearly believed that it might, or was worth trying. Thanks for the responses. I am awaiting an e-mail from that diver.

Best regards,

Mark