Kyle Fisher
Member
Do u think if they made Titanic hull made outta of Steel instead of iron?
Cause i think it would have saved the passengers and crew of her.
Cause i think it would have saved the passengers and crew of her.
Titanic's hull
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Dave Gittins
Member
Kyle, she was made of steel. People use the terms 'iron' and 'steel' indiscriminately in books and movies. Ships were built of iron in the early days of steel but by 1912 steel was available in large quantities. The steel in Titanic was roughly equivalent to modern mild steel. Tensile strength was about 30 tons per square inch.
An odd fact is that iron rusts much more slowly than steel. As a result, some very old iron ships survive, while steel ships disappear quickly. A steel wreck on a local beach went from a complete ship to a few scraps of rust in well under 100 years. An iron Titanic would have been weaker but the wreck would be in better shape.
An odd fact is that iron rusts much more slowly than steel. As a result, some very old iron ships survive, while steel ships disappear quickly. A steel wreck on a local beach went from a complete ship to a few scraps of rust in well under 100 years. An iron Titanic would have been weaker but the wreck would be in better shape.
Kyle Fisher
Member
i meant was like stronger steel than she already was and i didnt know how to say it.
Michael H. Standart
Member
Kyle, the problem here is two fold.
1)The steel used in the Titanic was state of the art for the time and few if any competitors were any better. It's possible Krupp might have been but that's neither here nor there. When you run a mass of up to 50,000 tonnes of steel into an even larger mass that ain't gonna budge no matter how hard you shove, bad things are going to happen. The known/asserted damage would have been non-survivable even with the steels made today.
2)Questions of the quality of the steel are a late comer into Titanic forensics debates and never would have been an issue had the ship avoided the icefield in the first place. Literally thousands of vessels have been built using basically the same steel and they served just fine. The Olympic and Queen Mary for example.
1)The steel used in the Titanic was state of the art for the time and few if any competitors were any better. It's possible Krupp might have been but that's neither here nor there. When you run a mass of up to 50,000 tonnes of steel into an even larger mass that ain't gonna budge no matter how hard you shove, bad things are going to happen. The known/asserted damage would have been non-survivable even with the steels made today.
2)Questions of the quality of the steel are a late comer into Titanic forensics debates and never would have been an issue had the ship avoided the icefield in the first place. Literally thousands of vessels have been built using basically the same steel and they served just fine. The Olympic and Queen Mary for example.
Kyle Fisher
Member
ok thanks Micheal and u too Dave so thanks for answering my question.
john skinner
Guest
the impact of titanic and the iceberg produced some pretty drastic damage to the ship.the "what if's"of steel or iron is negated by the fact that the hull was an inch thick. i even think a battleship could sustain some pretty considerable damage upon contact with an iceberg the size that titanic ran into though i dont think the damage would be as extensive.
Tom Pappas
Guest
We humans have a tendency to measure the strength of things relative to our own puny size.
To think about how strong one inch steel is, imagine a 1:1000 model of the ship. The hull would be about 10.7" long, and her skin would be about the thickness of the foil that gum is wrapped in - .001". At the same scale, a typical battleship's armor belt would be .012"
To think about how strong one inch steel is, imagine a 1:1000 model of the ship. The hull would be about 10.7" long, and her skin would be about the thickness of the foil that gum is wrapped in - .001". At the same scale, a typical battleship's armor belt would be .012"
Michael H. Standart
Member
>>the "what if's"of steel or iron is negated by the fact that the hull was an inch thick.<<
No it is not.
See Tom's answer above as it covers the ground from a mathamatical standpoint that says it as well as anyone can. Scale it all down as he suggests, and you would be amazed at how puny inch thick steel is against the sea and all the hazards it has to offer.
>>i even think a battleship could sustain some pretty considerable damage upon contact with an iceberg the size that titanic ran into though i dont think the damage would be as extensive.<<
Why wouldn't it be? Don't look to the armour for an answer until you learn a thing or thousand about how capital warship armouring schemes work. Armour protection consisted of some plates of varied thickness arranged to protect vital areas such as machinary, command and controls spaces, rudder machinary, and weapons. It was not as if the whole hull was designed to be 12 inches thick throughout, and would scarcely float if it was.
Armour was provided as and only where the naval authorities designing and building the ship deemed in necessery, and everywhere else was just plain old hull plating of the usual thicknesses one would find on any vessel.
Which is to say, not very thick at all.
No it is not.
See Tom's answer above as it covers the ground from a mathamatical standpoint that says it as well as anyone can. Scale it all down as he suggests, and you would be amazed at how puny inch thick steel is against the sea and all the hazards it has to offer.
>>i even think a battleship could sustain some pretty considerable damage upon contact with an iceberg the size that titanic ran into though i dont think the damage would be as extensive.<<
Why wouldn't it be? Don't look to the armour for an answer until you learn a thing or thousand about how capital warship armouring schemes work. Armour protection consisted of some plates of varied thickness arranged to protect vital areas such as machinary, command and controls spaces, rudder machinary, and weapons. It was not as if the whole hull was designed to be 12 inches thick throughout, and would scarcely float if it was.
Armour was provided as and only where the naval authorities designing and building the ship deemed in necessery, and everywhere else was just plain old hull plating of the usual thicknesses one would find on any vessel.
Which is to say, not very thick at all.
john skinner
Guest
the hood had armor from 5" thick all the way to being 12" thick.even at 5" thick the hull would be LESS likely to buckle than a 1" hull therefore it would be a safer vessel.PERIOD.
Tom Pappas
Guest
The armor on warships was arranged so as to protect the vitals from artillery fire, not underwater hazards (or attacks). The thickest plate was on the turrets, but a large belt around the magazines and fire control was also typical. This was almost entirely above the water line.
I think that regardless of whether such a ship bumped an iceberg or grounded on a spur, the damage would have been much the same as Titanic suffered (although military-style subdivision might have saved it from sinking).
My dad was on the engineering team at Watervliet Arsenal that built the Mark 7 rifles for the Iowas. He didn't talk about it much, but said that Dante could describe the shop floor adequately.
I think that regardless of whether such a ship bumped an iceberg or grounded on a spur, the damage would have been much the same as Titanic suffered (although military-style subdivision might have saved it from sinking).
My dad was on the engineering team at Watervliet Arsenal that built the Mark 7 rifles for the Iowas. He didn't talk about it much, but said that Dante could describe the shop floor adequately.
Michael H. Standart
Member
>>the hood had armor from 5" thick all the way to being 12" thick.even at 5" thick the hull would be LESS likely to buckle than a 1" hull therefore it would be a safer vessel.PERIOD.<<
John, befor you hit people with these all encompassing "periods" I would strongly suggest that you actually take the time to study and get to know how and why ships of all kinds are built as they are.
Quite a few of the people here have done exactly that and the body of expertise here includes a metallurgist, professional historians, sailors of every patch from deckplate seamen such as myself to fully licensed ship captains, engineers, and mathmaticians. You might want to think about that befor you try to talk down to anybody here. It won't be kindly recieved and rightly so!
The armour figures you gave for the HMS Hood are for the armour belt which protects only a limited section of the ship's side from hostile shellfire. the Armoured deck would tend to be low down so as to avoid topweight problems and stil protect the vitals from plunging fire.
The rest of the ship would be unarmoured and plated in normal hull plating no more then an inch thick depending on what the construction specifications called for. In point of fact, there's really no way one can build a ship with extrodinary thicknesses throughout as even if the beast could float, it would take enormous amounts of power just to move it, and there is no way a ship so overweight could ever carry a useful payload.
Now if you want to see the actual armour specifications for the HMS Hood, then you would do well to click on This Hotlink. You will see that by no means was the whole hull 5 inches thick.
John, befor you hit people with these all encompassing "periods" I would strongly suggest that you actually take the time to study and get to know how and why ships of all kinds are built as they are.
Quite a few of the people here have done exactly that and the body of expertise here includes a metallurgist, professional historians, sailors of every patch from deckplate seamen such as myself to fully licensed ship captains, engineers, and mathmaticians. You might want to think about that befor you try to talk down to anybody here. It won't be kindly recieved and rightly so!
The armour figures you gave for the HMS Hood are for the armour belt which protects only a limited section of the ship's side from hostile shellfire. the Armoured deck would tend to be low down so as to avoid topweight problems and stil protect the vitals from plunging fire.
The rest of the ship would be unarmoured and plated in normal hull plating no more then an inch thick depending on what the construction specifications called for. In point of fact, there's really no way one can build a ship with extrodinary thicknesses throughout as even if the beast could float, it would take enormous amounts of power just to move it, and there is no way a ship so overweight could ever carry a useful payload.
Now if you want to see the actual armour specifications for the HMS Hood, then you would do well to click on This Hotlink. You will see that by no means was the whole hull 5 inches thick.
Parks Stephenson
Member
<font color="#000066">the hood had armor from 5" thick all the way to being 12" thick.even at 5" thick the hull would be LESS likely to buckle than a 1" hull therefore it would be a safer vessel.PERIOD.
You picked a strange example. Hood was as much a victim of her anticipated operating environment as Titanic was of hers. Why not pick a ship that didn't sink for your comparison? You know, Titanic had an older sister that survived more than a few mishaps...
Parks
You picked a strange example. Hood was as much a victim of her anticipated operating environment as Titanic was of hers. Why not pick a ship that didn't sink for your comparison? You know, Titanic had an older sister that survived more than a few mishaps...
Parks
john skinner
Guest
the reason i gave the example of the Hood was to point out that she had protection in the areas titanic was most severely hurt.and michael,i havent had a reason,at least a justifiable one to talk down to anyone yet.it just seems to me that an inch or two more protection on cruise ships in general would be a good thing.it seems to me you like to trounce on people for giving their oppinion.if you dont want me to share my opinion,than take me off the list with everyone else you dont prefer the input of.
robert s hauser
Guest
Uh, this is my first one. Can anyone help me understand the plating scheme used on the Olympics? I've read about how rows of plates were arranged in overlapping "strakes" and I can see this in photographs, but I don't quite get how the plates were joined end to end. They don't look like they overlap the same way as the strakes, it almost looks like some kind of bulge going on where they are joined end to end. Also, was anykind of caulking or waterproofing used between the overlaps, or were they riveted so perfectly as to be totally watertight?. One other thing, I notice this on the Queen Mary as well, why were the rivits so much more numerous on the top edge of the hull, like around C deck on Titanic? Thanks. Rob
Michael H. Standart
Member
>>the reason i gave the example of the Hood was to point out that she had protection in the areas titanic was most severely hurt.<<
No she did not. The Hood's armour belt didn't extend a good twenty feet below the waterline and all the way around to the underbelly of the ship where the damage would have actually occurred.
>>and michael,i havent had a reason,at least a justifiable one to talk down to anyone yet.<<
And you still don't and never will. So let's get away from that.
>>it just seems to me that an inch or two more protection on cruise ships in general would be a good thing<<
1)Running into an iceberg at 21 to 22 knots would have rendered it quite irrelevant. Remember you've got your own mass working agianst you and you're running into something that's not going to give ground for you no matter how hard you push.
2)The best evidence and opinion seems to point to a combination of cracked plates, split seams, and rivets which failed under the stress. And again, the thickness of the plates would have made little real difference on this.
3)You might want to check on the sort of weight penalty you would be imposing on a vessel by going from an inch in thickness to 2 inches of thickness. The sheer mass added would have been of little real protection in most situtations and would have made the ship unacceptably costly to run.
>>it seems to me you like to trounce on people for giving their oppinion.if you dont want me to share my opinion,than take me off the list with everyone else you dont prefer the input of.<<
In a public access forum, anything you post is fair game for any one of the registered members or any one of the moderators who happens to take an interest. If you post something that others believe or know to be in error, you're going to hear about it and you'll have to defend it.
Just remember that in this group, a number of the people here are trained in the diciplines you have an interest in so they actually know what they're talking about.
You do have a right to your opinion.
You do not have a right to have it go unchallanged.
If you cannot deal with those realities, then forum participation of any kind may not be for you.
Your call.
No she did not. The Hood's armour belt didn't extend a good twenty feet below the waterline and all the way around to the underbelly of the ship where the damage would have actually occurred.
>>and michael,i havent had a reason,at least a justifiable one to talk down to anyone yet.<<
And you still don't and never will. So let's get away from that.
>>it just seems to me that an inch or two more protection on cruise ships in general would be a good thing<<
1)Running into an iceberg at 21 to 22 knots would have rendered it quite irrelevant. Remember you've got your own mass working agianst you and you're running into something that's not going to give ground for you no matter how hard you push.
2)The best evidence and opinion seems to point to a combination of cracked plates, split seams, and rivets which failed under the stress. And again, the thickness of the plates would have made little real difference on this.
3)You might want to check on the sort of weight penalty you would be imposing on a vessel by going from an inch in thickness to 2 inches of thickness. The sheer mass added would have been of little real protection in most situtations and would have made the ship unacceptably costly to run.
>>it seems to me you like to trounce on people for giving their oppinion.if you dont want me to share my opinion,than take me off the list with everyone else you dont prefer the input of.<<
In a public access forum, anything you post is fair game for any one of the registered members or any one of the moderators who happens to take an interest. If you post something that others believe or know to be in error, you're going to hear about it and you'll have to defend it.
Just remember that in this group, a number of the people here are trained in the diciplines you have an interest in so they actually know what they're talking about.
You do have a right to your opinion.
You do not have a right to have it go unchallanged.
If you cannot deal with those realities, then forum participation of any kind may not be for you.
Your call.
