Third Fleet

[Bart150]

I've read often enough that the main British ships at Coronel came from the Third Fleet, with the implication that they were obsolete.

Can anyone define a bit more precisely what the Third Fleet was?

How did it relate to the First Fleet, the Second Fleet, the Home Fleet, the Grand Fleet etc.?

And how did these various fleets relate to the collection of ships present at the mobilisation review of July 1914?

[joseph]

Bart,

The Third Fleet the reserve fleet in mothballs at Chatham (Pembroke Reserve)

The First fleet became the Grand Fleet. The Second Fleet became the Home Fleet.

The Fourth Fleet the reserve fleet at Sheerness (Nore Reserve)

The mobilisation in July generally affected the RNR and RNVR this crewing the third and fourth fleets. When the order to mobilise was received on the 3/4th of August this caused problems as the RFR and Pensioners that where called up could not fill their billets due to the problem of the RNR and RNVR not being paid off.

Regards Charles

[historydavid]

Bart, the Third Fleet, as Charles has stated, was kept mothballed, but just before the start of the war the cruisers Good Hope and Monmouth were quickly un-mothballed, allocated reserve crews and sent off to patrol Britain's trade routes. The two cruisers had not been modernised in any way and had scratch crews unfamiliar with the ships.

When the Admiralty finally decided that von Spee was heading for the W coast of South America, rather than SW has they had originally thought, Craddock was ordered to raise his flag in Good Hope, take the Monmouth, Glasgow and the AMC Otranto, and head S to stop the German squadron. The Admiralty told Craddock that the armoured cruiser Defence would join him, but then issued different orders to the Defence.

The scene was set for a disaster when they met with the more modern and fully trained Scharnhorst and Gneisenau.

Best wishes

David

[SiegeGunner]

Don't forget Canopus, for what she was worth.

Coronel and the Falklands have been discussed here before, not very long ago. I had the impression that some of the men involved, if not the ships, had encountered Von Spee's flotilla before, on the China station.

As David says, Coronel was an unequal contest ... but Kit Cradock and his men never flinched. Glasgow and Sturdee's battlecruisers avenged them at the Falklands, and Defence met her nemesis at Jutland.

Mick

[Bart150]

Thanks.

I just found a paragraph in Bennett's book on Jutland that helps clarify what the Third Fleet was (as opposed to the First and Second Fleets).

That still leaves me with some questions, but I'm going on holiday now, so I'll leave them for the time being.

Bart

[FAAAEd]

... but Kit Cradock and his men never flinched.

Cradock's actions may have had more than a little to do with the Troubridge-Goeben effect.

[per ardua per mare per terram]

allocated reserve crews ... unfamiliar with the ships.

Standard proceedure in the Navy pre war was to move seamen round from ship to ship every commission, that could only be a few months, so Royal Fleet Reserve (all pre war regulars) men would be used to getting familiar to new ships rapidly, if they didn't want to incur the wroth of the petty officers. But these were not new ships! They had been in service for over 10 years, a design many ratings would be familiar with and may have served on sister ships; they would have been far more out of place aboard dreadnoughts or battlecruisers. They also steamed for 9000+ miles in these ships, now thats what I call a working up cruise!! But pre war and in the cruise they had little opprtunity to practice gunnery and the guns they had were outclassed.

[historydavid]

Standard proceedure in the Navy pre war was to move seamen round from ship to ship every commission, ..... They also steamed for 9000+ miles in these ships, now thats what I call a working up cruise!! .

From The Imperial War Museum's 'Book of the War at Sea 1914-1918' by Julian Thompson: "Craddock might have been able to go some way towards evening up the odds if he had taken the old battleship Canopus with him. But, like his armoured cruisers, she was crewed by elderly reservists and half-trained boys from the training ships." My emphasis.

Corbett quotes from Craddock's signal to the Admiralty on October 26th: "With the force at his disposal he could see no way of bringing to action a squadron so fast, efficient and homogeneous as that of Admiral von Spee. Referring to the order of October 5th and the importance of an early success, he submitted that with the Canopus in company it was impracticable, owing to her slow speed, to seek out and destroy the enemy's squadron. the Canopus was only fit for escorting his colliers. He intended, therfore, to employ her on that duty and had ordered Admiral Stoddart to send him the Defence."

Seems to sum up Craddock's thoughts of the Canopus as a useful fighting unit.

Thompson states the the Admiralty countermanded his order about the Defence. He requested her several more times and was told by the the Admiralty, that if he asked again, he would be replaced.

I agree that Craddock must have had Troubridge's disgraceful treaatment in mind, but he was an 'up-and at-em' type of Admiral, so he may well have proceeded the the same way even without the Troubridge business.

The sad thing for the crews, is that from the moment the first Admiralty order to Craddock was issued, it became a disaster-in-waiting. Sturdee (First Sea Lord) and Churchill (First Lord) were the responsible parties.

Best wishes

David

[joseph]

To go back to Barts original question about the 3rd Fleet, these ships had come out of mothballs and where manned by the Reserve forces. I am sure given time they could have “Worked Up” to a reasonable standard of efficiency. That’s assuming they had the expertise onboard to do that.

The low freeboard of these ships would prohibit gunnery practice in all but the calmest weather in the South Atlantic. I would think even after 3 months it was unlikely each Branch had got itself on a war footing never mind Whole Ship Evolutions.

The base line is you are sending a 3rd Division team to play in the Premier league, yes there is the chance of a win but the odds are low and probably more to luck than efficiency. So was this;

a. The hope of inflicting some damage on Spee so far from any dockyard.

b. Making him expend ammunition he could not replenish.

c. Churchill’s superficial knowledge of naval matters.

To quote a survivor from HMS Good Hope who overheard Cradock telling his Flag Captain “that without Defence what they were being sent to do was suicide”

Regards Charles

[FAAAEd]

So was this;

a. The hope of inflicting some damage on Spee so far from any dockyard.

b. Making him expend ammunition he could not replenish.

c. Churchill’s superficial knowledge of naval matters.

Regards Charles

Probably d. Nothing else available at the time and place given that protection of troop convoys from the antipodes was another big priority at the time as other German raiders were being tracked down.

Having writen that and on c., Churchill's superficial knowledge of just about any military or naval scenario had a baleful effect on allied operations in both world wars.

[Bart150]

To return to the topic of the Third Fleet, and its relation to the First and Second Fleets:

Suppose that I want to know for a given ship and for a given (pre-WW1) date, whether that ship was categorised on that date as First Fleet, Second Fleet, Third Fleet or none of these. Is there any straightforward way of doing that?

The mobilisation review of July 1914 encompassed pretty well all (but not literally all) the ships in the navy that were categorised at that moment as either First or Second or Third Fleet. (That's what I find in Bennett's book on Jutland, p26).

I'd like to get a list of all the ships that were actually present at that review broken down into those three categories. Is there any straightforward way of obtaining that information?

I'd also like to know which ships in each of the three categories were not actually present at the review.

Is there any straightforward way of obtaining that information?

[Michael Lowrey]

I have to disagree a bit with some of the post so far. Simply put, you can't quite equate Third Fleet with obsolete or, conversely, a ship being in active service as a guarantee of modernness. The situation is more complex than that.

Given the rapid advance in technology and the willingness of countries to build bigger ships, any warship built before about 1912 was outdated by 1914 in some regard. By that I mean, some ship had appeared that was at least somewhat bigger/better armed/faster etc. The question is one of degree.

OK, on to Good Hope and Monmouth:

Good Hope and her sistership of the Drake class actually were among the most powerful of the armored cruisers. Only the Minotaur(three ships) and Warrior(four ships) classes were clearly superior. One could make the argument that the Duke of Edinburghs were better, but the poorly placed secondary armament reduced their value considerably.

The Drake class had a rather obvious drawback though. They needed a big crew and thus were expensive to operate. Conway's lists the Drakes' compliment at 900, the most of any armored cruiser, and over 200 more than a Monmouth or Devonshire class cruiser. It's thus no surprise that Good Hope and her sisters went into reserve in 1913.

The Royal Navy had a large need for cruisers to patrol and control the world's oceans. And with the need to provide numbers, the Royal Navy traded qunatity for quality, especially during the armored cruiser era. Thus the Monmouth class. And while Monmouth went into reserve in 1913, most of her sisters were in service when the war began.

The Royal Navy also had a number of small and old light cruisers in commission in 1914 like Fox and Pegasus which made Good Hope and Monmouth look absolutely modern by comparison.

Bottom line: Craddock's main problem was the inexperience of his crews, and less so the quality of his ships.

[joseph]

Bart,

I am sure there will be a list of ships in reserve to both the third and fourth fleets, can I find one nope, maybe in the navy lists of 1913/1914. I have seen a picture of the fleet review July 1914 with the names of the ships present.

Michael,

I agree with, "you can't quite equate Third Fleet with obsolete or, conversely, a ship being in active service as a guarantee of modernness" the reserve was generally made up of the larger capital ships mothballed so they could crew the newer dreadnoughts etc, this was done so the Navy Estimates did not call for more men.

Smaller ships Light Cruiser and below where in short supply Churchill himself said on more than one occasion that he would forgo 2 Capital ships for 40 more Submarines and TBDs.

Regards Charles

[Michael Lowrey]

Charles,

The light cruiser shortage was in part a result of policies adopted by Fisher. He, of course, saw no need to build ships between 3,000 ton scouts to lead destroyer flotillas in the North Sea (and even that was pushing it -- smaller and faster ships would have been even better in his eyes) and a 20,000 ton battlecruiser. And so the Royal Navy didn't lay down any ocean-going cruisers below armored crusier size between 1903 and 1909 (1901 if you don't count the Gems.)

Best wishes,

Michael

[FAAAEd]

Bottom line: Craddock's main problem was the inexperience of his crews, and less so the quality of his ships.

I would agree that crew experience was a problem, not fully worked up on these types of ships. However I would consider that there was a great disparity in the number, hiting range and penetrating power between the guns available to Craddock and those to von Spee.

[SiegeGunner]

I nwould agree that crew experience was a problem, not fully worked up on these types of ships. However I would consider that there was a great disparity in the number, hiting range and penetrating power between the guns available to Craddock and those to von Spee.

I agree. Good Hope left Portsmouth three months before Coronel. Even if she didn't have enough experienced active service men aboard to fully train the reservist crew, she must have been able to muster a 'proper' gun crew to man her 9.2"s in action, which had similar destructive capability, in the right conditions, to Scharnhorst and Gneisenau's 21cm guns. Apart from them, though, Cradock's 'serious' firepower was all in Canopus, which was left behind because Cradock was told that she could manage only 12 kts, despite having achieved 17 kts in a trial in summer 1914. Cradock's dilemma was that his mission was to stop the German squadron getting into the South Atlantic, and he must have feared that, even if Canopus could be 'thrashed' into doing 17-18 kts (about the same as Otranto), von Spee would be unwilling to risk an engagement with a battleship and might succeed in eluding him altogether. In those circumstances, his only option was to offer von Spee a battle he would not run away from, with the ships at his disposal, and hope for good luck - which, in the most optimistic analysis, would perhaps have meant sinking one of the German armoured cruisers at the cost of either Good Hope or Monmouth, and doing significant damage to the other, with Glasgow perhaps sinking one of the light cruisers and damaging another.

Mick

[FAAAEd]

Apart from them, though, Cradock's 'serious' firepower was all in Canopus, which was left behind because Cradock was told that she could manage only 12 kts, despite having achieved 17 kts in a trial in summer 1914.

Mick

Cradock knew the weaknesses of Canopus: her guns, despite their larger caliber, were out-ranged by those of Scharnhorst and Gneisenau. Also Canopus, from being designed for the China station and transiting the Suez Canal was of shallow draft and had a main armour belt of only 6in which although of Krupp (=8in Harvey) was inadequate to prevent penetration by the 8.2in (c21cm) guns of Scharnhorst and Gneisenau.

To be sure she suffered an inordinately pessimistic (some would say shy) engineer but the best that could be expected in knots was still less than Spee's squadron could produce.

In short, Canopus, if cornered, could neither fight with much hope of success (consider the rate of fire from 16 x 8.2in guns compared with 4 x old 12in, and the German gunnery proved excellent - comparatively) nor run away.

[Gibbo]

This break down of the RN into First, Second & Third Fleets at the start of the war is based on Vol. I of the Official History. The information is contained in it but not in this format, so I may have made a few errors

First fleet; fully manned & mobilised.

Flagship; Iron Duke with Light cruiser Sappho & destroyer Oak attached.

1st Battle squadron; Marlborough, St Vincent, Collingwood, Colossus, Hercules, Neptune, Superb, Vanguard & light cruiser Bellona

2nd Battle squadron; King George V, Orion, Ajax, Audacious, Centurion, Conqueror, Monarch, Thunderer & light cruiser Boadicea.

3rd Battle squadron; King Edward VII, Hibernia, Africa, Britannia, Commonwealth, Dominion, Hindustan, Zealandia & light cruiser Blanche.

4th Battle squadron; Dreadnought, Bellerophon, Temeraire & light cruiser Blonde. Pre dreadnought Agamemnon attached temporarily. The newly completed Agincourt, which had been built in a British yard for Turkey, was added to this squadron when seized at the outbreak of the war.

1st Battle Cruiser Squadron; Lion, Princess Royal, Queen Mary, New Zealand.

The ships in the 3rd Battle Squadron were all King Edward VII class pre-dreadnoughts. All the battleships in the other squadrons were dreadnoughts except for Agamemnon.

2nd Cruiser Squadron; Shannon, Achilles, Cochrane, Natal.

3rd Cruiser Squadron; Antrim, Argyll, Devonshire, Roxburgh.

4th Cruiser Squadron; Suffolk, Lancaster, Essex, Berwick, Bristol (light).

1st Light Cruiser Squadron; Southampton, Birmingham, Nottingham, Liverpool, Falmouth, Lowestoft.

There were also 4 Flotillas, each of a light cruiser & 20 destroyers. I’m not sure if these are the same as the light cruisers attached to each battle squadron. The First Fleet should have become the Grand Fleet but the 4th C.S. was in the West Indies so was replaced by the 6th.

Second Fleet which had nucleus crews of 60% (I’ve seen 50% quoted elsewhere) of normal complement, including all specialists & would be fully manned from personnel in shore establishments on the outbreak of war or for manoeuvres.

Flagship Lord Nelson plus 5th & 6th Battle Squadrons of 5 Duncan class, 8 Formidable class & Vengeance. All pre dreadnoughts.

5th Cruiser Squadron; Carnarvon, Cornwall, Cumberland, Monmouth (last 3 Monmouth class).

6th Cruiser Squadron; Drake, King Alfred, Good Hope, Leviathan (all Drake class).

Home Defence Patrol Flotillas of 7 flotilla cruisers, 4 patrol flotillas & 7 submarine flotillas. The submarines had full rather than nucleus crews.

I assume that everything else in home ports was part of the Third Fleet. It certainly included the 7th & 8th Battle Squadrons, consisting of 5 Canopus & 9 Majestic class pre dreadnoughts & a lot of old cruisers, which were formed into the 7th, 9th, 10th, 11th & 12th Cruiser Squadrons. For some reason, there wasn't an 8th.

The Mediterranean Fleet consisted of;

2nd Battle Cruiser Squadron; Inflexible, Indefatigable, Indomitable.

1st Cruiser Squadron; Defence, Black Prince, Duke of Edinburgh, Warrior.

Light cruisers; Chatham, Dublin, Gloucester, Weymouth.

I don’t have a list of ships on other stations.

I can’t explain why Good Hope & Monmouth appear to be in the Second Fleet so should have had nucleus crews when all descriptions of Coronel say that they had scratch crews

[joseph]

Martin,

Hard work going against Official History’s?

The mobilisation of the fleet ordered in August 1914 was carried out in accordance with the Instructions for Mobilisation (Edition 1912) CB 220.

The “Manoeuvres” had been carried out just before the mobilisation and some ships had not paid off. Their crews were therefore composed of men in many cases who did not form part of the mobilisation crew. This involved many more active service changes at the last moment than would otherwise have been necessary.

The Manoeuvres in July mobilised the Royal Naval Reserve and RNVR, not the RFR and pensioners, the Depots and schools did not man for these Manoeuvres.

The nominal appropriation of RFR and pensioners was largely upset on account of all the "manoeuvre ships" not being paid off. Fresh appropriations of the first arrivals of reserves in depôt had to be made, as it was known that many reserve men were already in "Manoeuvre ships," whom it was not desirable to change. (CB1515(50) The Technical History and Index (Part 50): Mobilisation of the Fleet. Demobilisation Records, 1918-19)

More reserves responded to the first mobilisation orders than had been anticipated. The result was a great congestion at the depots and schools, and many reserves had to be sent home again temporarily for lack of accommodation.

Maybe answers why the fleet had a lot of inexperienced personnel at the beginning this changed when they took the RNR and RNVR off the ships and got the RFR and pensioners to sea the Auxiliaries and RND’s benefited.

Regards Charles

[Gibbo]

My previous posting was based on the Official History but Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1906-1921 says that Monmouth was part of the Third Fleet, not the Second. Good Hope was part of the July 1914 test mobilisation. I had forgotten that, as Charles correctly points out, most of the RNVR, were taken off ships & formed into the RND, presumably to be replaced by RFR men new to the ships involved.

[Bart150]

Thanks, Gibbo.

You're saying that the information I am looking for is to be found (at least in part) in:

Official History Volume 1

Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1906-1921.

Can you give me please a more precise title than "Official History Volume 1"?

Are there any other comparable sources for detail about the ships besides the two books you mentioned?

Do you know any books that explain something about the policy and implications of categorising ships as Third Fleet, Second Fleet etc?

Thanks

Bart

[Gibbo]

The best book on the policy and plans of the Royal Navy before WWI is Volume 1 (there are another 4 dealing with the actual war) of From the Dreadnought to Scapa Flow: The Royal Navy in the Fisher Era, 1904-19 by Arthur J. Marder. Vol. 1 gives the reasons behind the policy but doesn't say which ships were in which Fleets. I haven't actually read Vol. 2, so it's possible that it might say which ships were in which fleet but I don't know.

The full title of the book that I called the Official History is History of the Great War. Naval Operations. Vol. 1: To the battle of the Falklands, December 1914 by Sir Julian Corbett. There were 5 volumes in total; Corbett wrote the first 3 & Henry Newbolt the fifth. I'm not sure which of them wrote Vol. 4. Near the start it states which squadrons were in the First, Second & Third Fleets & gives an indication of which classes of ships made up which Battle Squadrons but not generally their names I think that the First Fleet was meant to become the Grand Fleet on the outbreak of war but it didn't work out exactly that way. There were also appendices which named the ships of each squadron of the Grand Fleet & the Mediterranean Fleet. Within the text it is possible to work out which ships were in some but not all of the other Cruiser Squadrons.

Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1906-1921 gives technical details & short histories of all ships built in 1906-21 plus briefer histories of older ships still in service; technical details of the latter are in the 1860-1905 volume. It doesn't usually say whether a British ship was in the First, Second or Third Fleet, it jsut happend that Monmouth was one of those where it did say.

I've got a bit more to add but will have to leave it until tomorrow.

[Bart150]

I've got a bit more to add but will have to leave it until tomorrow.

Please do! This is just the kind of information I need. Thanks!

Bart

[Gibbo]

The First Fleet consisted of those ships fully manned and commissioned.

The Second Fleet had nucleus crews which included all specialists. When Fisher first introduced the nucleus crew system around 1905-6, they were 40% of the complement but I think that this had risen to 60% by 1914. These vessels would carry out training with the nucleus crews & would be brought up to full strength for annual manoeuvres & in the event of mobilisation by men from shore establishments. The nucleus crews would be familiar with the ships but the other 40% wouldn't. I had not known until Charles pointed it out that the manoeuvre & mobilisation crews wouldn't necessarily be the same. This would obviously increase unfamiliarity of crews with their ships.

The Third Fleet had only care & maintenance parties on board & would be manned by reservists.

I think that battleships were generally allocated between the 3 fleets by age but that, as pointed out by Michael, crew size was a criteria for cruisers as peacetime manning was a problem for the RN. I'm not sure on this point, but I think that First Fleet ships under refit might be allocated to the Second or even the Third during their refit.

I'll try to answer any questions but this is very close to exhausting my knowledge.

[Gibbo]

I just want to clarify that although the proper title of the British Naval Official History is History of the Great War, Naval Operations, library catalogues may list it as simply Naval Operations. There are 5 volumes & 4 of them (I think the exception is number 2) have map supplements.