Spontaneous Magazine Explosions

[Justin Moretti]

This question relates to HMS Natal, HMS Vanguard etc., ships which blew up spontaneously in harbour.

As I understand it, the issue was the cordite in their magazines decomposing.

Question - if you could have stood in the magazine a few seconds before it blew up, would you have SMELLED anything different? I'm trying out a plot-line for a novel, in which something similar to the HMS Natal incident occurs (she was hosting a children's party when she exploded), only this time one of the kids being shown around smells something funny and the crew floods the magazine in time and saves the ship, but I want to make sure this is actually possible.

Thanks in advance.

[James A Pratt III]

I don't know weather anyone could have smelled anything. From what I have read on the loss of the "Bulwark" the powder charges were being sorted out and were stacked up against a bulkhead which had a boiler room on the other side and a order was given to get up steam. The charges were under guard since the ammo handlers had off to eat. No one will know if anyone noticed anything because everyone near was killed by the explosion along with most of the ships crew. This is from a book by R.A. Burk on British Battleships ?-1904 that I read some time ago. "Warship 2004" and "Warship 2005" have articals dealing with British naval shells of WW I. 2005 also discusses the magazine explosions on the above ships do to old cordite. 2004 has a section on the "Worlds worst warships" has the monitor "Glatton" having crumpled newspaper for insulation! I believe the book "My Mystry Ships" by John Campbell, the VC winning Q-ship commander says something about sending an officer ashore when his ship was in port to check the lot numbers of cordite charges and getting rid of those charges that were too old. One hopes this is of some help.

[James A Pratt III]

errta to the above: R.A Burt's book is British Battleships 1889-1904. It should be "My Mystery Ships " by Gordon Campbell VC.

[Vista52]

When I was a kid, I found a .50 cal bullet at a B 17 crash site. We took the bullet off and found long strands of cordite in the cartridge. When we lit them they just went fizzzzzz, a little smoke, and that was that.

[centurion]

Like gunpowder which it largely replaced, cordite does not detonate but explodes - meaning that it burns incredibly rapidly producing large amounts of gas in a very very short space of time, if this is in a confined space (a loaded gun barrel, a rifle round or a steel walled magazine ) then something has to give (the shell or bullet is propelled or the walls of the magazine errupt outwards with great force). If it is free to expand then there is much less effect. In gunpowder the effect is influenced by the physical attributes of the mix. The old ungrained powders gave a comparitively weak effect as the speed of combustion was lower than the latter grained or corned powders (the powder was wet then forced through a seive to produce grains, after these had dried they were 'varnished' to stop them breaking down) were much more poweful. Similarly with cordite if the cords were unraveled so as to be less well packed the force was reduced.

Explosives that detonate do not so much burn as create a shock wave that travels outwards, in some cases at hypersonic speeds, and no confinement is needed. Although the differance woult not be noticable (or indeed anything else) to someone standing next to an explosion it is too violent for use as a propellant hence gunpowder or cordite was used.

[truthergw]

If decomposing cordite could be smelled, then it would have been. The sailors working in the magazine would have smelled it and reported it. Certainly it has a distinct smell when fired. Cordite gives off a lot of heat when burned. You can boil up a dixie for tea very quickly with the cordite out of just a couple of rounds of .303. Remember to steal the rounds from someone else. They all have to be accounted for.

[centurion]

Try this link for info on cordite explosions in ships http://www.gwpda.org/naval/thist24.htm

One relevant point it makes is that two gunnery types visited Bulwark's magazine 15 minutes before the explosion and noticed nothing untoward which might discount the smell idea. Note the nequiry on the Bulwark did not come to any definite conclusion as to the cause of the initial explosion although its sperad round the ship was ascribed to sloppy storage practices. However the fact that it had become the practice to hang cordite bags near a bulkhead that could get as hot as 129 F is suggestive

[ian turner]

2004 has a section on the "Worlds worst warships" has the monitor "Glatton" having crumpled newspaper for insulation!

I am only working from a (defective) memory, but I seem to remember that the Glatton did not have the newspaper as insulation, rather that some was found inside the bulkhead of its sister ship. The bulkhead being between the boiler room and the magazine, itself a 'dodgy' juxtaposition, and the newspaper possibly left there by shipyard workers.

Ian

[Justin Moretti]

Thanks for that (sigh).

There goes that lovely idea! Was not indispensible - will just have to write from another angle. My heroic would-be cordite smeller was a young lass who excites the admiration of one of the younger officers by spotting the impending disaster and love blossoms, etc. etc.

If this ever gets in print, this board (and indeed the whole Long Long Trail website) will get a mention for helping me out with the technical stuff.

[truthergw]

Couldn't she notice that one of the bags of explosive is well past its sell by date?

[centurion]

Reading some of the reports in the link I posted earlier I notice that spontaneous combustion appears to have been an explanation advanced when nobody could think of any other (rather like pilot error in some modern attitudes to air accidents). So what you need is some plausible possible cause of explosion that could be spotted by your heroine - no one will be able to prove otherwise.

[squirrel]

A carelessly discarded fag end usually does the trick; perhaps flicked carelessly aside and going down a vent?

[centurion]

I don't known when the plot is set but in 'Dark invader' an autobiographical account by a German naval officer involved in sabotage operations in the US in 1915/1916 the Germans had a pencil fuse which was used to start fires in cargoes bound for Britain. It was based on acid etching its way through a metal plate and could be set by days. It wasn't very big- so easy to conceal. The Germans used Irish American sympaphisers amongst the dock workers to place them. Just the thing to set off a magazine explosion, especially as British intelligence appear to have been unaware of their existance for some time. Perhaps you could work this in somehow.

BTW if you do find an amenable publisher - let me have his address.

[Justin Moretti]

Couldn't she notice that one of the bags of explosive is well past its sell by date?

Maybe that should be "shoot-by" date?

Thanks to all the others who've contributed ideas, but I think I'll have to let this one go.

FYI it's set in about the year 3500, but there has been a gigantic world disaster, and things are getting back to the level of 1900 or so. In other words, the technology and industry are at the level of 1900, but the knowledge is what we have today. A sort of "neo-Victorian" future, so the good guys' capital ships have power-loading to their 9.2 inch guns, autoloading to QF up to six inch, and Pollen Argo fire control, but there's no radar or guided missiles or anything like that.

(How would you do radar without CRTs anyway? You'd have to use a pencil on a smoked drum - that would be a ***** of a thing to try to read in combat. EDIT - the first CRT oscilloscope was made in 1897)

"Our latest warship has a single 12 pounder with self-regulating mechanical loading, discharging ninety rounds a minute. Forty Marconi-Whitehead aerial torpedoes are fired from equipment on the forecastle deck, and there are tubes for 12 inch dirigible Whitehead torpedoes amidships, all controlled by an electrical Babbage engine deep within the ship. Aft is a hangar and deck for a flying machine, and mounted atop the same is a motor driven Gatling gun of approximately 12 bore."

Name the ship.

[truthergw]

QV2.

[Justin Moretti]

Actually, no. Sorry. what I meant to say was "Identify the ship."

[centurion]

Justin

If you are looking at a world using advanced 19th century technology - have you read "A Transatlantic Tunnel Hurrah" by an American author Harry Harrison? It's set in a parallel world where Washington was defeated (and executed) at Yorktown and the tradition of Victorian engineering has rolled into the 20th century. Dreadnaughts are huge steam turbine powered flying boats (some despatched to patrol the Rhineland as part of a peace enforcing mission to seperate the French and the German Confederation). An electric Babbage machine is operated (in Canada) by a Sqn Leader Arthur C Clarke and the Flying Scotsman has its steam produced by a nuclear reactor. The hero one Augustus Washington is a young American engineer with the firm of Brassey Brunel anxious to live down the stain on the family reputation from his infamous ancestor. The former rebel colonies remain the last part of the British Empire awaiting dominion status. The American 'Indian' nations were never destroyed and form a large, semi devolved, part of the Empire. The first edition referred to the International Babbage Machine company but another form of imperial organisation using those initials insisted on this being removed. Hokum but entertaining hokum.

[ian turner]

Also worth to read the Crysalis Factor by John Wyndham - a post nuclear apocalyptic world set in Labrador, Canada. Technology has taken a back-step but seemingly far off new Zealand survived and continued with modern technology. A good read if I recall, and the story is not so much about the technology rather than the subjects of the storyline.

Ian

[MikB]

This question relates to HMS Natal, HMS Vanguard etc., ships which blew up spontaneously in harbour.

As I understand it, the issue was the cordite in their magazines decomposing.

Question - if you could have stood in the magazine a few seconds before it blew up, would you have SMELLED anything different?

Problem is that most of us who've experience of Cordite have never heard of it decomposing. I've got a few ounces of 5-2 MDT Cordite in my garage, out of 303 rounds dating from 1942, and I'd say the stuff is as sound now as the day it was extruded 65 years ago. I'd quite happily use it if it weren't for the fact that its flame temperature washes out barrels a lot quicker than modern granules.

I just took a sniff in my bag of Cordite and it had the same faintly oily smell it always has. When it burns in the open it has a salt-and-peppery smell similar to modern nitro. Maybe it has something to do with Rangoon oil, but when fired it has a quite unique smell that I can only describe as "burnt orange peel boiled in cheap tinned spaghetti"

Regards,

MikB

[James A Pratt III]

Oops! I forgot the magazine explosions were covered on the net at GWPDA. However, I have an idea for a new plotline how about a coal bunker fire? They happened more often than magazine explosions. From some notes I found from "British Battleships of WW I" R.A. Burt the St Vincent, Collingwood, and Vanguard all had coal bunker fires pre-WW I and one near a magazine may have caused the magazine explosion that sank the Vanguard.

[Justin Moretti]

a world using advanced 19th century technology -

Classified by anime, manga and graphic novel creators as "steampunk", I believe.

The upcoming film "The Golden Compass" includes some of this.

(Ian, the novel you speak of I know as "The Chrysalids", and it is scary if only for the puritan religious culture in the Labrador colony.)

Yeah, anyway... plot idea. Dead and gone. Thanks for helping me avoid a minefield.

[ian turner]

(Ian, the novel you speak of I know as "The Chrysalids", and it is scary if only for the puritan religious culture in the Labrador colony.)

I am sure that is the correct name - I read it about 40 years ago, and struggled to recall the title when posting. Thanks.

Ian

[Jonathan Saunders]

As I understand it, the issue was the cordite in their magazines decomposing.

With regard to HMS VANGUARD it was almost certainly heat generated through a bulk head into the magazine that caused the explosion. I think after HMS Natal blew up the Royal Navy checked dates and stability of cordite deposited with all battleships. The cordite on HMS Vanguard was not considered unsafe and in most instances was relatively new from memory.

A search on HMS Vanguard on this Forum and a search on this website: http://www.gwpda.org/naval/n0000000.htm will provide further details.

Regards,

Jon S

[centurion]

I think we are going around in circles, the relevant entry in the pages that link takes you to is the one covered in the link I posted much earlier in this thread.

To repeat myself - it does look as if cordite self combustion was an explanation raised when courts of enquiry couldn't find any thing else to think of and all other explanations had been exhausted rather than a proven fact. In different circumstances 'pilot error' is used in the same way.

[Jonathan Saunders]

I think we are going around in circles, the relevant entry in the pages that link takes you to is the one covered in the link I posted much earlier in this thread.

Apologies - I hadnt noticed the link had been provided previously.