Romanian Navy "Black Sea" Division actions in WW1

It is not clear how many hits Goeben received at Cape Sarych. In any case, it was unable to sink a single Russian obsolete pre-dreadnought. An account of the battle can be found here:
http://www.gwpda.org/naval/csayrch1.htm

During the second engagement, it only faced 3 pre-dreadnoughts and broke off the engagement when two additional Russian ships came in range.

As for the meetings with the new Russian ships, i've read somewhere that the Russian fire was very accurate from the first salvoes, which made Goeben run away.

In any case, even pre-dreadnoughts were a match for the German battlecruiser. If Romania would have built the six coastal battleships envisaged by the 1899 naval program, i wonder if these ships had any chance vs Goeben.

the entire fire exchange took 14 mins. you don't expect a battleship, be it a pre-dreadnought, to be destroyed in 14 mins, barring disaster like a ammunition explosion? the Goeben didin't break off because of the 1 12" hit she recived (her sister ship Moltke at Jütland, took damage from 4 15" hits and 1 13.5" near miss while remaining operational.

at Moon Sound, the pre-dreadnought Slava recived 7 12" from the german battleship König before being scuttled; the fire exchange lasted 23 mins.

Goeben broke off because the other russian pre-dreadnoughts came in range. Souchon was supposed to catch isolated parts of the russian fleet if possible, and sink them, not to have himself pinned against 5x4 12" guns dispersed among 5 diffrent ships with 5 diffrent ranges.

the russians learned, that they had to keep them together to stand against the Goeben. barring a lucky hit, the Goeben would allways manage to break off, having a +10 knots advantage.
the designer of the "Dreadnought" said, that 1 dreadnought was worth as many as 3 or maybe 4 pre-dreadnoughts. that goes for a ship-o-line, not a battlecruiser, which job was to sink anything weaker and outrun anything stronger.

granted, the Goeben could take on 2 pre-dreadnoughts at the time, but being the only serios capital ship available, was ill advised to do so.

even a dreadnought might have not engaged all russian pre-dradnoughts together if she was the only capital ship around available, as there was hardly much to gain.
not the predreadnoughts hampered the Goeben's freedom of movement, lack of coal did, coal, being mined in Lazistan and ferried from Trebizond by collers intercepted by 9 modern russian destroyers, which were the actual threat to the turkish ability to wage war, instead a few futile attempts to bombard the Bosporus.

Romania would have needed a crystal ball then, to know the future. because otherwise, they'd had to plan for something countering the Agincourt, which was ordered for the turkish navy, and this dreadnought was supposed to have 14 12" guns.
no, it wouldn't have been a good idea to build coastal battleships. they would be limited in seaworthieness and expensive to maintain. the russian didn't build pre-dreadnoughts out of foresight, they ended up with them as legacy and had to use them at best they could, nothing other being available during 1914.

At Cape Sarych, the Goeben didn't break off because the other Russian ships came into range. Most of them were in range from the start but fired using wrong fire control information. In my opinion, Goeben broke off the engagement because Souchon realised that the Russians were not the easy prey he expected them to be and that their fire was accurate enough to inflict serious damage on his ship in a long exchange. And, as you said, Goeben was the only capital ship the Central Powers had in the Black Sea (except the Turkish pre-dreadnoughts).

I agree with your other points.

as soon the first spotting shells landed the other pre-dreadnoughts would realize they were off range.

according to the book i quoted, the russian ship scored a hit in her first salvo, after that no other hit is mentioned. means the pre-dradnought found the range on her first attempt, but unlucky from then on, despite having found the range. the Goeben scored subsequently 4 more hits. the book doesn't mention the degree of damage produced on either ship by the hit. it might as well be possible that Souchon saw her speed being endangered by the hit he recived, although i haven't found anything on that. Souchon had hoped to catch some isolated warships and destroy them. failing that, he had no business getting himself into a fight with 5 pre-dradnoughts.

also i doubt Souchon would be so incompetent viewing all enemy capital ships in the black sea as easy prey. in that case, he did what he was supposed to do.
the inferiority of a pre-dreadnought is from the concept of 4 main guns only, an out-of-date armor scheme (not the armor itself) and a quite low speed, a tribute to the end-of-life of the triple-expansion engine design.

Souchon probably thought the Russians were easy prey because of the poor reputation of the Russian navy after the Russian-Japanese war. Not to mention that some of the Russian ships were of the same type as those defeated by the Japanese at Tsushima in 1905.

by many other ships of a similar class and not a single battlecruiser. i doubt someone would become a senior officer on a capital ship (or any other military craft for that matter) without knowing the limitations and possibilities, of the vessel he would command.

other than that, as every numerically (and not only) inferior fleet, capital ships were not to be risked without a pressing need, which explains why so few have been lost in combat during WW1.

actually, Souchon found his talents wasted by escorting colliers with a battlecruiser, but given the economical necesities of the turkish military (need for coal) he just had to perform exactly that.
there was a period, until the completing of the first russian pre-dreadnoughts, when the Goeben was the strongest single ship on the Black Sea and could operate pretty much at will, only having to avoid an encounter with the entire russian pre-dreadnought squadron, which the russians wisely kept together.
more than that, any tactical disadvantage Souchon would put himself in, by chance, bad intel or even incompetence, could be reversed by exploiting the superior speed of the battlecruiser.

to counter this, the russians actually needed their new dradnoughts, otherwise the capabilities of the russian navy of operating offensively along the coast of Lazistan would be seriosly hampered, even with the pre-dreadnoughts acting as escort.
when they were completed (combined with a mine damage to the Goeben which could not be propperly repaired due to lack of large turkish drydocks) the russians enjoey naval superiority and could disrupt coal transports more or less at will, especially in 1916.

This post has been edited by dead-cat on November 07, 2006 02:05 pm