re: #252 Ziggy_TARDIS

Also, the Steel on the ship has been found to have good quality, even by today’s standards. This can be independently verfied by what happened to the Olympic during its life, including be gored by a Cruiser, ramming a U-Boat to sinking, and cutting the Nantucket Lightship in 2. If the steel was as poor as quality as they said, Rivets would have blown in at least the last 2, which didn’t happen.

Though, in the case of the U Boat, the prow underwater was twisted to one side, likely because a Civilian Ship was never, ever meant to ram a military vessel, of any sort.

The Sinking was the fault of the crew, who were going too fast, had little experience with a ship as big as the Titanic, the captain who showed off at least one telegraph in regards to Ice Warnings to some 1st Class Passengers, and the Wireless Crew who failed to take several warnings to the bridge, and rudely treated and neglected the warning from the Californian, who was in no position to help, due to the distance from the Titanic (Between 10-20 miles), and it’s maximum speed of 12-13 mph. In addition, because it was a cargo ship, it only had room for about 50 passengers, and only had even able bodied crew to man about half of its own lifeboats.

Actually the steel was brittle by the standards of today. Even modern alloys can be challenged by very low temperatures. Not to at all deny the human factor. I don’t think anything short of an armored vessel could withstand the offset gouge the Titanic took. I kinda like the idea a head on hit would have not sunk the vessel, perhaps just stranded her. Because my job involves a lot of metallurgy, I frequently read papers like this one on the Titanic.

Recent tests of steel from the Titanic reveal that the metal was much more brittle than modern steel but the best available at the time, a metallurgical engineering professor at the University of Missouri-Rolla says in a paper to be published in the January 1998 issue of Journal of Metals.

The steel used to build the Titanic was not as “impact-resistant” as modern steel, according to Dr. H.P. Leighly, a professor emeritus of metallurgical engineering at UMR. But it was the best steel available at the time, says Leighly, who studied some 200 pounds of steel from the wreckage.https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1997/12/971227000141.htm