Stardreamer wrote:
The primary thing that killed her was the number of compartments breached and their location. If she had even one less compartment breached, the bulkheads could probably have contained the flooding. So if we look at the two decisions that the watch officer made to avoid the berg, reverse engines and a hard turn, they were 'by the book' the right thing to do but produced the worst possiable response. If he had done only one or none of them, she quite probably would have survived.

If she had just turned with the added push of the engines against the rudder, she might have missed altogether, had a smaller impact area breaching less compartments or struck futher amidships where the flooding wouldn't have pulled her down at the head.

The prospects are actually best if she just reversed engines or did nothing at all. She would have plowed headon into the berg and sent all those nice rich passengers flying out of their beds into the forward wall but she would have survived as this was exactly the type of collision the designers were thinking of when the built her safety features. The worst result would have been the indignity of being towed into New York with wrecked bow and number of nasty letters to the White Star offices.

Amoung the multitude of ironies that surround the Titanic's history is this example of how doing exactly the right thing at the right moment can produce the wrong result.

Bladefire wrote:
yes i know besides trying to hit it head on could have been seen as sabatage and they would have gotten fired and maybe jailed