What If Lusitania Hit the Titanic’s Iceberg?

[uss frolick]

 

I love a good "what if"!

[Kenchington]

Interesting that the Cunarders had less internal subdivision than the White Star ships. That would indeed have made them more vulnerable, though there is also a question of low-temperature brittleness of Titanic's plating, which may not have been true of Lusitania's.

 

The big unknown will always be the human element: The liner companies were tied into free advertising, through media interest in the big ships, which sometimes focused on irrelevancies. (How many railway tracks could be laid, side-by-side, through each ship's funnels was an especially bizarre one.) Thus, Titanic's officers were under some extra pressure to set a fast time to New York on her maiden voyage, which the newspapers would cover. Lusitania could have afforded to slow down while passing the ice field. Whether she would have done, when Cunard competed on speed (versus White Star's luxury), is unknowable.