Did you see that programme, Colin. It would appear the reason she sunk so quick was 1- The officer of the watch went hard over with the wheel on seeing the berg, so that it was a glancing blow rather than a full head on. When I was at college , I was taught if you are going to hit , steer head on, as the stem and collision bulkhead are the strongest part of the ship and the damage is better contained. 2- The area in the flare and round of the vessel forward and aft where riveted with wrought iron rivets, though the plating was 1.5 inch steel. Under tests the heads pop after 5mm deflection of the plate. The reason for this is that the pneumatic riveting machine was too bulky to work on round and awkward shape plates. On top of this they used No 3 (best bar) instead of No 4 (best best bar) to save money.
So they reckon when she hit , she pop the rivet heads from No 3 stoke hold to forward, she literally busted her seams. Coupled with White Stars M.D, wanting to lower water tight bulkheads to obtain a bigger and grander central staircase plus reduce the number of lifeboats by 66% because it spoilt the view from the boatdeck. It was a recipe for disaster.
But unfortunately disasters like this will always attract attention and speculation for ever. The point is where man kind is concerned there always will be occasional disasters like this, because it is the nature of mankind to push the envelope for all kinds of reason. Though the biggest disasterwas the liner coming back from Dunkirk with all kinds of refugees which was dive bombed with far greater loss of live than the Titanic, so much so that no one knows for sure as she was overloaded. But one thing is for sure to drown or freeze to death at sea is a terrible fate.
David