The lookouts in the crows’ nest had no binoculars even though there were binoculars on board which no one could locate. When they spotted the iceberg it was already too late to avoid.
What if Titanic had held steady and smashed into the iceberg head on?
Was the rudder problem later addressed on Olympic and Britannic, Titanic’s sister ships?
head on strike would have produced a lot of injuries, but the ship would have remained afloat. At least long enough for the Californian and other rescue ships to arrive.
One of Titanics design flaws was that the watertight bulkheads didn’t extend far enough up. With the “gash” (actually a long series of smaller splits and punctures) as each successive forward compartment filled pulling the bow down, the water began to overflow into the next compartment.
Some of the design flaw fixes were reverse engineered into Olympic. A lot more were built into Britannic.
Iirc one of the fixes built into Britannic were redesigned expansion joints. Put in under the belief (since proven accurate) that Titanic’s stern had quickly cracked then failed and separated from the rest of the hull as it rose into the air.
Based on the analysis I have read, it would not have sunk. The glancing blow bypassed too many watertight bulkheads.
When the Stockholm hit the Andrea Doria head-on, it was fine; granted, it had an icebreaker hull, but the Titanic should have been OK with just front compartments damaged/filled. As I understand it, the attempt to turn while reversing (actually only slowing because of the short amount of time) probably exposed much more of the side of the hull than if they had just carried on.