***they were substandard and not up to specs,***
Lots of steel back then was substandard. I remember reading that when building the Brooklyn Bridge (or was it Washington bridge) one of the very large cables broke as it was not up to required standards.
“Lots of steel back then was substandard.”
The same brittle steel was used in the Hood and contributed to its extremely rapid sinking. If I recall, it was built at the same shipyard as the Titanic.
Another interesting factoid. General Hatcher (Hatcher’s Notebook) talks about trying to determine why the original 03 Springfield receivers shattered due to being brittle.
They determined that the heat treaters were determining temperature by color and on cloudy rainy days the colors were different than on sunny days. If I recall they solved the problem by covering the skylights among other things.