Read an interesting and in depth piece this week (though written some time ago) that suggested that the titanic actually briefly beached on a submerged part of the iceberg below the ship, breaking rivets (substandard anyway?) and pulling off hull plates from the bottom of the double bottom, in fact causing some or all of the flooding to be from that angle. The piece cited one piece from the inquiry board with one seaman describing active air venting from a (dry) top of the double bottom vent hole in the bow just after the incident, implying that air was being forced out below. The piece suggested that the total ventable area from the double bottom to the above area would equate to the 12 ft sq. otherwise described.
There was considerable more detail in the piece, beyond my mechanical ability to easily explain at this late hour.
The author described where such plates would be found relative to the wreck, and it is worth reading imho. The author knows a lot more than me about the wreck in general.
That description gibes with what I recall about the wreck. Immediately after the collision, a seaman sent to the forepeak to investigate reported hearing “a hissing sound, as of air escaping under pressure.”. That might have been the vent air from the pierced double bottom. And the 12 square feet figure was substantiated by echograms Ballard’s team took of the submerged bow section of the wreck. Those seemed to indicate that the breach was much smaller than originally thought — on the order of 12 square feet. Or so I recall ...