[CaptHawkeye]

Originally Posted by TheSatyr

To this day I'll never understand why Beatty allowed the BCF to operate that way. But then I've always considered Beatty to be a mediocre Admiral who used the newspapers to build up a very undeserved reputation. After all,the BCF was involved in three battles and failed in all three. And each time Beatty found someone else to blame for it instead of his own incompetence.

It depends on what you're blaming Beatty for really. He gets lots of flack for having 'bad communications' with forces, but that's a problem everyone had during the era. That's just what you get for using signal flags on dirty, smokey, distant dreadnoughts.

That being said, I actually agree that Beatty was a pretty spotty commander, but then again most national leadership during WW1 was pretty awful. I mean, they convienently setup the Royal Navy for piecemeal elimination by the HSF using those akward "Battlecruiser Squadrons".

England is fortunate that the HSF never came out to challenge the Grand Fleet while Beatty commanded the Grand Fleet. My gut feeling is that Beatty would have made a major mistake and the Grand Fleet would have ended up getting hammered.

Probably not. No matter what the Kaiser thought the High Seas Fleet was never going to get it's day. After Jutland resources were diverted back to the German Army while Royal Navy only got bigger and bigger. Germany had...what, the 4 Bayern class BBs in production? While Britain had the Revenge and even more Queen Elizabeth classes on the way out with further designs on the drawing board. Beyond that, quality issues with Britain's ammunition had been fixed, and better safety standards meant that explosive British ships were much less frequent.

The end was nigh for Germany the moment Jellicoe crossed Sheer's T at Jutland. This left him with only 2 useless options, suicidally attack Jellicoe head on or try to run away.

Doggerbank was a failure as well. Due to Beatty's signals screwups,the BCF went after the Blucher instead of chasing down Hipper's BCs.

I'm trying to say, is that really Beatty's fault? It's not like it was the first time that important orders had been missed or misunderstood during WW1. If anything blame should be laid on the Captain of HMS Tiger who failed to engage Moltke. Allowing the ship to inflict crippling damage on Lion which meant Beatty was unable to keep up with the line and continue giving orders. If Beatty was still able to participate in the battle does anyone here seriously think he would have just let his ships waste time with Blucher?