That actually was a secondary strategy at Jutland. The High Seas Fleet planned that if the dreadnought battle did not go to their liking they would withdraw, hopefully drawing elements of the Grand Fleet over a line of U boats. However, the strategy failed due to the German navy's inability to coordinate the surface fleet and U boats in a single action. Consiquently I don't think a single U boat sighted the Grand Fleet during the entire battle IIRC.

The Germans practiced at gunnery while the British hardly practiced at all. The RN efficiency picked up as the ships drew nearer not because they got better. A cruiser group had to be taken out for gunnery training because they were so bad. Thats why the group of battleships ended up with Beatty and his cruisers.
Losses in an engagement are losses. The fire doors removal had to do with fleet computation and officers where under pressure. I guess accuracy didn't count.
The Grand Fleet couldn't even communicate with each other for their fear of using the wireless and they kept getting too far away from each other to read signals. Officers were too scared to use their intuitive. When Jellico tried contacting Beatty on wireless he ignored him. "If they had not" doesn't count. What happened happened. Beatty abandoned his battleships in his run to get back to the fleet.
When the fleets met British captains could have engaged but held their fire because they had not been told to engage. Jellico was too cautious and Sheer was too cautious so the whole battle was touchy, feely.
More British ships were sunk than German. I'd call that a tactical victory. I used to think it was a British victory until I started studying the battle. the High seas Fleet didn't come out again because the Kaiser didn't want to risk his precious ships. Thats what gave Britain the strategic victory.
If it had been an actual fleet on fleet knock down drag out fight who knows but it never was.

I am None. But I would like to know why the war was a watse of men, naval, and air units!

Thats not correct. Beatty's BCs were very poor shots, but that was because being stationed at Rosyth, they were too close to Edinburgh and Kirkaldy to fire their main armament. So to make up for this they practiced loading and unloading to increase the rate of fire. The Grand Fleet up at Scapa had no such restraints and regularly practiced gunnery. The Grand fleet were actually very good shots.

'Their shooting was also good with their rangefinders proving superior to the British at getting an initial range though inferior at maintaining it and in general their fire control equipment was inferior to the British director system. Excepting Beattys battlecruisers German hit rates were not superior, especially if you take into account the large number of hits (37) scored against the three sunk armoured cruisers at short range and the poor shooting of Beattys battlecruisers which dragged the British average down'.

http://www.worldwar1.co.uk/outcome.html

The High Seas Feet failed to land a single hit on Jellicoe's dreadnoughts.

True, but previously you suggested that British losses were due to the inferiority of RN ships. But in many ways RN ships were superior to German ships. They had better endurance, they were mechanically more reliable, they generally had greater fire power and their guns usually outranged the Germans (this was in no small part to British turrets having a greater elevation than German). British central gunnery control was better and British armour plate was inch for inch better than german. The losses that the BC fleet suffered were not due to material short comings but operational. German cordite handling was better and their ships had a greater number of compartments than British, which tended to keep them afloat longer.


True the Grand Fleet kept radio silence and the RN was tied to rather rigid doctrine of the 'signal book'. Beatty (though IMO not a very good officer in many ways) did have a more effective principle of command. That was a 'follow me' style rather than a 'wait till I signal' style. This is what caused the 5th Battle Squadron to be left behind when Beatty turned to the north inorder to draw the HSF onto Jellicoe's battle line. The 5th BS had been detached from the GF and had not trained with Beatty (infact Beatty didn't even bother to meet its commander, Evan Thomas before the battle). The 5th BS was waiting for the signal to reverse course rather than just following Beatty's lead. Short commings in signals were a major handicap for the RN.

What happend was that to avoid annihalation, the HSF was forced to turn away.

Thats a Geraman victory in only a very crude sense. It was the GF that was in command of the battle zone at the end of the battle. It was the HSF that had to turn away and spent all night trying to evade the GF. It was the HSF that was lured onto the GF not Beatty onto the HSF as the Germans had planned. All German objectives for the operation failed, Yes they had depleted the RN by 3 Battle Cruisers but the RN still had numerical superiority over the KM but the cost was almost catastrophic. It was only the turn away or Gefechtskertwendung by the HSF that saved it (a very complex manouvre that the RN did not know the HSF had the capacity to carry out). The HSF was almost caught a second time but again it managed to escape into the gathering gloom.

Strategically the battle was unquestionably a British victory. But the reason the HSF never came out to fight again was that it had found that its planned strategy had failed; It couldn't match the GF and was afraid of being caught again. It wasn't the whim of the Kaiser that kept the HSF holed up in port but the realisation that the whole of German naval strategy for decades had failed. Naval warfare now switched decisively towards U boats.

I used to think that tactically the Germans won, but if you discard the casualty figures its clearly a German defeat on all counts.

There in lies the fascination that Jutaland holds for so many; The might have beens.

IMO I think that in clash like this the RN would probably have won, a very costly victory, but a victory.

A very good book to read on Jutland is: The Rules Of The Game, Jutland And British Naval Command. By Andrew Gordon

I recommend The Guns of August by Barbara Tuchman.
It won't answer the "why", but it will give you the "how".

I didn't say British ships were inferior. I said the Germans were better armored (as far as BC's anyway) and I should have said armored topside, and they were safer in being compartmentalized and turret fire doors systems.
It was no whim of the Kaiser. He felt tricked by his admirals into letting the fleet out and he didn't want to mess with the GF until they were numerically superior.
Beatty's style of leadership was cavalier and follow me. Thats good (breaking the mold) and bad depending on how you want to look at it. He was however a backstabbing piece of s#!t to Jellico.
I haven't cracked my Jutland books in a while but I'm starting to get back into it. I recently picked up: Jutland An Analysis Of The Fighting by John Campbell that I just started.
When I've reviewed my books I wouldn't mind rehashing with you.

:) Thats on my Amazon shopping list for the end of the month.

I agree with your asessement of German Battle Cruisers, compared to British BCs they did have better armour protection. The RN adhered to a very purist concept of the Battle Cruiser as laid down by Jacky Fisher ('HMS Untouchable' I think he called the idea, 'Outguns anything that can outrun it and outruns anything that can outgun it'). The Germans on the otherhand were a little more cautious about the idea so they hedged their bets by building more robust vessels.

Sorry if I misunderstood your point in pevious posts.

I'm not keen on Beatty as a character. He comes accross as a very ambitious and swaggering type who had no compunction when it came to taking credit or pushing his version of events. Even to the point of betraying or trampling on the reputation of others. Jellicoe was the polar opposite, quiet, self effacing and friendly. Is a shame that hes remembered as the man who squandered the chance to destroy the HSF.

Yeah that would be good.:up: Maybe start a Jutland thread?:hmm:

I'd recomend that to anybody interested in Jutland. Gordon makes a very compelling argument, plus the descriptions of the action are very good.

Another good book is Castles Of Steel by Robert K Massie.

Thats an excellent book. Reads more like a story. Thats the first history book I've read from cover to cover.

thanks!:D

Yep, a great read http://www.psionguild.org/forums/ima...s/thumbsup.gif

http://www.psionguild.org/forums/ima...lies/read2.gif

A while ago after reading the book by Campbell it struck me that there has been no attempt to make a film about Jutland, well at least as far as I am aware. I would have thought it had all the elements required for a blockbuster.
Maybe in this age of CGI somebody will have a crack at it.

Nooo! Don't let Hollywood touch it. They'll have Chuck Norris yanking the Lion's red-hot shell hoist doors shut with his bare hands without breaking a sweat, and then swimming ashore to beat up the Kaiser. :p

I'd say the best people to make a movie about Jutland would be the British. Do Brit movie producers have similar CGI capability compared to Hollywierd?

Sort of, in a typicaly cheap arsed fashion.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRS9cpOMYv0

What you need is American money and British Film makers:up: