[Randomizer]

I recently resurrected Koger's Jutland after several years of giving it a pass. It runs great and looks OK but the enduring issues with it remain and will probably never be addressed. In a spurt of optimism I dug into the "Battle Editor" to create some new scenarios but even this has proven frustrating.

Did you know that you cannot actually recreate the entire Battle of Jutland in the game? The longest scenario begins at 1548, almost 90-minutes after HMS Galatea spotted SMS B-109 and B-110 with the stopped SS N.J. Fjord. A lot happened in that 85 or so minutes that had a profound effect on the actual battle. It seemed like a good plan to recreate the battle from first contact but that cannot be done using the Battle Editor. The reason is that the available battle space is insufficient so the Grand Fleet and High Seas Fleet must be much closer than they actually were. If you achieve the necessary separation, one or the other (or both) vanish from the scenario when the game is run. If you include both battle fleets using the available, reduced battle space then the Grand Fleet has almost two-hours of extra daylight that Jellicoe did not have.

A game called Jutland, which is not capable of actually modelling the entire battle seems odd. I did recreate the October 1917 Battle of Lerwick, which plays out well for the most part but a scenario based on the interception of Scheer by Beatty's Grand Fleet during the April 1918 sortie to hit the Norwegian convoys turned out much less well. Major ships are lacking, in particular SMS Hindenburg and the large light cruisers HMS Glorious and Courageous and Ramillies. German crew quality, damage control and gunnery remain at 1916 levels but it's clear that by April 1918, the Grand Fleet was probably far superior in these areas.

Koger's pro-German bias is obvious in assorted yet subtle ways throughout the game.

It is good to see that after a century, the "German Victory" at Jutland has largely been consigned to the dustbin of history. Except of course on Internet war gaming forums. As a teen I read James Dunnigan's designer notes from his Jutland board game (played without a board!):

It may be said that the Germans won the battle but the British won the naval war.

... and this coloured my perceptions of the battle for decades since I never thought to ask "are not victories in battle supposed to facilitate victory in war?."

Fortunately new scholarship, Keith Yates, Andrew Gordon and Peter Hart to pull three immediately off the shelves, have done much to place the myth of High Seas Fleet victory to rest. Losses should never be the sole criteria by which naval battles are judged and for Jutland, this was the case for a century.

We still need a game that actually can model the entire battle. Steam and Iron: The Great war at Sea does an excellent job but without the eye candy. The flaws in Koger's Jutland are epic particularly when coupled with the pathetic computer AI.

Anyway, your videos look great so well done you.

Sorry for the text wall, The Battle of Jutland has been a passion of mine for some fifty-years now and I own a rather large and growing Jutland library.

-C