|
Post by ramjb on Sept 24, 2018 17:58:45 GMT -6
The reason why the High Seas Fleet's failure to inflict sufficiently-disproportionate losses on the Grand Fleet to materially reduce the Grand Fleet's margin of superiority matters is that the entire reason why the High Seas Fleet went to sea in the first place was to do exactly that. ...only to find out that they weren't the hunters but the hunted, because they went out to lure a small portion of the british fleet into combat and destroy it and instead found the grand fleet. Look, it's easy. Imagine Jutland was a success for the german plans. Imagine they surprised a whole battlesquadron of the Grand Fleet. Imagine they overwhelmed it with concentrated firepower, destroyed it completely, and sustained no major losses while doing so. The strategic outcome of that scenario is the same one as Jutland. The british would still vastly outnumber the HSF to the point of making a direct fleet vs fleet encounter as suicidal as it was during Jutland, and new construction was proceeding at full pace so those losses wouldn't matter at all in the big scope of things. So according to that scenario, and according to the parameters to measure victory I see here, the Germans would've also lost that one. Because, as nothing changed in the strategic level, no victory. Right?. It'd been only of "tactical" significance, so a defeat anyway. I'll try to insist one more time, and probably for the last one: Any meaningful shift of the strategic statu quo in the North Sea was simply out of the german HSF grasp. No battle they could win would change that: numbers were far too weighed against them and to make things worse the british completely outpaced them on destroyer, cruiser, battleship and battlecruiser construction (While german naval building had pretty much but frozen by 1916). Under those circunstances, Jutland was a resounding win. Facing up such ovewhelming opposition, kicking it on the teeth and coming back home to tell the tale was something the own germans never believed was going to happen (and that's why they were avoiding since 1914 exactly the kind of fight that happened in that battle). Because what was NOT going to happen, under any circunstance, is that the HSF inflicted enough losses to the Royal Navy as to force them to bring the blockade to an end. There's no believable scenario where suddenly half the british fleet dissapears from the face of Earth with a snap of fingers. And that's what it'd taken for the germans...not to lift the blockade, but to achieve parity with the british. Parity. they'd still have had to fight it out against the other half, and win that fight, in order to lift the blockade. so again, it seems no victory for them no matter what. Mkay....but I don't agree. Battles have to be measured in their proper context when deciding who was the winner and who was the loser. And seems nobody (but yours truly) is willing to do that with this particular one.
|
|
|
Post by oaktree on Sept 24, 2018 18:46:54 GMT -6
Context and what was possible might work in hindsight to view this as a German victory. "More of them turned up, and then we ran. But you should see the other guy!" while the strategic status quo remains.
If anything I would say this discussion makes very clear the futility of the HSF getting built in the first place. It could not make Germany lose the war by being destroyed. And the UK was not going to allow it to gain sufficient strength to break the blockade and potentially win the war for Germany. So why sink all these resources into a set of ships that were going to sit in port and rust while also trying up thousands of men as crew?
(And I think Germany going for a different fleet style was not going to be a winning strategy either. If Germany is not building dreadnoughts, but instead some other type, then the UK does not have to build more dreadnoughts either, but can concentrate on enough ships of whatever type to defeat what Germany is building.)
|
|
|
Post by aeson on Sept 24, 2018 22:45:42 GMT -6
Look, it's easy. Imagine Jutland was a success for the german plans. Imagine they surprised a whole battlesquadron of the Grand Fleet. Imagine they overwhelmed it with concentrated firepower, destroyed it completely, and sustained no major losses while doing so. The strategic outcome of that scenario is the same one as Jutland. The british would still vastly outnumber the HSF to the point of making a direct fleet vs fleet encounter as suicidal as it was during Jutland, and new construction was proceeding at full pace so those losses wouldn't matter at all in the big scope of things. So according to that scenario, and according to the parameters to measure victory I see here, the Germans would've also lost that one. Because, as nothing changed in the strategic level, no victory. Right?. It'd been only of "tactical" significance, so a defeat anyway. The strategic outcome of destroying a battle squadron without loss is not the same as the historical strategic outcome of Jutland, though. A simplistic model to illustrate this:
Assume all battleships are equally valuable and that it is the relative difference in strength which matters. If I have 50 battleships and will have 60 by the end of the year if nothing happens while you have 30 battleships and will still have 30 battleships at the end of the year if nothing happens, then an engagement where I lose five battleships while everything you have and all the rest of my ships are essentially undamaged can only be good for you, because it means that in the immediate aftermath of the engagement I'll only have 45 battleships and after the end of the year I'll only have 55 battleships while you'll still have your 30 - your situation has improved; my fleet was 1.67 times stronger than you before the battle but only 1.5 times stronger in the immediate aftermath, and would have been 2.00 times stronger after the end of the year but will only be 1.83 times stronger due to losses sustained in the battle. It might not make much of a difference, but your situation has improved; having fought the battle, your fleet is stronger relative to mine than it would have been had the battle never been fought. If, instead, we fight a battle where 3 of my battleships and 1 of yours are sunk, 2 of your battleships are put out of action until the end of the year, and everything else is essentially undamaged, I'll have 47 battleships to your 27 in the immediate aftermath of the engagement and 57 battleships to your 29 after the end of the year. This puts my fleet at 1.74 times stronger than your fleet in the immediate aftermath of the battle and 1.97 times stronger than your fleet after the end of the year, so in the immediate aftermath of the battle you're worse off than you would have been had the battle never been fought, and after the end of the year the battle pretty much may as well have never been fought.
|
|
|
Post by oldpop2000 on Sept 25, 2018 9:46:38 GMT -6
I’ve been reading through a series of lectures by US Admiral Reeves, in 1925 about Jutland. One of his points is that at Jutland, numerical superiority did not result in victory. In the battle cruiser phase, the British had a 2 to 1 majority, but it was not brought to bear on Hipper’s force. He states that because it was not used, the battle was fought with inferiority. The British lost two battle cruisers due to this. Reeves emphasizes that material superiority is not enough that superior knowledge and tactical skill are required. A commander gets superior strength but must acquire superior knowledge and tactical skill. He must create this himself. I find this very interesting and I tend to agree with him.
He states that after sailing, Scheer received a sighting report from U-32 of 2 battleships, 2 cruisers and several destroyers on a southeasterly course. This same U-boat reported intercepting English radio message stating that 2 battleships and groups of destroyers had left Scapa Flow. U-66 about one hour later reported, from 60 miles East of Kinnaird Head, 8 battleships, light cruisers and numerous destroyers headed northeasterly.
The interesting part of this is that in his book GERMAN HIGH SEAS FLEET, Scheer comments: These reports gave no enlightenment as to the enemy’s purpose. Reeves comments that the departure of 12 British Battleships, cruisers, light cruisers and groups of destroyers should have had a decisive influence upon all his decisions and tactics. I quite agree. What did Scheer want, for Jellicoe send him a message divulging why this number of warships had sailed. This was war. It would seem to me that Reinhard Scheer did not make a good command assessment of the information that had been sent to him, and that this was the kind of information that he had sent the U-boats out to their scouting positions, to provide for him.
We must realize that the departure of the High Seas Fleet from their bases was not a combat operation whose objectives were to have a decisive battle with the British Fleet. Their operational object was simply to find, intercept and defeat a detachment of the British Fleet. Once Scheer received this vital information about the size of the force and its heading, this should have allowed him to reassess his operational objectives. Could he, with his current force really accomplish his goal of destroying a detachment. This size force was not a detachment and I don’t believe he could have accomplished his mission.
I am going to continue reading through this series of interesting lectures.
|
|
|
Post by oldpop2000 on Sept 25, 2018 10:38:57 GMT -6
Here is another issue that I have not read about in any books or documents that I have. The High Seas Fleet sailed on the early morning of May 31st. The Admiralty anticipated this. However, shortly after sailing, at the time I presented earlier, 0530 hrs., Scheer get’s his first sighting report from U-32 which was 70 miles east of Rosyth. One hour later, 0630 hrs., he gets another sighting and radio intercept report on a sizeable force departing from Scapa Flow. Now, why as the fleet commander or at least someone on his staff, not ask how the British could be leaving their two main fleet bases within one hour of the departure of the High Seas Fleet. Why didn’t this coincidence ring a bell with anyone on the German staff. That is an interesting coincidence to me. Didn’t anyone suggest to Scheer that maybe the British were reading their signals and codes, that this could not be just dumb luck. I know that they transferred the regular ID code for the Fleet to the base to deceive the British. But with a sailing that soon, why didn't that alert someone.
Now we do have the benefit of hindsight. It could be that Scheer just figured the ships of the British Navy that were monitoring the German ports reported the sailing. However, that would take a lot of time because the information for Jellicoe came from the Admiralty. Scheer doesn’t know that, maybe he never does. But would his signal monitoring stations along the coast and the submarine have reported such transmission to the Admiralty? I don’t know. Just an interesting thought.
|
|
|
Post by oaktree on Sept 25, 2018 13:33:21 GMT -6
Could Scheer assume that communications between the Admiralty and Scapa Flow could be measured?
|
|
|
Post by oldpop2000 on Sept 25, 2018 15:50:54 GMT -6
Could Scheer assume that communications between the Admiralty and Scapa Flow could be measured? I am certain that the German’s had no knowledge of the Room 40 activities, they probably went to their graves not knowing. However, I am still researching the Room 40 involvement and apparently there was some misinformation sent out and some confusion although they did know that the HSF had steam up and was moving. I will see if I can figure this out.
|
|
|
Post by oaktree on Sept 25, 2018 16:21:18 GMT -6
Could Scheer assume that communications between the Admiralty and Scapa Flow could be measured? I am certain that the German’s had no knowledge of the Room 40 activities, they probably went to their graves not knowing. However, I am still researching the Room 40 involvement and apparently there was some misinformation sent out and some confusion although they did know that the HSF had steam up and was moving. I will see if I can figure this out. What I was talking about is whether Admiralty to Scapa Flow communications would be via land-line and thus not subject to volume monitoring much less interception. Obviously once at sea any instructions to the fleet would have to be via wireless. And the other factor would be what the usual amount of sighting reports were for U-boats or expected RN activity in and out of Scapa Flow and Rosyth that the HSF knew about. In essence, how much "noise" is there from normal activities and intelligence gathering and did these reports rise above this level? The studies done afterwards can probably easily pick out this report or that report indicating that the RN was on the move, but that's in hindsight in looking for the precursors of the actual battle.
|
|
|
Post by oldpop2000 on Sept 25, 2018 16:28:15 GMT -6
I researched this issue in Castles of Steel by Massie. The British had gotten German code books from three sources including the Magdeburg. Massie states that with the passage of time, the appearance of British ships directly in the path of German surface squadrons or U-boats could no longer be considered a coincidence. Now the High Seas Fleet commanders began to look for the answer. They thought spies in the ports and dockyards, traitors inside the German Navy and secret radio messages from British and neutral fishing trawlers. The one answer; that their codes had been compromised was not believed. This because they knew that the Magdeburg code books probably had been compromised to the Russians. They had made the issue worse, because of their excessive use of wireless transmission’s. Massie explains how good the German wireless equipment was and how the German’s used it. He states that British interception increased rapidly and eventually 20,000 naval wireless messages passed through Room 40.
Well, there is the answer. By reading the German codes, Jellicoe knew the German’s were sailing and where they were headed. But Scheer probably refused as did all German Naval commanders, that the sudden appearance of the Grand Fleet right were Scheer was going, was just a coincidence even though the timely messages from his U-boats should have been a dead giveaway that something was going on.
BTW, the information from Room 40 was sent by message hand carried. Room 40 was located originally in the main Admiralty building but moved to the Old Admiralty Building as the team got larger. I doubt they had to transmit anything except instructions from the Admiralty to Jellicoe which would not divulge any sources and would be worded to deceive anyone intercepting it. There was a land telegraph line from the Admiralty to Scapa Flow which means that the German's could not intercept any messages.
One interesting aspect of this signal intelligence issue is that by 1910, German's were far ahead of everyone in chemistry, specifically the hydrogenation process of nitrogen to make ammonia and consequently fertilizer and oil, and electricity. How ironic that the area of advancement; radio transmissions and the like, are what got them into the most trouble during the war.
|
|
|
Post by bcoopactual on Sept 26, 2018 8:12:16 GMT -6
I forget his name but the Royal Navy officer on duty or in charge of Room 40 the day the German fleet sailed did not have a high opinion of the civilians in Room 40 nor think they had much to offer in the war effort. So he requested the status of Scheer's calling code and was told it was still in port. Since they didn't get along, nobody bothered to tell the officer (and he didn't ask) that the Germans were known to transfer the code to a shore facility when the German fleet sailed. The message was sent to Jellicoe that Scheer was still in port. It's one of the reasons why Beatty was unprepared to meet the Germans (his ship formations had the look of one set up to facilitate the transfer of the 5th BS and 3rd BCS between the Battlecruiser Force and the Grand Fleet the next day after rendezvousing with Jellicoe rather than expecting to find the Germans at sea. Otherwise the 5th BS would not have been so far out of position when it was his strongest force*) and why Jellicoe was distrustful of the reports he got from the admiralty the night after the battle that the Germans were headed to Horn's reef and didn't change course to cut them off. One of numerous mistakes the British made that had fortuitous consequences for the Germans that battle.
*If I recall this is an opinion put forth by Andrew Gordon in his book Rules of the Game. Not that that is an excuse for Beatty, he should have steamed in a formation optimized for meeting the Germans but there had been many false alarms leading up to Der Tag and everyone assumed that what ended up being Jutland would just be another one.
Rules of the Game is a fascinating book about the Royal Navy mindset going into the First World war and I highly recommend it.
|
|
|
Post by oaktree on Sept 26, 2018 9:35:20 GMT -6
Part of my point in my questions to Oldpop2000 in the past couple of comments is whether Scheer and the HSF were suffering from some of the same issues. Had the HSF also been receiving enough of a volume of false alarm sighting reports, etc. that the Home Fleet movement reports were not anything extraordinary and worthy of drawing additional interest from Scheer?
My pet peeve with Beatty is that he did not replace his flag officer previous to Jutland.
|
|
|
Post by oldpop2000 on Sept 26, 2018 10:21:55 GMT -6
I forget his name but the Royal Navy officer on duty or in charge of Room 40 the day the German fleet sailed did not have a high opinion of the civilians in Room 40 nor think they had much to offer in the war effort. So he requested the status of Scheer's calling code and was told it was still in port. Since they didn't get along, nobody bothered to tell the officer (and he didn't ask) that the Germans were known to transfer the code to a shore facility when the German fleet sailed. The message was sent to Jellicoe that Scheer was still in port. It's one of the reasons why Beatty was unprepared to meet the Germans (his ship formations had the look of one set up to facilitate the transfer of the 5th BS and 3rd BCS between the Battlecruiser Force and the Grand Fleet the next day after rendezvousing with Jellicoe rather than expecting to find the Germans at sea. Otherwise the 5th BS would not have been so far out of position when it was his strongest force*) and why Jellicoe was distrustful of the reports he got from the admiralty the night after the battle that the Germans were headed to Horn's reef and didn't change course to cut them off. One of numerous mistakes the British made that had fortuitous consequences for the Germans that battle. *If I recall this is an opinion put forth by Andrew Gordon in his book Rules of the Game. Not that that is an excuse for Beatty, he should have steamed in a formation optimized for meeting the Germans but there had been many false alarms leading up to Der Tag and everyone assumed that what ended up being Jutland would just be another one. Rules of the Game is a fascinating book about the Royal Navy mindset going into the First World war and I highly recommend it. I agree that that is a great book, I just can't read everything at once. I will use it this afternoon to validate some my conclusions. The officer you refer to was D.O.D Rear-Admiral Thomas Jackson. BTW, Marter is one of Gordon's sources in his book Rules of the Game. This is exactly why I use him. His books came out in the 1960's and he had access to Royal Navy documents and former officers till alive at the time.
|
|
|
Post by oldpop2000 on Sept 26, 2018 10:22:59 GMT -6
Part of my point in my questions to Oldpop2000 in the past couple of comments is whether Scheer and the HSF were suffering from some of the same issues. Had the HSF also been receiving enough of a volume of false alarm sighting reports, etc. that the Home Fleet movement reports were not anything extraordinary and worthy of drawing additional interest from Scheer? My pet peeve with Beatty is that he did not replace his flag officer previous to Jutland. Scheer had to rely on his submarines for sighting reports and signal intercepts. They did a credible job under the circumstances.
|
|
|
Post by oldpop2000 on Sept 26, 2018 10:24:42 GMT -6
I’ve moved over to “From the Dreadnought to Scapa Flow: Volume III Jutland and After May to December 1916: 3” by Arthur Marder. Marder is an excellent source and is in many bibliographies of books on the British. Marder states that prior to 1914, the British Royal Navy focused more on the “revolutionary advances in Material” and less on a serious study of tactics especially in guns, torpedoes and armor. There were no real manuals or orders on tactics. When Jellicoe took command on 4 August 1914, he prepared his Grand Fleet Battle Orders which were issued in January 1916. These were orders under which Jutland was fought. I want to point out the timing for these unique orders. They were issued about five months before Jutland and there was little actual time, in actual battle tests at sea, to train his officers to use these new G.F.B.O. This is a vital piece of information for the explanation of how the Grand Fleet fought in this momentous battle. Jellicoe felt that his fleet was the greater part of the British Royal Navy and could not be hazard against the new technology of submarines, mines and torpedoes. This is not the way Nelson had viewed his fleet. His fleet was a small part of the British Royal Navy at that time, which means he could take chances that Jellicoe knew he could not. Another vital piece of information.
Marder spends some pages discussing over-centralization of command due to the advent of wireless radio. He states that many post war officers claimed that this killed initiative and that this prevented decentralization. This was experienced in the actual battle when one of the battleship squadrons at the rear of the line, loaded and aimed its guns, but waited to fire because of an order they never received. This means that a whole squadron of battleships were not part of the battle.
However, Beatty always preached decentralization. He claimed that “war is a perpetual conflict with the unexpected”. He felt captains should be supplied with as much information as possible and use their own discretion as to how to act under conditions that were not anticipated. As one can see, this is in direct conflict with how the battle was fought. However, in a memorandum attached later to the G.F.B.O. Jellicoe states that he will control the fleet on the approach only, and that after the firing begins he will only control that squadron or group he is in. So now the quandary, as a ship or squadron commander, do I have personal control or don’t I. In my opinion, this question was never answered by the time of the battle.
Now, in regards directly to Jutland. The first of many mistakes by the navy was that an operations officer, in a hurry, asked Room 40 where the call sign for the German was. They told him Wilhelmshaven although they knew that it was Scheer’s policy to transfer it to the port and use another. The office was in a hurry and did not give Room 40 a chance to explain. This officer transmitted this to the Admiralty and this transmitted to Jellicoe. The result was that the Grand Fleet did not sail early enough to get between Scheer and his base. This would have changed the whole picture for both Scheer and Jellicoe. Room 40 was never told that this officer was going to transmit this to Jellicoe and two organizations; Room 40 and Operations never had a good relationship. This was critical, and it affected future information flow from Room 40 through Operations to Jellicoe and his sailors paid the price.
Jellicoe had confidence when he sailed that his information was correct but was completely surprised when Beatty reported sighting the German Battlecruisers at sea. He now changed his attitude and believe more of what his units told him, than the Admiralty. This was a bad move but understandable.
This story gets even more confusing and, in my opinion, sad. The whole problem for the British was the poor Admiralty coordination within its organization due to many years without any real naval combat or attempts to prepare for a possible naval war. The intelligence was there and available but the command and control by both the Admiralty and with the Grand Fleet was not sound and consequently they, the Grand Fleet performed poorly.
My point in bringing this up, and briefly explaining some of this is to show that there is more to naval combat than the size of guns, width of the armor, and the speed of the ships. Command and control, and tactics are absolutely critical. We won the Battle of Midway because we used our intelligence properly but more important, we had good command and control, not because our aircraft were faster or better. We had trained in fleet problems for eighteen years prior to Pearl Harbor, we had run fleet problems at the Naval War College and at Annapolis. We had manuals and guides on how to conduct fleet actions. We did not fight perfectly, and Coral Sea showed us some of our mistakes. Midway showed us some more as did Eastern Solomon’s and Santa Cruz. However, we did stop Operation MO, MI, and gained Guadalcanal plus using attrition to eliminate much of the support of the Imperial Japanese Navy. We did this not by having the biggest guns or thickest armor, we did this because our command and control was far better than the Japanese. At Jutland, the British sailors and officers fought as well as their training allowed but I still go back to the trite old saying: You fight like your train.
|
|
|
Post by cuirasspolisher on Sept 26, 2018 20:23:41 GMT -6
Part of my point in my questions to Oldpop2000 in the past couple of comments is whether Scheer and the HSF were suffering from some of the same issues. Had the HSF also been receiving enough of a volume of false alarm sighting reports, etc. that the Home Fleet movement reports were not anything extraordinary and worthy of drawing additional interest from Scheer? My pet peeve with Beatty is that he did not replace his flag officer previous to Jutland.
I finished The Rules of the Game recently, and I think Beatty's most shocking lapse was his relationship with Hugh Evan-Thomas, commander of the Fifth Battle Squadron. For the week or so before Jutland when the 5th BS was in Rosyth on loan to the Battlecruiser Force, Beatty apparently didn't even talk to Evan-Thomas, let alone brief him on his loose command style. It's no wonder that Evan-Thomas, a traditional, by-the-book admiral, struggled to coordinate with Beatty in the battle.
Jutland, at best, was a modest German tactical victory. Even from a tactical standpoint (leaving aside casualties, although by 1916, losing 6,000 men in an afternoon wasn't shocking), Britain's only serious loss was Queen Mary. The old battlecruisers were of limited value, and the armored cruisers and destroyers were expendable. Against this, the Germans lost an invaluable modern battlecruiser and four light cruisers from the already thin scout forces. Strategically, Jutland only increased Britain's numerical advantage: almost every Grand Fleet battleship, except those in the 5th BS, was intact, while several German battleships were put out of action. It's not surprising that the Germans made only halfhearted attempts at another fleet action: it was clear that Britain couldn't be beaten in surface warfare with the resources available.
|
|