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Post by oldpop2000 on Jul 28, 2016 10:38:01 GMT -6
One of the consistent questions throughout the one hundred year history of Jutland is how could the British have won a decisive battle, in other words, another Trafalgar. Well, timing and weather are the keys. The first fire opened up by Nelson at Trafalgar was at 12:35 PM. The weather was light winds, calm seas. At Jutland, first contact and sighting was at 4:38 PM. That is almost four hours later. That left about less than 4 hours of daylight left, which is not much for ships sailing at 20 knots. The battlecruiser action and the subsequent run to the north occurred between 5-6 PM. Weather initially was clear then clouds and mist rose to the east. This is where the German battle fleet was located. The British were in clear air, which was perfect for the German sighting. The British were sighting into mist and clouds with a rising sea. Let's all remember that major sweeping naval victories are few and far between. Salamis, Lepanto, Tsu-shima were about the only major victories in naval history. There were other minor victories like Manila Bay etc., but in point of fact, there were few and most naval battles were inconclusive actions. For Jutland to be a major victory, Jellicoe needed more time and better weather conditions. The timing and weather favored the Germans, and as such, a major victory was not reachable. Update: Another issue occurred to me, while I was reading the Jutland messages and dispatches. In order for Jellicoe to deploy his battle fleet from cruising formation to battle formation, in other words from parallel squadron lines to one long line astern formation, he had to know the whereabouts of the enemy force, its approximate composition and its course. The scouting force ships who transmitted this information had to provide an accurate "my position" along with this to give the CinC the complete picture. He had to know this BEFORE deployment, not after. In my readings, only one ship, the Southampton under Goodenough did this repeatedly and accurately. The BCF and the 5th Battle squadron never sent accurate information consistently although they were the ones engaged. In fact, the message from the aircraft sent aloft was never transmitted beyond the Engadine. This is just deplorable battle procedures that only training could rectify. We believe that it was weak armor, poor gunnery, bad ammunition handling along with a myriad of other technical problems when in fact, it was lack of adequate time, meteorological conditions and poor scouting reporting that caused this battle to be inconclusive. From the Official Jutland Report Dated 18 June 1916 by Admiral Sir John Jellicoe.
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Post by director on Jul 30, 2016 13:55:53 GMT -6
Yes - British light forces (and the battlecruiser force) repeatedly did not send on information or sent it in a form that was not useful. One would think that in 1916, after two years of war, the British fleet would have worked out and rehearsed some method of regular reports containing useful information, but Jutland gives no evidence of it. Beatty's reports from the battlecruiser squadron were almost incompetent. Goodenough performed magnificently and does not seem to have been rewarded for it; Beatty performed poorly and got command of the fleet after Jellicoe.
This is one of the reasons I marvel at Jellicoes' 'absolutely perfect' deployment - he signaled his ships to form to the exactly correct side at exactly the right moment (not even 10-15 minutes off) and gave the order despite having very fragmentary information as to where the Germans were and what course and speed they were making. It is one of the most remarkable battle decisions of any military commander.
Jellicoe did place his ships so absolutely in the correct position that the German commander promptly saw his position was untenable and maneuvered violently to avoid battle. Jellicoe had perfectly set a wall - not a trap - and the Germans refused to run headlong into it. Had the odds not been so completely and obviously stacked against them the Germans might have tried to fight it out - with a wide range of possible outcomes.
After dark, Scheer passed his fleet across the rear of Jellicoe's and made his escape to Wilhelmshaven. This was possible because - remarkably - though the German ships were seen and fired at during the night, no-one bothered to tell the flagship. Again, almost incomprehensible failures of intelligence and signals... Had Jellicoe known, the dawn might have found Scheer once again headed toward a wall of British battleships, a wall he had to break or pass in order to get home, and with no cover from weather or darkness this time. Good intelligence and signals could have given Jellicoe good visibility and the time needed to force the Germans to fight - a fight, against the entire British Home Fleet, they would very conceivably have lost.
Your points about the weather and the lateness of the hour are very well taken and, coupled with Scheer's canny refusal to fight at a disadvantage, go a long way to describe why Jutland was tactically indecisive. When asked why the Confederacy lost the American Civil War one Confederate replied, "I always thought the Yankees had something to do with it." Let us not forget that Scheer was no Rozhdestvensky or Villeneuve, and the high quality of German ships, training and leadership also had something to do with denying Britain a complete victory.
Jellicoe and Beatty were 'scapegoated' to some extent after Jutland, to the degree that battleships to be named for them were renamed Anson and Howe instead. In my opinion there is a lot of justifiable criticism of Beatty's handling of the battlecruisers but Jellicoe seems to have done as well as anyone could with his situation and poor intelligence of the enemy.
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Post by oldpop2000 on Jul 30, 2016 22:33:03 GMT -6
I thought I would share these sources with you from the Naval War College. www.usnwcarchive.org/exhibits/show/nwc-battle-jutland www.usnwcarchive.org/items?sort_field=added&sort_dir=d&page=1There is some excellent documents in this collection. I am currently reviewing a document written at the Naval War College in November 26, 1916. It is possibly the first outside the Admiralty, written by a Lieutenant in the US Navy. He used English official reports and accounts, German official documents and accounts, and many other first hand documents. I hope you find these sources useful and enlightening as they have been to myself. As far as the scapegoating, it isn't any different than what occurred to many senior Naval officers after the first six months of war in the Pacific. Wilson Brown, Frank Fletcher and others were scapegoated by the Roosevelt administration for their mistakes. Note: in those archives I placed above, is a document that has all of the messages sent. It should be in the second link, just page through them and look for "Jutland Messages". It appears and I could be wrong, the first clear message that provided Jellicoe with accurate information was at 16:30 hrs. from Southampton. The message was sent both to Jellicoe and Beatty. That's about one hour or more, from the first contact. A bit late, IMHO.
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Post by director on Aug 14, 2016 22:13:22 GMT -6
Don't forget that while officers were scapegoated (I agree with you about Fletcher - no Nelson, but a good carrier admiral overall) others escaped blame they clearly deserved. I include Richmond Turner and Daniel Callaghan on the American list.
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Post by oldpop2000 on Aug 15, 2016 7:39:12 GMT -6
Don't forget that while officers were scapegoated (I agree with you about Fletcher - no Nelson, but a good carrier admiral overall) others escaped blame they clearly deserved. I include Richmond Turner and Daniel Callaghan on the American list. Callaghan paid for his deployment mistake at Naval Battle of Guadalcanal with his life, his actions helped save Guadalcanal, we can live with the minor mistakes. Richmond Kelly Turner, on the other hand, wasn't the worst we ever had, but he was close. His failure to inform Kimmel about threats from Japan prior to Pearl Harbor is in excusable. His failure at Savo Island, is incomprehensible. After the battle, Captain Bode was scapegoated and committed suicide. That's the Navy way, I am afraid, in war, things happen that aren't always fair.
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Post by director on Aug 15, 2016 15:52:46 GMT -6
I actually don't have an axe to grind against Callaghan, who by all accounts was a sober and serious officer. But he replaced the only Navy admiral with experience in running a night-time battle (incidentally winning) - Norman Scott. Callaghan had been a staff officer who wanted a field command and Ghormley - at the urging of, yes, RK Turner - put him in charge.
I agree it is the Navy way. I just worry that in a future war we won't have the 'cushion' of 18-months construction of the biggest fleet on the planet before the hostilities start.
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Post by oldpop2000 on Aug 15, 2016 16:07:06 GMT -6
I actually don't have an axe to grind against Callaghan, who by all accounts was a sober and serious officer. But he replaced the only Navy admiral with experience in running a night-time battle (incidentally winning) - Norman Scott. Callaghan had been a staff officer who wanted a field command and Ghormley - at the urging of, yes, RK Turner - put him in charge. I agree it is the Navy way. I just worry that in a future war we won't have the 'cushion' of 18-months construction of the biggest fleet on the planet before the hostilities start. I agree that Callaghan wasn't the best choice but the results were adequate and further the goals of the Guadalcanal operation. As to future wars, they will be "won with what you brung".
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Post by steel selachian on Aug 17, 2016 20:40:14 GMT -6
I think the treatment given to Jellicoe and Beatty after the battle has a lot to do with the Royal Navy's fixation on Mahanian doctrine. From the outbreak of war in 1914 the leadership had been seeking a decisive battle on the order of Trafalgar, and to the advocates of a "decisive victory" it must have seemed as if Jellicoe squandered his chance by being too cautious. Beatty, while arguably being incompetent, aggressively engaged the enemy until he had lost two battlecruisers and started taking fire from Scheer's battleships.
Given previous actions by the RN, such as the censure of Rear Admiral Troubridge for not engaging SMS Goeben and SMS Breslau on their way to Constantinople early in the war, willingness to engage the enemy even in the face of bad odds was more highly rated than caution. Troubridge's censure and court-martial were given as reasons why his colleague Rear Admiral Cradock took on a superior German force at Coronel several months later, resulting in the destruction of his entire squadron.
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Post by oldpop2000 on Aug 18, 2016 7:50:07 GMT -6
I think the treatment given to Jellicoe and Beatty after the battle has a lot to do with the Royal Navy's fixation on Mahanian doctrine. From the outbreak of war in 1914 the leadership had been seeking a decisive battle on the order of Trafalgar, and to the advocates of a "decisive victory" it must have seemed as if Jellicoe squandered his chance by being too cautious. Beatty, while arguably being incompetent, aggressively engaged the enemy until he had lost two battlecruisers and started taking fire from Scheer's battleships. Given previous actions by the RN, such as the censure of Rear Admiral Troubridge for not engaging SMS Goeben and SMS Breslau on their way to Constantinople early in the war, willingness to engage the enemy even in the face of bad odds was more highly rated than caution. Troubridge's censure and court-martial were given as reasons why his colleague Rear Admiral Cradock took on a superior German force at Coronel several months later, resulting in the destruction of his entire squadron. One of the common misconceptions is that the British had one hundred years of uncontested naval supremacy in the world. The RN assumed it had that naval supremacy. However, that supremacy was challenged. The French were very innovative with Gloire and submarines and Jeune Ecole had developed theories against British maritime trade. By the end of nineteenth century, Russia and France had been replaced by a serious challenger - Germany. Tirpitz and the German naval laws plus its rapid industrialization posed severe challenge to the British navy.
For Britain, the Anglo-French Naval entente relieved the British of Mediterranean coverage allowing the French to perform that function. Fisher's policy was to concentrate the fleet in the home waters, specifically Scapa Flow, Rosyth and Harwiche to cover the North Sea and the entrance to the Baltic Sea. At the beginning of the war, mines, submarines, torpedoes and long range coastal artillery had made the traditional British close blockade impractical. With the continental commitment of troops to France, it would appear that Great Britain had now opted for a continental as opposed a traditional maritime strategy that they had used in the Napoleonic Wars and that had been the staple of British strategy ever since. The doctrine of decisive battle as espoused by Alfred Thayer Mahan had emphasized this except that Mahan had not included nor had he investigated the change in naval technology since that war, one hundred years earlier. Jellicoe had explained his ideas in his memoirs: the Navy had to ensure unimpeded use of the seas for British ships: The Navy should bring economic pressure on the enemy by denying him the use of the sea; the Navy should cover the passage and assist the army sent overseas protect its supply lines and communications; prevent an invasion of Great Britain and its overseas dominions. He stated "The Fleet exists to achieve victory". The problem for Jellicoe and the British Navy was that the German strategy did not include sailing out to challenge the British Fleet. It was an attrition strategy based on surprise attacks to bring out small units of the British fleet and destroying them, essentially whittling down the British Navy and gain numerical superiority then launching the decisive battle. With this information, it is easy to see how the naval war in the North Sea developed in a very different manner from what most in the Admiralty and the public had expected. Even if Jutland had been a decisive tactical victory, it would have made no difference in the Naval war in the North Sea. It might have only spurred the Kaiser to build and improve his submarines and that might have made British trade even more perilous.
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Post by oldpop2000 on Aug 18, 2016 12:41:02 GMT -6
Just something else to consider about the pre-war naval strategy. Naval spending over the centuries has hinged on economics. Specifically, the state of the economy in nations especially Great Britain. The adoption of steam propulsion, armour protection and the greater dimensions that iron or steel construction allowed, led to the growth in the cost of building warships. This increased size also cost the builders because their shipyards had to expand, and their surrounding industries had to increase in technological capability, training and infrastructure related to moving the larger pieces of ships, engines etc. to a key location for assembly. Here is an example: Warrior, an iron hulled armoured steam warship launched in 1860 cost 18 times more than a ship-of-line first rate wooden sailing ship. The HMS Nile, launched in 1888 cost twice as much as that of the warrior.
Another issue that we don't consider is training which was far easier with sailing ships and simple muzzle loaders than the sophisticated breech loaders along with the steam generation and other advances. Now the average sailor had to be more educated in basics of math, and science along with his technological training to perform his mission. For the ship builders increased labor costs added to their rising cost of ship building and the lack of adequate labor force. None of these issues were a problem until other countries began to increase the size and advancements in their fleets. With the move to steam, no longer did the British sailor have the advantage in sailing, now all nations could develop sailing techniques equal to and exceeding the British.
As one can see, this is a very complex subject and the question of how to win at Jutland is not easy to pin down. We like simple answer but generally the answers are complex. We have to be objective, not subjective in investigating the answers. There isn't one answer for both the tactical handling of the actions nor the overall strategy. These two features of the battle were based on all of the above and it had a decided effect on how the fleet commanders executed their missions.
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Post by oldpop2000 on Jul 15, 2017 20:10:57 GMT -6
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Post by vonfriedman on Jul 17, 2017 1:06:10 GMT -6
Really very well done and interesting, with specific information not available in other similar videos. Thanks for the tip.
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Post by aeson on Jul 25, 2017 15:17:45 GMT -6
The HMS Nile, launched in 1888 cost twice as much as that of the warrior. Before or after adjusting for differences in the real value of money when the two ships were built? I'm no expert, but average annual inflation over the past century is a bit over 3%, which would mean that you'd expect the monetary cost of something to double every twenty years or so even if it's cost relative to everything else is largely unchanged. If the relative costs you're reporting have not been adjusted to put both ship's costs on the same standard, that factor of two difference in price tag could be as much a result of the declining value of a fixed sum of money as the increasing complexity and difficulty of construction of the ships.
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Post by Enderminion on Jul 25, 2017 16:26:17 GMT -6
4) Jellicoe is able to get across the German path home and to remain there, forcing the High Seas Fleet to fight its way past him or die are you trapped in here with me, or am I trapped here with you. thats asking for the enemy to use bold tactics to force you away, at large cost in terms of ships, but it might win the day
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Post by oldpop2000 on Jul 25, 2017 17:06:45 GMT -6
The HMS Nile, launched in 1888 cost twice as much as that of the warrior. Before or after adjusting for differences in the real value of money when the two ships were built? I'm no expert, but average annual inflation over the past century is a bit over 3%, which would mean that you'd expect the monetary cost of something to double every twenty years or so even if it's cost relative to everything else is largely unchanged. If the relative costs you're reporting have not been adjusted to put both ship's costs on the same standard, that factor of two difference in price tag could be as much a result of the declining value of a fixed sum of money as the increasing complexity and difficulty of construction of the ships. That is entirely possible, I haven't done the math but you sound correct.
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