Battle of Jutland.

[The Basket]

So? Blucher was sank. Don't matter how.

Pommern exploded. Don't matter how or why.

I am sure that Warspite and Tiger and Lion had all the same issues but didn't explode. Maybe Tiger would have exploded if it had British charges.

Or maybe Warspite's 15 inch shells did no damage.

The Germans ran away. There ships didn't explode but their morale did.

 

[PFVA63]

Hi,
For what its worth (not being an expert in anything remotely close to strategy, tactics or naval warfare) over the years as a layman I have come to look at the Battle of Jutland as follows:

• Based on my limited understanding of the naval strategy of the opposing sides, (from various books and articles that I have read) from a strategic point of view it appears the the overall strategy for the RN (and its Entente allies) was to enforce (and maintain) a naval blockade of the Triple Alliance, while the strategy of the German Navy was to try and break this blockade. And since the naval blockade continued uninterrupted after this battle to me it would seem that it was a strategic success for the Entente while not being a strategic success for Germany (and it's Triple Alliance partners)
• On an operational level it appears (from the sources I have read) that the Germans had hoped draw off parts of the overall larger Grand Fleet through a series of battles (such is this battle, and Dogger Bank, etc) in hopes of defeating small parts of the Grand Fleet to "whittle down" the RN's numeric advantage over the Germans. At this level, although the German's did in fact destroy more of its adversaries ships than the RN did at Jutland, in the aftermath of the battle the RN still enjoyed a numeric superiority over the Germans, with several additional ships coming on line fairly quickly to fill the void of the losses during the battle, while the German surface fleet appeared to be unprepared (and/or unable) to immediately put pressure back on the RN blockade. As such the battle did not appear to be overall operationally to the benefit of the Germans.
• And finally on a tactical level
  • The early parts of the battle (with the battlecruisers scouting, making contact, and trying to lure each others forces towards their main fleets) seemed to unfold pretty much in a logical manner, with the main unexpected event being the relative fragility of the RN Battlecruiser forces.
  • After these early maneuvers though it appears from my readings that Admiral Jellicoe pretty muchly dominated how the battle unfolded for much of the day causing the Germans to execute at least two battle turns under smoke screen to try and evade the extensive RN battleline arrayed in front of the German forces.
    • Or put another way, in the battle between the main fleets the Germans tactically appeared to be more in a reactionary mode to the British maneuvers than the other way around during the day battle.
  • It does not appear that it was until late in the evening/early morning that of the next day that the German forces seemed to "have the initiative" (to use a wargaming term) in their operations and maneuver to evade the RN forces and break for home.

As such, although the German admiral (and many individual captains etc) appears to handled their ships and fleet extremely well in avoiding being cut off by the RN, in general they didn't really seem to ever "take command of the battlespace" or "take their battle to their enemy" or anything along those lines.

As such to me, although the Germans appeared to have handled themselves well, "given the hand that they were dealt", in general it appears to me to be kind of hard to term that as a victory, whereas for the RN/Entente regardless of their losses on that day they maintained their blockade, maintained control of the local sea, and forced their enemy to retire from the battlefield. So to me its hard not to see Jutland as a victory for the RN in particular (and the Entente forces in the overall grand scheme).

Pat

 

[The Basket]

An excellent synopsis.

But go deeper. The failure at Jutland led to the unrestricted submarine warfare campaign. This drew USA into the war. Then the next major operation of the high seas fleet was to mutiny against their officers.

Then to Scapa for interment and eventuall scuttling. It saddens me that such ships as Derfflinger should end up in such a way.

 

[michaelmaltby]

The record of the German Navy, its culture and traditions, are not very deep as Britain's were and still are, IMO. Only the German U-boatmen created an indigenous submariner's culture - the hunter, the German Wolf. This they shared with fighter pilots and tankers.

The 'big ships' turned out -- for the most part, to be of very little value -- they scared the hell out of everybody and they were beautiful, 'Germanic' ships, but, and I'm now speaking of WW2, the greatest consistent payback the German war machine ever got from the big ships was in the Baltic, after the collapse from Bagration (June 22, 1944). Again and again, the guns with their long reach helped the Herr maintain an 'orderly' withdraw on the Northern Front.
Other big German ships were held, unused, and destroyed at anchor by Britsh means; or roamed free briefly to be destroyed by the Royal Navy in blazing gun battles; using lesser ships.

It takes generations to grow a Navy and its ships. Jutland, IIRC, was the only major naval engagement - test - the German Navy had experienced since Bismark pulled the whole puzzle together under the Kaiser -- who 'had to have a navy', just like his British and Russian cousins .

In strategic terms, the only terms that matter to a fighting Navy, the Royal Navy won the Battle of Jutland.

 

[Peter Gunn]

The record of the German Navy, its culture and traditions, are not very deep as Britain's were and still are, IMO. Only the German U-boatmen created an indigenous submariner's culture - the hunter, the German Wolf. This they shared with fighter pilots and tankers.

The 'big ships' turned out -- for the most part, to be of very little value -- they scared the hell out of everybody and they were beautiful, 'Germanic' ships, but, and I'm now speaking of WW2, the greatest consistent payback the German war machine ever got from the big ships was in the Baltic, after the collapse from Bagration (June 22, 1944). Again and again, the guns with their long reach helped the Herr maintain an 'orderly' withdraw on the Northern Front.
Other big German ships were held, unused, and destroyed at anchor by Britsh means; or roamed free briefly to be destroyed by the Royal Navy in blazing gun battles; using lesser ships.

It takes generations to grow a Navy and its ships. Jutland, IIRC, was the only major naval engagement - test - the German Navy had experienced since Bismark pulled the whole puzzle together under the Kaiser -- who 'had to have a navy', just like his British and Russian cousins .

In strategic terms, the only terms that matter to a fighting Navy, the Royal Navy won the Battle of Jutland.

^^^ This.

 

[fastmongrel]

Two boxers, one stands in the middle of the ring bloodied but gloves up and ready. The other slightly less bloodied refuses to get up off his stool and fight. Who won the boxing match.

 

[The Basket]

Look at where Von Hipper was born.

Weilheim in Oberbayern

thats like in deep Bavaria as far away from the ocean as you can get and still be in Germany!

so there's that.

 

[Snautzer01]

Other big German ships were held, unused, and destroyed at anchor by Britsh means; or roamed free briefly to be destroyed by the Royal Navy in blazing gun battles; using lesser ships.

You and not only you forget Ultra. Comes in very handy knowing what your opponent plans are minute by minute. How and even who is doing what.

 

[buffnut453]

You and not only you forget Ultra. Comes in very handy knowing what your opponent plans are minute by minute. How and even who is doing what.

Errrrr...Ultra in 1916? I don't think so.

 

[Snautzer01]

Errrrr...Ultra in 1916? I don't think so.

Read his post.

 

[fastmongrel]

No ULTRA in 1916 but Room 40 was reading German signal traffic just as fast.

 

[Mad Dog]

The battle of Jutland was a material victory for the German.....

Material victories don't win wars unless they give you a strategic victory that puts you in a better position to ensure the defeat of your enemy. At the end of the Battle, the Imperial fleet ran back home, having not broken the Royal Navy's blockade, which mean the British carried on starving the German industry of strategic materials and the German people of food, ensuring the Allied victory.

.....simply because the Germans had better metallurgists and chemists.....

No. The German gunnery optics were superior, allowing them more accurate fire at long range whilst running away, and the greater level of internal division bulkheads made the German ships superior in survivability, but their chemists and metallurgists were not more advanced.

.....The German shells had less tendency to break up on impact and their explosives didn't detonate prematurely.....

Again, no. Against the RN's battlecruisers that was completely irrelevant, it was the thinness of the battlecruisers' armour that made them vulnerable, along with the poor standards of ammunition handling in the RN turrets. However, the RN maintained a higher rate of fire through those more risky storage methods, which meant that if they had managed to get the whole of the larger RN fleet to cross the T of the fleeing Germans then the Germans would have all been sunk in quick order.

......More importantly their propellant was far more stable. I can't think of any German warship that blew up at anchor like Vanguard, Bulwak and Natal. At Dogger Bank the aft two turrets of Seydlitz burned out completely without exploding.....

Which ignore the fact the the Q turret commander on HMS Lion, despite being mortally wounded, quickly gave the command to flood the magazines and saved Lion. And the German ships had greater internal division becasue the pre-War Imperial fleet lost ships to accidental magazine fires in peacetime. the British didn't realise it was a bigger issue because they had better peacetime operational experience.

.....The upper class twits who ran Britain were more interested in learning Latin and Greek than developing an understanding of science (Charles Rolls was a notable exception). The German educational emphasis on mechanics and science paid off during the war. The fact that the upper class twits gave away the chemical industry to Germany well certainly did help. Giving away vital industries to rival countries never pays.

And yet the British beat the Germans with superior aircraft and tanks, designed in Britain, and the Royal Navy kept the Imperial Navy bottled up and ineffective for the rest of War, whilst the German industrial base struggled and stagnated because the Germans simply didn't have the intelligence to realise their geopolitical situation at the start of the War meant they were doomed to lose. Not being geniuses, they repeated the exact same mistake in 1939, when - again - superior British designs (especially in aircraft) beat the Germans hollow.

 

[Reluctant Poster]

Material victories don't win wars unless they give you a strategic victory that puts you in a better position to ensure the defeat of your enemy. At the end of the Battle, the Imperial fleet ran back home, having not broken the Royal Navy's blockade, which mean the British carried on starving the German industry of strategic materials and the German people of food, ensuring the Allied victory.
No. The German gunnery optics were superior, allowing them more accurate fire at long range whilst running away, and the greater level of internal division bulkheads made the German ships superior in survivability, but their chemists and metallurgists were not more advanced.
Again, no. Against the RN's battlecruisers that was completely irrelevant, it was the thinness of the battlecruisers' armour that made them vulnerable, along with the poor standards of ammunition handling in the RN turrets. However, the RN maintained a higher rate of fire through those more risky storage methods, which meant that if they had managed to get the whole of the larger RN fleet to cross the T of the fleeing Germans then the Germans would have all been sunk in quick order.
Which ignore the fact the the Q turret commander on HMS Lion, despite being mortally wounded, quickly gave the command to flood the magazines and saved Lion. And the German ships had greater internal division becasue the pre-War Imperial fleet lost ships to accidental magazine fires in peacetime. the British didn't realise it was a bigger issue because they had better peacetime operational experience.
And yet the British beat the Germans with superior aircraft and tanks, designed in Britain, and the Royal Navy kept the Imperial Navy bottled up and ineffective for the rest of War, whilst the German industrial base struggled and stagnated because the Germans simply didn't have the intelligence to realise their geopolitical situation at the start of the War meant they were doomed to lose. Not being geniuses, they repeated the exact same mistake in 1939, when - again - superior British designs (especially in aircraft) beat the Germans hollow.

To be clear I am saying the Germans had a material victory in the sense that they destroyed more ships than the British. Jutland was undoubtedly a strategic victory for the British and also a tactical victory for Jellicoe. Jellicoe was unfairly criticized for not delivering a second Trafalgar when in fact he handled his fleet as perfectly as could be done given the communications systems available at the time. Other admirals did far worse in WWII with much better communication equipment. He out thought Scheer who main tactic was run away, run away.
British ship could and did take tremendous punishment as long as their magazines remained intact.
As to the state of the British chemical industry (from A History of the Modern British Chemical Industry):
"in 1890 the U.K. dye industry employed some 1000 workers, one-twentieth of the number then employed by the five largest a German dye firms."
"The abrupt cessation of these imports in August 1914 found the British dyers unable to carry on a large part of their business; they were not even in a position to dye the uniforms of the soldiers who were to fight Germany! So acute was the situation that Royal Warrants were issued to permit trading with the enemy, and for some time an exchange of dye intermediates was carried on in neutral Holland."
The dye industry was the foundation of the chemical industry. BASF, Bayer and AGFA all started in dyes. Britain pioneered the dye industry but gave it away.
http://www.professor-murmann.net/Murmann_OEEH.pdf
"Because of her leadership in organic chemicals, Germany by 1913 possessed the largest chemical industry in the world and also was the largest exporter with a 40.2% global share."
I am curious as to what ships the Germans lost to magazine explosions pre WWI

 

[XBe02Drvr]

Not being geniuses, they repeated the exact same mistake in 1939, when - again - superior British designs (especially in aircraft) beat the Germans hollow.

I think the "not geniuses" part is more critical than the "superior British designs" part to the outcome of the war. As neither an Anglophile nor a Teutonophile, I'm not convinced German designs were all that inferior, just that their arrogance and ideological fixations clouded their vision and impaired their tactics and strategy. For a nation whose long term goal was to subdue the vast steppes of USSR, not designing more range into their aircraft seems in hindsight rather short-sighted. Also, with their extensive electronics expertise, the failure to recognize the impact that radar and radar networks would have on aerial campaigns is particularly odd. And then there's the overconfidence in Enigma. And the curtailment of R&D work once the shooting started. And the lack of long term thinking in terms of personnel utilization, especially highly skilled assets such as Uboat and flight crews. The failure to acknowledge that the "short and sweet" war of conquest had devolved into a long term war of attrition.
Churchill&Co at least had a long term grasp of the demands of a war of attrition.
Cheers,
Wes

 

[swampyankee]

I think I've said this several times, but it bears repeating: the major powers during WW2 were at comparable levels of technology, overall, with some having some particular areas of superiority to others, with those areas moving around during the war.

In neither WW1 nor WW2 were the Germans (the primary member of the Axis in WW2 and of the Central Powers in WW1) defeated by nothing but brute force and ignorance: in both wars, the German Navy, especially its surface fleet, was consistently out-fought at sea and, ultimately, their army was out-fought on land.

 

[michaelmaltby]

"... defeated by nothing but brute force"
With the emphasis on 'brute' ... and that is why retaking Europe would have been such an impossible challenge had the Soviet's not been prepared to bleed white to keep Russia red.

 

[Mad Dog]

"... defeated by nothing but brute force"
With the emphasis on 'brute' ... and that is why retaking Europe would have been such an impossible challenge had the Soviet's not been prepared to bleed white to keep Russia red.

OK, let's assume Hitler doesn't attack Russia in June 1941. He doesn't declare war on the USA in December 1941 and leaves the Japanese to soak up US efforts and restrict the British Empire, meaning Hitler only has to fight the Commonwealth. It still leaves him unable to defeat the British Empire because his force is predominantly a European continental army with very limited navy and air transport. He also has an economy unable to produce the material, especially petrol/oil/lubricants, he needs for a long war, and his Romanian oilfields are vulnerable to long-range RAF bombers from the Middle East, especially as the RAF can still buy B-24s from the US under Lend-Lease in 1941. If Hitler doesn't invade Russia in June 1941, then he has to keep a massive force tied down in Poland to guard against a Soviet invasion, and another force tied down in Norway in case the Soviets decide to occupy all of Finland and push into Scandinavia. And, of course, another large force is already tied down in Occupied France in case the British invade across the Channel. The size of the Royal Navy ensures Britain can invade Europe pretty much wherever they wish, whilst the Germans have zero chance of invading the UK.
The US is still going to supply the British as they are allies in the war against Japan. So the British still get Lend-lease Grant and Sherman tanks, Mustangs and Thunderbolts, B-17s and B-24s, and second-hand USN escort destroyers for the Battle of the Atlantic. With the USA concentrated solely in the Pacific and not sending forces to Europe or North Africa, the Japanese get defeated faster, then all the USA's industrial focus will be on supplying the British to defeat Hitler.
The British will still defeat the Axis in Africa because the African continent is simply too big for Hitler to ever conquer, just as Russia was too vast, and Hitler doesn't have the ability to supply a massive force in Africa, whilst the British have established bases running all the way down to Cape Town and secure supply through West Africa and the Red Sea for shipments from the States. After defeating the Axis in North Africa, the British can invade Europe via the Balkans because they don't have any Tehran Conference agreement pegging them to invade France, allowing them to go the route Crete-Greece-Bulgaria-Romania and capturing those vital oilfields, putting a stranglehold on the Germany war industry. From Romania the British can then take the relatively open route to the north to Poland or go directly northwest to Germany, or the more mountainous west route through Transylvania to Hungary and Austria. Or they can simply hold Romania, suck in German forces, and then mount an invasion of Sardinia and then Southern France. There is actually not much reason to invade Italy as the Italians have relatively little industrial power and it's concentrated in the north, making it an easy target for RAF bombers, and without Romanian oil the Italians can be suppressed and then talked into a treaty.
The biggest bit the British would miss in Europe would be the strategic impact of the 8th AF day-bombers hitting German industry and their escorts chewing up the Luftwaffe. Britain would have to rely on Mosquito bombers for day raids into Germany. Of course, should the War drag on long enough, the Manhattan Project gives the British access to the nuclear bomb, and then it's curtains for Hitler and most of Berlin in one go.
So, a longer grind but no actual requirement for the Soviets to do anything other than look threatening, and the British would still have defeated Hitler.

 

[XBe02Drvr]

OK, let's assume Hitler doesn't attack Russia in June 1941. He doesn't declare war on the USA in December 1941 and leaves the Japanese to soak up US efforts and restrict the British Empire

The British will still defeat the Axis in Africa because the African continent is simply too big for Hitler to ever conquer

I'm not sure I buy this scenario. Without the huge resource drain of the eastern front, Germany can dominate North Africa, pulverize Malta, Gibraltar, Alexandria, and turn the Mediterranean into a Nazi lake. There goes Suez and access to Middle East oil. Turkey might find it expedient to cooperate in return for revival of its former Ottoman glory in the new world order. Germany doesn't have to conquer the entire African continent; with the Sahara as a barrier to the south, only the north coastal perimeter needs to be occupied and defended. If Gibraltar becomes Axis, Spain, Morocco, and Algeria will likely follow, extending the basing areas for U-boats and FW200s to interdict shipping in the Atlantic and threatening South America-Africa aircraft ferrying routes. With Egypt and Suez in Axis hands, U-boats can operate in the Indian Ocean, further interdicting Commonwealth shipping.
Methinks the British Empire would find this a tough row to hoe.

 

[The Basket]

The Germans had 11 inch and 12 inch guns and that wasn't buttering any parsnips in 1916. Also their gun range was limited.

So against Warspite the Germans had no reply. Had the 4 QE took on the German Battlecruisers instead of the British Battlecruisers then things may have been different.

Shipbuilding the British was muchly superior to the Germans.

And numbers are the key.

Not only could Britain outbuild Germany but it was building warships for other countries. Turkey, Japan and South America.

The Germans were behind in 15 inch guns and their radio codes were broken.

 

[swampyankee]

I don't buy the scenario, either: attacking east was intrinsic to Hitler's ideology as exploitation of the resources and people of Eastern Europe was a key part of his vision for the future. Unrestricted submarine warfare brought the US into WWI; it would do so in WWII.

The other issue Hitler would have on this scenario is that his eastern flank would now have the opportunistic and ideologically dangerous USSR.