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Talk:Battle of Jutland/Archive 6

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Latest comment: 14 years ago by 173.206.255.49 in topic Arcticle rewrite
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Arcticle rewrite

Latest comment: 14 years ago55 comments12 people in discussion

The infobox currently simply says "British victory", which doesn't really reflect the assessment section of the text as of now. If one wants to go into detail, I propose something like "Disputed; tactical German victory or indecisive; strategically indecisive or British victory". If it should be simple and short, I propose "Indecisive". -- Toothswung (talk) 14:58, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

Or if we find it to be disputed after all, put "Disputed" in there. -- Toothswung (talk) 14:58, 28 December 2008 (UTC)
Sorry, fixed the formatting. Toothswung (talk) 14:59, 28 December 2008 (UTC)
The assessment text isn't particularly useful as it stands. It provides NO sources as to the battle being regarded as a tactical German victory. The only reference to it being regarded indecisive is taken from a thirty-year old journal article.
As to a realistic assessment, let's look at the facts. The German fleet's aim was to destroy a substantial section of the British fleet. It failed to do that. The British were hoping to destroy the majority of the German fleet. It failed to do that. Tactically, the British Battle Cruiser Fleet engaged with the German battle cruisers in the Run to the South, took extremely heavy fire and lost two battle cruisers, and in the Run to the North was followed by the entire German Fleet, and was able to lead it to the British Battle Fleet, which in deploying crossed the T of the German line. The German Fleet retreated under heavy fire, only to make a severe error and turn, running across the British and being crossed again. The German Fleet again retreated under heavy fire, this time making a diversionary attack staged by a ragtag force of battle cruisers and destroyers. During the night the Germans successfully fought their way through the British line and back to their base, losing a pre-dreadnought in the process.
The Run to the North by the battered British Battle Cruiser Force was a tactical withdrawal towards the Grand Fleet Battle Fleet - Beatty may well have been worried but he knew perfectly well what was going to happen. The two battle turns by the Germans can only be called flight, and if Scheer's chief of staff is to be believed he didn't have a clue what was going on during the second one. The commander of the Scouting Groups, Hipper, had his own battle cruiser knocked out from under him. About the only major tactical success the Germans scored was being able to fight their way through the British destroyer and cruiser forces during the night without bringing the British Battle Fleet upon them.
If tactics were solely based on tonnage sunk and men killed, the Germans would be the winner. However, as I think I have tried to point out above, that's not really what tactics is about. I'm quite happy to be corrected. --Harlsbottom (talk | library | book reviews) 15:41, 28 December 2008 (UTC)
I agree on the limited usefulness on the assessment text, I think I'll add a citation needed tag. The discussion on how a comparison of numbers, tonnage sunk and relative strength of forces should enter into an estimate of tactical success has been going on for decades; similar discussions with varying degrees of profundity and different, but mostly low levels of usefulness can be found on a number of Wikipedia talk pages. When I made the first edit it said "British victory", which is just plain wrong. Indecisive is fine with me and also fairly accurate. -- Toothswung (talk) 15:58, 28 December 2008 (UTC)
I'll see if I can dig anything up in my books and on Google Books to add to the assessment section - an extremely unappealing task.
Since starting this reply, I just found my copy of Jutland: The German Perspective by V. E. Tarrant, an exceptional book on the subject, and this is what he wrote on the tactical side (p. 278): "From the tactical point of view, since neither fleet was able to inflict a crippling blow on the other, Jutland belongs to the series of inconclusive battles or partial victories which are the rule in naval warfare." He doesn't specify who may have had a "partial victory".
I also like this excerpt from a letter Jellicoe wrote to his wife shortly after the battle: "Victory always rests with the force that occupies the scene of the action, and we did this for the greater part of the next day, until it was quite clear that they had all gone home or as many as were left to go. If they had been so confident of victory they would have tried to go on fighting instead of legging it for home." --Harlsbottom (talk | library | book reviews) 16:40, 28 December 2008 (UTC)
We argued this for pages and came to the same conclusion... indecisive, also the blockade and its maintence dictated that Germany had to lose and that also drove the U-Boat campaign after this battle. That this was given as a victory to the German public is undisputed but Admiral of the High Seas Fleet declares there is no way to defeat the English with the fleet he had. The battle was indecisive but the long term view would have to be that the blockade would continue and stavation and revolution would proceed apace. Lets not get hung up in another useless "who one the battle" again. Tirronan (talk) 06:44, 29 December 2008 (UTC)
Re your last sentence - I am becoming convinced these lines in infoboxes are more trouble than they're worth. The Land (talk) 21:58, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

(outdent)Just had a look through the archives - some pretty useless arguing over the years and some pretty spurious arguments. At least it would seem that we're all agreed on the result for the infobox at any rate. I will attempt at some point to redo the "Assessment" section so its informative and referenced.

I just realised something. The quote from Tarrant which I inserted above is taken word for word from Arthur Marder's From the Dreadnought to Scapa Flow III 2nd. Edition p. 252. I know imitation is the sincerest form of flattery but that's taking the mickey somewhat. --Harlsbottom (talk | library | book reviews) 10:08, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

My preferred option is "Indecisive" - or nothing at all. There is no point putting a (necessarily contentious) one-sentence summary in an infobox. If the reader wants more ,they can read the article. The Land (talk) 21:58, 29 December 2008 (UTC)
So the status quo remains. All good. I took the liberty of capitalising certain parts of the warning in front of the result in the infobox - User:Altoncollege22 seems not to be able to read too well.
Should there be a discussion as to the possible consequences of Jutland being a victory for either side, referenced of course? Marder for example thinks it "convincing" (p. 257-8) that a British victory could have, among other things, opened a supply route through the Baltic to Imperial Russia "and so having prevented the Revolution in March 1917." This is decidedly offset by the "Seaborne Trade", Volume III p. 33 by Fayle which states that at most supplies to Russia could have been increased from 2.5 tons in 1916 to 2.7 million tons in 1917 because of shipping shortages for which a British victory would certainly not solve. There are numerous sources dealing with implications of a decisive British victory (Richmond and Roskill come to mind), as well as sources looking at the remoteness of a German victory, which could perhaps be looked at. Thoughts? --Harlsbottom (talk | library | book reviews) 10:41, 30 December 2008 (UTC)
yes, I think there should. This also relates to why the Germans were desperate enough to take on the British fleet, to break the blockade of Germany. That must be in already somewhere?Sandpiper (talk)
I can see why this is an argument which has run and run becuse the situation after the battle was the same as before the battle. The british for various reasons, a lot to do with complacency, lost more material, but consider this analogy: A bully is top dog in the school playground and does what he likes. Someone who normally hides in the corner decided to challenge him. The rival comes out, they fight, and although the bully scrapes his leg and it bleeds rather badly, his rival runs off back to his normal corner. Who won? The situation was unchanged, the bully had an injury while his rival did not, but the bully won.
Gordon p.514 quotes Bellair p.82, who says: For instance" A Member of the Inter-Allied Commission " in Germany contributed an article to the Times, January 14, 1919, in which he quoted a Zeppelin officer who was gunnery lieutenant of the Deutschland as saying to him: "They (the men)are not fools about the things they can see, and the way we were utterly crushed from the moment your battlefleet came into action took the heart out of them. Another hour of daylight would have finished it."
He has more quotes indicating the Germans thought they had been lucky to escape as they did (which they were), and summarises Pohl as saying the British fleet was undefeatable.
Obviously it bears explaining in the text, but the British won. They might with luck and a different approach have had a rather different kind of victory with major destruction of the German fleet, but what they got was still a victory. I am afraid I think the word 'indecisive' is just plain wrong. The Germans thought it entirely decisive, they never wanted to meet the Grand fleet Again, that question was wholly decided. If the infobox is to explain what happened it needs either a very brief playground 'win', or maybe 'staus quo unchanged'? Even the numerical German win on damage done came at sufficient cost to them as to by pretty much a Pyrrhic victory. Sandpiper (talk) 07:34, 9 January 2009 (UTC)
The Germans never intended to take on the British Battle Fleet in the first place. Scheer's aim was a battle of Kräfteausgleich (equalisation of forces): Only then would the High Sea Fleet have been prepared to engage the Grand Fleet in a proper fleet action when they knew that they would have a chance of winning. As soon as Scheer saw that five mile line of gunfire he did an about turn. Then he did his amazingly stupid turn back (and no-one is sure why he did it still) and faced the British Battle Fleet again - that time he was prepared to sacrifice his battle cruisers so that his battle squadrons could escape.
The analogy of a bully isn't particularly apt. Most victims of bullies aren't built like brick s***houses and are arrogant. But if we do continue the bully analogy the losses incurred are more like cutting away a burden-some piece of clothing - yes it's a waste but it makes absolutely no difference.
As to the infobox, it can't be "Status Quo Unchanged" as Scheer used the battle as an excuse to wholeheartedly support the U-Boat campaign. "The Germans thought it entirely decisive, they never wanted to meet the Grand fleet Again, that question was wholly decided." Since they had never wanted to meet the Grand Fleet as a whole in the first place, this is wrong. And it didn't stop the Germans from undertaking another Kräfteausgleich sortie in mid-August. --Harlsbottom (talk | library | book reviews) 09:17, 9 January 2009 (UTC)
To take the last and first point first: yes, the German policy was to avoid the British fleet and try to catch separated units, yes this remained in force. I agree, and in part thus said 'status quo unchanged'. However, the result of Jutland was to reinforce the German view that confronting the British fleet head to head was an exceptionally bad idea. The result was decisive in this respect. I would consider the result 'indecisive' if the Germans had been left with the feeling that they had benefited from the exchange, and wanted to have another go at the main British fleet, or even if they believed there was the possibility of benefit from such a meeting. Britain firmly kept the German navy in its place. It was not decisive in the sense of causing a change, but in demonstrating no change was possible. The German policy of raiding continued, so no change from status quo there either. I am less sure of my ground regarding to what extent the result discouraged further raiding, because my initial reaction is simply that there is normally an over-emphasis on the idea that Jutland stopped German raiding: The results of Jutland must have made it clear to Germany that the very best which could be said about the raiding policy was that it was high risk. If Beatty had got his act together Hipper's ships should all have been sunk. The point about switching to submarine war is a good one, but does that make this battle a win or a loss? The submarine policy had been changing back and forth for some time because of its own high risks. If this battle did prompt the switch to submarine warfare, then surely this was a 'decisive' act, not an 'indecisive' won.
I agree the analogy leaves something to be desired. I don't think it exactly fair to cast Britain as the bully and Germany as the nice guy, either. As to extending the analogy of Beatty's beloved battlecruisers to 'unnecessary clothing', I think you would have upset someone who was easy to make into an enemy. Perhaps losing part of your suit of armour because the straps have broken, but I'm sure Beatty wouldn't have liked that either. But I think this is taking the analogy in the wrong direction. My central point was two combattants, one defends and holds what he has (repeatedly), the other keeps trying but gets beaten every time he comes back for more. You would never say this was indecisive in reality. An onlooker would just say the challenger didn't have enough sense to know he was beaten.
What bothers me about the turn abouts is that Scheer refused to talk about them and thus seemed wholly incompetent lacking any justification. Myself, i am reasonably convinced he felt he needed to escape, but the way home was through the British fleet. Thus a second try at getting around them. He worked on instinct, I seem to remember reading, so maybe he guessed (as Gordon suggests) they would now be further ahead than where he met them previously and so could pass behind. Which he eventually did at night, same idea. I would also say that if he thought his only way out was through the British, then he both needed to keep tabs on them and stall untill nightfall. Sailing backwards and forwards nicely wasted some more time and sewed confusion when Jellico might have felt confident enough to attack. Wasting time favoured the Germans. I think it may also make sense that if Scheer felt his only course was to run away by a risky move, then it might be better not to admit this publicly. Particulalry when that move failed because he guessed wrong (understandbly from the scanty evidence). I think his head might have rolled rather literally if he told the Kaiser, 'sorry, I knew it was a risk and I got it wrong, but I felt if I didn't try it, we would have lost all the ships which I had just led into the mess in the first place'. He was also suffering from bad visibility, and might just have been astute enough (or desperate enough) to count on the degree of confusion amongst the British ships to minimise his own losses in a confrontation. It is striking that although he turned up twice in front of the British guns, they rather failed to do him much harm. He already had the experience of escaping the first time to boost his confidence of trying again. Sandpiper (talk) 09:37, 10 January 2009 (UTC)
Well this goes to the heart of what I dislike about the article, 1, there is no capsulation of what caused the confrontation, 2, the direct outcome of this being the U-boat campaign, and the continuation of the blockade, 3, the bringing of the US into the conflict, it was a most decisive battle in many ways all of which were not effected the the prospective losses... Tirronan (talk) 07:09, 20 January 2009 (UTC)
Your point about lack of coverage of some of the longer term consequences occurred to me too. I find the trouble with this article is that there is such a vast amount of source material it is hard to get a good overall picture. i think it was Gordon (anyway someone I was reading recently) who made the point that had there been a real battle after Jutland this battle would have been consigned to histories inconsequential near-misses, just as with the other earlier raids. Gordon's thesis is also very much that failures at Jutland were a consequence of systemic training failures within the British navy, which is touched on with the issue of signallling mistakes. I don't know what authors think about the efficiency of the German fleet, but the overall impression of the British one is poor. Incidentally, and while on the subject of consequences, Gordon also made the point that while there may have been deficiencies in British shells, this was also one of the explanations which Beatty et al. found acceptable to explain his inability to damage the German ships. His bigger difficulty was managing to direct them at anything other than sea. I suspect we are still propagating one of his self-defence red herings. Sandpiper (talk) 17:03, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

(outdent)If you've just read The Rules of the Game then no wonder you have a poor impression of the British at the Battle of Jutland. For objective analysis one still cannot beat Marder's Second Edition of From the Dreadnought to Scapa Flow III, even though some of his arguments are slightly flawed [i.e. easily countered]. Gordon is far too subjective and selective with his sources and the book shows it, and I could have a field day countering many of his assertions. I think the late D. K. Brown had it right when he said that the book was "interesting" but not "useful". --Harlsbottom (talk | library | book reviews) 18:12, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

My apologies if I am muddling you up with someone else, but I though i recalled a similar conversation where you argued against Marder and in favour of someone else as the better source? Everyone has their failings one way or another.Sandpiper (talk) 18:39, 24 January 2009 (UTC)
Very simply I am convinced that nobody has written the definitive account of Jutland. Marder at least tries to be balanced, while Gordon seems to hold everyone in contempt of his apparently superior wisdom. He also demonstrates an understanding of the Grand Fleet Battle Orders, something Gordon fails to do. --Harlsbottom (talk | library | book reviews) 19:27, 24 January 2009 (UTC)
Here I would also differ, the Grand Fleet fired as well as anyone that day, Massie noted that the entire head of the HSF was covered in water spouts and that the HSF began to bear away under the weight of fire. Scheer doing anything but a battle-turn in all probablity gets very very ugly very quickly. The 1st occasion of this was bad the 2nd crossing of the T was much worse. This is a highly coordinated Grand Fleet operating exactly as it should have. Now critisim may and should have been leveled at the GF for not having a better handle on night fighting, much may be made of the lack of an intellegence picture being built up by the GF, both of these are fair game. Another section however doesn't get covered very well, the night fighting is covered well as a "just the facts" matter that I tend to prefer, it served me well on the Waterloo article where national pride is still very much involved, here however it masks the sheer desperation that the HSF had to get away. No matter how many pages we write on the stupid "who won" the fact was that the entire HSF BC squadron except a single ship, was so damaged as to be useless, and the order of sailing had to be rearranged to protect the battered lead BS squadrons, and the only thing on the mind of Scheer was to get away before he was pounded to scrap at 1st light. That was the fight and by our not including it leads to "who one" wargame arguments. Scheer didn't have any doubts whatsoever who had won and neither did Jellico. The fury was that the British leadership and its people expected another 1st of June and it did not happen, what did happen was much more decisive.Tirronan (talk) 04:53, 24 January 2009 (UTC)
Gordon was a good read. As I said above, he had his own case to make. In point of fact he complimented the shooting of the 5th battle squadron under evan-thomas and had no complaints about that of the grand fleet, his gripe was with other issues. He was not even especially negative about Beatty, though he plainly was on the side that Beatty failed to ensure his ships were good at shooting. I think the evidence is that they were awful, and jellicoe had already warned him about this months before. The whole reason he had the 5BS was because some of his cruisers had gone off for shooting practice. I read Marder last year after Massie and have started reading it again for comparison, because I am sure I will now see different points of interest. The impression i have gained from these and others is that Beatty was the one who mucked up, and then set about extricating himself as best he could through spinning the story. Aided and abetted by the needs of wartime for everyone to be a hero. Ironically, Gordon approved beatty's philosophy of trying to get his captains to act on their own initiative, but beatty blindsided himself to other failings, the importance of preparation, a lack of understanding of the vital importance of accurate shooting at long range. jellicoe had the opposite failings, if you count them as failings. His ships moved to plan and he got them where he wanted them. The issue with him is whether his rigid control of the fleet cost him freedom of independant action from his squadrons, which might have allowed them to catch more of the enemy. On balance, I think the Germans would have much preferred beatty running the Grand fleet from the start of the war. he would have made mistakes, and that was what the germans needed. Which is not to say there could not have been an ideal middle course between these two, in an ideal world. I just read some Fisher where he commented on the vital importance of meticulous planning. I don't know enough about jellicoe to really assess him, but if bacon on Fisher is to be believed, fisher would have been bloody good had he been younger and running the GF (though his biography does smack a bit of hero worship). It is important to consider not just whether these people ultimatley had failings, but to be a bit positive about it and consider whether anyone who might conceivably have been appointed in their place would have done better. Hipper's ships did very well against Beatty when he only outnumbered them 6:5. They had more trouble when outnumbered 10 (well 8 by then) to 5, especially since the 5BS could shoot straight. It is hard to factor in the alleged better damage resistance of german ships, because again this this is something which paradoxically certain people on the british side had reason to play up. The original accounts i have read are obviously one sided, germans talking about their ships and British talking about theirs. people at the time obviously didn't get a lot of chance to try out their opponents ships to see what they thought of them under battle conditions. if the online account by Gunner Grant is true, about being posted to Lion, recognising the danger of how charges were being handled and then doing something to put it right, beatty owed his ship's survical to Grant, never mind Harvey. Bet he never thanked him. Sandpiper (talk) 18:39, 24 January 2009 (UTC)
I would agree that scheer and Jellicoe knew who had won, or would have won in a fight to the finish. I'm not quite so convinced that scheer was 'desperate'. Despite being damaged, Seydlitz and moltke just blundered about amongst the British ships during the night and were basically ignored. The Germans had considered how to conduct themselves at night and the British hadn't. Sandpiper (talk) 18:56, 24 January 2009 (UTC)
If you've read the foreward to Marder's revised edition of From Dreadnought to Scapa Flow then you'd know he's the heaviest hitter other than technical author John Roberts who believes that Captain Chatfield's orders, and nothing else, saved Lion. Grant's memoirs have been known about ever since he wrote them yet people still manage to "discover" them every so often. But that's neither here nor there.
Where Gordon fails is sheer bloody-mindedness (he and Beatty would probably have gotten on well). He offers no real alternative to the centralised control of the fleet, other than a brief mention of the divided tactics practised by Admiral May in the Home Fleet, and offers no suggestion of how it may have been used to good effect at Jutland. He manages to briefly and totally dismiss the torpedo threat against the Battle Fleet at half seven, although fortunately greater minds than his disagree (see Captain Wayne P. Hughes, U.S.N., the well known American naval author, outranks in every way Commander Gordon, R.N.R.). None of the historians I have consulted including the almost viterupative writings of Captain Roskill, Admiral Richmond and Vice-Admiral Dewar have ever seriously considered the consequences of blindly following the enemy, other than Jellicoe should have done it. Marder is convinced Beatty wouldn't have done better in Jellicoe's place, an opinion I would wholeheartedly concur in. Then again Marder thinks von Hipper was the best sea officer in the war which is a strange choice considering relatively little was asked of him.
I would think "desperate" would adequately describe Scheer's state of mind, although it's an unencyclopædic term to use. He knew full well that the entire Royal Navy stood between him and home, and the hearsay evidence of his staff officer quoted in Marder is to be believed then he was prone to being clueless, which wouldn't bode well. --Harlsbottom (talk | library | book reviews) 19:27, 24 January 2009 (UTC)
The marders I have here all only mention one publication date which suggests first editions. Which sections of which volume were revised, and in what editions? (and about what)
The first edition of Volume III Jutland and After appeared in 1966. He revised it fairly comprehensively in 1978, which is the edition I have. Both were published by Oxford University Press.
Gordon goes through what he sees as highlights where people did things wrong at Jutland, much as the other authors do. naturaly, he chooses to labour certain points differently to other writers, but I havn't really seen him disagreeing makedly over which points are controversial. What he does do is argue the whole ethos of the RN was wrong. In the terms he puts it, it is hard to disagree, since best practice now would agree with his arguments. (for example, promotion on merit and ability rather than patronage). he makes a good case, it seems to me that self-evidently signalling was pathetic during the battle, and its importance and discipline was simply not appreciated by most people there. I had gathered the impression from Herwig writing about the Kaiserlich marine that the German officers were significantly more chosen on merit, though it was certainly also class ridden. Though, on balance, i think the German navy did more to lose the war for Germany (simply by its very expensive but still doomed to be inadequate existence) than to contribute to a possible win. I suppose it was a strategy which had a chance, but fisher put paid to it. Whether anyone else would have taken his place in modernising the navy if he had not been around, I don't know. It is a truism that the moment makes the man.
I rather liked Gordon's analogy to the same communications issues happening (or nearly) in the recent falklands war. All the accounts of actions in WW1 are littered with signal failures. Although Seymour has been blamed for failures of Beatty's signals, I'm not totally convinced. Again, his self-evident mistakes at least potentially hide some of Beattys failures to organise things to be fool-proof. I think Gordon might argue that jellicoe had little choice. His men and ships were raised to follow orders blindly and he made of what he had what he could. though that begs the question of whether Jellicoe thought there was anything wrong with his approach. He was right to play safe, but it remains true some clever fighting of the sort Beatty aspired to could have turned Jutland into a numerical victory. But however Beatty aspired to it, he failed to pull it off and his example therefore rather fails to inspire confidence that anyone else could have done better applying Beatty's tactics.
As to Hipper, I don't know that he demonstrated genius, but he played it right by the book. His ships shot well, they started well, they failed to sink when full of holes.Sandpiper (talk) 01:21, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
I automatically disagree with Gordon's argument that the Royal Navy's whole approach to war was wrong, and his arguments are so poorly detailed I find no reason to change my mind. Most of his supposed insights into to the mindset of the Royal Navy's officer corps seems to be based on The Psychology of Military Incompetence, which is the biggest pile of dross I've ever read. I wonder if he's ever read the conditions required for promotion in the Royal Navy, which are published in every Navy List or read half the accounts of senior officers he lists in his bibliography? It certainly doesn't show. Trying to compare what someone ought to have done a hundred years ago based on modern practices is a foolish idea - and his conclusions section reminds me so much of Churchill pontificating with 20/20 hindsight it's ridiculous. Gordon certainly has Churchill's gift of presenting everything beautifully: I had an interview with an Army officer six months ago and it turned out he had read The Rules of the Game and he was very surprised when I informed him that there was a world outside Gordon's hackneyed world of the Royal Navy - he was prepared to take every word seriously.
There are certainly important aspects of British Naval Command which ought to be re-examined, but as far as I'm concerned Gordon has done a hack-job on it. You could probably write a book just about Beatty's command of the Battle Cruiser Squadron and Battle Cruiser Fleet, and a book about Jellicoe's exercise of command of the Grand Fleet. It would take volumes to adequately cover the development of tactical and strategic thought in the Royal Navy before the war (Marder gives strategy a good shot in Anatomy of British Sea Power). Trying to cram it all into one book about one of the greatest naval battles in history achieves and has achieved nothing. Gordon poses far too many questions than he answered, except to far too many people he leaves the impression that he has answered them. --Harlsbottom (talk | library | book reviews) 11:45, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
Bacon on Fisher repeatedly refers to Fisher being promoted because it was his turn, ie he was the next in line based upon the date of his last promotion. Gordon spends a lot of time detailing exceptions to this in the form of fast promotion by royal favouratism. One of fishers claims to faim, and troubles he caused for himself, was moving towards promotions by merit. Gordon also refers to necessary criteria for advancement, the impression he gives is of a minimum standard, but he stresses the doubtful nature of the criteria. For example, what might seem excessive references to sobriety in appraisals, because it was a criterion that officers not be drunkards. Then, there was the ongoing issue of excessive concern about spit and polish, not simply as a training exercise but as an end in itself. That obviously no enemy would fire upon RN ships because they were so pretty. The principle way of getting ahead of your contemporaries seems to be that unfavoured officers simply did not get further appointments and were automatically retired. So what you needed to do was attach yourself to someone senior who would then request you on his ships. Because he liked you, or because he was your uncle. Hell, he goes so far as to suggest the only credible explanation why Seymour became Beatty's flag officer, with all the consequential failures, was because his sister was Churchill's wife's best friend, and it was a return favour for beatty's own appointment by Churchill. That fleet exercises were again an end in themselves, that no one would dare attack because the RN looked so nice sailing up and down in unison. But that no one worried over what would happen when the enemy failed to cooperate with this dance. How dare Scheer turn away? A reversal of the approach of Nelson, where captains had to know how to conduct themselves throughout a battle beforehand, to one of blind obedience to inappropriate orders. It struck me to wonder whether tryon might just have set his ships on a collision course on purpose, to see who would turn their ship away first. If so, he obviously overestimated the abilities of bis captains. you may disagree with Gordon but it seems to me Fisher would not.Sandpiper (talk) 09:26, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

(outdent)Service in the Royal Yachts was just one of many ways an officer could get ahead on the active list. Naturally Gordon only highlights the one method which smacks of the most favouritism. And Fisher's idea of a meriticoracy cannot seriously stand up to scrutiny - he associated himself with or promoted those who generally agreed with him - a form of favouritism which had nearly disastrous results during the Fisher-Beresford crisis (see Geoffrey Penn's recent book on the feud). And if you believe all the rubbish about excessive spit and polish then you certainly haven't read enough about the Edwardian navy - the fact that you wonder about tryon's motives suggests you haven't read Admirals in Collision by Hough which is the standard work on the disaster. The reason why I can disagree with Gordon is because I don't take his or any other historian's word for anything - hence my large library of books, my repeated poking through the personal accounts of Jutland in the University of Leeds library, my collection of dozens of service records, and my trips down to the Jellicoe and Evan-Thomas papers at the British Library. --Harlsbottom (talk | library | book reviews) 12:28, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Unfortunately that doesn't help the rest of us very much. Gordons work is a good read, well wriiten, entertaining and informative. It addresses points I have not seen elsewhere, and by now I am more than cursorily informed on this subject. there is no point criticising a book because it does not contain all the information known to yourself personally based on reading (as it may be, 200 thick and specialist books on the subject). i don't doubt that if you wrote your own book it would contain your own personal POv and would differ from most of all the others. At this sort of level there is little point in writing another book on the subject unless it has a distinctive viewpoint.
I didn't suggest that fisher failed to use the existing system to his best advantage, merely that he saw the need to push it towards a meritocracy. Gordon similarly acknowledged that an overnight change was impossible. In that sense, it was the failure for change to have taken effect before Jutland that he was going on about. I'm not convinced royal favour was the worst issue, merely the most obvious. promotion of frends and relatives seems to me much more likely to have been a problem overall. What other methods of advancement are you suggesting were effective? spending a lot of money on paint for your ship? beatty's sarcastic but half serious offer to buy new engines for his ship when he was told off for running them too fast? The obvious test of a good military officer, success in battle, was the big thing the pre-WWI navy had virtually no experience of. (It won mostly by intimidation, sailing up and down and looking pretty)Sandpiper (talk) 13:20, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
With respect to both of you, I think you're getting quite far off the point here.... The Land (talk) 13:27, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
yes I know, but it is fun. Which is why we are here. But while it has run off the initial topic of this section, it is not off topic as regards what ought to be in this article. Sandpiper (talk) 13:30, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) I've redone the subsection header as we are really moving into how to rewrite the article, and Gentlemen please reread it again, we have far more in concenus then we disagree. I'd propose that we summerise what we agree on and disagree on and then we shall know how to proceed? Tirronan (talk) 19:37, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

As an example of non fence sitters on who one, I will now quote a para from Jutland 1918 by Steel and Hart. They seem in no doubt it was a crushing british victory. (italics their own)

They also quote scheer,

From my outside perspective here, it's actually quite amusing to watch the debate. Very clearly, if it's disputed among historians today, to the point where there are numerous edits in the infobox that I've seen over time, and this much debate between Wikipedians over it, I'd think that by and far, the correct result woult be to go the same way that was done with the Battle of Hampton Roads, and label the result as "disputed," with perhaps a comment/link to the section discussing the outcome and/or the debate over it. After all, it's hard to make a clear answer when both sides had different objectives. Personally, I feel that in the interest of a NPOV, (ESPECIALLY since this is a subject of extreme importance to the British, one of the most prominent nationalities among Wikipedians) that it be left as "disputed" until such disputes could actually be thoroughly cleared; up until then, (and even afterward) it most certainly would be a rathe accurate term. Nottheking (talk) 13:45, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

But I don't remember reading any source which which said the result was disputed, not one, except in the immediate aftermath where germany and Britain claimed different outcomes. I think it more accurate to say the result was complicated to explain. Much of the argument about the outcome in fact came from the british side about their own performance, rather than being from the Germans claiming a different outcome. It was a result of a power struggle and attempts to shift blame within the British navy. Both sides had exactly the same objective: to trap a small number of enemy ships using a bigger number of their own. Had one or other side achieved this, then it might have produced a dramatic change, but as usual both sides failed. The result was essentially as if the battle had never happened. It is argued that the result influenced the Germans in giving up this approach to surface naval war and it probably did, but it really only confirmed their existing view. The Germans knew full well how to win a naval war, by submarine, but also knew the inevitable consequence, America joining the allies. From the point of view of the combatants actually engaged, it was quite clear the German fleet knew it was outnumbered, had never wanted to face the british fleet face to face and once in that position ran as fast as it could. The battle was only a british loss in the sense that they lost more ships (and therefore men), but this was not significant in terms of the total numbers involved and overall resources, and was the result of specific British failings. It is likely that had the British been able to force a re-run, they would have learnt from those mistakes and done very much better, so in that sense the battle also lost the German advantage of surprise. They acknowledged that they had been 'lucky', and while I suppose it is the outcome which matters, if the numerical outcome was not in itself significant and anyway down to luck, then it wasn't a victory this time and unlikely to become one at any future time. So I don't really think there is a dispute amongst historians, just a difficulty in summarising the result. Thus the word 'disputed' would wholly fail to describe the real situation out there.
There were a number of smaller scale engagements during the war, where it is easier to simply say who won. If Jutland had ceased before the two fleets met, so it essentially had been a battlecruiser engagement, then it would have been relatively simple to describe it as a British loss, though still embarassing rather than militarily significant. Beatty might have lost his job and never become first lord. Hard to predict what knock-on effects might have happened into WW2, because he apparently was good at defending the navy against defence cuts. The complicating factor considering the battle as a whole is that it then became a fleet engagement, and it is this meeting of fleets which is generally considered the significance of the battle, whose outcome is being described. The battleship engagement was a clear German loss. Sandpiper (talk) 07:11, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
Yes, that's one way of looking at it... I guess what I meant was that from a tactical standpoint, overall it could be described as a "draw," though no such term is used for battles. Both sides, in individual engagements, did indeed score smaller victories within the scope of the whole battle, and in the end, neither wound up in a stratigically different position than before. A possible alternative term might be "tactically indecisive." I personally preferred the "indecisive" originally used, but it appears that perhaps someone with a less-than-neutral POV went and edited that out based on how they felt the strategic result was.
Furthermore, I personally feel that in such a case, we should again take a look at the Battle of Hampton Roads, where again, the Confederates did manage to inflict a lot of damage on Union ships, yet the Union considered it a victory because it maintained their blockade. However, the infobox does not label this as such. There are a lot of parallels here: tactically, the High Seas Fleet scored a lot of tactical wins within the battle, particularly upon inflicting much damage on Britain's battlecruisers and armoured cruisers as you mentioned. However, in the end, the status quo was maintained, in that Britain still maintained their sea dominance. I feel that it's a similar situation here as to the Battle of Hampton Roads. Nottheking (talk) 11:25, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
I objected to 'indecisive' myself, because I don't think it was 'indecisive', any more than it was 'disputed'. If anything, it might be considered final confirmation that the british had an effective and unbreakable blockade. I wouldn't go overboard on that, because both sides were pretty much of this view already and this simply confirmed what was already known, but although it might not have in itself 'decided' anything', the things in question being already decided, it couldn't be described as 'indecisive', because there was no doubt about the situation when it was over. if you mean by 'indecisive', that the battle had no consequence whatsoever, then that might be argued, but I don't think that is what people normally would understand by using it to describe the result. It would be interpreted as meaning the two sides didn't finish up, so came back another day to try to get a 'decision', which is not the case.
As to damage sustained, I havn't studied this in sufficient detail to have reached a definitive view, but my impression so far is that ignoring the british losses from magazine explosions, the German battlecruisers suffered more damage than the british ships. The severe damage to German ships, only just short of sinking some of them, gives a somewhat different picture as to which side was winning than does the headline sinkings figure. This is not apparent from the infobox. The armoured cruisers, frankly, were death traps. They were too weak to stand up against any battleship or battlecruiser, yet big enough to be tempting targets and insufficiently important to be properly screened. That, and once again the squadron was commanded by someone with a death-or-glory mindset. Compare losses of armoured cruisers to submarine attack (loss of the three cressy's early in the war), and also at the battle of Coronel when Craddock indulged in a death ride into speer's guns. Similarly, of course, Scheer is supposed to have regretted taking the obsolete pre-dreadnought battleships with him, though again although I know the negative was that they were slow, I havn't studied the issue enough to see if the potential plus from boosting his armament outweighed this. If I was to summarise the result, I would say the the British had the superior position throughout, but the German side made good use of continuous british mistakes. Tirpitz, well before the war, argued that the German navy might have a chance of beating the british by being more professional and taking advantage of british complacency. Although Fisher did much to confound Tirpitz, there were still lots of issues due to inexperience of this kind of warfare, but it is to be presumed the British learnt from their mistakes, if only by Darwinian selection of the survivors. This is becoming too complex, but essentially it is is arguable that despite losses, the british position was better after the battle than before, whereas the German side privately acknowledged it had been beaten.. Sandpiper (talk) 23:26, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

I think the idea that the British won because they continued to control the North Sea is rediculous. The Britons were going to control it anyway. The German fleet had no other purpose than to protect Germany's Northern coasts. The battle of Jutland was simple, engage the enemy, try to kill as many as possible. the Germans performed better, This is evident due to the number of casualties. So let me put break it down. The two fleets met, engaged eachother and after the Germans severely damaged the Grand Fleet, with sustaining considerable damage themselves, the Germans slowy withdrew using torpedoe attacks to break off the persuing British. The Germans successfully escaped after breaking up and slipping through the British lines. So what did the Germans do, they left port, engaged and severely damaged the enemy fleet and returned home sustaining less casualties than thier enemy. Does this not sound like a impressive German raid. One other thing, just because the two sides didn't decisively destroy the other, does not mean that one side didn't win the battle. I reccomend, a tactical German victory and a strategic British victory for the results. Oh yeah, its only contraversial because there are so many British sailors who think they still have the best navy in the world. They were proven wrong at Jutland so now they are upset and unwilling to accept the truth, thus creating this contraversey we have today.

For the record, I wish the British would have won, afterall the Germans were the enemy. However, because I wish the Britons had won, this does not give me or anybody else the right to rewrite history simply because I dont like the results of the said historical event. Which is why I say Jutland was a German victory. I am willing to accept the truth, now the whole world needs to, in order to put this contraversial battle to an end. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.162.2.82 (talk) 19:20, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

I agree with much of the above comment. It's a sad truth that, if you look at the Battle of Jutland in isolation from strategic concerns, the British simply did not win it. I have long felt, in reading accounts of the battle, that British (and Anglophile) writers have been struggling for nearly a century now to find some way to make the battle into the decisive (tacitcal) victory that they wished it was. Thus you find writers attempting to subtly and not so subtly redefine what constitutes a "victory" so as to place Jutland squarely in that category. But the unfortunate truth is that, despite the hundreds of thousands of pages that have been written about the battle, the facts remain unchanged. I think it would be best here to call a spade a spade and say that Jutland was a German tactical victory, and a British strategic victory. The problem is that (mere) strategic victories are often unsatisfying. (By the way, like the above commentator, I thoroughly wish the British had won a Nelsonian victory at Jutland! Fortunately I can drown my sorrows in Midway, the Phillipine Sea, and Leyte Gulf...) Groundsquirrel13 (talk) 20:59, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
What definition of victory are you using? Sounds like a wargaming one. The germans sunk more hitpoints of british ships than vice versa. That's wargaming, not real world. I'd more or less agree with tactical Pyrrhic victory for the Germans, they could not dare, and did not, risk a repeat. Bear in mind they actually failed in their basic mission objective, they quite sensibly did not want to engage the entire GF. Strategically it left the situation unchanged, which suited the British more than the Germans. Greglocock (talk) 03:26, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
Not only did the Germans sink more hitpoints of British ships (as you say), they also sunk more British ships, as well as more tonnage. That's real world, not wargaming. Groundsquirrel13 (talk) 16:04, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
That is still the wargamer's argument. Whether you use hitpoints, tons, $ or ships, to keep score, when one side has a large materiel advantage and both sides are roughly equally matched on a unit by unit basis, a war of attrition by the smaller side is unlikely to be an effective tactic. Real world armed forces fight to accomplish objectives, those objectives are rarely as simple as 'destroy more of his stuff than he destroys of my stuff'. From a high level Scheer needed to break the blockade, Jellicoe needed to maintain it.Greglocock (talk) 23:31, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
Apparently you have ignored my distinction between a tactical victory and a strategic victory. As you can see in my original post, I am more than willing to concede that the Germans did not achieve their strategic objective, while the British did manage to achieve at least one of their major strategic objectives, which was keeping the German fleet bottled up in port. Thus Jutland should be counted a British strategic victory. But tactical victory designations are awarded based on quantifiable achievements, such as ships sunk or men killed (particularly in a naval battle, where other criteria for a tactical victory, such as taking or holding an objective, are usually irrelevant). I said earlier that I think a good way to decide who won Jutland from a tactical perspective is to consider the battle in isolation from strategic concerns. If you do so, you are left with the simple fact that the High Seas Fleet inflicted greater damage on the Grand Fleet than vice versa, and hence, a German tactical victory. Of course, it can be debated how useful it is to award tactical victory designations, since you don't win wars unless you achieve your strategic objectives, but I think they do serve a useful purpose - identifying which side won "the fight." Groundsquirrel13 (talk) 03:26, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
In this case, 'taking or holding an objective' is hardly irrelevant. In effect the British were occupying the North sea before the attack, and continued to hold it afterwards. If anything, they became more bold as a result of the action and moved British forces further south, whereas the Germans withdrew and were more careful about avoiding future contact. I think this debate exactly illustrates the problems in defining whether the battle was a win or loss, what exactly are we testing? If an occupied town was attacked, more of the occupiers are killed, but then the attackers are forced to go away, is that a victory? As I said before, how do you account the fact that although more defenders are destroyed, more attackers are harmed? I can imagine any number of people historically who would have regarded their continuing occupation of somewhere or other in that way as a victory. Empires have flourished in that way. It produces a logical absurdity to try to separate the tactical from the strategic in this situation. Say, attacker fights 100 battles where he kills more enemy each time, so that's 100 wins, yet defender is never moved from his position and continues his business as normal, his forces growing stronger despite the losses. Attackers forces get steadily weaker. So defender also reckons this is a win. 100 battles won by attacker, yet he has lost the war despite never losing a battle? er? won his way to defeat, did he?
I'm afraid that despite having been arguing about this for some while now, the meaningfull distinction between tactical and strategic victory continues to elude me. I am not convinced that simple numbers can assign a meaningfull victory, even in a pure tactical consideration. There must be an accounting for the value of units lost to their respective sides. It is repeatedly quoted that 24 hours later the grand fleet was ready to put to sea again little changed in strength, but it took months for the Germans to do the same. My problem with your argument that this was a tactical german victory is that their position compared to the British was worse after the battle than before it, whatever the numbers sunk. Sandpiper (talk) 21:38, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
What you're saying, I think, is that the Germans won, at best, a Pyrrhic victory at Jutland. I agree. The thing is, though, that a Pyrrhic victory is still a tactical victory. It just happens to also be a strategic defeat.
But, as you say, we've been arguing about this for a while and I doubt I'll change anybody's mind (with regards to Jutland, nobody seems to have done that in a hundred years). But maybe we can agree to call the battle a German Pyrrhic victory? I actually think that sums up the battle pretty well. Groundsquirrel13 (talk) 00:00, 5 May 2009 (UTC)
I think it far better to say what is there now, 'British dominance of the North Sea maintained', which has the merit of explaining the result and circumvents debate over the exact balance of losses. I am also pretty sceptical about making distinctions between tactical and strategic victories in the result box, because frankly i don't believe most readers will understand the difference. In general english usage, tactics and strategy are synonyms. As far as I can see, 'german pyrrhic victory'='British victory' if we insist upon being formulaic about it. If I had to assign a simple victor, it would be the british, however much they tried to cock it up. Sandpiper (talk) 23:40, 5 May 2009 (UTC)
"I am willing to accept the truth, now the whole world needs to, in order to put this contraversial battle to an end." How very big of you. As Greglocock says the Germans failed in their objective - destroy a large enough portion of the British fleet so as to cripple it. The Germans' greatest tactical achievement was destroying two of Beatty's battle cruisers at the start of the battle. Then they promptly sailed into an "ambush" and managed to escape, before turning back and sailing into another "ambush". Before fleeing again. There's nothing particularly tactical or victorious about the German performance at Jutland. --Simon Harley (talk | library | book reviews) 08:07, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
I agree, that Greglock makes the point. Although the Germans sank more British ships, the cost to them was so great, in their own actual losses and in near-losses, that they determined never to do it again. However much you might hurt the enemy, if you run away and never bother him again, is that a victory? Scheer reported after the battle that they could not win that way. I must admit I would be very interested to read some modern German accounts of the battle to see if their national perspective affects the way they analyse the result. I have read some of the contemporary accounts, but like the similar british ones they contain quite a lot of self-justification. I don't believe the british writers analyse the meaning of 'victory' so as to redefine 'win' as 'loss', but because this was not a simple result, with some successes to one side and some to the other. On a simple level, and even on a more complex one to some extent, Hipper did brilliantly sinking two british ships while outnumbered two to one. But at the end of the day he had lost one battlecruiser, nearly lost more and they only had five to start with. That's 20% of his force lost. The british lost total three battlecruisers out of nine, while two were left at home in dock. 3/11=27%, but comparing these two figures does not take account of the near-loss of Seydlitz or overall more serious damage to the rest compared to the British. Remember, the German objective was to improve the odds, which means inflicting proportionately more harm than they received. They never succeeded in this. Yes, a pyrrhic victory, the sort which if you have enough of them you loose the war.
The German fleet's objective was not defence of the coast, which arguably could have been done quite effectively with a much smaller fleet. Its objective was to defeat the British fleet. Its best chance was right at the start of the war. Jutland really demonstrated the flaw in the German's strategy of trying to ambush small groups of British ships, that it relied too much on luck. Not that the Germans did not already know this, but finally there was a demonstration. Overall the High seas fleet was a costly failure for Germany. Had it never been built, (or at least been built of smaller, much cheaper, coastal defence ships, and a nice submarine fleet) it is possible the Germans might have won the war. The HSF did not "severely damage the grand fleet". It damaged the battlecruiser fleet, the main British fleet in the form of the battleships performed well and inflicted more damage than it received. In particular the four 'queen elizabeth' battleships of the 5th BS performed well, first in breaking up Hipper's successful attack on the battlecruisers, and then fighting a rearguard action against the entire HSF. The Germans used torpedoes to prevent the British following, but in reality it was time and the onset of dark which saved them, that and the fact that even in daylight visibility was poor and Jellicoe could not see where they were to give chase. His stated reason for not giving chase was that he did not know they had left, rather than concern about torpedoes.Sandpiper (talk) 23:11, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

I've come to the conclusion here that perhaps part of the reason there appears to be much contention might be related to personal bias; for many of the British editors, it could be a point of pride to place emphasis on the Royal Navy's dominance of the sea in the first World War, and it's quite arguable no other part of the naval side of WWI is as prominent as the Battle of Jutland. Hence, for a lot of editors here, there is a pressure to consider this battle a victory of the Royal Navy, to show that, at the height of the battleship era, the Royal Navy demonstrated its superiority. This obviously cannot be compatible with WP:NPOV.

However, I do think that this battle should be listed as "indecisive," simply by the definition; it literally decided nothing, in that the situation of the seas was un-changed; the Royal Navy held a chokehold on the seas, and the Kaiserliche Marine had a fleet of capital ships, but one inferior to the Royal Navy, that was unable to break the Royal Navy's hold. It's the opposite of what would've been a decisive victory, such as for the KM, which would've involved the crippling of RN power, breaking their blockade, or what might've POSSIBLY been considered a "decisive" victory for the RN, in entirely eliminating the KM. However, since strategically, the RN had effectively nothing to gain from the battle, a "decisive RN victory" really was impossible in the battle. They were winning before, and even a draw would be a win, as they'd still rule the seas for the war. Strategically, then, the RN had in its best interests to actually AVOID the battle, as there was a small chance that they could lose, which while they DIDN'T, in the event that it did, it would've been a decisive blow to their sea power and its impact on the war. Overall, instead of bickering over what the real meaning of the results were, we should look at all the possible outcome scenarios that COULD'VE happened, and judged what they'd be described as. I consider three possible types of scenario for that sort of battle, based upon the belligerents, forces, and context:

  • RN Forces destroy KM forces. This would obviously be a RN victory, though I don't think it'd be decisive; already, the KM was unable to pass the RN's blockade. So it'd be a "non-decisive" victory.
  • KM forces destroy RN forces. This would be a KM victory, and depending on how much of the RN's invested capital ships were lost, could very well be decisive, if it meant that the RN's blockade failed; this would've had serious rammifications for their ability to strangle Germany on land.
  • RN and KM forces both remain, and disengagement occurs. Yes, some might call it a "victory" merely if one's opponent "retreats," But if it cost you something you can't entirely ignore, and strategically, you are exactly where you started, is it really a victory at all? From your own perspective, the battle may as well not have taken place; this is what I'd term indecisive. Similarly, the "retreat yields victory" is questionable as well, since if the Royal Navy had simply opted to pull their fleet away and deny battle to the KM at all, it most certainly wouldn't have been a KM victory.

Hence, taking all this into consideration, I think that the exact details of who lost how many capital ships is inconsequential. Likewise, the specific details of each side's goals aren't quite so important either. Rather, I think the key lies in what was accomplished; tactically, neither the British or Germans gained or yielded any ground or other resources, and while both lost capital ships, neither fleet really changed in strength compared to each other, or in general. And strategically, nothing changed at all; dominace over the North Sea stayed in British hands, and the Germans gained nor lost anything. Hence, I would consider the battle to be entirely indecisive.

This is also why I originally mentioned the Battle of Hampton Roads, as an example of this, as while some trivial factors were different, the context and results were effectively identical: the Union held a blockade, denying use of the open sea to the Confederacy. Through a plan to try to destroy less-armored Union ships, the Confederacy inflicted serious losses on the Union (sinking 2 out of 5 frigates) while losing far fewer ships themselves. (in that case, zero) However, in the end, forces disengaged, and overall, the battle was most certainly indecisive; it may as never have happened. I feel that this is the exact same case for the Battle of Jutland. Nottheking (talk) 07:04, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

I'd be careful accusing editors of bias as you're doing. At any rate, "Indecisive" was used as the battle result for months and was repeatedly vandalised for want of a better word. The latest incarnation, "British dominance of the North Sea maintained" has so far proved rather less contentious. A section in the article devoted strategic ramifications has already been discussed here before, but as yet no one has been able to find the time to write one up. --Simon Harley (talk | library | book reviews) 11:56, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
I know a lot of editors would feel indignant over any implication that they are anything less than perfectly impartial, but in my case, I'm just calling it as I see it; as of yet, while I might've missed someone, I've yet to see anyone propose a result description for the battle that implied it as a British victory (or suggested it, as the current term does) without actually being British themselves. Obviously, one can reasonably expect a lot of those who are experts in the field to be British, but a lot of what I'm seeing makes it harder to assume good faith. What I'd really like to see, and would be more accepting of, is if I saw a lot of the discussion actually involve military historians, rather than what would basically amount to original research. I honestly think that it shows in the article, having been demoted from FA-class to Start/B-class. Basically, right now I am more of simply cautioning everyone to double-check their own arguments, and make sure that they adhere to WP:NPOV. With an article as important and sensitive as this, caution should be made. Nottheking (talk) 23:27, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
The reason this article was demoted was because I asked for an FAR, because it nowhere near fulfilled the standards accepted for FA. The main reason was simply the lack of sourcing inherent in the article, which has to some extent been addressed but which still leaves much to be desired. And I have to ask, just what are you seeing which leads you to draw the conclusions which you've drawn? --Simon Harley (talk | library | book reviews) 23:51, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
I'll throw my oar into this debate again. I think that Nottheking's suggestion that the outcome be called "indecisive" is a good one. I think it pretty accurately sums up the results of the battle (since not that much really was decided by Jutland), and it has the benefit of not taking a side in a clearly controversial debate. I'm not sure that the claim that "indecisive" would be too frequently vandalized is a good reason to avoid using it - from the looks of things, "British dominance of the North Sea maintained" is pretty frequently vandalized as well. Groundsquirrel13 (talk) 04:09, 24 July 2009 (UTC)
I noticed that a change to "Indecisive" was just reverted with a request (or was it a demand?) that it not be changed again without referring to this discussion. It seems to me that there is potentially a larger amount of support here for a listing of indecisive than otherwise. In any event, I will go on record as saying that I, too, think it should read "Indecisive." Jrt989 (talk) 16:59, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
The change was vandalism because it deleted the request to discuss it here, and the editor had not discussed it here. I agree that indecisive would be a reasonable summary, but so is the current statement. Greglocock (talk) 01:04, 13 August 2009 (UTC)
The problem will always remain that one side wishes to count losses as opposed to the results: the result of the battle was that the blockade continued, Germany began to starve, the U-boat campaign was an answer to the blockade, this brought the US into the war, and this eventually ended the war. Then again the riots and the red banners rising in Germany as a result of the campaign would also have to be counted. As far as results go this was the worst defeat that any country ever suffered shy of WW2. None of this makes its way into the article, we never captured the sheer desperation of the High Sea Fleet to get away at any cost in the article. Much of this allows the arguments to continue. When everything was looked at the losses that the Grand Fleet suffered were not likely to ever be repeated nor despite the fact that we talk about 2 other attempts by the KM to catch part of the Grand Fleet alone, was the HSF ever willing to face the Grand Fleet in the main. To me, the most telling evaluation of Jutland was Scheer's announcement to the Kaiser that no operation of the High Sea Fleet would bring about the needed result, crow all they would about the balance sheet, Scheer was admitting to a failure of the fleet. Tirronan (talk) 05:21, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

The Battle of Jutland was a German tactical victory. The post battle assessment clearly speaks for it.~~gromell —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.206.255.49 (talk) 15:16, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Shells, possible german comparison

Latest comment: 15 years ago44 comments5 people in discussion

I've seen a lot of comment about the inadequacies of british shells one way or another, but what about German ones? I think I have read contemporary accounts of unexploded shells landing on British ships too. Bearing in mind the British battlecruisers generally had thinner armour than the German, a British shell which failed to penetrate a German ship might have done rather better against a British ship. Does anyone have any comparative information about this? As a general point, the article seems very anglocentric and does not bring up German equivalent issues which presumably ought to exist. Sandpiper (talk) 02:37, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Well the German high command and naval officers didn't think much of the British shells, we have Jellico and Beatty making the same comments, then Massie has quotes from a Swedish naval officer in diplomatic service echoing the same comments from the Germans. There were no comments on either side about the German shells not be effective. If you go to any millitary Arty range you will be advised that the range will be full of UX (unexploded ordinance) fuses fail, always have, probably always will. The problem with the British shells were that they were not constructed with the intent of hitting at high angles of attack. The Germans designed their shells for that event, the US Navy designed its shells for that event, the British Navy was aware that they had a problem but did not address it, in fact Jellico himself was in charge of that department for a time and was aware of it. He didn't have time to address it before moving on, and I'm pretty certain that after Jutland he probably wished that he had made time for it. In this case the AP shells hit at a high angle of attack broke up on heavy armor instead of going inside and then blowing up this isn't a fusing event.--Tirronan (talk) 19:30, 13 February 2009 (UTC)
The report of the British Admiralty after the battle concluded that the German shells had not performed spectacularly well, but they were not expected to - what was expected was that the British main-armaments would prove to be that much more superior. There are a number of instances from Jutland where German shell landed intact - Grant documents one rather poorly in his memoirs, something which is recounted in far more detail in the reminiscences of a Midshipman Combe in the Liddle Collection at the University of Leeds. There were enough "duds" dropped on Lowestoft by Hipper's battle cruisers for the Naval Ordnance Department and later the Shell Committee to study them in detail and copy details of the base fuze. Campbell in Jutland: An Analysis of the Fighting judges German shell performance to be "adequate".
Regarding the actual development and proofing of shells from when Jellicoe was Director of Naval Ordnance and then Third Sea Lord and Controller, there is very little actual detail available. The standard account on these matters, a three-part series entitled The Riddle of the Shells by the late Iain McCallum, sheds no light on the apparent deficiencies in the process. In another article (Ammunition Explosions in World War I) McCallum and the late D. K. Brown, R.C.N.C. claims that of Jellicoe's attempt as Controller to remedy the shell situation "there is no trace of this".
A respected source on naval armaments who is quoted in Riddle of the Shells, Nathan Okun, has gone on record stating that even with superior shells any hits made by the British on German capital ships probably would not have been fatal, such were the nature of the hits. This returns to the controversy which raged after the battle that the Battle Cruisers blamed everything on the shells rather than their shooting. --Harlsbottom (talk | library | book reviews) 18:05, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
The problem with Nathan's comments is that he can be quoted to give the impression that penetration is the be all and end all of shell vs armor. Most post dreadnought BB/BC kills were mission kills, the number of main belts hits that actually penetrated in the entire 20th century is tiny. DK Brown has said that in his opinion BBs would have been better off with thinner main belts (I can't remember what he said about armor decks) Greglocock (talk) 00:35, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
the descriptions I am reading keep going on about serious problems following turret hits. This was clearly an issue on british battlecruisers, but german turrets too seem to have been susceptible to destruction by a penetrating shell. This seems to be a major area of design weakness, perhaps understandably both for the general reason of reducing overall ship's weight, but also the more specific engineering difficulty of adding to the weight of the rotating turrets. When people talk about shells striking at oblique angles, I am still uncertain what they mean. Some of the descriptions talk about shells whistling overhead nearly parting the hair of foolhardy people who stood on deck to have a look, rather suggesting the shells in question are all travelling sideways, not down. I suspect there is some risk of overplaying the angle of attack, though obviously any unanticipated angling would make life more difficult for horizontal armour but also more easy for vertical armour. I get the impression that some of these ships would have looked a horrible mess with the superstructure torn to pieces after battle, but none of that was designed to withstand shells. Perhaps this may have added to a general impression that decks were under protected?
I would also return to the issue of shells breaking up on armour rather than penetrating, that obviously as the armour becomes thicker this becomes more likely, and german ships had thicker armour. Do any of the sources make clear a proper like for like comparison of performance against the same thickness of the same type of armour (again, did I see a suggestion german armour was stronger per unit depth as well as thicker overall?) I don't suppose the admralty would be too keen to explain that their shells performed badly in battle because german armour was just too good. Sandpiper (talk) 08:19, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
Don't forget that shells which broke up on contact with armour was just one problem out of many. The lack of a delay fuze for the British meant that many shells exploded on contact. These however could cause severe problems for the Germans, including damaging the hard face on armour, buckling joints, concussion and even gas.
Campbell's Jutland: An Analysis of the Fighting is probably the closest you will get to an analysis of heavy calibre hits on capital ships. It's not complete and doesn't have inline referencing, (and because N. J. M. Campbell is no longer alive it never will be) but it suffices.
if you are genuinely interested in shell penetration theory then a good place to start is nathan's work at http://www.navweaps.com/ or start a thread at http://warships1discussionboards.yuku.com/, but I suggest you do a LOT of reading before you ask a question . Yes, there were postwar checks of shell performance, again nathan has a good knowledge of the sources. As I see it there is no controversy, I know of nobody who regards the performance of the British shells as acceptable (except presumably some old German sailors). Greglocock (talk) 09:13, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
I get my information from the horse's mouth, so to speak. The navweaps forum drives me round the bend, as most of the time people seem to be concerned with absurd hypothetical questions and spend days arguing about them. The only advantage is that you have the likes of Nathan Okun and Bill Jurens (who was the technical adviser on the Hood and Jutland dives) watching out for interesting topics they can contribute to. Good background knowledge is essential, as Mr. Okun tends to deluge people with a mass of riveting technical data and analysis. --Harlsbottom (talk | library | book reviews) 12:29, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
It wasn't so much that I doubt the British shells had deficiencies, rather whether the German ones were considered satisfactory (either then or later). Slightly tangentially, I noticed both Brooks and Gordon argue with some points of campbells assignment of hits from various ships. Don't know whether there was only one edition of his book or whether any of the content was ever revised? Sandpiper (talk) 01:52, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
Actually the turret top armor was 1" to 2" thick at best, on both sides. I took the time to check, it wouldn't have stopped a 8" shell, this goes back to the designs which were not envisioned as being that far apart and and the incident of attack angle rises with range. As for the validity please check into "Green boy" shells. The reason the US knew about the problem is that they made cassions of the armor they thought they would use and fired against them, it seems to have served them well. I don't know about the British or German practice but there are enough hints that they didn't think much of the shells they had. This is not an excuse for shitty gunnery, no shell will solve that but the difference between a 12" shell and a 15" shell is huge and more damage would have resulted had the shells performed better. --Tirronan (talk) 04:04, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

(deindent)What I have read suggests shells were fired at elevations of 10-20 degrees on flat trajectories. The picture you get when someone talks about oblique angles is shell dropping downwards from the sky. Whereas I suspect the reality is more like stones thrown sideways to skip across water. Which is why the designers discounted the need for horizontal armour. There is a picture of the damaged Q turret from Lion with the top off. The shell struck plate can be seen in another picture (on Francis Harvey?) and you can see, whether or not the shell would have penetrated anyway, it in fact caught the junction betwen the front plate and roof plate and must have pushed them apart. My guess would be that the turrets were designed to be expendible up to a point, because of the high cost of making them really shell proof. Neither Germany nor Britain properly appreciated the fire risk to the ship. This raises the question of whether the armour on contemporary battleship turrets was similar or much better, and brings us back to the design consideration of battlecruisers, that they were never intended to be shot at by similarly armed ships in a fair fight. In that sense, they were used inappropriatley in the battle, though I don't think we ever got to see how good their design was in the face of attrition damage by many shells, because they tended to just blow up suddenly. Sandpiper (talk) 10:22, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

As the range increases so does the angle of attack by the striking shell, the fire control accuracy was not up to much more than 10,000 yards at one point. All BB's were designed then to beat hell out of each other from fairly short ranges. However the FC arrangements got much better and further it could be be installed on already built BB's. The 1st answer was Nevada Class Battleship when it was realised that having a thick armor deck joining a thick belt could save weight and solve girder issues in building the ship in the 1st place and this allowed much thicker horizontal armor suites. One of the major issues that is never really discussed is that none of the BB's were really armored for the fights they actually fought. Tirronan (talk) 06:02, 24 February 2009 (UTC)
Thanks for responding. I understand about increasing angle at increasing range in general, but what I have yet to find is figures showing exactly how much. In the absence of actual figures I remain concerned whether this is an issue which everyone lighted upon, but in fact became exagerated. Sandpiper (talk) 18:51, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
see http://www.geocities.com/greglocock/ballist9.zip
Taking data for seydlitz, that link seems to say shells arriving at british ships would be falling at 15 degrees from the horizontal at 10,000 yards and 35 degress at 20,000 yards, or 22 degrees at 15,000 yards which was the range at which Hipper opened fire. This seems to confirm my suspicion that the shells were not landing obliquely at all. Taking data for the larger 13 inch guns on Queen Mary, Iron Duke etc suggests a 7 degree angle at 10,000 yards (which is surely negligible), 14 degrees at 15,000 yards, 24 degrees at 20,000 yards. So on the whole, British shells were falling even flatter than the German ones. Now, the next question is who knows what angle was considered an 'oblique impact' sufficient to reduce shell efficiency? Sandpiper (talk) 23:43, 26 February 2009 (UTC)
You have a lot of reading to do. Also you are ignoring three other contributors to obliquity. Greglocock (talk) 01:30, 27 February 2009 (UTC)
Which are what? User:Sandpiper 22:57, 27 February 2009 (UTC)
I'm going to have to agree with Greg here you are missing huge issues and tending to ones that have answers. Here is one, the further away the got the chances of deck and turret roof hits go up and the more vital horizontal armor becomes. I've never read a book about Naval Guns vs Armor that ever alluded to less. Pick up Norman Friedman's book for how this was evaluated in the US Navy for examples, its dry reading but you will get more of a feel for it. Tirronan (talk) 05:05, 27 February 2009 (UTC)`
I'm not quite sure what your point is. yes, clearly, the further away the greater the oblique angle. If shells are travelling purely horizontally, they are not likely to hit roofs or decks. The initial question was about whether British shells failed to penetrate if striking at oblique angles, whether this really was a significant problem, and then whether German shells were materially better. Although this has become a technical discussion, it started in my mind as simply an issue which was quite likely to have historically been overstated. Are you saying the problem with British shells was when striking a deck at, say, 20 degrees and bouncing off, rather than when hitting horizontalVertical [sorry] armour at 70 degrees and failing to penetrate (which is what I assumed was the issue)? It occurs, that the problem with the british shells might have been because they struck at low oblique angles from the more powerful british guns, therby never striking downwards. It seems to me, perhaps as greglock alludes, that we discuss a problem with shells but if I have failed to understand the issue from what is in the article, then so must every other reader. User:Sandpiper 22:57, 27 February 2009 (UTC)
In this case I will repeat this again, the Brit shells when striking armor were breaking up rather than pushing through. I keep citing American examples because I have Friedman's book but the basic is that as the angle of attack increases the stresses on the shells and the ability to penetrate is effected unless this is accounted for. The Admiralty itself quoted that large shells were breaking up and not penetrating when in fact they should have. This is not a minor issue in my mind and is in fact the equivent of the US Navy going to war with the Mark 13 Torpedo on its submarines. Tirronan (talk) 14:31, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

(deindent) As I said before, I am not suggesting there was nothing wrong with the shells. The question is whether the issue has been overstated, and to what extent it applied to German shells too. The biggest difference in performance at jutland was between ships which failed to get their shells hitting enemy ships at all, and those that did. The latter sort of british shell (ie the ones hitting steel rather than water) were much the more effective and caused considerable damage.Sandpiper (talk) 19:21, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

There is not and never has been any reason to apply the same issue with the German shells. Neither side ever brought this up as a problem whereas both sides brought up the issue with the British shells, as for accuracy of fire, only Beatty's BC's had issue with accuracy mostly durning the "Run to the south" and bad visability working against them though this followed a rather poor showing of the same with two BC's in the Falklands again with poor shooting. All in all the Grand Fleet shot as well as anyone that day. So in order, 1: German shells seemed to have performed quite well, 2: British shells rather poorly, 3:Accuracy between the fleets about balanced out. Tirronan (talk) 03:54, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
Exactly. This is not controversial at all. Your (Tirronan's) summary is excellent. Greglocock (talk) 09:37, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
Well thats just it: I have yet to see any evidence saying, say, 60 % of German shells penetrated whereas only 40% of equivalent British ones did. Have you? It became an issue amongst the British that their shells did not come up to expectations. it did not become an issue amongst the Germans. But that says nothing about how good the two designs of shell really were, merely that one side was worrrying about it and one was not. Sandpiper (talk) 01:34, 2 March 2009 (UTC)
How hard have you looked? It is your outlandish theory, you need to do the legwork. If I were you I'd start with Campbell, and http://www.navweaps.com/index_tech/index_tech.htm . Incidentally don't confuse failure to penetrate and failure to explode, they are quite different. Greglocock (talk) 02:20, 2 March 2009 (UTC)
I am also about done with this thread myself, unless and until you can come up with solid data to support your conclusions I am finished with this. Tirronan (talk) 02:25, 2 March 2009 (UTC)
This started with a question whether anyone had any further information, I guess that's a 'no'. Part of 'looking' is to ask right here. Sandpiper (talk) 19:48, 2 March 2009 (UTC)
This thread is crammed with further information - so much so that it has long veered away from the topic. Anyway, so far as I can tell, what's in the article is fine; it's referenced to perfectly respectable sources (apart from Massie and that Swedish officer) and doesn't contradict anything else on the subject I've read... The Land (talk) 22:22, 2 March 2009 (UTC)
I've not bothered to include it in the article because it seemed like guilding the lilly but if anyone wants a citation I will include it with Massie and the Swede. Tirronan (talk) 05:42, 3 March 2009 (UTC)
Anyone wanting an example of the worthlessness of referencing might like to contribute to sorting out [Francis Harvey], currently a FA despite its failings.
Oh, and I found this quote posted on navweaps by NKOkun here [1] which arguably goes some way to answer my question, British Shell Quality at Jutland. Shell "quality" was well-nigh perfect.... To be fair, he goes on to explain that british shells were not intended to pass through armour, merely make a hole in it, and they worked. Mr Okun would seem to disagree with the statement in the article As a result some German ships with only 200 mm (8 inches) armour survived hits from 15-inch (381 mm) shells. Had these shells performed as their designers intended, German losses would probably have been far greater, since he seems to be stating british shells did achieve their design intentions. Sandpiper (talk) 07:53, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

I note a couple of points from Campbell. At one point he draws attention to the failure to explode of 1/3 of the SAP shells which hit Lion (p.69 and around), and on p.384 he comments there is little evidence on which to assess the quality of german APC shells. Sandpiper (talk) 21:21, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

And I see Marder III p.169 where he talks about the long ranges at Jutland produced very oblique impact against a target's side armour... against the deck armour, long range produced, of course, impact near to the normal. Well, no. The information cited by contributors above and the data on the websites suggests a typical long range british shell is only falling at 20 degrees to the horizontal. The discussion there about the relative merits of soft headed APC (ie the british ones) also suggests this is on the margin of their effectivenesss at oblique angles, which is also stated as about 20 degrees. So basically everything is more or less operating within design conditions. Marder seems to be demonstrably wrong in his assumption about plunging fire, and no one here has produced anything to refute this (rather, to confirm it). I don't quite understand why he would be confused about this, did he have a weak spot about ballistics? Now, the germans had hard tipped APC which worked at higher angles, but then their smaller guns also meant they needed to operate at greater angles to achieve range. Sandpiper (talk) 22:27, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Agree about the angles. At max range a shell falls at about 50 degrees to the horizontal, nowhere near normal to the deck, and I doubt that WW1 guns would elevate anything like that much - 30 degrees springs to mind. However, the shell will be deflected as it passes through the non armored decks and splinter deck before striking the armor deck, so things get more complicated there. Also the angled ends of the armor deck where it meets the main belt offer another change in angle, tho i think that area is pretty well shielded by the upper belt, at least on the incoming side. Greglocock (talk) 01:24, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
I have seen a figure more like 20 degrees max elevation. Some of the German ships were modified after Jutland to cut away armour and allow greater elevation. The queen elizabeths were also modified later. Hase talks about the guns being at max elevation and so do some of the british ships. The whole business of long range gunnery had overtaken the expectations of the equipment designers, which was flat trajectories. These shells were intended to fly like ground hugging guided missiles. Sandpiper (talk)
having looked at the shell path diagrams in Campbell i retract what I said about deflections, typically the shell flew fairly straight even after piercing a deck unless it bounces off a piece of furniture (I dispute this, but have no reference to hand)Greglocock (talk) 02:12, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
p.215 has a quote from Dreyer,we have many people engaged trying to make out that our AP shell filled with Lyddite, which burst halfway through the plate, are just as good as the german shell filled with trotyl with delay action fuse, which burst their shell well inside our ships. Which is interesting perhaps not so much for demonstrating a failing in premature explosion, but for the suggestion that the shells do penetrate, just they never get through because they explode, but they do succesfully pierce armour. Sandpiper (talk) 23:52, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
Penetration as used by Nathan and so on means to go right through, scratching the paint doesn't count. Greglocock (talk) 01:26, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
Dreyer's comment seems to suggest the shells would have penetrated had they not contained explosive and thus gone off prematurely. Though Okun above argues they were behaving exactly as designed with the intention of making holes. And my own thought, how would Dreyer know exactly what happened, though again he might have had access to British test results. Sandpiper (talk) 09:38, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
Agin Campbell identifies 3 properties of British shells that means they didn't sink ships - casing too brittle, no delay in fuze , unrelaible fuze material. Whether they met spec or not is irrelevant unless you are a lawyer, they were lousy at sinking ships. Greglocock (talk) 02:12, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
No. The article currently says Had these shells performed as their designers intended, German losses would probably have been far greater. If the sources claim that the shells did perform as intended, then this statement is untrue and needs changing. We are currently asserting the legalese point. It appears the designers were not after shells which penetrated and then exploded. The mistake is that they should have designed a different sort of shell. Sandpiper (talk) 10:11, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
As a matter of fact they did design another shell, again referrence the green boy shell. I'm going to be frank here, regardless of the various means that a ap round can fail, its pretty darned certain that in the eyes of the parties involved that the SHELLS WERE NOT DOING THE JOB FOR WHICH THEY WERE INTENDED. Blowing up early or breaking up because the AP cap wasn't thick enough at higher angles of attack they failed too often. I'm going to be blunt here are you trolling? Tirronan (talk) 14:39, 7 March 2009 (UTC)
Are you saying the green boy shells were designed before Jutland even though they were only put into production a year or more later? The performance or existence of green boy shells is besides the point in an article about how shells behaved at the battle, except that one year later the admiralty got round to changing them. As I recall reading, after the battle the admiralty did not feel the issue of shell performance was worth acting on, until jellicoe became 1st sea lord and acted himself. The only relevance of green boy shells to the debate is that eventually someone got round to making a better shell, so obviously there was something wrong with the original. this is hardly a surprise in itself: i doubt they still use green boy shells today, but have invented something better. There is a big difficulty in disentangling facts about Jutland in that a lot of people were looking for scapegoats for multiple failings. The shell issue was an acceptable excuse. All the better as an excuse because it contains a truth that the shells were not as good as they might have been, but that still does not mean (as stated by Okun on the website recommended above) that they failed to behave as originally specified and designed. I note Greglock has amended the article to remove the unsubstantiated claim that the shells failed to behave as designed, and replaced it with what appears to be a correct statement that penetrating and then exploding shells would have helped. I inserted some of the stuff about shell failings myself in the past. I remain concerned exactly which "official admiralty examination of the grand fleets performance" is being referred to as source of that section. I hope it was not Beatty's little efforts - hardly an unbiased appraisal.

Much was also made after the battle of the dangers of plunging fire. So much so that battlecruisers still building were redesigned to have thicker deck armour. This despite the fact which I hope we have now established above, that shells were falling at no more than 30 degrees to the horizontal, and likely more like 20 degrees. not very plunging. We have not discussed it, but I also recall reading there was little or no serious damage done by shells penetrating armoured decks. I believe the considered opinion is now that the ships explosions followed hits on turrets, not decks. Thin decks and plunging fire were blamed at the time and this is another historical inaccuracy. I have not seen it put this way, but once again it smacks of deflecting attention away from the cause of the ship losses being charges stacked in turrets following Beatty's instructions, to an acceptable excuse of shells directly penetrating into magazines.

Campbell describes the performance of German shells as 'adequate', not good, or very good, or excellent. He notes that there were not enough examples for AP shells to really form a definite opinion. As i posted above he comments that a lot of SAP (as opposed to AP) shells were used and 1/3 of those hitting Lion failed to explode. Nonetheless, the SAP (presumably not so good at armour piercing as the AP?) were quite good enough to destroy the british ships. maybe 1/3 duds is as good as you could expect, but campbell draws attention to it, implying it is an identifiable failing in these German shells. I am not quite sure what you are getting so excited about. The article has been changed to remove an error i pointed out, and the issue of how good the german shells really were remains unresolved. I am repeating points already made, because they do not seem to have penetrated. Sandpiper (talk) 21:03, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

If that had indeed been the case I would have suspected that the HMS Hood would not have met her end. At least one boiler room was smashed by a hit from the deck and you may confirm that with Massie if you so desire. Piercing 1" of roof armor wouldn't be much of a feat for any ship throwing any sort of ap or sap shell whatsoever. As for the Greenboy shells I'll get a ref from Massie on that one, however my understanding is they didn't start looking into the redesign until after Jutland and that would again seem to support that the Naval Establishment was less than pleased by the performance. The point remains unless/until you can bring proof that this was no more than a white wash to protect the reputation of the British Navy and its senior admirals I am going to have a rather hard time supporting such a change given the opinions of the admirals on both sides of the conflict to the opposite effect. Tirronan (talk) 03:03, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
After Jutland the UK designed and constructed NO BBs or BCs that used BC style messy armor layouts. All of them were single horizontal armour decks joining to the top of the main belt, with no upper belt, and no splinter deck. Call that the raft design, it is similar to Monitor. The USN did design and build one more class with a WW1 (actually 1880) style armor layout, but all their others were raft designs. The UK also tried to upgrade Hood's layout as she was built, not a very succesful approach. Both countries took the lessons learned from Jutland about horizontal armor VERY seriously, ie that it would be increasingly important as ranges increased.Greglocock (talk) 04:48, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
USS Nevada was already built and I don't think any Navy anywhere went with anything else in BB's, the Alaska Class CL's were never intended to be anything but over-sized cruiser hunters, albeit with 12" guns every bit the equal of any WW1 14". Tirronan (talk) 04:57, 11 March 2009 (UTC)
Before WW2 naval guns had been designed or altered to fire greater distances using higher elevations, so while I havn't checked exactly what happened to Hood, in principle it was possible to fire at higher angles and for shells to be falling at higher angles. This was physically impossible for the guns at Jutland. My rusty mathematics suggests that at 10 degrees the effective thickness of 1 in armour plate is 5.5 in, at 20 degrees 3 in, and at 30 degrees 2 in, purely from the length of the path through the armour. Then there is the question of whether the shell would simply bounce off because its tip was not engaging the surface. I don't know how these facts all balance out (malleable steel might even be better than case hardened brittle armour if it could give and dissipate some of the impact), but basically this was the sort of design consideration which led to the adoption of 1 in horizontal armour at the time. The article currently states, and I don't see reason to dispute it, that no ships were lost because of penetration of horizontal 1 in deck armour. In the only case I know about, Lion, the turret was penetrated by a hit on the forward face plate. Although the assumption at the time was the problem was thin horizontal armour, the real reason for the british battlecruiser sinkings was fire spreading to the magazines. Which is not to say that what happened did not make people start thinking about the shortcomings of very thin deck armour, but that this was not the problem at Jutland. Rather, the question of what constituted appropriate deck protection was bound up with the ongoing innovations in gunnery, where longer and longer range firing was producing steeper trajectories of shells. My impression is that the overall armour design of british battlecruisers was never tested to destruction, because the design weak point was the propellant/ magazine openness to flash fires. Many guns were put out of action in the German ships, indicating that British shells had effectively penetrated their turrets as German shells had done British ones. The German ships simply failed to explode as a result. If they had, I doubt anyone would have turned this into such an issue at the time.
It also has to be born in mind that the overall design is a compromise. While Hood or any other ship might be damaged by some shells going through deck, the design is intended to limit overall damage and concentrate protection where it is needed most. Thus a design with an acknowledged weakness, eg to plunging fire, might still be the very best possible overall design because other threats were more serious. If I had with hindsight redesigned the british battlecruisers, I would have fitted them with heavier turret armour, not heavier deck armour. Better yet, added nothing to the armour but devised some method to stop flash spreading through the turret to the magazine. A figure I read suggested it took about 25 hits to turn a German battlecruiser into a non-functional sinking hulk. We don't know how many it would have taken to sink the british designs (leaving aside the self-destruction flaw). I am reminded of the fuss after the recent Falkland Islands war, where ship designers seemed to have forgotten the problems of fire, and the aluminium fabric of the ships itself burnt. I know even less about the technical detail of this than about Hood, but it strikes me that this flaw too was a compromise with the obvious benefits of reducing overall weight. A similar accepted weakness to that of 70 years before? Sandpiper (talk) 20:04, 28 March 2009 (UTC)
Actually, in the case of Nevada, the thickening of the horizontal armor was a case of making the ship stronger getting ride of the mid-grade casement armor, (I believe that one of the QE's came very close to a mag explosion from a hit on the casement), and the realization that the upgrades to the Fire Control Systems (hereafter FCS) allowed hits out to 22,000 yards. All pre-Nevada BB's used a banded armor system with a mid-grade casement armor and a thin horizontal "crater maker" armor system. In Jutland that day visibility not FCS nor Gun design kept these ships from using longer range gunfire, excepting Beatty and I still don't have a clue why he held off firing for so long. In the case of HMS Hood, she was righting herself from a quick turn, probably exposing more horizontal armor at the moment of impact than her Captain could have wanted. Nonetheless, it was a shell in the mag that sank her and it is not likely that her belt was pierced.--Tirronan (talk) 15:03, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Cordite handling procedures

Latest comment: 14 years ago19 comments6 people in discussion

The article says ...and the Royal Navy emphasised speed in ammunition handling over safety procedures,.... Is this true? I know that HMS Lion did this, because I read the account by Grant saying it was what he found there. But on the other hand, he was horrified by what he found, suggesting it was not what he expected. So, was it merely the battlecruisers rather than the whole fleet which was in the habit of careless ammunition handling in the interests of speed? Sandpiper (talk) 08:13, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, yet again, conventional history supports this view. If you want to argue with it, you need to do some research. Meanwhile I can't prove that my skull hasn't been hollowed out by aliens and that my fingers aren't controlled by the bacteria that live in my U tube. Greglocock (talk) 10:05, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
While Greg's post above is perhaps a little bit snappy, I agree with the sentiment. The statements about ammunition handling are referenced to Campbell and perhaps Marder... the best way to resolve your question, Sandpiper, is to go and look at what they or other sources have to say on the matter, rather than start a talk page discussion about it. The Land (talk) 10:29, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
To be fair, the statement highlighted by Sandpiper is simply not true at face value. The Battle Cruiser Fleet may well have favoured speed of handling over safety, but that doesn't translate either to the Battle Fleet or to the entire Royal Navy. Jellicoe did advocate a higher rate of fire, but not by endangering his ships.
Campbell's book on Jutland is an essential purchase (my copy cost only four pounds last year). The Beatty Papers, Volume I are very useful on handling and gunnery in the B.C.F. as well as Beatty's correspondence with Jellicoe on rate of fire (that cost me a tenner earlier this year). Grant's memoirs will be interesting when they're published by the University of Stellenbosch in the near future. Will have a trawl through my books for anything else which merits a mention when I have a chance. --Harlsbottom (talk | library | book reviews) 10:50, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
The only directly relevant passage I can find on the pages mentioned in campbell is Also there were no magazine scuttles for passing charges, in fact, the magazine doors would be continuously open in action, and many more charges removed from their magazine cases than there should have been. In fact, this reference does not seem to support any claim that charges were being left about for reasons of speedy handling rather than, say, simple carelessness. He does not say why this practice was going on. Maybe he says it somewhere else, but i would have to read the whole book to find out. My first thought reading the page was that the one sentence mention is not very helpfull in explaining whether this was truly universal throughout the fleet, or might apply to some ships more than others. But on closer reading, as I say, the claim is not supported by the ref at all. I do note that on p373 Campbell says as will be seen less care was generally taken of German charges than british, and there were no noteworthy flash precautions, and it was the practice in 1914 to have supplies of ready charges in gun-house and working chamber. His conclusion seems to be that the germans were considerably more careless with charges than were the british, even after the experience of Seydlitz at dogger bank. He claims even there the issue was not so much a threat to the ship from burning charges as a fear the shells might explode if they got too hot. So the German's complacency on this point had some justification.
It rather remains my conclusion from reading sources, and I am only now commenting on points here and there in what is a very sophisticated article having been first reading alternative accounts, is that thus far the statement I highlighted here is not quite so commonly held as might be supposed. Happily I have never harboured doubts about the substantive contents of my skull, though I do seem to recall hearing that the processes of my and every one else's body are indeed reliant upon the good offices of bacteria. The purpose of a talk page is to raise points about an article with others who hopefully are knowledgeable about its content and can thus give an immediate opinion on a point without having to plough through a library. I will have a poke about in Marder, but the consensus thus far on the basis of what has been said here, seems to be that the statemnt is unsubstantiated and quite possibly wrong. Sandpiper (talk) 20:05, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
Marder III p.174 says it was the habit to fill the handing room with charges and leave the magazine doors, which were not fitted with flameproof scuttles, open for rapidity of loading. Which does mention the reason. But again, the section is discussing battlecruisers so there is an issue whether it is meant to apply to every ship in the navy.Sandpiper (talk) 23:43, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
Again Campbell is to the point. British Cordite required much greater respect than the German stuff. Neither side was especially careful about handling it, the German's got away with it, the British did not.Greglocock (talk) 02:12, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
We this was gone into at great detail in past archive pages up to and including the propellent types involved. It is my understanding that dive teams to the 3 sunken BC's found the doors still clipped open, since I watched the video I tend to believe that one. German reports were that a few charges in a turret were enough to ensure that almost everyone in the turret would be killed though they didn't pass the flash on. What we can not confirm is what were the practices on the BB's.Tirronan (talk) 14:48, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Sand, if you are getting snippy responses it is simply that you have insisted on a view in the past that resulted in a short story for a response and simply could not let it go. Despite the fact that every piece of evidence available was listed out for you. If you have an alternative view and it has good support *by all means list it and let the discussions begin* that is exactly how we come up with a better article. Asking us to spend great amounts of time working through a supposition without much supporting evidence at all is something else however. I don't doubt that you have anything but the best of intentions or questioning your intelligence. There was backbiting and backstabbing between the camps and it does throw some smoke and thunder into the history of Jutland. In my opinion, we *must* make time for a well supported alternate view or fact but if it is not and we provide you with well supported evidence to the contrary, I for one do not wish to spend great amounts of time on it.--Tirronan (talk) 12:56, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

I started this section questioning whether the article statement that the RN emphasised speed over safety is correct. Harlsbottom agreed this statement, applying apparently to the whole fleet, was unsupported by evidence. You (tirronan) say a video of the BC wrecks showed doors open, which is fine but not to the point. Evidence I have seen indicates Beatty favoured speed above everything, but the issue I was raising was whether this applied to the the rest of the fleet, as implied by the article, or simply to the battlecruisers. Above it was suggested to read Campbell or marder, but no one has suggested any specific passages which might talk about this, apart from those I found myself which really failed to settle the specific point. The ref given in the article (campbell) fails to support the point made. Greglock and theLand suggest this is the generally held view, but again could only suggest general reading to support it. My own general reading had led me to question the view, thus I raised it. I do not take it that a ref saying a particular battlecruiser had little respect for safety implies that they all did, or that a squadron of battlecruisers might. My impression, rather, is that each ship or squadron was its own little kingdom which ran things its own way. So half the fleet might have had impeccable safety precautions, while the other half none, or whatever. I see a lack of evidence. In particular I have seen quotes of correspondence from Beatty where he seemed obsessed with the idea that speed of firing was the most important thing in battle. This rather suggests the consequence of charges littered all over the place might be particular to his ships also. I hesitate to change the text, because it may be correct, but it remains unsubstantiated and I will change it if no evidence can be produced, because essentially it significantly impugnes the whole british fleet.
Completely aside from the actual dangers of propellant, there is the implication in the article statement that the RN deliberately chose to take a risk despite being fully aware of it. None of the hindsight information on dangerous practices goes to demonstrate whether or not the navy at that time believed what it was doing to be dangerous. I am tempted to think they did not: it seems illogical to suggest that they knowingly chose a course of action where an entire ship would explode if a turret was hit. So claiming they chose to ignore safety considerations is somewhat unfair.Sandpiper (talk) 21:05, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
I believe that I also stated that the practice of the Grand Fleet itself was involved in the unsafe practice was without evidence to my knowledge. I know of nothing that would support the fact that the GF was in fact doing so. Also I am not convinced that there were stacks of propellant laying about as entire German turrets were burned out from a couple of charges ready to go into battery. 2-4 standard charges would have been more than enough to pass flash all the way to the magazine if doors were left open, if that didn't set the charges off sympathetic detonation certainly would. I further do not believe that British really understood the danger that well, cordite was certainly safer than black powder and the Germans only under stood after Dogger Bank. As to speed over accuracy, as far as the 1st BC and the rest of the Grand Fleet, the shooting was at least as accurate as the lauded High Sea Fleet. Beatty knew his ships had a problem the Battle of the Falklands had shown that the shooting was not up to par, this wasn't addressed until just before the battle with the 1st BC squadron to my understanding. I would not understand why Beatty couldn't have set up a shooting range and exercised his ships until the shooting was up to standard.
I was referring to the section before, I agree that the section here would and should be adjusted. --Tirronan (talk) 04:12, 31 March 2009 (UTC)
John Brooks in his thesis (essentially a larger version of Dreadnought Gunnery at the Battle of Jutland: The Question of Fire Control) suggests that from the evidence hitherto uncovered: "all the ships of both the Second and Third Battle Cruiser Squadrons had to rely on the pre-War system based on the Mark VI Dumaresq, Vickers clock and manual plotting." i.e. no centralised fire-control system (Dreyer Fire Control Table). While the shooting of the Third Battle Cruiser Squadron and Invincible in particular is often highlighted, considering the equipment they were using it was even more remarkable. --Simon Harley (talk | library | book reviews) 07:10, 31 March 2009 (UTC)
My impression was that the ships sent off to scapa benefitted from their target practice and whatever equipment the rest had, they would have shot better with more practice. Beatty stated he prioritised rapid shooting at medium range over slower accurate shooting at long range. i don't know if he really believed this, or was arguing it to defend the reality of his ships performance. He may have truly believed it was better to just blast off as close as possible and some shells were bound to hit. If so he was wrong, but it would explain his apparent failure to do something about their relatively poor shooting. I didn't end up with the impression from brook's book that Beatty's bad shooting was really a consequence of poorer equipment (though obviously he said better equipment helped).
Tirronan, it was stated in Beatty's defence that there was insufficient room at Rosyth, at least in areas secured from torpedos, for practice. people were justifiably concerned about incidental loss of their ships one by one. But i agree, this was vital and something should have been done (as finally was) much sooner. This again seems to suggest beatty just did not think it sufficiently important. It might come down to politics or rivalry between the BC and GF, or even bad advice from his officers. I am not sure about how susceptible british charges might be to symathetic detonation (by which I guess you mean by a pressure wave). There seems to be some suggestion that charges which had chemically deteriorated and had leaked nitroglycerine or something might behave like this, but good cordite seems to have been reasonably safe. The manner of combustion, where it was made into spaghetti which burnt from the outside in, and that altering the physical dimensions altered the way it burnt, suggests that it did not all suddenly go bang in the face of a pressure wave, for example as would be experienced inside the chamber of a gun just at the moment the charge is ignited. Sandpiper (talk) 09:45, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
I understand the properties and the extrutions of both RP and Cordite in its various marks, As to what caused the detonation, either would have worked, it would seem the single best answer to USS Arizona's magazine det was sympathic detonation, from a close by black powder magazine. The British Naval Establishment seems to be convinced that it's flash protection was due for a complete overhaul. Detailed notes on such as relates to the details passed on to the USN vs. the US Navy's current practice made it clear how vital it was considered by the British. Regardless of the cause of the detonation flash tight fittings would have stopped over pressure as well. Tirronan (talk) 22:52, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

I just read a contemporary quote somewhere talking about getting the fires under control on german ships where I think it said the fumes were much less now, so probably the ammunition had stopped burning. I was working on something else, but I noted it because it seemed to imply that the ammunition was on fire, but was not exploding. There was a discussion somehwere a few months back involving someone who seemed to know something about explosives, who stated that the german propellants were by definition not explosives. An explosion is practically speaking a buildup of pressure faster than it can escape. I can't exclude the possibility that German ships were designed to vent explosions to relieve pressure before it could build up sufficiently to tear the ships apart. Or, German ships might have had physically stronger magazines which could withstand more pressure before they ripped apart. The reported evidence about the propellants, however, seems to be that although neither propellant was strictly an explosive, the British version burnt faster. It is therefore possible that had the british ships used German charges, they would likely have survived. Campbell somewhere comments that the Germans were in fact somewhat complacent about their propellant catching fire, despite the earlier explosions on Seydlitz, justifiably, because it was relatively more safe.

The article currently says:

Someone just edited this down a bit, but the basic text has been there a while and has some problems. The reference does not say anything about the relative merits of cordite and rp at the time of jutland, and whether one burnt while the other exploded. As I just said above, my understanding is that technically neither is an explosive. Sandpiper (talk) 21:32, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Again and for the last time I am going to direct you to the archives where this has been discussed ad nausea, regardless of the propellant used if said propellant be in a gas tight enclosure will result in an explosion, see WW2 US hand grenades that used smokeless powder pretty damned effectively. Your PR C/12 revelation is also in the archive even to the reference of the Cordite SC. --Tirronan (talk) 08:09, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
Heck, I can't remember now, but i think what i just said was that the reference does not support the article statement. Are you saying this discrepancy has been discussed before? The article text claims one of the propellants eplodes while the other does not, which is not supported by the reference. It is also probably false. As you say, if building pressure is contained, eventually it will burst out. But this observation in itself doesn't help in alleging a specific difference between the two propellants, indeed it tends to support my concern that the article text is wrong. Sandpiper (talk) 21:41, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
Sand read the archive and take it from there. Various marks of Cordite were in fact liable to explode if they were manufactured incorrectly, or aged too much. As to RP the effect of burning hot 1800 degree gas and an explosion is not going to be very marked by the results unless there is a great amount of venting engineered into the magazine. There really isn't much of a difference from Cordite SC on as it was modeled after RP when it was studied. However this all becomes mute as I have not a clue where we could find propellant load outs for the various ships involved in Jutland. As for confined propellant, they would tend to blow out through the bottom which would put paid to any ship that ever floated. Tirronan (talk) 11:02, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
Please note that HMS Vanguard was blown up by a internal magazine explosion attributed to manufacturing failures in its carried Cordite load out. --Tirronan (talk) 05:26, 31 July 2009 (UTC)
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