The Battle of Jutland

[Take on me]

Who won the Battle of Jutland? I am sure that the Pals have opinions about this and I would love to hear them.

I am sure that this has been discussed many times in the past (and if it has it would be great if somebody could point me towards the thread).

Thanks,

Jon

[FAAAEd]

Who won the Battle of Jutland?

Jon

Germany on points but still lacked a result.

To repeat a much used quote,'The High Seas Fleet had assaulted its jailer but was still in jail'.

[Jonathan Saunders]

Germany on points but still lacked a result.

To repeat a much used quote,'The High Seas Fleet had assaulted its jailer but was still in jail'.

For me, Jellicoe won. The Royal Navy wanted to fight it out whilst the HSF were content to limp back to port, never to be seen again. However, the accuracy of German gunnery did give the Royal Navy a big wake up call with regards to both their own complacency and good practices with regard to cordite storage and keeping flash doors closed.

[MikB]

The Germans cry aloud: "We've won!"

But yet it seems a curious view

That they are conquerors who run,

They the vanquished who pursue

Just about says it for me :-)

[Take on me]

Well the consensus seems to be that it was a strategic victory for the British Grand Fleet. But, consider this, the German High Seas Fleet remained in being, as far as the strategic situation went the British had to keep vast numbers of her capital ships in ports around the UK just in case the German fleet ventured out.

Now these valuable British ships were therefore occupied when they would have proved extremely useful fighting the U Boat menace in the Atlantic. If the Germans had won, and the U Boats had played a big part, maybe Jutland would have been considered a great strategic German victory.

Jon

[SiegeGunner]

Now these valuable British ships were therefore occupied when they would have proved extremely useful fighting the U Boat menace in the Atlantic.

True, as far as destroyers and other smaller vessels are concerned, but sending battleships and battlecruisers out into the Atlantic to hunt U-boats would not have been a good idea.

Mick

[Take on me]

True, as far as destroyers and other smaller vessels are concerned, but sending battleships and battlecruisers out into the Atlantic to hunt U-boats would not have been a good idea.

Ok, my comments still stand, but now in regards to the lighter units rather than the big ships.

Jon

[FAAAEd]

..., but sending battleships and battlecruisers out into the Atlantic to hunt U-boats would not have been a good idea.

Mick

A lesson only learned after the loss of Courageous early in WW2.

[per ardua per mare per terram]

Jutland was a British stategic victory, what happened afterwards should not be weighed in the same ballance.

The German's main tactical manouver can be translated as run away as fast as possible! The British losses were replaced in the same year with the remaining 'R' battleships and battlecruisers.

Even if the British had anhilated the German fleet at Jutland, there would still have been a fleet in being Bayern & Baden weren't at Jutland and the Grand Fleet destroyers would still have had to be with the fleet.

It was the ordinance on the destroyers rather than the ships themselves that was most important. The Uboat war is a sign of the german's having lost at Jutland. The bigest weapon against the uboats was convoy and that didn't depend on Jutland. In grand starategy after Jutland it was a closer run thing, but the British won through on that: they got their supplies through while the British blockade reduced supplies for Germany, it's no coincidence that the Armastice was before the winter.

[Borys]

Ahoj!

True, as far as destroyers and other smaller vessels are concerned, but sending battleships and battlecruisers out into the Atlantic to hunt U-boats would not have been a good idea.

Mick

A lesson only learned after the loss of Courageous early in WW2.

Ahem - the HMS Courageous was neither a battleship nor battlecruiser ...

It was the ordinance on the destroyers rather than the ships themselves that was most important.

ord·nance

Pronunciation: 'ord-n&n(t)s

Function: noun

Etymology: Middle English ordinaunce, from Anglo-French ordenance disposition, preparation, military provisions -- more at ORDINANCE

1 a : military supplies including weapons, ammunition, combat vehicles, and maintenance tools and equipment b : a service of the army charged with the procuring, distributing, and safekeeping of ordnance

2 : CANNON, ARTILLERY

or·di·nance

Pronunciation: 'ord-n&n(t)s, 'or-d&-n&n(t)s

Function: noun

Etymology: Middle English, from Anglo-French & Medieval Latin; Anglo-French ordenance order, disposition, from Medieval Latin ordinantia, from Latin ordinant-, ordinans, present participle of ordinare to put in order -- more at ORDAIN

1 a : an authoritative decree or direction : ORDER b : a law set forth by a governmental authority; specifically : a municipal regulation

2 : something ordained or decreed by fate or a deity

3 : a prescribed usage, practice, or ceremony

synonym see LAW

There should be a filter for this word on war related boards ...

Borys

[per ardua per mare per terram]

Ahoj!

Ahem - the HMS Courageous was neither a battleship nor battlecruiser ...

The word is ahoy! so I'm not the only person to make a typo occasionally.

Anyhow, as your quote says ‘ord·nance …more at ORDINANCE’

Oxford English Dictionary gives: ordnance, n.

ad1393 GOWER Confessio Amantis (Fairf.) V. 2040 ei..beholde myhte Here enemys..With al here ordinance there, Which thei ayein the Cite caste.

and under: ordinance, n.

6. Material goods; apparatus; contents; furniture. Obs.

In sense ‘military equipment’ see ORDNANCE n.

In a slight of hand Jackie Fisher had HMS Courageous & Glorious designated as large light cruisers, but they conformed to his ideas of battlecruisers: big guns, high speed and abysmal armour! Even he called them ‘Big Light Battle Cruisers’ at times (see John Roberts ‘Battlecruisers‘ ISBN 1-84067-530-6). After WW1 they were rebuilt as aircraft carriers, but they retained the design flaws of both battlecruisers and all British capital ships, such as poor compartmentalisation.

[per ardua per mare per terram]

Jellicoe had done his best to loose the battle long before it was fought: the failings of British shells were known, he was Director Naval Ordnance pre war when it was brought to his attention, Jellicoe didn't act on it. DG Brown makes a good case for they were the same failings in shell as experienced by the Japanese in the Russo-Japanese War and Jellecoe drew up the analysis of what could be learned from that war.

[T8HANTS]

My grandfathers comment, (he was on on H.M.S. Cochrane, during the battle), was along the line of.

"Our gunnery was very disappointing, but we had the best polished bright work of any fleet in the world"

H.M.S.Cochrane never fired a shot during the battle, which is as it should be.

Gareth

[Justin Moretti]

Jellicoe had done his best to loose the battle long before it was fought: the failings of British shells were known, he was Director Naval Ordnance pre war when it was brought to his attention, Jellicoe didn't act on it. DG Brown makes a good case for they were the same failings in shell as experienced by the Japanese in the Russo-Japanese War and Jellecoe drew up the analysis of what could be learned from that war.

It was my understanding (from Correlli Barnett's "Swordbearers") that he was excruciatingly aware of the problem and DID order something done, but was posted away from that department before he could ensure that the slackers followed his orders.

I quote:

"Nor was Jellicoe happy about the quality of British shells. As Controller in 1910 he had presided over extensive experiments with armour-piercing shells. The results showed that the standard British shell was excellent at a 90 degree angle... but that a new armour-piercing shell should be designed that could penetrate armour at an oblique angle... and in a state fit for bursting. Jellicoe asked for this new shell to be produced, but two months later went to sea. Somewhere in the bureaucracy of the Admiralty the project died."

I don't have time or space to quote most of what follows, showing that Jellicoe was bluntly aware that his equipment was qualitatively inferior, and that he intended to fight in such a way as to minimize its defects.

Give Jellicoe a break. He couldn't be everywhere.

T8HANTS, what you've said reminds me of a thought I've had for a while: the best scout-ship in a battle like Jutland is either a ship-launched aircraft or, failing that, a battlecruiser hull with heavy armour, no main guns (let it have a few 12pdrs to keep the enemy TB's away) and plenty of fuel, extra boilers, rangefinders and wireless masts - uncatchable and invulnerable, but without the temptation of engaging when it ought to be reporting.

The ultimate victory for Britain came in the mutiny of the High Seas Fleet, concentrated in some of those ships (IIRC) which had taken the worst pounding at Jutland. This reminds me of the words of a WW2 fighter leader (Malan, I think) who said something like "Don't shoot the enemy bombers down; send them home full of holes and dead or wounded crew to serve as a lesson to the rest." The sinking of three battlecruisers gave the HSF no comfort; it knew exactly what was going to happen next time. And the waiting, the tying up of the Grand Fleet, didn't matter, because there was no other major enemy it had to face anywhere else in the world, unlike WW2, where the Grand Fleet probably would not have coped with all the capital ships of all its naval enemies at once (leaving aside aircraft carriers and imagining hypothetically that the Hood, Prince of Wales, Repulse and Bismarck all survive into early 1942, when Britain is at war with all three major Axis powers at once).

[Borden Battery]

Here are three websites on the topic of Jutland. Borden Battery

NAVAL-HISTORY.NET by Gordon Smith

This website provides a good overview of the naval actions during the Great War; broken down by year, combatants and theatre of action. The Imperial War Museum states "… excellent source for naval history". The site is mainly dedicated to Gordon Smith's father who lost in the sinking of HMS Charybdis on 23rd October 1943. [CEF Study Group - Mar 2006]

http://www.naval-history.net/

The Battle of Jutland - 31st May 1916

The Battle of Jutland took place between the British Grand Fleet and the German High Seas Fleet on the 31st May 1916 in the North Sea, off the mainland of Denmark. Background includes the Battle, Admirals, a Comparison of the Fleets, the Battle Area, Battlecruiser Action, Main Fleet Action , Gains and Losses, Further Resources and an Image Gallery. [CEF Study Group - Mar 2006]

http://www.battle-of-jutland.com/

Germany's High Sea Fleet in the World War

This on-line edition of Admiral Reinhard Scheer's World War One memoirs is based directly on the original, published in 1920. Admiral Scheer, who assumed command of the entire German High Seas Fleet in 1916, was in favor of both an aggressive surface fleet policy and unrestricted submarine warfare. On May 31, 1916, he led the German fleet into the battle of Jutland, one of the great naval battles of this century. In the battle, the German fleet performed admirably against the Royal Navy, but it was unable to change the strategic realities of the naval blockade which continued to strangle Germany. The Germans referred to Jutland as The Battle of the Skagerrak. [The War Times Journal][CEF Study Group – Sept 2006]

http://richthofen.com/scheer/

[FAAAEd]

Ahoj!

Ahem - the HMS Courageous was neither a battleship nor battlecruiser ...Borys

Hum! I am well aware of that thank you.

I was alluding to the tactical, and even strategic, dangers of sending capital ships, which Courageous was, searching for U-Boats which was the point of an earlier post.

[3rdID]

I used to think that the Germans won the battle. They lost fewer ships and men than the British.

However, after reading a detailed tactical account of the battle I believe the British won. Scheer was blundering all over the place while running for his life back to Germany. If the Germans didn't have a superior network of water tight compartments they probably would have lost more ships than the British. Plus, they were completely surprised by Jellicoe's appearance.

[GWRCo]

Who won?? well, to me there was only one true winner and he's still collecting today. Who is it?.......The grim reaper!

tim

[AndyHollinger]

British won. They defeated the German Navy's purpose and destroyed them as to affecting the rest of the war.