Jutland, Jellico, Beatty and Castles of Steel

[Berkut]

So I just got done reading Robert Massies "Castles of Steel", which is basically the naval history of WW1. It was, IMO, an excellent read. I have to admit to not really having much previous knowledge aout the naval war during WW1 - I knew the basics of course, but not much in the way of details.


https://www.amazon.com/Castles-Steel-Britain-Germany-Winning/dp/0679456716/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=



So I had some thoughts, comments, and a bunch of questions. I thought others who know more about the subject then I do might weigh in. I am going to divide my thoughts into seperate posts, so that people who have interest or knowledge can respond more specifically.

[Berkut]

Topic #1: What exactly....is a Dreadnought?


Related: WW1 naval surface ship classes




OK, so there is this common theme that the Brits invented the Dreadnought - a moment where this new type of battleship, or ship of the line/capital ship made all previous classes obsolete. Afterwards, people routinely make comments like "Britain had X Dreadnoughts, and Y pre-dreadnoughts" with the implication being that if you were in the "pre" dreadnought class of battleship, well, you were not that useful in a real fight between dreadnoughts. Indeed, many ships that were contemporary with dreadnoughts, say having been started before but finished after, were considered to be obsolete on their launch. The difference bettween particular classes of dreadnoght/not-dreadnought being largely uninteresting in contrast. So the bestest pre-dreadnought is still obsolete compared to even an early dreadnought.


So...what exactly was it that differentiates a pre-dreadnought from a dreadnought? The "pre-dreadnoughts" don't seem THAT different, at least at first glance.


Related:


WW1 ship classes as presented in the book.


Dreadnought/Pre-dreadnought: Capital Ships, intended to fight other capital ships. Big guns, lots of armor.
Battlecruisers: Fast battleships basically, but also considered capital ships. Brits had big guns, high speed, low armor. Germans had medium guns, high speed (but not quite as high), and better armor and protection.
Armored Cruisers: This is the class I don't understand. I think of a "heavy cruiser" (CA) as being a, well, heavy cruiser. Typically armed with 8" or so guns, have armor capable of taking (at least in theory) shots from 6-8" guns. A class that was useful and relevant even into WW2. But I don't think that is what they mean by an armored cruiser, but they are mostly portrayed as being essentially useless in the book - obsolete, and no useful roll to play. Is there a difference between what Massie calls an "armored cruiser" and what I would consider a "Heavy Cruiser"?
Light Cruisers: Usually armed with about 5-6" guns. Little or no armor, but very high speed. Intended to be scouts, mostly, and to screen from destroyer attacks. Very useful. You would see maybe as many of these as you would see the total number of capital ships.
Destroyers: Smaller ships, needed to screen the capital ships from other destroyers and subs. You would see a LOT of these - the Grand Fleet had something like 80 or so screening it when it went to sea.

[Berkut]

Battle of Jutland: Who won?

How is this even up for debate?

The Germans came out with a very specific mission: to try to trap a portion of the Grand Fleet and destroy it, in an attempt to create parity. They failed. Really, the entire battle was an intel victory for the Brits, more then anything else. The Germans were trying to figure out how to get their entire fleet to engage just one element of the GF, that way at some point in the future they could go toe to toe with the GF with some hope of winning. They lost the battle as soon as the Brits read their radio signals and sent the entire GF out instead of just Beatty's battle cruiser and fast battleships. At that moment, the chances of the Germans managing to fight just one piece of the GF were pretty much lost, since Jellico took the entire thing out, and it turned from the Germans trying to trap the Brits to the Brits trying to trap the Germans.

And the Germans ran back home (rightfully so - they would have been eviscerated otherwise), mission failed.

I don't know how there is debate about who won. After it was over, the Brits were sailing around freely doing wahtever they like, and the Germans were sitting in port fixing all their broken ships, and would never really come back out again.

[Berkut]

Battle of Jutland: General

The battle itself is a hell of a lote more interesting than I had thought. There was a LOT going on there, and some incredible moments of very exciting stuff happening. Maybe the lack of a truly decisive result has made this a less fascinating battle then it deserves?

But Beatty chasing down Hipper while Hipper savages him, then drawing the HSF back into the GF, the HSF having that "OH SHIT!" moment and turning back, only to turn back again. The sending of the battered remnants of Hippers force into the teeth of the GF to cover the HSF retreat, the charge of the destroyers to give the HSF time to withdraw, the drama of Jellico turning back for those critical several minutes!

Then that night - the HSF basically just sailing THROUGH the GF trying to reach safety under the very scant cover of darkness - freaking battleships sailing past one another in the middle of the night....

Anyway, this battle is a hell of a lot more interesting then I ever thought it was....

[The Minsky Moment]

I certainly don't claim to expertise re ship classes etc but it is useful to keep in mind the different purposes warships were built for during this era. For Britain in particular, colonial needs and commitments were very important.  My understanding of classes like the armored cruiser is that they were intended for those uses - i.e. it wasn't expected that such ships would play a critical role in a Great Power fleet clash in the North Sea but that they would provide effective power projection in far-flung colonies.

[Berkut]

Battle of Jutland: Who screwed up? Did *anyone* really screw up?

So afterwards, apparently there was a rather long running feud between Beatty and his followers and the followers of Jellico. Jellico himself mostly seemed to stay out of it.

But anyway, the argument was over who was at fault for the battle not having a much more decisive result for Britain. Beatty basically called Jellico a pussy for turning back in the face of the massed torpedo attack, and apparently later (when he was running the Admiralty) actually trying to censor the official account of the battle to block mention of the main fleet even being engaged, to suggest that the only actual fighting done was his force.

Beatty, IMO (and based on very limited reading) comes across like kind of a douchebag. A bit of a glory hound.

But more than that, I find it interesting that there is even a debate to begin with. It seems pretty clear to me that Jellico did exactly what he set out to do, and the Brits won, and why does anyone need to be blamed? Beatty (mostly) did his job as well, drawing the HSF into the British trap. I don't really even understand why there was any kind of blame game needed at all.

In fact, given what they all knew at the time they knew it, I don't think there is much to fault any of the admirals on either side on. Some tactical details to be sure, but basically both sides went out and did what they intended to do.

But if I had to pick between Beatty and Jellico, it is no contest. Jellico had a plan, he executed on that plan, and he won. If you want to fault him for turning away from the torpedo attack, then you have to honestly claim that is a bad idea BEFORE it happened - Beatty did not do that. Jellico had published his orders and battle expectations, and he knew his #1 goal was always, always, always to preserve the superiority of the Grand Fleet over the High Seas Fleet. Destroying the HSF was secondary to that. So he said before the battle that in such a situation, he would expect to turn away from such a torpedo attack, and when it happened, that is just what he did. I don't see how you can fault him for that unless you were arguing before the battle that those plans were bullshit.

One thing you can most definitely fault Beatty for, however, is his lack of communication both within his force, and more importantly, back to Jellico. He failed on multiple occasions to keep Jellico informed on what was going on, and had pretty sloppy control of his own ships. And these are things that prior to the battle WERE expected of him.

But I still don't see why there was even much of a controversy to begin with. The Brits won, and won clearly. Bitching about what might have been seems just an exercise in ego more then anything else. Maybe politics?

[Berkut]

Also, not Jutland, but the entire story around Spree and his little squadron and the Brits stomping on their own dicks trying to get him was awesome.

[Threviel]

The dreadnought dis two things better that the pre-dreadnought. They had an all big gun armament with a uniform battery of big guns. Thus they all shot the same way and could be aimed together. IIRC Massie gas an anecdote where Dreadnought tows its target by the other ships in the navy, unwillingly humiliating them with good shooting.

And most important they had turbines. They made the ship go faster, which was nice, but they primarily made the ships go very much longer without having to stop and service the engine. Turbines were far superior when it came to up time and thus the ships could travel strategically and arrive ready to fight.

Fisher had one job, and one job only. Ha was ro save, save, save money whilst still maintaining naval superiority.

His answer was two-fold. The Dreadnought would make everyone elses ships obsolete over night and British ship building would make sure that Britain would always have more, bigger and cheaper ships than their competitor. Thus a far smaller, far more powerful battle fleet could maintain naval superiority at a lower cost.

The battle cruiser was the same, Britain would always have more and better and better support network for them on foreign stations. Thus the battle cruisers could fast go where they were needed and mop up everything. See Falklands for this in practice.

[Threviel]

With regards to Jellicoe, the part of the battle where Scheer sees the horizon light up with the fire of the Grand Fleet must ve one of history's big shit-his-pants moments.

Jellicoe did his job almost to perfection on the day, limited as he was by the communications of the day. Beatty did his job by accident and mostly just bumbled around.

But this can be discussed ad nauseam.

[The Minsky Moment]

It comes down to expectations I think
If you come to it looking at whether Britain's strategic objectives were met, then it was one of the most decisive naval victories in history, because the consequence was to take the HSF out of the rest of war.  But if your expectation is - by jingo those rascally Krauts should have all been sent to the bottom where they belong, then it looks less satisfactory.

[Threviel]

Yes, the public expected Trafalgar and did not get it.

[Sheilbh]

It comes down to expectations I think
If you come to it looking at whether Britain's strategic objectives were met, then it was one of the most decisive naval victories in history, because the consequence was to take the HSF out of the rest of war.  But if your expectation is - by jingo those rascally Krauts should have all been sent to the bottom where they belong, then it looks less satisfactory.

But also surely there's a question of short-term/long-term.

I know nothing but I'm guessing it wasn't immediately clear that Britain's strategic objectives were met - that only became clear over time. In the immediate aftermath it would probably seem more likely that this wasn't the end of the naval conflict, so it was ainstead n opportunity lost.

Edit: And in that contest I wonder if the relevant reference isn't "by jingo" but all the invasion literature in the pre-war period - the German fleet was still out there.

[Berkut]

It comes down to expectations I think
If you come to it looking at whether Britain's strategic objectives were met, then it was one of the most decisive naval victories in history, because the consequence was to take the HSF out of the rest of war.  But if your expectation is - by jingo those rascally Krauts should have all been sent to the bottom where they belong, then it looks less satisfactory.

But I think the Jellico's of the time very much understood the strategic objectives.

Hence to comment from Churchill that Jellico was the only man who could lose the war for his country in a single afternoon.

[grumbler]

Topic #1: What exactly....is a Dreadnought?


Related: WW1 naval surface ship classes




OK, so there is this common theme that the Brits invented the Dreadnought - a moment where this new type of battleship, or ship of the line/capital ship made all previous classes obsolete. Afterwards, people routinely make comments like "Britain had X Dreadnoughts, and Y pre-dreadnoughts" with the implication being that if you were in the "pre" dreadnought class of battleship, well, you were not that useful in a real fight between dreadnoughts. Indeed, many ships that were contemporary with dreadnoughts, say having been started before but finished after, were considered to be obsolete on their launch. The difference bettween particular classes of dreadnoght/not-dreadnought being largely uninteresting in contrast. So the bestest pre-dreadnought is still obsolete compared to even an early dreadnought.


So...what exactly was it that differentiates a pre-dreadnought from a dreadnought? The "pre-dreadnoughts" don't seem THAT different, at least at first glance.

A Dreadnought generally had three characteristics that distinguished it from its pre-dred forebears:
1.  All big guns, other than an anti-torpedo-boat battery.  This is the distinguishing characteristic.  The value of the all-big-gun battery isn't in the weight of shell sent down-range (though that's significant) but in the fact that it is possible to spot for salvoes and thus fire using a central fire control.  Pre-dreads couldn't distinguish between the shell splashes of their intermediate batteries 9which were actually their main batteries) and the ship-smashing heavy battery.  So their fire was aimed by each gun in turn, and the gun captains couldn't be sure which splashes were theirs.

Eight 12" guns in a broadside was much more than twice as powerful as four 12" guns in a broadside, because it generally took four shells per salvo to effectively spot for that salvo, and a dreadnought could put out twice the salvoes per minute, meaning that it finds the range much more rapidly and starts to kill the enemy ship that much faster.  A single dreadnoughts was considered to have an advantage over three pre-dreads, and maybe over four.

2.  Turbine power, so as to have a speed advantage which, combined with the range advantage of the guns, meant that the intermediate batteries of the predreads would never get in range.  The first US dreadnoughts lacked this characteristic because the US was behind in the metallurgy needed to make the blades.

3. Powered and magazine-fed turrets, versus hand-worked turrets and intermediate guns with shell-handling parties.  Much higher rate of fire for the size of the gun.

Related:


WW1 ship classes as presented in the book.


Dreadnought/Pre-dreadnought: Capital Ships, intended to fight other capital ships. Big guns, lots of armor.
Battlecruisers: Fast battleships basically, but also considered capital ships. Brits had big guns, high speed, low armor. Germans had medium guns, high speed (but not quite as high), and better armor and protection.
Armored Cruisers: This is the class I don't understand. I think of a "heavy cruiser" (CA) as being a, well, heavy cruiser. Typically armed with 8" or so guns, have armor capable of taking (at least in theory) shots from 6-8" guns. A class that was useful and relevant even into WW2. But I don't think that is what they mean by an armored cruiser, but they are mostly portrayed as being essentially useless in the book - obsolete, and no useful roll to play. Is there a difference between what Massie calls an "armored cruiser" and what I would consider a "Heavy Cruiser"?
Light Cruisers: Usually armed with about 5-6" guns. Little or no armor, but very high speed. Intended to be scouts, mostly, and to screen from destroyer attacks. Very useful. You would see maybe as many of these as you would see the total number of capital ships.
Destroyers: Smaller ships, needed to screen the capital ships from other destroyers and subs. You would see a LOT of these - the Grand Fleet had something like 80 or so screening it when it went to sea.

Armored Cruisers became Dreadnought Armored Cruisers, later re-named battlecruisers.  They were not the equivalent of interwar and WW2 heavy cruisers, being the size and cost of predreadnought battleships and only slightly less well-armed and armored, gaining speed in exchange.  By WW1, armored cruisers were as obsolete as predreads were, and for the same reasons - too slow to run, too weak to fight.  They still, like the predreads, had some value in trade protection and commerce raiding.  The British had no excuse bringing ACs to Jutland; one was lost with all hands, and another was lost with all hands but one, and one lost with only heavy casualties.  In turn, they accomplished fuck-all.  The Germans were too smart to bring ACs to a gunfight.

Heavy cruisers are outgrowths of light cruisers, not armored cruisers.  Early heavy cruisers are sometimes referred to as "tinclads" because they had little or no armor.  Only with the Baltimore class did heavy cruisers start to approach the armor and size of Armored Cruisers.

[Berkut]

The Germans might have been too smart to bring ACs to a gunfight, but they were apparently dumb enough to bring pre-dreadnoughts, and their low speed made the fleet speed of the HSF 3-4 knots slower than it should have been....and they accomplished fuck all as well. Although, to be fair, the dreadnoughts of the HSF didn't accomplish a hell of a lot either.